Chaos and Creation

I wonder what was going through our minds when the creation of the world was going on, in preparation for our mission down here to earth. Did we ever look around and say-- this is a mess; it's never going to come together in time! Did we come up short and say something like "why are you playing around with these massive reptiles and amphibians?- Oh, they're to spark the imaginations and challenge the memories of five year olds in the future, and keep the archeaologists employed? well, ok, as long as I don't have to figure out how to cook them."

I bring that up because the archaeologist of the future on unpacking the storage unit where we are depositing all the treasure and detritus of our 35 years of married life is going to come to some odd conclusions, no doubt. This single, unpaired ski pole? One of the inhabitants must have had only one arm! In actuality of course, this tool has the important use of being used to hang and retrieve a very high wall hanging from the front stairs, and occasionally support climbing plants in the garden.

We're now in the middle of the beginning, and racing closer to the end of the beginning, or at least the end of the prelude. Thankfully today is a day of respite and fasting, and even though the seemingly countless tasks around us will be calling in their progressively strident voices "Do me, now!" we may have the calm to resist most of their calls and devote ourselves to the matter of spiritual preparation to represent the Savior as a minister of his word, and a doer of his works. I'm sure that each of my friends and family could muster a lengthy list of spiritual peccadillos that I should likewise respond to ("Fix me, now!") but I know you are too kind to begin down that path. Or perhaps you have the same faith that I do, that being that in God's curriculum for each of us, there is an order of his own, and he grants us space to take each progressive task, which in his wisdom is divinely suited to our eternal destiny. Today, I can in confidence simply ask him to help me through the next lesson I need to learn, to solve the next issue in my life. And he will.

The kitchen was packed this week, save for a few remaining utinsils, so I can now state with confidence that it is possible to cook pancakes (or rather one pancake) in a wok, undoubtedly a useful skill when heading to the Hong River bank. Likewise, my office is nearly empty of my fabulous collection of journals and stacks of paper. I think I observe there that the key to making the decision about whether something is importnt enough to keep is to let it sit in a pile and age a good year or two, at which point, the decision becomes infinitely easier. And most of the business cards accumulated in small stacks are likewise either "sure glad I know them," "who was this?" or "no longer works there" and thus similarly discardable. But one doesn't do that with the relationships hopefully behind them.

We will be "set apart" as missionaries, or as we'd like to call ourselves, "thien vien," loosely translated as "volunteers for the good" in one week, marking the end of the prelude, and the beginning of the exposition. There may still be elements of chaos around us, but most of our lives will by then be packed into one of two places-- the two bulging suitcases that will accompany us, or storage unit 671. Maybe there'll be a poem in there somewhere.