First, a confession: I don’t read posts from this blog every day.
Instead of daily routines, I generally just have moments throughout my week or month where I think, “Oh, this is something I should do,” and this blog, like vacuuming my stairs, is one of those. Every week or so, I come to The Post Calvin (caveat of an English major: are blogs italicized? I assume so, and I assume that blog posts are then put into quotes) and I basically read all the blogs that show up on the home page. And then I’ll read a couple others because the title intrigues me, or because they’re tagged as related to one of the other posts I read.
In my binge-readings, I sometimes come to notice themes that we, as a community of writers, develop, and not just the ones we decide on ahead of time, as it was with Things or Resolutions.
Last month, I wrote—journaled almost—about how hard it is for me to stay present, how easy it is for me to get distracted. Then, a few days later, Bekah wrote about focus and how a lack of it destroys, moment by moment, chances at real joy. Then, just a few days ago, Abby wrote a letter to her smart phone, saying to it the things I would say to mine if it would listen, displaying my own discomfort with how much my phone and technology like it have sapped my ability and desire to really be anywhere or be with anyone.
We did not talk to each other about these posts or talk each other into writing them. For all I know, neither Bekah nor Abby even read mine or each other’s pieces before writing their own. We may have just been having similar thoughts and a similar need to express them. Perhaps it’s not a “theme” so much as a constellation in which some crazy ancient Greek dude (aka: me) could connect the dots and make a bear when everyone else just sees a drinking gourd or even a box with an open lid. Or just a bunch of unrelated stars. (Those ancient Greeks can read too deeply into things sometimes.)
A more obvious theme to everyone is the “inertia” theme of the past few weeks, starting with Griffin, continuing with Elaine and Cassie. The ancient Greek in me wants to say that Josh wrote on it as well, though he did not use the thematic words.
And then, in the binge reading that I do every month in preparation for my own blog post, I came across Geneva’s writing. And I realized that, like Orion and Taurus and Sirius, these constellations are connected, if only loosely, if only for me.
See, I, like Griffin, fear waking up one day, looking at my life and wishing I had done things differently. Like Cassie, I’ve had that summer job for a year and a half. Like Josh, I recently looked around my house and wondered where I had collected so much stuff, and when that stuff started mattering more to me than friends, family, love, and life. I work hard to keep from becoming complacent, but like Elaine, sometimes my hard work doesn’t bring life, but sucks joy out of the living, because unlike Cassie, I don’t always notice that my paper towns are full of real memories.
And while I’m struggling against the inertia of life—the decisions I made for myself six months ago that I haven’t rethought since then, the expectations I assume others have for me, the fears of being jobless or homeless or friendless—my mind grows so accustomed to the struggle, my heart forgets how to sit still, and everything distracts me. I don’t really value my day-to-day tasks, so I check my phone while I help kids with their homework, I listen to music while taking my statistics midterm, make dinner while watching the tiny house documentary.
This lifestyle of multitasking doesn’t have an off switch. I plan my grocery list while sitting in church, and play catch with my dog during my morning devotionals.
Is this something we all do? Is the life of the twenty-something millennial a war between stagnancy and hurry? Are these themes in what we write all in my head, or are we all in the same boat, perhaps stuck, like those unfortunate passengers on that stranded cruise a few years ago?
Meanwhile, Geneva is in Kentucky breathing in the Psalms at 3:15 a.m. And I realize my problem.
That stupid, stupid inertia that has me stuck in a vocational position I do not actually want to sustain is not a death I can prevent by simply doing ALL THE THINGS; it takes more finesse than that. Just as I’ve learned that focus and presence cannot be achieved by simply turning off my phone or sitting in a quiet room, I’m also beginning to learn that more intentionality is not necessarily better. It must have direction. And not just any direction: not towards those expectations, not towards my own hopes for my future, not away from mid-life crises.
I grew up with people telling me that God has a plan for me that is better than I could make for myself. I think it took me twenty-five years to get to a point where I realize how true that is. I am utterly inept at planning my own life. I rarely even finish a to-do list on a daily basis. But what does it look like to trust God’s plans for my groceries or my smart phone?
The abbey of Gethsemani, where they make fudge and cheese to pay their bills, relying on donations and artisanal-anything-obsessed hipsters to stay afloat, is a reminder to me and to anyone seeing these constellations of ours that if you put God first, everything else can fall into place. I don’t know yet what “fall into place” means for someone who teaches multiplication, not psalms, to pay my bills, but I have gotten to the point where I need to find out. Nothing else has worked, and I think there is a reason for that.
Mary Margaret is a 2013 English, history, and secondary education grad who went rogue and became a Social Worker in Pennsylvania’s Child Welfare system. Specifically, she works as a caseworker in the Statewide Adoption and Permanency Network finding families for children and educating the masses about foster care, adoption, and permanency planning. She made it over the grad-school hurdle with gold stars and warm fuzzies and is on to the next big adventure: the unknown of adulthood. Her major writing dream right now is to finish her science fiction novel that explores the concurrent futures of child welfare and artificial intelligence.
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Mary Margaret, thanks for connecting the stars. This community of writers rocks my world.
Yep, you people get more amazing every week. Keep writing; we are reading your words.
I suggest you read again and perhaps memorize Matthew 6:25-34. As the old hymn says, “God will take care of you.”
I admire anyone who can teach multiplication.
Thanks for the post though. Especially those last few paragraphs. I needed that reminder.