Just Do the Dishes

 A friend was feeling swamped at work, not an unusual situation with what we do.  One day, she was feeling particularly overwhelmed and asked, "What do you do when there's so much to do that you don't have any idea where to even start?"

I said, "Wash the dishes."

She looked at me like I was nuts, as there are no dishes to wash at work.  We do a lot of office work.  There are piles of papers and lots of computer stuff to do, along with handling the interruptions that are often the essential nature of our job.  What does dishes have to do with anything??

I tried to explain how things are at home.  When there's so much to do that you don't know where to start, "just wash the dishes" is a good first step.
a) You know it needs to be done, and sooner is better than later.
b) It's quick.  Probably ten minutes or less.
c) It doesn't take any thinking or decision-making.  It's easy on the brain.
d) It provides obvious results in a short amount of time: the counter is cleared off.
e) It provides space to do another task.  Can't make supper if there's no counter space, so washing the dishes and thus clearing the counter makes it possible to tackle another job.
f) It gets you over the hurdle of NotDoing, from which you can (perhaps) build on the momentum and do the NextThing.

But when you think about this, doesn't the concept apply to many situations?  

If you have so much to do that you don't have a clue where to start, pick a quick little job that takes no decision-making and which will provide obvious improvement with little effort.  Then maybe you'll be able to attack a slightly bigger job, and keep progressing from there.

The Opposite of "Rejoice"

Pastor is always talking about rejoicing, even in the midst of trouble. 

So. Hard. To. Understand.

In my mind, the opposite of "rejoice" is "grieve."
You know -- if you're not happy, then you're sad.

So when you run across a passage like 1 Thessalonians 1:6 ("You received the word in much affliction, with joy in the Holy Spirit"), it messes with my mind.  So I asked a simple question:  "What is the opposite of rejoice?" 

The answer?  "Despair."

Grieving and suffering and hurting and sorrow are NOT the opposite of joy.  Despair is.  Hopelessness is.  Giving-up-on-God's-mercy is the opposite of "rejoice."

Now things are beginning to make sense.

Bowed Down

My posture has gone downhill significantly in the last couple of months.  I keep noticing how slumpy I am while driving, how my shoulders droop when standing.  I keep telling myself to straighten up, and my faked-out good posture lasts for a whoppin' five minutes.  Or less.

This week I noticed in the psalms where it says "I bowed down heavily, as one who mourns" or "my soul is bowed down to the dust" or "the Lord raises up those who are bowed down." 

Huh.  So it's not just a figure of speech.
The body really does end up "bowed down" when the heart grieves.

Depression

A post about some practical ways to show love and give help to someone who's depressed.  (Thanks for posting the link, Lora.)
And a related post about a few "natural treatments" for fighting depression.

Purge Mode

Too.  Much.  Stuff.

Although there are plenty of more pressing tasks on the to-do list, I am distracted by my desire to de-clutter.  The yard needs to be simplified so there's less weeding and work out there.  But mostly I want to thin what's in cupboards, bookshelves, closets, and storage areas.  Flea market at church is in six weeks; hopefully I'll have a good pile for Maggie to hawk while I'm at work that day.

So it was timely to read an article on what clutter does to the mind.  [Hat tip: Cheryl.]  It helps me recognize why it's so hard to declutter; there is a neurological response in the brain which registers pain when getting rid of an object to which you are attached.  The article also shows that there really is stress and problems-with-focus from having too much clutter; it's not just silly me feeling overwhelmed.

I think this also explains one of the reasons vacation can be so relaxing.  If you're away from home there is usually less clutter.  The place you're staying probably has less stuff in the kitchen; you have fewer clothes to choose from; while you're away, housekeeping projects are not piled up demanding your attention.  For me, the escape-from-clutter is probably the most relaxing part of any vacation trip.

Conundrum of the month:  it's so much work to de-clutter.  And it clutters the brain to make de-cluttering decisions.  Uh ... no pain, no gain???

God's Love or God's Wrath?

"Just as God’s favor cannot be measured by the good things one person has, so His wrath over sin cannot be measured and determined by the afflictions one suffers. Those whose homes were not destroyed [in the Moore, OK, tragedy] were not any less sinful than those who suffered devastation. Drawing a conclusion about whom God loves by their life circumstances is simply wrong."

David P. Scaer 

Professor and Chairman of Systematic Theology

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

(taken from Steve Blakey's FB page)

Futility

The dress I bought for the wedding could use some slight alterations.  When I sat down to tackle that, it didn't work out as planned.  And I couldn't put the dress back as it had been before, because the sewing-machine needle had put some snags in the fabric.  Wasted money; wasted time.

Twice last week I tried renting a tiller.  It didn't work.  The first time I didn't even get it home and had to change plans for the day.  The second time, I brought it home, tilled about 6', and then it stopped and refused to restart.  Therefore, everything that's been done in the garden has been done with a hand spade.  Suffice it to say, the work is not yet done.  And there was lots of unnecessary running back and forth to town.

Very little of what I've planted in the garden has germinated.  One batch of greens and herbs was planted 10 days ago, the other batch four weeks ago.  Several heads of romaine have gotten to be 2" tall.  That's it.  Nothing else.  Wasted time.

Maggie and I spent hours on the phone and filling out paperwork to apply for SSI for her so that she would have health insurance.  The money wasn't important, but the insurance is.  Her claim was denied.  Now we have to figure out some other avenue of taking care of her special needs.  Wasted time; loss of money; need for lawyers to help with guardianship issues and dependency.

In the space of 24 hours, there were three whammies, saying, "Why do you even bother to TRY?"

Another Marilla Thing

Having recently been on the receiving end of some good-natured teasing about "being bipolar," I'm pondering this section of what Maggie and I read today.  How does a person moderate herself?  And what does it do when we try to change someone's nature, another's or our own?


From chapter 22 of Anne of Green Gables:

For Anne to take things calmly would have been to change her nature.  All "spirit and fire and dew," as she was, the pleasures and pains of life came to her with trebled intensity.  Marilla felt this and was vaguely troubled over it, realizing that the ups and downs of existence would probably bear hardly on this impulsive soul, and not sufficiently understanding that the equally great capacity for delight might more than compensate.  Therefore Marilla conceived it to be her duty to drill Anne into a tranquil uniformity of disposition as impossible and alien to her as to a dancing sunbeam in one of the brook shallows.  She did not make much headway, as she sorrowfully admitted to herself.  The downfall of some dear hope or plan plunged Anne into "deeps of affliction."  The fulfillment thereof exalted her to dizzy realms of delight.  Marilla had almost begun to despair of ever fashioning this waif of the world into her model little girl of demure manners and prim deportment.  Neither would she have believed that she really liked Anne much better as she was. 



And...
does this have anything to do with what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12 about the thorn in his flesh and being "exalted beyond measure by the abundance of the revelations"?

The Sun's Bedtime

Last time Pastor went to Scandinavia to preach, he came back and reported to Bible class about his trip.  They were there in early summer; the sun wasn't down for long overnight, and the nights didn't get dark-dark.  I thought it was tremendously interesting that he mentioned how they didn't get tired.  It would get to be midnight or later, and they would notice the clock which told them how late it was.  But their bodies didn't tell them.

The sun is setting earlier and earlier.  And I am so sleepy.  I need naps on the days I'm not at work.  On days I don't nap, I'm yawning away by 7:00 and struggling not to nod off by 8:00 or so.

If this is virus-fighting, I should be giving in and sleeping, letting my body use its reserves to fight the germies.  If this is "the sun went to bed so I should too" I probably ought to be fighting my desire to laze (and popping more D3 capsules).  The trick is figuring out which is which.

Stuffed Brain

Writing helps me think.  Writing helps me solve problems.  Writing helps me wind down. Writing helps keep me sane.  (Or at least helps me fake sanity.)

My blogging recently has been shallow.  There are all sorts of topics I want to write about, but they would take time.  It doesn't take long to write, but it does take time to think things through before writing them.  And I don't have time to think these days.  (No time to think?  Gasp!)  And then ideas sit in my mind, piling up, befuddling me, being jumbled with other piles-of-ideas.  And it all leaves my blog in a boring state, t'boot.

Y'know how you feel so much better after you've cleared the kitchen counters, or cleaned the bedroom, or organized that closet?  Getting rid of clutter feels great!  Well, I could use a week with no responsibilities except for straightening out my brain. After all, clutter there needs to be thinned and put in order too.

"But I Heard What You Said"

I'm trying not to be paranoid.

There are people who are nice to me.  At least, they're nice to my face.  But I hear them talk behind other people's backs ... and be nice to their face.

So why should I think they're not talking about me behind my back?

It makes me want to clam up and hide in self-defense, so as not to give them any more ammunition.

Self-Righteousness versus Self-Loathing

I love the quote posted by Pastor Esget today:  

The satanic powers don’t care if your illusion is one of personal grandiosity or of self-loathing, as long as you see your current circumstance, rather than the gospel, as the eternal statement of who you are.

(The whole quote is on his blog, with the citation.  But I'm posting this sentence here, lest he should change his blog address and I lose this quote in cyberspace.)

The Best Thing I've Ever Read on Depression

Well, maybe not the absolute best thing.  But really really good.

The author of the article recognizes that life is not a bed of roses, and we do not deserve perpetual happiness.  Anyone who's looking for that, any doctor who is trying to help his patients achieve that, lacks understanding about the theology of the cross.  That does not, however, mean that drugs (aka medications) ought never be used to treat depression.

Pastor Esget referred to the article and had a few other good things to say himself.

Harvey

We recently watched the Jimmy Stewart movie about the fellow who had a 6'-tall invisible rabbit for a pal.  Watching something like that makes you wonder about how society --then and now-- responded/responds to those who are mentally ill.  Did society used to have more tolerance of people who were odd or melancholy or hallucinating?

I have a theory.  Crimes used to be punished.  Violence was not allowed to get out of hand.  If someone was weird --but not a threat to others-- then that guy was allowed to be weird.  But if he was a danger to others (such as someone with lots of knives, who had made threats) then there was no dinking around with his rights.  If he was threatening other folks' rights, he was locked up.  Because we are accustomed to the breakdown of society and our unwillingness to call sin sin, does that make us unwilling to deal swiftly and firmly with the mentally ill when they are dangerous?  And does that make us uncomfortable being around anyone odd or quirky ... never knowing whether this is a safe person or not?

Facing It Again

In theory, if you've already been through something bad once, you should know that you managed to survive it. Then why is it that the prospect of enduring the same thing again (such as the death of a loved one, or a toothache) is so daunting? Why does the fear of having to face those pains again seem even worse than having faced them the first time?

It's dumb. It's just dumb.
But that doesn't mean it's not real.

Sun Chart

Short days.
Long nights.

If there are too many dark, cloudy days in a row, a person with Seasonal Affective Disorder will become sad. A few years ago, I started keeping a sun chart. It doesn't change the weather, but it can change my expectations of myself.
A big "S" on a day means sunny. A "1/2 S" might mean a sunny morning or a sunny afternoon. A dash equals a cloudy day. I might write "minutes of sun" if there were a few times during the day when it was bright enough that trees left shadows.

This is not a chart about weather or my neighborhood or even reality. This is a chart about my own eyeballs. If it's a sunny day but I'm locked up at an all-day meeting in a windowless room, that day gets marked as No-Sun. If it's snowy and dark at home but I'm under sunbeams in central Illinois, the day is marked with a big fat S.

I can take Vitamin D3, but I can't shoo away clouds for the sun to shine through. I can, however, respond to lack of sun. If we've had three days of darkness, I can look at the chart and know that the first time Mr Sun peeks out, I better toss myself outdoors or at least plunk myself down in the big bay window. If the darkness persists and there's no sun to be had, I have to lighten up on the pressure of the to-do list. This translates into asking kids to clean the bathrooms, ignoring cobwebs, buying instafood for supper, and finding some hilarious movies to waste time on. It's the mental equivalent of a thermometer: a person might feel tired but be unable to tell whether it's sinful laziness or a viral infection. The thermometer clues you in. If it's viral, several naps might help. If it's sinful laziness, indulging oneself probably isn't a good plan. The sun chart can show me when it's a physiological weakness from sun-deficiency.

Bear One Another's Burdens

Is there a finite amount of suffering, like there are groceries or library books or moving boxes?

Sometimes it almost seems like someone can take the weight off another person. When there is grief and sorrow and fear, that doesn't seem like it is something that can be shared, that could be divided into separate loads. But sometimes (whether I'm the one weighed down, or the one lifting the burden) it feels like one person can take on part of it for another -- just as much as if I were to offer to carry half your whoppin' stack of library books to your car -- just as much as I dread carrying in 12 heavy bags of groceries and am relieved to have three people run out of the house to help with the lugging.

But grief is not a bag of groceries. Sorrow and worry are not like an apartment full of moving boxes. Nevertheless, there seems to be some weird sort of cosmic reality that one person's load can be lightened and another's weighed down as we bear one another's burdens.

The Concept of Summer Vacation

The mere existence of a "school calendar" has changed society's outlook on work and leisure and rest. During Gary's first couple of years out of seminary and in the parish, we had some friends who wanted to get together during Christmas break. We told them we weren't available to make a 10-hour roundtrip to see them the week before Christmas. Gary was a pastor. Pastors work on Christmas. There is the children's Christmas program. There's Advent services, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the next week is New Year's Eve and the Circumcision of Our Lord. Not exactly the time to run off for a fun-filled playtime with friends.

They didn't understand. They were both teachers. They'd spent decades governed by the school calendar, either as students, college students, or teachers. They didn't understand that most people have to keep going to work during Easter break, Christmas break, and the summer recess.

We have begun to notice the same thing at factories and other work places now too. More and more businesses are closing the week after Christmas. So many of the workers think they are entitled to a Christmas break, and so many will be no-shows at work, that the company admits defeat, shuts down, and uses the time for cleaning or inventory or some other tasks that require a minimal number of employees.

I am tired. I see no way of keeping up with my duties. Several of my friends are equally weary. They are teachers and students. I keep hearing them talk about "only two more weeks until the school year is done" or "fourteen more days of getting up early, and then we're done until August." I am jealous: I see no rest in sight, no break from routine approaching for at least 13 months.

With our entire society being raised with the mental acceptance of a School Calendar, we adjust our lives accordingly. Not only do we feel entitled to breaks, but we also overdo. During the school year, we pack too much work, too much study, too many extra-curriculars, too many clubs, too many lessons, into those nine months. Then we crash and need the occasional breaks.

Doesn't it seem like it would be easier and more reasonable to live a moderate life consistently, rather than the hustle-bustle and then the collapse to recuperate? (Now, how I convince myself to do it?)

God Will See You Through It

Scars.

When things go wrong, upbeat Christians will sometimes cheerily assure you that God will see you through the troubles. When things go wrong, people point out how God has brought you through trials in the past, and He will be faithful and bring you through these current trials too.

But some of those past trials left scars -- death of a loved one, divorce, irreversible health problems, etc. There is no assurance that these current trials will not also have their ramifications and leave their own scars.

It is true that the Lord will work for our benefits even when harm comes to us. It is true that He will preserve us in the faith and see us through these trials to bring us to our heavenly home. But sometimes the prospect of new scars is daunting.

Scamming Yourself

No matter how much I convince myself to maintain a reasonable perspective, no matter how much I hang onto the Gospel, no matter how much I tell myself that everything's going to be all right (and think I'm believing that),

cold sores and an upset tummy show me up.


My doggone body betrays the reality of my unbelief when my mind and heart may think they are set aright.