I am that housefly.  Not that I’m a compulsive cleaner—far from it.  But I can’t look around me without seeing what needs to be done.  A moment spent admiring the (glorious) flower garden with Gwyn turns into a to-do list:  weeding, transplanting, pruning, seeding.  Cleaning the kitchen after dinner, I’m acutely aware of all I’m not cleaning:  the grease on the kettle, the spills in the refrigerator.  Clearing out my email, I berate myself for not writing to my senator to stop the Keystone pipeline or to the Security and Exchange Commission to make public the disparity between CEO- and worker-income.  I have trouble living in an incomplete world.

Oddly enough, the one arena where I feel peaceful and even passionate about incompletion is in writing.  I advocate revision; I’m the spokesperson for the slow evolution of creative work.  As Mark Doty writes, “the longer we can stay in the state of uncertainty, of unfolding possibility, the better.”  In other words, to be a fully engaged creator, we have to cultivate an enormous tolerance for incompletion.  We must see what we’ve done as well as what can be done—with equanimity, with a peaceful heart.

Most of the time, I’m halfway down the street with a broom before I realize this isn’t how I want to live.  Each day is a new creation, as is a home and work and this society we all participate in making.  My prayer is that we might learn to thrive in the midst of a messy, beautiful becoming.

–Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew

Shortly before Easter, when Gwyn was playing with a watering can in the bathtub and began pouring water over her head, I raised my eyebrows but kept my mouth wisely shut.  “Mama, I’m a flower,” she said.  “Will you water me?”  Why, of course!  I tipped the spout.  A stream of blessed water hit her hair and she began to rise, her beautiful porcelain skin emerging from the tub, her arms stretching toward a pretend sun, her fingers unfurling until my daughter was gloriously, nakedly in bloom.  I “fertilized” her hair and she wanted to grow all over again, the suds pouring over her body, her face beatific.  With her arm-petals open, Gwyn was a picture of prayer.

Easter’s a grand rebirth, life conquering death and all, but most days for most people are simpler and smaller, most sin that needs saving is minor, and sometimes I find the translation tough.  Gwyn’s bath-time resurrection released her from fear.  Torment turned into grace.  While I might point to contributing factors—her vivid imagination, her age, her increasing love of water—at the core of this transformation is a tiny Easter.  Moments like this, full of divine rebirth, surround us like the flowers of spring, and for these I praise God.

In an attempt to bring my financial life in line with my beliefs and values, I’ve been reading The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist.  Twist posits that the mentality of scarcity is a modern scourge affecting rich and poor around the world; when we believe we don’t have enough and act from that place, we damage our souls, but when we recognize the wealth of our resources, be they internal, relational, or financial, and act from a place of sufficiency, our generosity and health ripples out into the broader world.

Early in her book Twist tossed out a side comment:  Our scarcity-mentality around time is just as damaging as that around money.  Her words jolted me awake.  I know my perpetual feelings about not having enough money have no basis in reality.  They’re the result of being steeped in a culture striving for more.  I’m confident that with hard work and some financial planning I can move into an attitude of sufficiency around money.  But time?  I never have enough time.  For every activity I find time for in a day there are ten that go ignored.  For every project I accomplish I’ve ten ideas that never get developed.  For every friend I visit ten get neglected.  No, I don’t lust after my neighbor’s Camero.  I lust after time.

So what began as a plan to straighten out financial priorities has become a major personal challenge.  How do I—how does anyone—live from a place of sufficiency?  How do I trust I have enough time to create the changes I envision for myself and the world?  How do I rechannel the energy I currently spend on longing into appreciation for what I have?  “Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day,” Jesus teaches.  Really he’s saying, “Have faith!”

Jesus and Twist both invite me to inhabit the time I have, the money I have, fully, right now, without allowing myself to be distracted by longing.  What I appreciate appreciates.  Perhaps one day my sense of sufficiency will become one of abundance.

–Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew

Ever since, I’ve been (dare I admit it?) ecstatic.  Emily and I are reluctant to throw away quality goods (anyone want ten Styrofoam medical coolers?), so my darning abilities now mean that the pile of Smart Wool socks with holes accumulating in our mending basket will finally vanish. I’m suddenly rich in socks.  I’ve achieved a new and satisfying level of self-sufficiency.  By recovering a small skill that’s been forgotten for a few generations, every time I get dressed I can thumb my nose at disposable consumerism.  What could be better?

As I revel in my resurrected socks, my warm feet have been walking me through their theological implications.  With a little skill and a little effort, I can participate in giving the dead new life.  Okay, perhaps this is dramatic, but there’s a stitch of truth here:  We all have within us the holy capacity to find what was once lost, to mend that which was torn, to bring life, in however humble a way, to that which was lifeless.  Something about our willingness makes God’s work possible through us.  When we experience resurrection on a small scale, with socks or a garden plot or a friendship, we know its truth on a big scale, with the planet’s health or the well-being of our own souls.  There’s continuity between the details and universal truths.

When stores are stocked with socks and swiping a piece of plastic can make them yours, it’s easy to forget our resurrection capacities.  But new life isn’t something that simply happens, deus ex machina.  It’s something we participate in.  Next time you see me, I’d be happy to show off the evidence.

–Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew

Emily has begun a weekly Qi Gong practice of praying for the earth’s healing.  Usually in such matters I’m infinitely practical:  If I want to end global warming, I need to radically change my lifestyle and support those working for systemic change.  This is prayer in action.  To some small degree I am culpable in the harm done to the earth; asking God to do something about it seems hypocritical and irresponsible.  God has no hands but ours, Theresa of Avila taught, so we must pray with our hands.  Thus Emily and I rarely purchase new items, we share a car, we grow vegetables, we write letters and donate money.

But these choices seem paltry in the face of, say, the ongoing drought in the southwest that threatens my sister’s home with fire or the torrential rains in Guatemala that have caused a ten-foot rise in Lake Atitlan, forcing people from their homes.  The problem is huge.  I feel hopeless, powerless.  And yet it is precisely circumstances like these that invite us beyond ourselves, out of a practical mindset and into faith, the realm of possibility and mystery.  Praying for the earth’s healing isn’t a cop-out; it is a way to invite a loving, generative, just energy more fully into ourselves and the world.  Prayer helps us acknowledge our limitations.  Prayer also breaks apart those limitations by foisting us into a place of interconnection.  What is possible in the invisible, soulful realm can be birthed onto our fleshy earth.

So let us pray.

–Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew

We have many theories about why.  Perhaps the shots were traumatic, and she’s trying to understand why her loving moms would let someone inflict her with pain.  Emily took her to that two-year appointment after a long recovery from cancer; perhaps the visit was a turning point in their relationship, when Gwyn realized Emily would reliably care for her.  Perhaps the office brought back hard memories of Emily’s surgery.  Gwyn’s fascinated with a photo we have of a midwife listening through a stethoscope to her birth mom’s belly; perhaps her obsession with doctors has something to do with her birth or adoption or the mystery of where babies come from.

Regardless, the more we tell the doctor story the more I appreciate how it contains an entire cosmology and, yes, it’s worth chewing on.  It includes a journey into the unknown, human suffering, faithfulness, love, healing, and mystery.  It contains fundamental paradoxes that are not easily resolved:  Why would a loving, cuddling mother let this nurse poke me?  If the doctor helps sick people, why do we go there when we’re healthy, get a shot, and then feel miserable?  What kind of world is this, anyway?  Reliving a story is a child’s best way to unpack such huge conundrums.

Adults do much the same thing, traveling through Jesus’ life repeatedly as we traverse the liturgical year.  His is a good story, worth gnawing on.  How can God enter the world through a poor baby?  Why did Jesus choose to live the life he did?  What kind of world permits crucifixion?  Contained in this story are all the mysteries of creation.  Just when I begin to get tired of it (not again!) it opens to me in a new way, revealing something true about myself or others or God.  Many stories do this, even doctor stories.  Whether I like it or not, the Christian story is my bone to chew, and it’s a good one.
–Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew

As an inveterate garage saler and chief proponent of Twice Nice at our annual church bazaar (which, by the way, netted over a grand this year), I get shivers of glee hearing about Epworth’s commitment.  I love the alternative economy they’re creating, how individuals are learning to tap community resources first before heading to the mall.  I love how they are using ordinary stuff (clothes, dishes, books, the detritus of daily life) to build connections to one another.  I deeply respect this commitment to the earth which is also a commitment to our inevitable interdependence.  And I’m thrilled that this work of fulfilling individuals’ physical needs (and even desires) is being taken on by the church, an institution which has usually ignored this domain.

One of the lasting lessons from my three year stint living in Christian community is the value of making do.  If a mop broke, we’d try to fix it.  If we needed a tool, someone tried to create it.  The benefits of making do were physical (we didn’t spend much money), emotional (we grew self-reliant, resourceful, and creative), and, I suspect, spiritual.  The jerry-rigged system that re-used laundry water filled me with awe, as did the pervasive sense that the community members skills were more powerful combined.  When communities commit to sharing resources, the power and creativity that emerge are beautiful, miraculous even—the body of God manifesting itself.  Of course churches should provide alternatives to our consumer economy!  This is the bread that nourishes all of life.
–Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew

As happens often with parenting, I find myself wondering what my feelings have to teach me about God.  Surely the free will we’ve all been granted causes God lots of tears.  I take comfort in the thought that this tremendous gift—self-determination; the freedom to find our way in the world without a manipulating, divine hand—might not be so simple for our maker.  With free will we’ve been given the power to cause holocausts, to destroy our own environment, even to hurt our own children—as well as form healthy communities, create brilliant art, and bring peace into areas of conflict.  Our potential for evil goes hand-in-hand with our potential for good.

Some days, after reading the headlines, our creator’s choice to give us free will seems like a crap shoot.  Maybe God made a terrible mistake.  But my tears at leaving Gwyn convince me that God’s first act with humanity was one of faith, a great faith that despite our proclivity to take other’s toys and run around during story hour, we humans will choose to grow, and grow toward good.  From the beginning God believed in us.  I can’t imagine a more loving act.  And like Gwyn, who knows I’m cheering her from afar, I suspect God’s hidden in the fabric of creation weeping and cheering.                                                –Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew

Despite our determination to teach Gwyn to pick up her toys, our house is littered with things:  paperclips moved from the office to her toy kitchen, a nickel on the back of the toilet, Mardi Gras beads in the mixing bowl—you get the picture.  I spend a ridiculous amount of time putting things away.  At times I get fed up and decide to purge; if we didn’t have so much stuff, Gwyn couldn’t move it.  Clutter irritates me; as I pick up, I must work hard not to get annoyed.  I hope all the bending over at least counts as exercise.

A year ago I began to make peace with the mundane nature of my spiritual path. Others are called to service or silence or ecstasy; my fate is to find God in the details.  The doll clothes I discover at the bottom of the laundry chute and must carry back upstairs are a hassle, yes, but they’re also an opportunity to open my heart.  Gwyn’s two; she’s learning by doing, experimenting with doors and containers and gravity, and my small task of straightening supports her important work.  The God of Gwyn’s mess asks of me generosity, patience, perseverance, order, and a capacity to recognize where good is emerging.  At times straightening serves this good, and at other times I must hold Gwyn accountable.  I’m not her maid.  When she’s able to be responsible for cleaning, she should.  Good boundaries and high expectations help bring out the greatest good.

In the meantime I fish the playing cards out from behind sofa cushions and pick up dozens of rubber bands and resort the silverware as a form of prayer.  Thank you for this abundance.  Thank you for an inquisitive child.  Make my heart still.  May my every action be loving.  I’d prefer other spiritual practices given a choice, but this is what’s before me now.  Any small moment can blossom into communion if I’m open.  So I practice opening.
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