“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

F. Buechner

Yes, I know I wrote a little about this the other day, but I need to say it again for my own good. I am not a very disciplined person.  I start things well and then fade out. Diets. Exercise. Reading programs.

Or I procrastinate and stay up all night and finish right before deadlines. Ask all my college suite mates.

This does not set me up well as a home school mom. A home school mom with a FaceBook account. I am too easily distracted.

I have been telling the boys that when we begin school next week it will be time to turn off our tech time. During the summer we have been lazy about it, but when school begins we will go back to limiting the time and there are already moans of dissatisfaction. Mostly from the oldest who has games that require certain resets at certain times.

I don’t like life being dictated by games.

And yet, I find myself checking in on my own “tech” driven devices all the time. I find my life dictated by those things often. And I find that I lack discipline in shutting them down when I need to. So, I thought about shutting down FaceBook altogether for the school year, disabling the account so it wouldn’t be a temptation.

That is just silly, though. That means that I am so weak-willed I have to toss the thing instead of being disciplined enough to ignore it when I need to, and that is just sad. And it sends a bad example to the boys.  And honestly, I love the connection to friends and finding out about babies and kids and goofy things.  There are moments when it helps me see life and connects me to articles like this  and this which make me think. Of course there are things I see my friends doing which inspire me to do similar activities with my kids, or which at least get me thinking about new ways to approach life with family.

So, no, I’m not going to de-activate my FaceBook. I’m going to grow up a little and turn it off. I’m going to listen to my life a little more and pay attention and follow the same rules I’ve set for the kids. I’m going to read more and type less. Scroll through the gossip faster and find the things that inspire me, or the people who need a word of encouragement or prayer.

Here’s the thing, there is no shortage of information around us. No shortage of distraction. I remember, and I know I’ve mentioned this before, reading Thomas Merton in one of his books on solitude. In a letter someone told him basically that it would be easy to seek God in a setting like Merton’s where there were not distractions, and Merton responded that if we cannot find silence and solitude in the room with the television we will go crazy in the cabin in the woods. When all the outside distractions are taken away we will be overcome by the distractions within.

We have to learn to listen to our lives, to listen to God. Simply to listen. We have to be disciplined. There is no short cut. There is no way around it. We have to grow up a little. We can groan and express our dissatisfaction at moving from the lazy pace of summer to the structure of school, but we still have to do it.

What to do? Turn off the noise and the distraction and focus our attention. Listen and hear.

Look and see.

Pay attention.

Be still and know.

Don’t just let it all happen around us, whether in the classroom or at home or at the workplace. Pay attention. Seek out that which inspires and stirs us and awakens us and draws us closer to God. We have to be intentional.

So…the shift is happening. A little FaceBook. A little X-Box for the kids. A whole lotta reading for me and the kids, and a disciplined paying attention. What will we see this year?

Several years ago there was a moment that terrified me.

We were in Florida for a family vacation. Steve had broken a bone in his foot, although at the moment we only knew he had hurt the foot. I was in the condo with Sammy who was still just a little one…maybe about the age Maddie is now. Steve had gone down to the beach with Nate and Zach and had been there for a few hours while I had let Sam take a nap.

It was that moment when you knew they had been gone too long and something just didn’t feel right. I walked out across the little boardwalk to find Zach and Nate walking back and Steve somewhat stumbling back. It was a terribly hot day.

Steve doesn’t stumble.

He sat down.

He doesn’t do that.

I walked with him and he said it was his foot bothering him. Other people were noticing. A woman came up quickly toward us. She had been watching from her condo on the 30 something-th floor and was a nurse and could tell something was wrong. While I was talking with her suddenly Steve was laying flat on his back on the board walk. Two men came rushing up and grabbed his legs and swept him up, after checking and saying he had no pulse and wasn’t breathing.

It was all of five minutes. I had all my kids in sight, and a wonderful woman had caught my eye and began keeping them occupied with the hose that you clean off the beach sand. Steve revived quickly and we found that he was in shock from breaking a bone in his foot and being dehydrated from being in the sun. In that five minutes though, I was very afraid of what I might be in the midst of.

What does this have to do with a prayer thread? I shuffled my startled boys back up to the condo as Steve was taken in the ambulance and I posted a prayer request on a thread on a blog. I was in a strange town where I didn’t know anyone and I was afraid and I needed to know I had some friends praying. Facebook was not as used then, or at least I was not as adept…and this blog kept me sane.

I came back from the hospital (without Steve who spent a little more time there to get checked out) and found a thread filled with encouragement and prayer. Community. Support. From people I had not met in person, but who were online and all over the world and were able to support me in a rather unique moment.

Most of our days will not be like that day. Thankfully. But some days are difficult, and some days are fantastic. Some days we just need to know that we have folks praying. The blog I posted that request on is on a bit of a hiatus which may become permanent or may not. In that season I’m going to post a thread each week here for prayer requests.

We may not get any, and that is fine. If you are feeling like you need to know someone is praying…feel free to ask. There may not be lots of responses, but I will pray and there are others who read without posting who will pray. We’ll see what happens.  It’s always good to have a place to come when we need to know someone is praying…

I may make this more structured as we continue, we’ll see, but for today I wanted to explain why it felt important to have a prayer thread.

“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.” 

G.K. Chesterton

I cannot remember when I first began reading Chesterton, but it has been years and years. When I first stumbled upon his writings I devoured him. I loved his wit and then I found out I loved his wisdom as well. He doesn’t know everything, but he has this way of refreshing my soul on days when I need refreshment. There is something about his humor and wonder that draws me in, but he is no slouch; he makes me work when I read him.

I get sloppy in my reading.

I get sloppy in life, to be honest.

Days are a bit full with a husband, four children, a dog, two cats and four fish living in the house. The laundry piles up, the dishes pile up, the dust piles up…the duties pile up. It is easy to come downstairs, get my cup of coffee and sit down at the computer and be lulled into catching up on everything on FaceBook as the start to my day. There’s nothing wrong with that; I like seeing what is happening with my friends and I do find things happening I can pray for and folks I can catch up with in real time. Still, I am not a disciplined person and I too easily find that I have spent far too long in front of the computer and the children have appeared and the day is rolling and the duties are getting ahead of me…and things are getting sloppy.

And I am getting grumpy.

I am behind the day and trying to catch up.

I need, and I use that word intentionally, the space and time to read and to think. I need the sanity of those like Chesterton and Frederich Buechner and C. S. Lewis and Madeleine L’Engle and Henri Nouwen and Tim Keller and Sally Lloyd-Jones and … Scripture.  I need the time and the space and the discipline to turn my face and my attention toward God before the duties and the demands of the day start getting ahead of me.

Now that the school schedule is about to come into swing, I need that all the more.

Or else, I begin to feel grumpy.

No, not just grumpy.

I begin to feel physically like I am going to explode.

I begin to feel like I need to run around the house and straighten things and get everything in order, RIGHT NOW.  And the kids can tell that I am on edge, and everything goes downhill. Not a good environment for learning.

So. Tradition.

Not FaceBook.

Tradition.

Turning off the superfluous noises. Those things that are okay, but are not necessary, so that I can turn to the necessary. Quieting the mornings so I can have that space and time to be silent and turn my attention toward God. I need the help of the authors I mentioned sometimes because I need help focusing my thoughts. They help me narrow my focus and quiet my spirit.  FaceBook, internet…feeds my distraction. The lesson is not just for me. The season is for the boys as well; it is time for them to turn off the iPods and the Xbox and turn their attention to their studies.  We have to make the space for silence and then introduce them to the those who can be our guides in learning how to think well in training our thoughts to think on God.

Turning off the superfluous.

Listening to tradition.

Feeding not only my mind with something worthwhile, but feeding my soul.

That doesn’t mean I’ll never turn on FaceBook again, but it does mean it is time to be intentional again. Setting up the day for a more peaceful start instead of irritation. The duties still have to be done, but I sure find they are easier when my spirit is not so agitated. There is time to simply catch up on the computer and sneak a peak at friends’ lives and play a game, but I know myself well enough to know I let it get the best of me and a little time ends up being far too long.

So here’s to a school year of intention, of reading from wise writers and being much less grumpy!!!