Dumb

Apparently people are dumb. At least, that's what I'm beginning to infer from the evidence around me. Speaking as a member of this elite group (currently a smidgen over 6.8 billion strong worldwide) I am reluctant to believe it, though apparently it must be so based on the warnings, advisories, threats, and even pleas found on products in our daily lives which urge us to exercise caution when interacting with the world around us. Case in point : toilet paper.

I was a captive audience in a public restroom yesterday, so to speak, and I noticed writing in the most unusual place. No, it was not etched into the wall, it did not list a phone number, and it wasn't even in regard to how to meet new people or have a good time. It was about toilet paper. Specifically, how to tear it off. Now, it's insulting enough to have the makers of a toilet paper dispenser presume that I cannot see the second roll of TP inside the unit ("this until contains 2 rolls"), and a bit more troubling that someone would be left to handle personal hygiene on their own if they couldn't figure out how to slide the door to get to that second roll ("slide door to access second roll"). But, the real stumper for me was the three words of wisdom written in raised letters at the bottom of the unit - "tear paper here." Really?

Let's say for just a moment that you've never seen a toilet paper dispenser before. Perhaps you've been living in a shanty somewhere and only had access to plain ol' TP with no holder. Or, for the sake of argument, let's even pretend that you've never seen toilet paper before in your life. There you are, suddenly transported to this dazzling public restroom with only your rugged, backwoods experience to guide you through the potty process. Will you be thinking, "Wow... thank goodness for these clear and insightful instructions? I might have really messed this up without the careful guidance and assistance that the toilet paper dispenser company so thoughtfully provided?" Probably not. Probably, you'd yank on the TP like everyone else - it's pretty intuitive, isn't it?  In the process, the paper would tear (it is only thin paper, after all... it's not like they're providing duct tape for the task at hand) and you'd finish your business and move on.

At least, that's what I would expect would happen. Apparently, however, I have overestimated the intelligence of the human race. These types of warnings are everywhere. My Sharpie marker tells me to re-cap when not in use - in case I hadn't yet figured out to keep it from drying out as it marked all over my couch and/or the inside of my purse. A little box of raisins tells me, in essence, that even though they've made my eating experience as sanitized as possible, bits of seed or stem might occasionally make their way into the product. Go figure. My computer charger tells me I should not stick electrical plugs where they do not belong - especially outside. This is sage advice, and might just help me avoid disaster next time I considered jump starting my car by plugging the charger into my cigarette lighter.  Heck - even my lotion advises that it's not for use in eyes. Pity, because a glop of lotion right in the eyeball sounds so appealing, too.

The worst part is, these are all just everyday items within easy reach of my chair. Heaven knows what kinds of warnings you find in more exciting areas, like the laundry room, kitchen, or even... the garage! The latter, I might add, is full of items with graphic drawings of stick people in various stages of injury. I guess these are for folks who don't take time to read instructions, but might take a quick glance at the packaging. Apparently artists who don't have sufficient skills to make it big drawing macabre comic books eventually give up and settle into a steady career in the 'product safety warning' industry. At least there's job security there!

I know, I know... these warnings are necessary to help make daily life go a little more smoothly and to protect companies from ridiculous lawsuits. I'd heard the rumors for years about outrageous legal action, but decided to check it out for myself. Here are a few examples from the past few years:

A woman sued the Mars candy company for $250,000 in "permanent personal injury", claiming that she knew the candies were chewy, but they were "so chewy they should come with a warning." You have to wonder what kinds of injuries she incurred from chewing a Starburst.

Then, of course, there was the case of the woman who sued a furniture store for tripping over a toddler in front of their store. She was awarded $80,000, despite the fact that the toddler her child. Who knew - you can actually get paid for being a negligent parent. All that extra time I'll have once I start ignoring my children can be spent hanging out by the mail box, waiting for my first check. 

The granddaddy of them all (or perhaps, more accurately, the grandmother of them all) was the case of 79 year old Stella Liebeck who sued McDonalds in 1992 and was awarded a whopping $640,000 for having burned herself on hot coffee. Next time you see the "caution - contents might be hot" warning on a lid, you can thank Stella.Of course, you can also thank her that products are significantly more expensive now than they used to be since companies have to cover their 'bottom lines" from every potential crazy person with access to a lawyer...

Ok - maybe people are deserving of patronizing labels and intelligence-insulting instructions if we are so stupid that we would sue over our own ineptitude. I'm beginning to think that there needs to some sort of entrance exam into this club called humanity. Better yet, in keeping with the pace of modern society, perhaps we could start putting a label on each new baby -  something like, "warning - this unit might grow into a litigious adult. Parent with extreme caution."

Cancer

I hate to re-state the obvious, but cancer sucks. Even as I write I am painfully aware of just how inadequate words are at expressing all that cancer entails - even more so since I am not the one with the disease, but merely along for the ride as my beloved friend struggles with it.

Along for the ride, or perhaps more accurately, hijacked by it. Our family was on a lovely trip together, when cancer climbed into the car with us and began making demands. At first we tried to ignore him, pretending he wasn't there. When he finally became unavoidable, we started planning for how nice the trip would be once he left. Then we started scheming ways to get rid of him. We prayed. We bargained. We plead. Now we just ride in silence.

At some point very recently it became apparent that he was not going to leave. More than that, he was also not going to be joining us on our planned ride, but was commandeering the vehicle, and would choose when and where my friend got off. We politely asked if he would at least allow us to slow down a bit, that we might enjoy the scenery along the way, but he seems to be in an awful hurry. The best we know to do now is to sit and hold her hand as we draw close.

At least this is true - we find comfort in the fact that cancer may have driven her, but all roads lead to home. This was not the trip we planned, but there was a plan all along. We are to the point now where the car is starting to slow, and all that is left to do is to help her gather her things and await the destination. Though we are all sad for her end here, we are also looking forward to her new beginning, free from the seatmate that has made things so unpleasant.

It's true - this is not the trip we had hoped for, but I think we're all glad to have been along for the ride, nonetheless. How else would we have learned to say so much with so few words? More importantly, what else could teach us that sometimes we don't need words at all to say what we really mean? We have come to find peace even when we are not in control, patience when we want to scream, strength when we want to cry. Perhaps these are better souvenirs than the ten-cent trinkets we would have picked ourselves on this trip called life.

I guess it's clear now that this was not just a temporary detour. Our plans did not work out like we had hoped, though I can hardly even remember what those plans were now. To be sure, they might have been more fun or more exciting, but they could not have been more important, and certainly would never have taught us about grace and love so thoroughly.

When she departs, she will be loosed from the grip of our cruel co-passenger and will run into the open arms of a loving father. In that moment He will smile and motion us onward, for our journey is not done, though we must make the next leg without her. And, whatever sights we see, places we go, or passengers may yet climb, unbidden, into the car with us in years to come, I know that we will never regret the trip and can trust that our common destination will be worth every mile. And, when we all arrive there together, oh - what stories we will have to tell each other, and what plans we will once again make!

Success By Any Other Name...

I was voted most likely to succeed in my high school class. Well, most likely to succeed, or smartest. I don't really remember, and it's not worth digging out my yearbook to find out. To be honest with you, it didn't mean a whole lot to me then, and it still doesn't today. In fact, I haven't even thought about any of that stuff in over 10 years, until it was brought to mind in a somewhat jarring fashion today.

A colleague of mine recounted a conversation she had recently with  someone who 'knew me then'. When this woman found out that I was spending my time changing diapers and helping fellow home schoolers, she shook her head and said of me, "she had so much potential..." Apparently, at least according to her, I could have really been someone. I guess that's a nice vote of confidence, but I was as disappointed by her statement as she must have been by my lack of "success".

See, all this time I've been laboring under the misconception that I am not just someone waiting to be, but that I already am someone important. I guess I figure that I have been living up to my full potential - making a difference in the world in a meaningful way, doing good deeds, living a life of purpose and importance. A life of wiping noses and cleaning up spilled beverages, to be sure, but an important life, none the less.

I can't really blame her, I guess. I know that, by the standards of this world, I have failed to achieve the success that I could have. I don't have a high-falutin' job or a fat paycheck. I don't have a big, fancy house or an expensive car. I don't even have cable. My children still wear hand-me-downs, and I shop at secondhand stores for clothing, and discount stores for everything else. How can I be sure I'm meeting my full potential when I don't even meet any of the standard measures of a success these days?

Well, it turns out that there are better measures to be found. Just this evening my youngest child came up to me, in all of her innocent, earnest, three-year-old wisdom, and asked, "Mommy, how tall do you weigh?" I replied (in what I thought was the most appropriate answer to such a question)  "I weigh 5' 10".

Apparently I was wrong. She said I weigh 22 minutes, and that that's too big. Hmm.Who knew? Just goes to show you, even valedictorians get the answer wrong once in a while. (Ok, technically I wasn't valedictorian of my class, since I graduated early and wasn't eligible to be considered for the honor, but it fit into the theme of the blog nicely, so I just went with it.)

I know, I know... my three-year-old's unit of measure doesn't make any sense. (And, who said that 22 minutes is too big, anyway? Sure, I could stand to lose a few seconds here and there... But, I think that I'm very healthy at 22 minutes, especially if you take into account that I'm a tall girl - I do weigh almost six feet, after all!)  Anyway, her unit of measure may be not be logical, but neither is any other if you think about it. The fact that I had the time to talk with my daughter tonight is worth far more than a six-figure salary. Having her help me make supper was better than a power lunch any day, and the fact that she really knows me and I really know her are far, far better things than any amount of fame or world-wide notoriety I could have achieved.

When I graduated from high school, I was ready to take on the world. To leave my mark in life. I wanted to reach for the stars. I wanted to succeed.  I finally realize what that all means. What good is it to gain the whole world, but lose your soul by selling out, giving in, and giving up what matters most? How can you leave your mark in life when you are so much like everyone else that you don't leave a lasting impression?  This summer I laid on the lawn with my giggly girls watching a meteor shower. My five-year-old would gleefully reach up and try to catch God's fireworks as they shot across the sky. We may have failed to actually ever reach any of those blazing stars, but the fact that we were there and trying together is its own kind of success...

The Putting On and the Taking Off

Tonight we had dinner with some friends. Their kids played with our kids. We laughed and reminisced, and eventually my life-long friend and I ended up at the computer looking at pictures of our children. I held her 10 month old, looking past his chubby fingers as he grabbed my nose and poked my cheeks. We struggled to identify which newborn baby was which in the photos - they were all so other world-ly, so present but so distant.

I remember when my babies were first born. They were so vigorous and alive - constantly moving, as if to explore and prove their vitality, though perhaps only to themselves. Each movement was practiced over and over again. Each limb and digit exercised carefully. They were trying on their bodies, testing out the parameters of this new dimension. It was clear enough that the physical part was new, but they certainly were not.

I often thought of my children as old souls. I guess, really, all babies are. The inability to focus, the cries of frustration, the depth of slumber required to bring rest - they all spoke of the incredible amount of work that it was taking for their little spirits - their little selves - to remain present in this realm. To learn it. To experience it. To stick with it. Oh, how much easier must the world they came from only a short while before have been?

Tonight as I held my friend's ten month old son - who had learned to control his hands, to focus his eyes, to engage his spirit - I realized that he had adapted already to his body and this world. If I listened hard enough, I could still hear the hush of a newborn in his deliberate breathing, but it was clear that he was firmly and almost entirely settled in the here and now, even at only 10 months old.

Her two-year-old ran by, sturdy and sure on her little legs, and smiled in passing. She mumbled something about the mission she was on - probably to get more pizza or another dress up dress. Then my three-year-old hollered from the other room, asking for water. So it continued throughout the evening with our respective four, five, and nine-year-old children. Each of them so much more capable than the last. So much more comfortable and in control in their bodies and minds. So much farther from the squinty-eyed, heaven-drenched newborns they had been.

It takes us years to fully adapt to this realm, this reality, this space and time and place that we live in. Our spirits, so present and developed already at birth, stretching out to learn our bodies, and fill each niche. Eventually, we come to be adults - sure and seamless. We (that is, our spirits, which have been here since the beginning) become empowered by the very bodies that took us so long to learn and control. Our arms and legs, hands and feet, fingers and toes - they no longer hold us back by their stubborn rebellion. But, having filled and fully integrated with them, they now free us to express our true selves.

I marveled at that this evening. Rejoiced at it. Let the miracle of that reality settle in. But, as the photos passed by on the screen I began to look beyond the babies - to the hands and faces of the ones holding those infants. The mothers. The fathers. The grandparents. It was then that I started to think about not only the coupling of our bodies with our spirits, but the uncoupling that comes eventually - the process of taking off and laying aside.

Near the end, the fingers numb and become clumsy. Movements slow. The shuffling gait belies not just an aging of the body, but a yearning of the spirit to move freely, once again. Where we find ourselves forgetting is not so much an inability to recall, but perhaps a disentangling of our forever selves from our temporary selves. As hard as it is to fill the body, how much more so to empty it.

I am in the middle - eyes newly opened to the miracle process that unites body and spirit at birth and babyhood, and just beginning to watch those I've loved for so long start their own process of release, of letting go. I find myself wishing that I could encompass all of those around me - lasso them, embrace them - pulling them also to the middle. That through willing it to be so, the babies might hurry to gain their voices, and those slipping from me might turn back from the journey they are on.

But, it is not meant to be. I would not, really, wish to hasten any child from the freshness of God's presence, though I linger near to catch a glimpse of His light, a breath of His presence when I am with them, and count those moments as a privileged worship before the Lord.

And, as much as I would like to hold on forever to my loved ones, I would not presume that my best forever could rival even the first moment of their joyful freedom on the other side of this realm. So, I will linger near to them as well, and surely also catch a glimpse of His light and a breath of His presence, even as the light and breath of those dear ones fade. And when that final moment comes that they have fully stepped out of their robes of flesh -  that moment, too, I will count as a privileged worship before the Lord, who gives order to all things.