Yesterday I watched a woman meticulously wash her car. She was probably in her late 20s or early 30s, and I spent at least a half and hour watching her carefully spray down the wheels with a special foam cleanser, and rub the sides with a sudsy cloth. She still wasn't done when I was on to my next agenda item.
It made me think about all the smelly things composting in our van, which wasn't much past a year old.
And I wondered if there was anything that I took such meticulous care of in my life. I do sweep out my tent before wrapping it back up, but I hardly wash the whole thing in and out on the patio, like one of my neighbors. And our car has to get pretty bad, or the in-laws fly into town, for me to bring it to the car wash.
I think sometimes the abundance of things in my life makes me overwhelmed enough not to care for any of them. But that's just an excuse at the end of the day. Because truly, where my time and attention and energy is focused, that is a reflection of how I value the abundance in my life.
What relationships do I value in my life? And do I take the time to really dig in and focus on them, regularly and without distractions?
How do I value my time? Do I approach taking care of my health or my spiritual life with the same time and devotion as the woman washing her car?
I am thinking about how I take care of things as I continue to struggle with my hair. I hate shaving my head. It takes time, I get super grumpy every time I do it, and I always end up bleeding. It's a reminder, painfully, that I have no hair. But that's the rub: because I do have some hair left. And it's stubborn, and coarse - and I know that in the struggle of my heart, God is saying - take care of this too. What is left is important. Nurture what you have.
What thing in your life have you taken good care of? What do you want to pay more attention to?
I'm reading a book called The Soul of Money, and it is so timely for me. She advocates the power of "sufficiency". She says, "Sufficiency isn't an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough...When we let go of the chase for more, and consciously examine and experience the resources we already have, we discover our resources are deeper than we knew or imagined. In the nourishment of our attention, our assets expand and grow." I think this has a lot of do with faith. Living in sufficiency requires faith. In something. Even if it's faith in the truth of sufficiency! I think it's interesting that she describes the path to getting there as requiring the power of our attention. I'm beginning to realize how powerful attention is in our distracted, multi-tasking lives. In fact, one of the most powerful resources I have at my disposal is my ability to attend to something in a focused, open, loving way.
ReplyDeleteI love the way you spoke about this issue. Living in sufficiency definitely requires faith - a leap in treasuring what we do have, being able to let go of things, and not worrying about "storing up" for the future.
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