Today has been one of those days when every plan of mine was thwarted in some way. Not that they were very ambitious. I wasn’t trying to come up with alternatives to our 700 billion dollar financial bailout, a plan to extricate us quickly and painlessly from Iraq, or a way to reduce global warming. All I wanted was to check off some items on my to do list and perform an act of indulgence for my children.
Struggle number one involved church. I had promised my son a fully stocked basement playroom in this new church. “Come and check out this place. You’ll love it. It’s so fun.” However, when we arrived, I learned that the wonderful toys I’d seen the previous Sunday didn’t belong to the church, but rather to a day care center that used their space. Sometimes they leave the toys out, and sometimes they don’t. My son glowered at me, his angry eyes accusing me of bait and switch. He had come expecting to tootle around in toy cars and ended up doing some serious butt time on a hard pew. He stormed up for the children’s sermon on the wonders of creation only to fume at the pastor’s feet like God’s own tiny rain cloud. I already dread next Sunday.
Struggle number two concerned shoes. My son has very particular taste in them. They must slip on and they must look like ones a cool skater-dude would wear, which usually means a prominence of skulls. His current pair had reached the stage where the canvas covering was in tatters and had separated from the sole making his feet looked like those of a child in a Brazilian favela— the shoes of a garbage dump scavenger. I thought replacing them would be a simple matter. It was not. Three stores later saw me slowly counting to ten and backing away from the sales staff who were certainly not to blame that their non-tie shoes didn’t fit my son’s exact criteria (although I did question their company’s audacity at pricing children’s shoes at $50 when my son wears through his in a month or less).
I eventually settled on the next closest thing, which did not spare me upon my return from a howling refusal to wear them and a furious defense of his beloved canvas wrecks. I countered with an equally loud battery of threats and grimly dug through the veritable cairn of blocks he had erected to protect his old shoes from my depredations. I prevailed through brute force and shameless threats.
Struggle number three involved a failure to complete an on-line registration form. I have a history of bad luck successfully filing computerized forms. I dutifully fill in every field and send them, only to have them bounce back again and again as in a repetitive scene from the film Groundhog Day. No matter how I tweak my data, I cannot get out of the blocks. Now that most school have shifted their teacher application process on line, I know that, should I ever quit my current position, I will have to become an entrepreneur or take up an entirely new vocation as I have never be able to master this electronic process.
Sure enough, I spread out my documents all around me and dutifully answered the scores of questions only to be told, “Your submissions do not match the information we already have on file.” Back I must go tomorrow, then, to the old-fashioned telephone to find a living being to talk me through the process.
Struggle number four saw me well into evening and involved taking my children out for pizza and a movie. Such an outing is a rare event. I can think of only a handful of times that we have gone to the cinema, a deficit of which they often remind me. Amazed at their good fortune, they followed me up to the ticket booth only to hear the cashier say, “No minors after 3:00 p.m.” “But the film is Wall-E!” I protested. “It’s a kids’ film, and you’re only showing is at 7:30 p.m.” “Sorry,” was the reply. A cinema pub is a pub first and foremost as I had forgotten. We settled on pizza out and a video at home.
As a final coda, upon my return, I found that my husband had neglected to take my bread out of the oven. Entertaining a group of Go-playing friends, of course he would have. I lifted each blackened loaf and marveled at the consistency of the day. From start to finish, nothing had turned out as I had planned. And this was Sunday, my day of rest before the coming busy week.
At that moment, my mother called from across the country. “How are you mom?” I hastened to say, hoping that, by being the first to ask, I could delay my own answer until I found some smidgen of optimism. “Not so good,” she sighed. “Your dad listens to too much news, and the state of our nation overwhelms me.” “But are you fine at the moment?” I inquired. “Well…yes.” “Then, good. Remember, there’s only so much you can control…”
After hanging up, I thought about my own words and addressed them to myself: “Are you fine at the moment?” I had to answer as my mother had: "Well…yes…" Things today did not turn out as I had planned. I had to settle for second-best and leave projects hanging. I expended large amounts of effort for little return, yet at the end of it all, I have to confess that I am fine, neither destitute, nor a refugee. Monday is barreling down on me, and I am not refreshed. Yet as in the inspired first chapter of John’s gospel, which we heard in church today, God’s spirit flickers in me, and my tiny darkness has not overcome it. Even in the dregs of this frustrating day, I can feel it there, unquenched.
