Do-able To Do Lists

In response to my to-do lists being too long, a reader suggested I focus my lists on one day or one room.

I think some of my lists should focus on even less. They should encouraging discipline for the specific times of day I know I'm likely to loose focus. They should acknowledge things that take up time that I don't factor in well enough.


Furthermore, what if I made my lists short enough that I knew I could actually accomplish them?


I keep making unrealistic lists. Sometimes I let myself think I could actually accomplish them. Other times I know I can't, but feel the need to keep all the things on the list, because they have to get done sooner or later, preferably sooner.

That's not helpful or rewarding. I suppose I need that big master list somewhere. But what point is there in taking on more of it than I can handle at a time?

My List is Too Long Again

Why am I so often filled with discontent
over a to do list I can never satisfy?
No matter what I do,
There is always more.

My list is too long.

But my list is filled with good and important things.

Life is filled to overflowing with good things. (God said, "It is good.")

Which things is one person, with one lifetime,
60 minutes per hour, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year
to choose?
How is one to let go of the rest
during 60 minutes, 24 hours, 365 days, or a lifetime?

I'm not looking for another scheme for organizing and prioritizing,
unless it's one that brings spiritual transformation:
clarity about the most important things for me,
patient discipline in engaging them,
and the ability to let the other good things go.

I really am only one human...60 minutes per hour, 24 hours, 365 days, how many years?
I really can only do so much.
What shall it be?
What shall it be now?

Keys

I reached in my pocket and pulled out a set of keys that aren't mine!

I'm sure someone is missing them. They've probably gone to a lot of trouble over their absence. There's a car key, the car's electronic lock/unlock thing, probably a house key, a few others that could belong to this or that.....you know, more or less the normal set of keys to our lives we all carry.

Whose keys am I carrying? How did I get them!?

They look enough like mine that I suppose I absent mindedly picked them up from somewhere they were laying, unconsciously assuming I was picking up my own keys. (Yes, I do have my own keys too.)

Where would have they been laying? Did I find someone's already lost keys? Or did the keys become lost when I picked them up?

I contacted people at the last few places I'd been. So far no one seems to be looking for the keys. Actually I think I may have even pulled them out of the basket we keep keys and miscellaneous stuff in at our house. Just pulled them out without looking at their detail and stuffed them in my pocket like I often do with my own keys.

How long have I had them? Could it even be that my husband picked them up somewhere? (Doesn't seem like something he would do.) Is there any other explanation for how they might have gotten into our house?

This is very strange. And I feel bad. But I don't know how to get these keys back to whoever they belong to.

It reminds me of stories I've heard about people who walk away from an event (or a bar) with someone else's coat. Same style, color and brand as their own....but not the same things in the pockets!....Yes, it was MY coat the keys were in....

Are you missing keys!?

Why Not to Become Ordianed

I was reading about the conflicts within the Episcopal Church yesterday: individual churches leaving or considering it, the deposing of a bishop, people talking about scism...

I should consider being ordained as a clergy member in this church!?! I should step myself right into all this debate and controversy?

It's not that I don't care about the issues at hand. It's not that I couldn't vigorously enter the debate. Its that I would find myself compelled to do it too much and too well. I would wrestle terribly long and hard with all the issues. Then I would write long, detailed, nuanced papers that few would ever read. I would be sucked in and consumed.

One God

The question of one God....

I think the question of one God vs multiple Gods sometimes becomes an unhelpful semantic barrier.

I do believe in one God. I know some people believe there are multiple Gods. Those people might not be satisfied by the perspective I'm about to give. In fact, I'm a bit concerned that it may not be respectful of me. I'd like the opportunity to discuss the issue with people who believe in multiple Gods. I'd like the opportunity to learn from them. But to the best of my knowledge, I don't know anyone with that belief.

In my perspective, belief in one God does not preclude recognition of what may be understood by others as multiple Gods, or even competing Gods. God is big enough that we use multiple metaphors for God. In my thinking, multiple Gods (past or present) may be considered a partial representation of God. Each of them are, if you will, one of many relevant metaphors for God. Metaphors (whether used for one God, multiple Gods, or anything else) in some way represent the thing for which they are being used as a metaphor, but can not completely represent or contain it, nor can they represent it with completeness or full accuracy.

In some ways those of us steeped in monotheism might benefit from thinking in terms of multiple Gods, or at least by taking diverse metaphors for God more seriously.

Too often I think we have an image of God that is neatly packaged, defined and contained. We miss too much of God that way. We tame God too much that way. We try to keep God fitting into our theology, our religion, our society, our comfort zones. But of course God isn't so easily limited. It's our theology and ourselves that we're limiting. We're keeping parts of God at a distance when we could be drawing near. Sometimes those are the parts of God we or others may need to keep our spiritual lives engaged and growing.