Different Strokes for Different Folks

The holidays are weird. Or I'm weird. Or both. Probably both.

I went to PF Chang to dinner with a friend, which I haven't done in a long time. And in fact it was a year since I went to PF Chang (a really good semi-gourmet chinese chain restaurant)...and it was with that friend. Good gluten-free times.

I enjoyed having a deep conversation, which seems to happen not often for my taste but probably often enough for everyone's tolerance of me (and my tolerance of them).

I'm up with a sick baby right now who seems to wake up every five minutes. And now she's asleep on my shoulder as I'm blogging. Brings back the memories of...oh wait. Now she's ordering me to put her back in her crib. Five minutes after she screamed for me to come get her. Oh Lucillini. When she's sick she's SO cranky. Evan is usually sweeter and more compliant the sicker he is.

But I digress...

The good conversation left me (I don't know how it left her) but it left me with an uncomfortable realization of things I like about my life and things I don't...and the unbelief that has yet to be rooted from my heart.

So I had not done any Christmas shopping at all before...yesterday. I got it done. Today after dinner. Last stop was Wal-Mart. Of course it won't be my last trip to Wal Mart before Christmas. I have nothing to eat in my house and a tablespoon of almost sour milk. But I could not force myself to grocery shop. Just couldn't do it. Got my presents and left.

Before I left I ran into a lady I know from church. She's a mom of 13 or 14. I lose track. She was there alone with a cup of coffee in her hand. We exchanged pleasantries and she was trying to figure out exactly how many more Christmas presents she needed to make sure each child had the same number. Because they had all been counting the presents under the tree....anyway it was humorous.

It's good to have a laugh. When you're doing something that some people think is crazy (like go to law school with two small children or choose to have 14 kids) you can still have stuff in common (coffee, Wal-Mart, 11:00pm).

I could go off on a mini-rant on tolerance...but I don't think that we (myself included) focus on the things that we do have in common. Sometimes we focus so much on the "right" way to live that we forget that the way is love that covers over a multitude of sin, shortcomings, and blatant failures.

Anyway, I think it is hard when you choose to do something that goes against what other people are doing around you. People are simple and complicated. One of the worst things you can do for yourself is make them uncomfortable. Popularity contests are just as fierce at law school as they are at church. No rest for the weary.

And yet if you believe that every soul is born free, blown into the image of God, fashioned in the fabric of time then humbleness constrains you, limits you to dust and vapor. There is room for mystery without explanation and pain without cause. A glimmer of glory and a shine of hope in an otherwise vast and empty space.