Irony, be not lost on us

My kids love love love their computer. They have an assortment of games they play whenever they possibly can- some singly and some with their friends as they talk via "Team speak".

It makes me more than a little grumpy when the children are tied to the computer more than anything else. When they have not read more than six pages in their books in days because they are busy with some endeavor online.  When I get that Heavy Sigh requiring full teen lung capacity if I suggest that it is time for a chore or bed or even going out  to a restaurant they like.

Of course, I am writing this observation on my computer, which has been near me much of the evening.  I have checked facebook and blog stats and email and my other email and the message board for my online course and chatted with colleagues and researched grills and read about Alban's closing and... well, you get the picture.

It is easy enough for me to claim that my time was productively spent. But when my sons and I stop to talk about it, the boys can explain how they are learning things, how they are connecting with people near and far, and how they are developing skills far beyond what I might have imagined.

And to be fair, they finished their chores, while I never got around to making coleslaw this evening.

Time travel at my desk

I cannot juggle. Really. I have an interesting relationship with gravity, and balls in the air hit the ground if I am in any way involved.

Life, however, demands prioritizing and making things fit. I find this is especially confusing when we are working on a variety of time frames.

There are the immediate things--an urgent phone call, the person who shows up in my office. The deadlines and things I need to get to others this week.

Further off are the plans I need to set for this summer. And ideas we need to start on for next year. And oh yes, we would like to consider our five-year and ten-year plan.

It is most definitely more than I can hold in my brain--sure, I have plenty of neural space, but it's easily waylaid with thoughts of today's lunch or bad recall loops of 80s lyrics.

So there are calendars and sticky notes and spreadsheets, which, I'll be honest, give me happy thrills. But they just do not compare to a gorgeous day outside, full of blooming flowers and bright blue skies and squirrels.

Curtains, perhaps.

"Talkin' 'bout my generation..."*

Lately I've alternated between scoffing and laughing at the spate of articles talking about millenials and boomers, conveniently ignoring Gen X.  So I'm surprised when I come across an article specifially about us--this one from last August is about whether or not we're having midlife crises.

Of course I had to read it.

According to this article's conceits, I make a lousy Gen Xer.  My parents are Boomers (rather than the Silent Generation) and forty-two years of marriage in they have yet to divorce.  Rather than the 'extended adolescence' our generation is known for, I was married at 22 and had my children at 25.  We bought this home over 15 years ago, for heaven's sake.  (Ok, maybe it does have some Ikea and some homemade preserves.)

WHY do I pay attention to what sweeping generalizations some columnist offers about everyone born in the window ten years before to ten years after me?  Don't I hold to be true the unique spirit of each of us, and do my best to look past assumptions?

It all comes back to the question we have at every stage of life-- am I normal?  We seek out validation that we aren't too far off the norm (though we want to be a little edgy, perhaps.)  We want to know that we have a tribe, a cohort, someone who will understand.
It's just one more yearning for connection, with a hope of shared experience. I just wish it didn't have to feel so us versus them.

*My Generation was written just as the first Gen Xers were popping into being. I considered using a suitable generational tune, but that discernment would take days and there would be scads of disagreement.  Hmmm... there's one way to get comments on the internet...

Success Without Perfection (Thank goodness!)

I will admit to having some major perfectionist tendencies and not dealing well when things start spiraling out of control.  And let's face it--there's only so much control any of us have over things.

We were having people over for a dinner party Friday, and it was one of those days when nothing was going as smoothly as it might-

• At some point in the prep, I realized that one of my kids had snitched half of the cauliflower from the gobi aloo (Indian dish featuring potatoes and cauliflower)
• I dropped one of the side dishes on the floor--spicy mushrooms and porcelain mingled across the floor.  SMASH!  Wasted food and a big mess.
• I made sure to leave time to shower and primp a little... and the hair dryer went kaput a minute into drying my hair.
• Secondborn was working with a ganache frosting for the first time, and it was an insane mess.
• I had a turmeric incident, and the pot of macaroni and cheese was NEON yellow.

Some of these things I could not change--there was no time to buy and roast more cauliflower, and those mushrooms and that bowl--gone, daddy, gone.

Others took a little problem solving--we figured out that the hair dryer went out because we tripped a circuit.  Easy enough.  And putting the cake and the ganache in the fridge for a bit helped
everything to firm up and get more cooperative.

The party was a big success--by the time our guests arrived we were going with the flow.  There was still plenty to eat, there was great conversation, and it turns out that people will devour macaroni and cheese regardless of its color.  I'm told that turmeric is good for the digestion.  Something about stimulating the liver...

Including fire exits and spiritual concierge service

(This is another angle on an idea I've been working on for a while.  The first take, from another angle, is here.)

From time to time people agree to be on a committee or take on a critical role, and at some point they might realize that it is not working.  Perhaps there has been a life change or too much time has passed, but maybe it is just NOT a good fit. Or maybe the person has not made that realization, yet change needs to happen.

Yes, laying a groundwork of terms and leadership development training are two important pieces of building healthy ministries.  But might we include some "escape" options in the infrastructure of our systems to make shifts possible, and maybe even encouraged?  

Put more simply--can someone say "No thanks" to an obligation and stay in the larger system?  Congregations need to make this reasonable, or risk these people fleeing in their shame/apathy.  (Last time I checked, neither shame nor apathy were spiritual values we want to uphold as Unitarian Universalists...)

Susan Smith, one of our Congregational Life folks down here, talks about how sometimes we are better at honoring people's Utilitarain Worth than their Inherent Worth.  How do we help congregations and individuals to make space for transformation, and to recognize that shifts are not just inevitable, but healthy?

Part of this, I think, would be an annual (or some periodic) honest and caring check in among leaders--how are things going?  Who is finding their work meaningful?  Who is feeling pulled in another direction?  Some of this may need to be one-on-one conversations, and a culture where no one need feel trapped.

Spiritually, the community needs a sense of grace and abundance.  People need to feel that they are still welcome even if they are not carrying a specific load, and there needs to be enough flexibility in the system that each shift is not immediately internalized as a 'loss'.  

There is so much to consider.  Thank goodness it is sacred work.

Porta-pottie transport, and other late night ramblings

This morning I drove to work behind a flatbed carrying porta-potties.
FOURTEEN porta-potties, as it turned out.  I decided not to take this as an omen for my day, and I also kept a VERY safe following distance.  Just in case, dontcha know.

I stopped at the pie shop for pie and breakfast, and when I was finished, I found a very glossy Maserati parked next to my car. Looking more like it!

What are the random events that we let determine our attitudes as we go through the day?

Some input does have known impacts--a lack of sunshine can be hard of us, but especially those who have Seasonal Affective Disorers and such.

But the vast majority of the sensory input we get each day has very little import to how our day might go.  Unless we attach meanings to it.

Making meaning... that certainly sounds familiar.

The Grandpa Chair

Behold the Grandpa chair.  I'm told that the designer realized that while people like the looks of an Adirondack chair, it would be much easier to get in and out of a chair that's higher off the ground.

This one's also called the Grandpa chair because my sons made it with my father when we were visiting his house.  They got to cut and drill and router (route?) and sand, then stain and assemble.  Once it was all together they numbered every piece and took the chair apart so it would fit into the car.

My father is visiting next week and my children are preparing in their own ways.  PICKLES was scrawled on the grocery list--they know what he likes.  And we had some tense negotiations this week, deciding that Saturday will be haircut day, before Grandpa can suggest the pet trimmers.  They're making lists of possible day trips and projects they'd like to fit into this shared Spring Break.  Maybe I'll get another chair out of the deal.