It is a gray chilly day here in Bing—kind of a relief, actually, after a week of sultry humidity. I was trying to cajole Matt into a podcast, but he is swamped with meetings and the big pile of mulch he ordered to be delivered into our driveway. I have such mixed feelings about not podcasting much. It’s kind of a relief to let it go because it’s just been so hard to fit it in, but I do miss hashing out the news of the day. Every so often we have another whack at fitting it into the week, and then kind of give up. If you want it back, you’re going to have to ask God to arrange it, because we just don’t seem to be able to figure it out.
Meanwhile, I also feel like I’m flying in thousands of directions. I have a heap of writing projects. I’ve got a massive stack of things to do at church that I just never get to the bottom of. And my little office here, where I am sitting just now, is stacked high with books and paper that need sorting and putting away. If only I could just catch a minute, I think every morning and every evening, maybe I would get on top of the clutter, but then other things happen and I don’t manage it. I don’t want to speak dogmatically, but I am completely sure I am not alone in this.
Anyway, as soon as I’ve posted this, I’m going to write up something about David French for tomorrow. It’s going to be so fun!
Also, I just posted over at Patheos:
I mean, if you think that your not-hidden enough fantasies are things you should actually indulge, then you are greedy and wrong and you should apologize. But if you just wanted another cup of tea, but apologized about it out of habit, sure, you didn’t need to apologize. No one begrudges you another cup of tea. Another solid box of wine that you drink by yourself? You should apologize. Lying? Still apologize. Hating God? Yes, also apologize. Be horrible to your husband and cheat on him? Straight to apologizing.
And yesterday I posted on Stand Firm:
The few young people who flee despair have to go somewhere, and if they are going to go to church, they are not going to want half-baked, boring, badly executed praise choruses and really awful altar dressings and vestments. They are not going to want, as I have seen sometimes, to have to shuffle up to a rickety card table perched in front of the altar rail to receive communion from an angry clergy person in jeans and a rainbow stole while just behind there is a sublime, marble altar overshadowed by a handpainted blue dome. If they are going to make the effort to get up in the morning and slide into a pew, it had better be beautiful. It had better be glorious. It had better carry them, even for a brief moment, away from the brutalizing ugliness of every American town and fashion inclination.
Have a lovely day and here’s something clever one of my children said, apropos of nothing in particular.
Having a perfectly picked up, organized ‘house’ is a myth. A ‘home’ is messy with the detritus of real people doing real things. I’m not suggesting that you don’t spend some time ‘picking up’ but don’t beat yourself up because your home looks ‘lived in’.
I definitely share your feeling that if I could just catch a minute and get on top of the clutter, things would happen. There was a time when I was on top of things, but that was like, 2007.