less is more (definitely also an arrogant pun on my stature)

i think that everything in my life means something. i have a billion (two) little word-of-the-day dashboard widgets, and I can't help but think, when i read that day's word, that it might be pointing me in one direction or another. the movie Serendipity: probably my favorite romantic comedy. probably also contributed to this (superstitious?) tendency i have to think that everything in my life, ever, is a sign.

another example (you may think i am crazy, and the thing is, you might be right, and those are both fine with me): i just walked in circles around the library trying to find a spot secluded enough to hide in (determining factors: electrical outlet availability, beanbag chair comfortability, and gut feeling that i belong there), and when i finally plopped down, i looked up at the bookshelf, and the first spine title that i see is Sports For Life. i freak out, right, since i'm trying to decide whether or not to quit soccer: sports for life? does that mean i should persevere? is God using this book to tell me to not quit today? am i meant to do soccer my whole life? will i coach? will i do sports ministry?

this is insane.

all this is the downside of that whole "quilting" thing i jabbered about in an earlier post. there are some things that just do not belong in your quilt. there are some things that just do not belong in my room. there are some people on the island who just deserve to get eaten by a monster. so this is me deciding what goes in the scraps pile, this is me figuring out if something is just trash or if i will really wear it for some obscure gothic wedding in a few years. this is me letting stranded islanders duke it out (the crazy ones are the more vicious, obviously, but the point is, the really good smart ones end up the heroes).

i'm struggling with these analogies because there's an element of waste to them. and i don't really like wasting. and so on one hand, i am attempting to excuse my crazy thinking that everything around me might mean something; everything input into my mental faculties might end up part of the awesome person i might [never] turn out to be. on the other hand, though, i am completely wasting my time. what if i could learn that this is really wasteful? and, better, what if i learned to deal with the waste? or, better yet, what if i never had to waste anything in the first place?

i read G.K. Chesterton's St. Francis of Assisi at Torrey Berkeley last summer, and it's definitely at the top of my favorite sets of pages. there's a little section in it regarding possessions:

"The good Bishop of Assisi expressed a sort of horror at the hard life which the Little Brothers lived at the Portiuncula, without comforts, without possessions, eating anything they could get and sleeping anyhow on the ground. Saint Francis answered him with that curious and almost stunning shrewdness which the unworldly can sometimes wield like a club of stone. He said, “if we had any possessions, we should need weapons and laws to defend them.” That sentence is the clue to the whole policy that he pursued. It rested upon a real piece of logic; and about that he was never anything but logical. He was ready to own himself wrong about anything else; but he was quite certain he was right about this particular rule. He was only once seen angry; and that was when there was talk of an exception to the rule."

immediately, i loved this, because it solves world peace. but it came to mind a few minutes ago, and it is helping me to solve inner peace as well (and i suppose that's just logical, right; if the world is at peace then i will be at peace de facto... but i was just figuring out the specifics of how). Chesterton's wise, wise words help me to see that i. have. too. many. distractions.

i know that God is great enough to use anything to speak to me (anyone foreign to Christianity: easy easy, this isn't actually "talking" per say, rather, let's call it "sensing divine direction"), and yet, i have so many things. how can i hear God? how do i expect to know what He is directing me to do with my life and days if there are so many things around me? my first claim, already stated, is that knowledge that an omnipotent, all-powerful God could, if He wanted, give me direction using a rock. a wall. a loofah. you name it. God is that good. He could make my loofah talk to me, and yet, it's highly unlikely that He will. God has more sense than that. so on top of learning God's omnipotence, i also need to learn God's tenability - His adherence to the standards that He works within (typically, the laws of nature as mentioned in a previous post). i am trying not only to know but to live in the mean between God's supernatural dominion and his natural created order. and i am trying to do this in a way that means not freaking out when a book has a title on the spine, especially since i just walked past thousands of others with the same thing. i am trying to do this in a way that means chilling out.

chilling out, i am thinking, implies having less. it is difficult, as Chesterton and Francis knew, to be relaxed when things are under your charge. there is a reason why we consider someone with no kids totally carefree and a mom of twelve totally uptight. every thing i have, every single computer file, every bit of clothing, every book, every novelty, is just another little baby for me. thank God these things don't take the responsibility and energy that real babies do, or i would be not only exhausted but also a murderer. but the analogy is fitting in that: things are taxing. the analogy doesn't fit in that things don't really mean all that much. and it is okay, it might even be good, to have less.

minimalist ideology is not enough. like anything else, i have to actually apply it before it makes a difference. what this looks like: looking to God alone (not widgets or book titles) for direction in the tough decisions and the tiny ones.