in a minute there is time...

I am sitting here with my mug of tea, prepared to work on that priority list I talked about in my last post...
except for that I realized I have things I want to write about first.

That statement probably says something about my priorities in and of itself.

Having always been a project-oriented person, it's strange to find myself suddenly caring more about the process. You know,

project (n): the sum of experiences which, when combined, achieve a desired end

process (n): the sum of moments which, when combined, create an experience

Not Merriam-Webster definitions by any stretch, but that's how I think about it: the act of painting vs. the finished picture, the practice vs. the game, the conversation vs. the application. Last year, I would have never chosen to write a blog post that maybe 10 people who already know me reasonably well will actually finish over mapping out my future. Last year, I took the PSAT, did debate research, and caught up on math homework (in my bedroom, by myself) for my birthday. This year, I went out for breakfast, hiked, and went ice skating with my little brothers for my birthday. It's like I actually prefer having fun to getting work done! I can feel you laughing at me but that, my friends, is the strange (sad?) truth. Each day, I find myself more inclined to choose the process of life over its various and sundry projects.

There are probably a lot of reasons for this, one being that I caught a glimpse of a different way of life, a grace-filled way of life, when I visited the Smiths in Mexico City. ("I know this hurts your American heart to hear, Aubrey," Naomi said to me, "But you don't have to always be cleaning the kitchen.")

God made good things to go in His good world: colors, emotions, scents, music, laughter, tastes, relationships, words, light, rest...the list goes on and on. Enjoying them is a way of enjoying God - God the Creator, God the father of light from whom every good thing proceeds (James 1:17)

Taking tea at Casa Tassel

Enjoying quesadillas in the apartment after a team meeting

Strangers socializing at a taco stand. Two things I miss about Mexico: spontaneous conversations and taco stands.

When it comes to enjoying goodness, a lot can happen in a moment. To quote that brilliant man, T.S. Eliot*:

There will be time to murder and create
And time for all the works of days and of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
~
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

*Each time I read Eliot, he feels more and more like an old friend and his poems feel more and more like letters. I love it when that happens between myself and a favored author.

Choosing to have a dance party with Sean instead of getting annoyed at him for playing the Pirates of the Carribean theme for the umpteenth time while I was trying to get homework done is the decision of a moment, but it amounts to an experience that then colors the entire dynamic of my relationship with this 11-year-old boy. Making a card for the girl I hardly know might cost me the chance to get back into classical violin, but it also might win me a friend. So much hangs in the balance of split-second decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

And to jump from the wisdom of T.S. Eliot into a deeper and more mysterious wisdom, there is Jesus.

God could have accomplished atonement with a fire-blazing, sky-splitting, earth-shattering projection of omnipotence. But He didn't. Instead, he designated an embryo to be born as a helpless little baby, go through all the awkward stages of growing up, travel first-century Palestine as an itinerant Rabbi, and die a shameful death.

God didn't just save us with a snap of His almighty fingers. He saved us through a story, through the life of a Man with flesh like our own flesh. He saved us in such a way that we would know were being saved. By dying to save us, He gave us the gift of glimpsing the height and length and breadth and depth of His love. That is a weighty grace

I've been mulling over this paragraph from N.T. Wright (I guess I have a thing for writers who go by their initials?):

"The Cross can be seen as Jesus' final great act of love. It draws to a climax all those actions throughout His ministry - His touching of a leper, His tenderness toward the chronically sick or bereaved, His tears at Lazarus' grave - in which we see the deeply human, characteristically God-filled Jesus truly at work."

God is a God who understands the power of a moment in human existence. He is a God who cares not only about the outcome of a life, but about the life itself. I imagine that's part of why He tells us to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control but never gives us a quota of souls to save or prayers to pray.

I am still wrestling with the tension between my goals-oriented self and my new, oddly flexible and contented self. Undoubtedly, I still have a lot to discover about what this clever God is doing in me. But I'm writing this down to share with you all some of the thoughts that are changing me, in hopes that I am not the only person confused by myself.

It's in seasons like these that I am especially grateful God is greater than my heart, and knows all things (John 3:20).

Much love,
Aubrey

P.S.

Here are some birthday pictures, if you care to see them!

Breakfast at Panera

Hiking at Comanche

Sean decorated my room and HE SPELLED MY NAME IN STREAMERS, PEOPLE!

My boys <3