Life and incense

Yesterday, as I was driving to work, one of my favourite songs came on. It is hard to describe the feeling it created instantly – intense joy and sadness all at once, mixed in with a lot of nostalgia. I wanted to laugh and cry and sing along all at the same time, which meant I was mostly blubbering. In the afternoon I had to go and give my mother something. As I walked in and hugged her, I was enveloped by the beautiful smell of Aromatics – her favourite perfume of all time. My whole life flashed before my eyes - not really/just the events, but the feelings. I was comforted. Every fibre of my being felt home.

This got me to thinking - surprise, surprise ;) - about how unbelievably apt the Bible is when saying that our lives must be as a pleasant perfume to those around us. Nothing on earth can connect us more closely to our innermost being, to those “hiding places” where so much of ourselves disappear to, than the smells and the music in our lives, for they are hard-coded into every cell of our body. They become just as much a part of us as our hair

colour - which allows those very instant and intense whole-body experiences when we are confronted with them.

Of course, these associations can be happy or sad, or both at the same time. But, even when it is sadness that overwhelms us, there is still an almost indescribable beauty in the feeling of it. A beauty that can never be fully captured in only talking about it. It is your whole being come alive...set alight...

And this is the effect that our presence should have on the people in our lives. Our being who we are in Christ and our being there should envelop people. Should create in them the same experience as when a favourite song suddenly plays, or a favourite smell unexpectedly wafts in from somewhere. Our presence a whole-body reminder that they are home because they are in God's love.

What a privilege would that not be? Definitely something worth striving for every day of this year. May our lives evermore become the pleasant perfume they were meant to be. May our words become that sentimental song. For then, our lives will have been worth it. "May the words I say and the things I do make my lifesong sing...bring a smile to You. I want to sign Your name to the end of this day, knowing that my heart was true." - Casting Crowns

Raise your glass!

I know everyone says this, but that doesn’t make it less true – it is almost impossible to imagine or believe that we are nearing the end of the second week of January 2013?! Especially since 2012 is still lurking around unashamedly as the huge elephant in the room. At this point I feel I have to confess that “discipline” is one of my 5 strengths, which means that I love having even the false sense of security that everything in my life is either neatly tied up with a bow already, or fast approaching that state. 

This is especially true over the Festive/New Year Season – a time advertised as a time of rest, of looking back and evaluating, and a time for planning ahead. And all of this is advertised as usually taking place in utter calm in some or other meditative position, with the most beautiful of surroundings. This picture, this idea, makes me feel happy and calm – even a little in control :) And yet, that is not how life works…Instead of calm and beauty and meditation, I find myself still sinking knee-deep in last year’s unfinished things. There is no time for “filing” and “clean-up” and “beginning anew”, for 2013 is already starting to pile things onto the heap that has spilled over from 2012 – some of it new, some of it old with new faces, some of it just old.

Which means that, instead of the rejuvenated and shiny me that I was hoping would lightly skip into this new year, it’s just the same old me…maybe even a little more tired…Not exactly the romantic picture everyone dreams of, I know.  A picture that is so firmly etched into my being that I have been struggling to write a new blog post – simply because I am not feeling all champagne bubbly.

So, what do I say to myself? How do I inspire myself, and the possible one or two others out there who are having the same experience as me, to “keep on trucking”?  Even though last year has decided to tag along, and this year is already proving complicated? Maybe by starting with two age-old sayings that, at least for some of us, will always prove to be true – “That’s life” and “Shit happens”. 

Yes, it did not work out as I secretly, romantically (and naively) hoped for. But it can still be mostly a good year! Some of the things I have to drag along aren’t things I can get rid of. But some of them I can. Some of my time being taken I cannot take back. But some of it I can. I cannot always be in control of every aspect of my life, but that doesn’t mean I have no control. It’s as easy and as insanely difficult as that. 

Which leads me to a prayer my grandmother always gave me - one that frustrated the hell out of me because that’s not the life I wanted – that makes all the sense in the world now: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen.” – Reinhold Niebuhr

My only New Year’s resolution? To create (read force!) space into every day to pray this, to be with God. I have a feeling that the rest will take care of itself.