I can fall over an emotional cliff easily -- am I sane? Or, insane? Hard to tell some days.
Personally my stuff is probably not yours, but we all can face a similar question. How do we stay out of the weeds? How do we stay afloat?
Many of you may have seen "African Queen" --a Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn classic that takes place during WWI in a German colony in Eastern Africa. A missionary (Hepburn) is forced to take a battered, seen-its better days river boat (the African Queen) out of a village under fire by Germans who are ousting British influences. The captain of said African Queen (Bogart) is as battered as his boat, but he is well seasoned with alcohol and experience. Hepburn, a prissy, British missionary has a higher goal than just getting out of the burning village. She pesters the whiskered, alcohol-fueled Bogart to steam up the Ulana River with endlessly branching streams which go nowhere but impenetrable swamps. Hepburn has God on her side, Bogart not so sure, but the goal is to reach Lake Louisa in order to take out a huge German warship with a torpedo constructed by the sobered-up Bogart. The climax finds them exhausted and facing death as the African Queen has run amok in one of those swamps, stuck in thick mud and weeds, unable to move anywhere.
The visual hits home for me as I navigate through my days, determined to stay out of the weeds.
My solution may not be yours. But the climate of our vexation is the same. It was oddly reassuring to read Thomas L. Friedman's book, "Thank you for Being Late -- An Optimist's guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations." Co-incidentally (or not), I bought the book at the airport after missing a flight. Not the airline's fault -- my own when upon exiting my house, my husband asked me if I had my boarding pass. "Yep," I answered smugly, "all ready to go."
Not so much. Misread the pass, missed my flight. So, I had a day of wandering the airport waiting for either standby, or a later flight. Much later. One silver lining was purchasing Friedman's book. Captivated by the title("Thank you for Being Late") which I certainly just experienced, I was pleasantly surprised to find a really good read. For me, it's always reassuring to know I have company in my self-wondering, "Am I peddling faster, and getting no-where slower?"
Friedman in very readable terms explains his thesis. That Moore's law (technology), the Market (globalization), and Mother Nature (climate change) are accelerating all at once, and transforming the workplace, politics, geopolitics, ethics, and community (all at once).
Okay, so there is an explanation besides my senior status. I pondered my everyday glitches which Friedman's thesis helped me to clarify.
Technology -- the bane of my existence! Hours spent wading through technological weeds? Please!
It is time well spent for me when I step back, and understand it is not always my fault, and that I am learning not one new language, sometimes 3 or 4. And by the time I learn those languages, new technological advances pop up, and I grab my IPhone for technical assistance -- wait!-- more weeds as I plow through thick accents to listen to instructions I don't understand anyhow.
Climate change? Sweater and jeans one day, cotton t-shirt and shorts the next due to a 30 degree upswing in 24 hours. Forget seasonal wardrobe closet changes. Stuff wool and cotton together, call it good.
Politics?! On any given day, I walk in the company of people who are loving, good, wonderful, ethical, spiritual people. And a political conversation with any of them, both sides of the political aisle, can take me into the WEEDS within seconds.
Ethics? Any discussion relative to abortion, assisted suicide, transgender issues, homosexuality, cloning humans, seem "out there" until you are smack dab in the middle of those issues with family, neighbors, and ordinary people who on the outside look far removed from any of the above issues. Until you find yourself at the other end of a conversation with them, wondering, "Do I really know what to say to them that is honoring, kind, true and comforting?" Weeds I see you up ahead.
When my stepson committed suicide four years ago, my personal angst and ethics were challenged -- "Did I do enough when his health was eroded by drugs he used to steady mental challenges he faced his whole life?" Should I have fought more aggressively in a mental health industry where answers are sparse?
I am not alone. Many parents face complex issues which require decisions they don't feel equipped to make. Pastors, doctors, teachers, counselors can daily head into dilemmas where solutions evaporate in the tension of competing needs. Staying sober-minded ethically in the midst of the complexity of daily life is required to remain true to our values and ourselves.
So, refreshing as Friedman's book was in defining the reason life seems so complex these days, I didn't go to his book to find the solution to decisions I had to make which hung heavy in the air for me currently. I sat in my favorite chair, and picked up my favorite book --
the Bible.
In these times, when the weeds are the thickest, God has clearer and clearer revelation to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. He, after all understands better than Friedman, the complexity, volatility, and acceleration of our lives -- and the reasons!
I took my daily perplexities about my current issues to Him. It always astounds me that God, the creator of heaven and earth, always takes time to have tea with me, his daughter. He takes all the time I have and need, for me to understand His explanation to my problems and then, the solutions and the disciplines He wants me to instill into my life to help me joyfully arrive at those solutions. This week He directed me to the books of Timothy, Ephesians, Romans, and Revelation. Staying out of the Weeds! Taking me into the living flowing water.
Which brings us back to Hepburn and Bogart. As Hepburn prayed for them to accept death gracefully, the rains came, and
released the African Queen from the weeds into the deep blue waters of Lake Louisa. It didn't end there. Another obstacle around the corner, but another answer. Kinda like our lives. One prayer answered -- a deeper perspective -- then, another challenge around the corner.
But wait! Another answer!
Out of the weeds!
