Curtains and coupons and clutter, Oh My! I just visited a site, a rather large and intricate site, all about cleaning. This lady invites you to squeaky bliss by following her routines of "zone cleaning". You separate your house into zones, clean, then somehow within weeks, your whole life is better. Not kidding. She actually claims that by cleaning your house, you can increase your overall happiness. And YES, there are products for purchase. Harmony and Pine-Sol are just a click away.
Dave Ramsey, financial guru, claims that you can "live like no one else, by living like no one else". Meaning scrimp and save now, and when your old...oops, I mean, mature, you can be set up to live the life of your dreams. It's no big deal really, the way you stop spending like an idiot is to spend your entire life obsessing about your money. Wives, you spend 20 hours a week, clipping coupons, making meals from scratch and hand stitching all your children's clothes. Husbands, take on as many jobs as possible, don't worry, you'll have plenty of time for your kids once you've ensured that college is covered..about the time they leave for said education. Bummer, well maybe you'll have time for your grandkids if the stress of three jobs doesn't put you in an early grave.
There are diet and health books that claim that if you eat nothing but vegetables grown in composted soil in an arid climate that you will be a happier, healthier person who will likely live to be 110. You are probably going to sacrifice serious cash and probably personal hygiene in order to accomplish this, but hey, think about how fun it will be to be a decrepit 110! Hope they have chocolate in Heaven because if you eat it while you're here you'll take your longevity down to a mere 90. And I hope you don't mind being broke, because you can't live like that and follow Dave's plan. He'll tell you the proper diet is one of rice and beans.
For the record, I have read all of these books, been to the websites and chugged the Kool-Aid, and it JUST NOW occurs to me why I'm half outta my mind?! I'm an idiot. I am also a disciple. I am scared and a little weak at the moment, so anyone who claims that my life will be better if I just do what they do, eat what they eat, go where they go, I'm packed and ready before I've closed their latest book. Guess what?
I'm not happy.
Nor should I be.
Happiness is fleeting, life is momentary, and beauty can bottled. Sound depressing? It is if you have no hope that this isn't the only life, the only future. C.S. Lewis who is now one of the most celebrated Christian authors of all time, was once a staunch agnostic. One of the things that eventually lead him to faith was the stirring in his soul that he said could not filled by anything else so that the only conclusion left to this brilliant scholar was that he was meant for something else..somewhere else. No one's book is going to make life better because we are meant for paradise, not earthquakes and clogged arteries.
I am not trying to bash any of the above-mentioned folks or their legions of followers, obviously people have had some success and more power to 'em. But for me? It's just another stone tossed into the anxiety bowl of my life's scale. One more rule to follow, one more way to fail. Even the Bible, if it's only read through someone else's lens (i.e. the numerous Bible scholars out there today), can add anxiety and fear. I think even Beth Moore would agree. I think the Jews of Jesus' day were feeling this kind of pressure. I mean just take a perusal through Leviticus or Deuteronomy and you'll see the colossal list of do's and don'ts they were up against. It makes a Miss Manners book look like a cake walk. It's no wonder people were so fascinated by Jesus. He assured them that it wasn't the rules that God was after, but their hearts. The rules were there, in part, for their protection (we still don't eat raw meat and now we know why, but God had it put in there way back when salmonella was probably a person's name, not a deadly bacteria), but the religious elite had turned them into measuring stick and had been beating folks regularly with it. Jesus took the blows, and the law, and hung them on a cross. With scars on his hands, and eternity sealed, he left us with this:
"And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age"-Matthew 28:20
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind...Love your neighbor as yourself" - Matthew 22: 37, 38
"Go and make disciples of all nations" -Matthew 28:19
Love God, love people. No where in there does he say the greatest commandment is to have the healthiest 401(k) or the tidiest living room. I know nothing about anyone else's relationship with God, but I know that I have become a disciple of too many things instead of the only person who has offered and actually can lighten my load.
I do know that budgets make sense, healthy living is a smart idea and a clean house is nice, but spending all of my time stressing over those things makes no sense, is a stupid idea and is terribly unpleasant...for ME. Maybe it's not like that for you. I'm trying really hard not to wish I was you, but oh, sometimes, I really, really do. So that being said: I hope you still read my blog, just don't take my advice, or at least all of it. Learn from my mistakes and make your own.
Much Love,
Lucky
