Button-Button

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Margaret

When Mom was a little girl, she played a game called Button-Button. Although there are several versions, most consist of hiding a button in someone’s hand while the “it” person says, “Button-button, who’s got the button?” and tries to find it.

Dad talked about using buttons for homemade spinner-toys on strings (whirligigs), and we grew up watching Mom collect every spare button in her button-box, a heavy wooden drawer divided into twenty 3” X 3” sections.

We kids loved studying the wide variety of buttons, some of pearl or glass, others of leather or covered with fabric. Mom organized them by color, including silver, gold, and bronze.

Today while babysitting Emerald, I pulled out my small collection of buttons, thinking we might have some fun with them. Immediately she tucked two small ones into her mouth, and it took a graham cracker to convince her to spit them out.

We had fun counting them, sorting them, and organizing them into muffin tins. She also enjoyed dropping them down my shirt and watching them fall out the bottom, simple pleasures with ordinary items.

I’m fairly sure God is in favor of us slowing down enough to enjoy many other simple pleasures: the sparkle of sink bubbles, the ticking of a clock, the scent of a newspaper, the smoothness of a clean counter-top, the sound of the wind. But most of us find ourselves racing through our days at such high speed we miss out on not just these ordinary blessings but also something far more significant.

Charles E. Hummel authored a book titled Tyranny of the Urgent: He wrote:

“Don’t let the urgent take the place of the important in your life. Oh, the urgent will really fight, claw, and scream for attention. It will plead for our time… But the tragedy of it all is this: while you and I were putting out the fires of the urgent (an everyday affair), the important thing was again left in a holding pattern. Unlike the urgent, it patiently and quietly waits for us to realize its significance.”

Button games aren’t that significant, but spending unhurried time with grandchildren (and others) is. And at the top of that list ought to be deliberate time with God. As Mr. Hummel said, “The Important” patiently and quietly waits for us to realize its [His] significance.

The picture of God doing this, patiently, quietly waiting for us to notice him on the sidelines, should prompt us to quickly reach for him. Though I’m sure he approved of Emerald’s and my button games today, it might be a good idea for me to place a few of those buttons around the house as reminders of The Important One waiting to spend unhurried time with him.

“O Lord, I know it is not within the power of man to map his life and plan his course — so you correct me, Lord; but please be gentle.” (Jeremiah 10:23-24)

Joining the Dance

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Margaret

At 5½, Skylar Grace (my oldest grandchild) is forging ahead in the process of exploring new activities. She’s devotedly taking ballet classes and last week demonstrated some pretty smooth moves, naming them as she went: pirouette, arabesque, plie’, bow.

Though I haven’t seen any of her per- formances in person, I’ve watched videos and stills, and do get the drift of all she’s learned. She loves her teacher and is thrilled when it’s time to go to class. Last week I got to drive her there, and as we pulled up to the dance studio she said, “Don’t take me in, Midgee. I can go by myself.”

After she hopped out of the van in her pink outfit and slammed the car door I said, “You sure look cute in your tu-tu!”

Turning back to face me, she put her hand on her hip and said, “Midgee, this isn’t a tutu. It’s a leotard.” And off she went.

Skylar knows her ballet terminology and has been practicing her positions for many months. She’s beginning to evidence genuine grace, because she listens carefully in class and faithfully tries to emulate her teacher’s movements. But ballet is a complex discipline, and if she sticks with it, achy muscles and bloody toes will be part of her experience.

Very few of us are willing to put in the hours necessary to become good at ballet or anything else that’s an uphill climb to learn. We prefer instead to dabble, hoping for quick results, and when it doesn’t happen, we often drop out. Paying the obligatory price to become proficient (hard work over the long haul) quickly becomes distasteful.

Spiritually speaking we sometimes do the same thing, wanting to live blamelessly before God but only dabbling in the discipline it takes to get there. For instance, we might set a goal to memorize one Scripture verse each week but then skip the review process, expecting the words to “stick” anyway.

Or we promise we’ll be honest with God but then refuse to let him have control over one category of our lives. Or we commit to reading the Bible from cover to cover no matter how many years it takes but get bogged down in Leviticus and throw in the towel.

Our worst enemy, Satan, jumps in the way every time we move one step toward the Lord. He’s thoroughly evil, fighting us with invisible weapons we can’t stand up against… unless we use Scripture and prayer. But if we’re determined to work against his deceit by “following hard after God” (as Tozer would say), we’ll become strong in our faith and will still be standing at the end of his tests, maybe even up on our toes.

Maybe we should simply copy Skylar’s example in ballet class: listen carefully, follow the leader, and practice all the moves. And if we get “bloody toes” in the process, we shouldn’t let that stop us.

“My soul follows hard after You.” (Psalm 63:8)

Back to Zero

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Margaret

Most of us think of zero as a big nothing. Emptiness. A non-entity. Blank. But in the last two weeks of staying with my daughter Linnea and her family, I’ve seen the immense value of zero.

Each night, just before the 3 older children (ages 5, 3, 1) had their baths, Linnea and Adam orchestrated a major overhaul of the house. Phase One included dinnertime clean-up of dishes, high chair, table, under-the-table, leftovers, and kitchen.

Phase Two incorporated the living room play area, sorting toys and putting them into their proper containers. It also meant vacuuming the carpet which somehow became cluttered with all manner of debris during a busy day.

Phase Three took place in the children’s bedroom where they all bunk together. Wall-to-wall toys, evidence of a day of creative play, had to be “binned” and lined up beneath the bed. Stuffed animals were gathered into a big plastic tub in the corner, and clean laundry was put into the proper drawers.

These 3 Phases sound complicated, especially since tired children are difficult to motivate, but the process is usually complete in 15 minutes. I watch and marvel as the whole house “gets back to zero.” It’s that magnificent zone of neat-and-tidy.

The people-parallel is obvious. Our lives can quickly get cluttered with debris of all sorts: the burdens of others we’re not meant to carry, unrealistic expectations of what we can accomplish in one day, over-commitment of our limited time or resources, anxiety over circumstances we can’t change. Everywhere we look we see disorder, and it can overwhelm us.

That’s when we need to initiate our own Phases One, Two, and Three. We can focus on the situation that bothers us most and start by tidying it up in small ways. We should think of it as working from the edges in, rather than redoing everything at once. By slowly tackling one area and then another and another, as time passes we can get back to zero-order in all the disorderly areas of our lives, freshening up our perspective.

At Linnea and Adam’s house, as we’ve sat together while the children slept, each night we silently appreciated a zero- cluttered house. In those precious moments, no one talked about how 3 imaginative children would be pulling out bins and baskets in a few short hours, leaving our orderly zero far behind. In those quiet, late evening hours, sitting in the midst of back-to-zero was deeply satisfying.