Simple Truth: Life is Messy.

"Life's messy, love it." …I'm more of the, "life's messy, clean it up, organize it and put it into a bento box." – Brené Brown, The Power of Vulnerability, TEDx Houston

As a chronic control freak, the idea of Life being “messy” has always kind of seemed like one of those things I say without actually believing.  I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve used the line, “Life just gets messy sometimes” as a means of comforting other people or to make an excuse for myself.  But here’s the catch… I still convince myself that I can control the mess out of life. 

I’ve gone days, maybe even weeks, honestly believing that if I make it just this much further, or accomplish these few things, that I might actually beat the odds and perfect the neat and clean life that I spend so much time convincing others that I live. But when it boils down to it, no one expects me to live that way; no one is putting pressure on me to excel, or to preform well, or to have it all together… In my pride, I convince myself that I should be the one that meets every standard ever set.  I can get perfect grades, the glamorous social reputation, and the purple badge of honor all before I go home to make an instagram worthy meal, clean the house, take a bath, and still have time get 8 hours of sleep (or, maybe I told myself I was immune to sleep for an entire semester). I hold myself to these unrealistically high standards; no one is telling me that I have to be that person, I’ve just bought in to the lie that my identity should be based on my accomplishments.

 But here’s the thing; when your value is based on the things you hope to accomplish and not on the life you actually live, imperfection translates as a feeling of total and complete worthlessness.  For a time, you may be able to keep up with the act… On a good day, it may be nothing more than exhausting; but the reality is that more often than not, it’s just plain disappointing, and if one thing is certain, it is never satisfying.  And yet what does that disappointment lead me to? Surrender?  I wish.  It just results in me trying harder.

 I have allowed my accomplishments to determine my worth.

What if, instead, I embraced the idea that life IS messy, and I valued that mess rather than trying to conceal it entirely? I’ve got a feeling that instead of that exhausting and disappointing feeling of worthlessness, I could learn to engage in the world from a place of worthiness. 

I’ve been really into an author named Brené Brown lately; she has spent the last 10+ years researching shame and vulnerability and has developed some theories about shame resilience, and what she has termed “Wholehearted Living.”  I quoted her at the beginning of my post, and I’m going to quote her again because she’s just that good.  “You either walk inside your story and own it or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.”

My desire to control my life and hide the messiness therein is nothing more than my own “hustle for worthiness.”  Its exhausting at best, but mostly its just disappointing. 

The simple truth is this:  Life is messy; and there’s no reasonable way to clean it up.  Even as the craziest of control freaks, I want to live in the truth that life is best lived when its completely and entirely messy, but full of content that is true, and meaningful, and full of joy, rather than the mandated structure and obligation of the neat and clean world I’ve trapped myself in for so long.  

When I was a teenager, my mom would tell me to clean up my room, and I would always tell her that I preferred it messy, because even in the mess, I knew where everything was.  One summer I went to camp for a month and when I came home, my mother had totally deep cleaned and reorganized my room.  I couldn't find any of my socks for weeks.  All of a sudden, I didn't know my own space; I couldn't find any of my things... Sure, it looked better, but it didn't feel good. Maybe that's exactly how Life is supposed to be; who cares if it looks good from the outside if I can't find myself amidst the neat and tidy, well organized space I've tried to recreate from the mess I once knew?  Neat and tidy may look a lot better, but it doesn't feel like home; it doesn't feel like my life.  I think I might prefer the life that may seem unconventional, but at least makes sense to me. 

Life's messy, Love it. 

Simple Truths.

It’s been a while since I’ve visited the blog scene, but this summer, I want to use it to reflect on the simple truths of life that I tend to brush off all too quickly.  With graduation approaching in December, I’ve found myself feeling more anxious and stressed lately than I ever have before, so I’m finding myself longing to rest in the truths I hear all the time but spend such little time actually thinking about.

In the week between summer classes and finals week, I got to go home and hang out with my family for a few days, which was awesome.  While I was home, I was annoying my mother one day by playing through some of my old piano pieces while she was on the phone.  As I riffled through the sheet music filed away in our piano bench, I came across a piece my mother and I played as a duet at a recital when I was about 10 years old.  The piece, “Simple Gifts” is an old Shaker Hymn that has become a timeless classic.  If you don’t know what song I’m talking about, look it up on youtube real quick... you’ll recognize it right away.

I played through the tune once and for the next 10 days it was stuck in my head; “Tis a gift to be simple tis a gift to be free…” on repeat.  I couldn’t… shake it… get it? Shakers? (sorry… had to) But as I mulled over the words time and time again, I started to see the beauty in them.

Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,

To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come 'round right

Now, I don’t know much about Shaker theology, and I’m sure its pretty out there, seeing as there aren’t many Shaker churches around today, but I can’t help but see the truth in these words.  In a culture of overly-connected, overly-committed, and overly-planned people of whom I am the worst, there is value in stopping to dwell on the simple things in life. 

Over winter break, I got to go on a trip to Thailand with some incredible friends from a ministry I’m a part of in Fayetteville called Lightbearers.  While we were there, we got to spend 3 days in a village in the mountains of Northern Thailand.  It was easily my favorite part of the trip.  Miles away from the nearest grocery store or gas station, nestled in the jungle of trees was this itty bitty village with one road in and one road out.  The villagers live in stilted homes with tin roofs and wooden walls. You could see the dirt not far beneath the slotted wooden floors.  They grow or raise everything they eat, and they’ve had electricity in their homes for a whopping 5 years. 

My first instinct upon meeting the villagers was to pity them… I saw their circumstances and their apparent state of affairs and thought, “they must be so impoverished.”  As it turns out, this itty bitty village in Northern Thailand is in the middle of a natural coffee farm; trees surround the village on all sides that grow the cherries in which our beloved java beans are grown. Each day, every single one of those villagers goes out and picks 30 kilos of coffee beans (that’s like 66 pounds).  And what, pray tell, do they do with all of those coffee beans?  They sell them to Starbucks.  And there is no injustice there - they are treated well and paid fairly for them. Come to find out, this village is far from in need.  The village leader began to tell us that they have a huge sum of money saved in a village account that they use to send all of their children to school in Chiang Mai.  The equivalent of 10s of thousands of U.S. dollars sitting in an account because they value the quality of education their children receive so highly.  They could afford to live way above their current means, but why would they? They have no problem living the way they do…they are perfectly content living simply. 

After that experience, I learned that we are the ones to be pitied; we live in a world of never enough… Never successful enough, never pretty enough, never well-dressed enough, never satisfied; and where does it leave us? Constantly longing for more.   

“Tis a gift to be simple tis a gift to be free…”

In a world of never enough, very rarely do I sit and contemplate the simplest of truths… they’re never profound enough, never effective enough, never good enough.  And where does it leave me?  Contemplating every value I’ve ever held, and every decision I’ve ever made or have planned to make, which has proven to be an altogether crippling feeling.  Now, I’m deciding where to go to grad school and what type of degree to pursue and I want so desperately not to look for the one that will “make me enough” but the one that will simply put, lead me to the valley of love and delight.  My prayer is that a summer of simplicity will transition my heart to the place it ought to be – a valley of love and delight.  Join me on a journey of simple truths. 

Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.