Dandelions and Daydreams

Our sleeping bags are airing out on the back porch.  The sun has come up, and I’m off to an early start for the day.  After sleeping out under the stars last night, I feel grounded and connected.  Sometimes we have this mis-perception that camping out requires extensive planning, a long trip to a state park, and lots of extra hassles.  In the summer time, Brenton and I like to sleep out at least once a week.  Usually we decide to do this at about 9 o’clock at night.  As I am getting ready for bed, I pull the sleeping pads out of the closet and unroll the sleeping bags.  Everything gets laid out on the back deck and we fall asleep wondering, again, what is so fascinating about looking at the stars.

This morning the day peeked through and I woke up at 5 a.m.  I think I would sleep a more appropriate amount of time if I didn’t have such a comfortable mattress.  I read somewhere that sleeping 6-7 hours seems to be optimal for long life.  Sleeping 4 hours or less can mess with glucose metabolism, and sleeping more than 8 hours just makes me tired.  When I woke up at 5 a.m. I was ready to go after just 7 hours of sleep.  I was awake enough that I couldn’t sleep again with just a sleeping bag and a camp mat underneath me.   Now, it’s only 2 1/2 hours later and I’ve finished my housework for the day.  If I could be this productive every day, I think I could take over the world.

This week has been one of the busiest of the summer.  We found a neighbor who has a cherry tree, and she wasn’t going to harvest the cherries.  So far we have picked almost 18 lbs of cherries from her tree.  We are also working on another (smaller) sour cherry tree.  This same neighbor has enough fruit to keep Brenton and me busy for a long time.  As the summer progresses, we will be harvesting plums, apricots, pears, apples, and raspberries from her yard.

While we are on the subject of raspberries, I have to tell you about our latest apartment find.  I think the most exciting thing about living in a duplex or a rental house is that you never know what you are going to find in the yard planted by past tenents.  Brenton was out moving the hammock stand in preparation for the owner to come mow the grass and he found a small raspberry bush growing at the edge of the yard.  It looks like it has come over from the neighbor’s yard.  There is a small patch just on the other side of the backyard fence.  I think raspberries taste like sunshine.

Today turned into one of those days when I feel empty and stretched.  My heart feels lonely and sad like someone scraped it over with sandpaper.  It’s the kind of day where what I want to do is inhale copious amounts of chocolate in an effort to soothe my restless soul.  I find myself in front of the refrigerator often.  I keep coming back looking for something that will make me feel better.  I’m lucky that we don’t keep many sweets in the house and leftover beans and rice just doesn’t work as a salve quite the same as chocolate cake.

Then I open the refrigerator again and with that cool burst of air comes a bit of clarity.  I’m not trying to fill a physical hunger and food won’t fill a soul hunger.  The good feelings that I get from chocolate might help for a short while, but when the chocolate is gone the ache will still be there.

I turn away from the fridge and find my journal.  I open it to a blank page and pour out my heart to the Father.  I make a cup of coffee and read my Bible.  While I am fellowshipping with my God who is Love, I find the ache disappearing and being replaced with a peace and trust.  Everything will be okay.

I’ve read that for everything we become as adults, the seeds were planted in our childhood.  If that really is the case, I’m trying to figure out where the seed was planted that grew into this obsession with decluttering and simplifying.

As a teenager, my parents referred to my room as “the center of gravity.”  When something went missing in the house, you could most likely find it in my room (especially scissors and hairbrushes).  In the last 2 years, I have turned decluttering into a hobby.  This past weekend, I realized my need for beauty is as strong as my need for simplicity.

For a while now, I have been following the Flylady organization system.  One of the key components of the system is the Control Journal.  The control journal is basically a notebook where you write down your routines so that on those down days you can look and know what you need to do without having to make a decision.

I have tried to make a control journal at least 5 or 6 times, but I never actually used it.  The notebook I had the stuff written down in would end up sitting on my counter until it got covered over with a pile of mail.  I tried to follow the rules and not get perfectionistic about it.  I tried to write the routines down in pencil or use a post it note, but those things always ended up looking junky to me.

This weekend I found a stand up photo album at a garage sale.  I typed up my routines to fit on a 4 X 6 post card.  In the extra space to the right of my routines, I included digital images of Monet paintings.  My morning routine card has Impression: Sunrise, which is the painting that started the impressionist movement.  Each card has a different picture on it.  All of the pictures are Monet paintings because Monet is probably my favorite landscape artist.  My control journal is now a beautiful work of art.  I smile whenever I see it rather than being irritated with the messy look of my hand writing or by the fact that post-its won’t stay in place more than 5 minutes so I am continually picking them up off the floor.

I think the next step in my life is learning to balance functionality, simplicity, and beauty.  That makes me smile.

My last post was a bit of a hot-headed rant.  I do that sometimes, but I’ve been thinking about the whole recycling/going green thing a lot lately.  Yesterday, Melissa at The Living Proof Ministries Blog wrote an article about Christianity and going green.   Check over there to read the whole post, but her three main points were:

1. God reveals himself through creation, so in a way we are surpressing the glory of God when we trash the Earth.
2. God gave man the job to care for the Earth, and everything we do should be for the glory of God.
3. The Earth will eventually burn up and be recreated.  Nothing we can do can end the groaning of the earth, but when we work to protect the earth, we are joining God in a work that He will eventually perfect with a new Heaven and a new Earth.

As a Christian, I have to be cautious to worship the Creator rather than the created, but I would be foolish to say that I cannot care for the created.  If I were to ignore the created because I was worried about failing to worship the Creator, then I would also have to ignore my own body.  I would neglect to care for all the earthly blessings that the Lord has given to me.  I would be so Heavenly minded as to be of no use to this earth.  I would be rendered ineffective as a light because my focus would be on worshiping the Creator and ignoring the created.  The ultimate purpose of a human is to bring glory to God, but we have to do that in the context of where God has put us to live.

On the flip side, if we choose not to be a good steward of our life, we will have to live with the consequences of that choice.  I’m not talking about losing salvation here, I’m talking about natural consequences.  If I go out and spend our family deeply into debt, we will have to live with the stress and burden of that debt.  If I create excess waste and turn the whole world into a landfill to satisfy my own consumer needs, then I (or my children) will have to live on a trashed planet; I will be guilty of neglecting and ignoring the blessings of the Lord.