Here a Little, There a Little

I know, I know… It's been a while.

First it was a couple of days gone by, then a week and then a month. I never set out to go so long between posts, but that’s how things happen.

A few months ago back in the spring of this year, there was a lot of rain around here. It seems as though we were in the national news quite a bit, although we only really knew how bad the floods were when we had to cross the streams to get around. Yes, some of our journeys take us down dirt roads, through fields, and across running waters. Some were literally impassable, and even the mighty Jeep couldn't handle some of the raging waters, as difficult as that may be to believe.

As a result of the flooding, our water supply was contaminated and began to run brown out of the faucets. Yuck. It only lasted a couple of days and then things were back to normal.

Some time later, maybe a month or so, I noticed that the water pressure wasn't what I thought it should be. It wasn't a drastic or sudden change like it was there yesterday and today it’s not, but I just happened to notice it for some reason. I asked Sheri about it and then she noticed it too.

After doing some maintenance on the well pressure tank and changing all of the filters (which really should have been done right after the brown water had cleared up), we had our water pressure back. That first shower was delightful too, I might add.

I thought about that and made a mental note to myself to jot down some thoughts on why this seemingly insignificant and minor inconvenience was such a big deal to me. Like most of my mental notes though, this one got lost for a while in the mental mess that clutters up my mental desk.

The thing that really struck me is that this decrease in water pressure didn't happen all at once. It happened very slowly and over a period of time so that it went unnoticed until one day we said "Hey, wait just a dingdangcottonpickin’ minute..." and there we were with a problem that had really started some time back and had been constantly building in the meantime.

OK, so that's how things happen with me. Here a little and there a little until something is noticed, right? I would guess that I’m not alone in this either.

I am neither young enough nor do I shave often enough to be considered by any stretch of the imagination a clean cut young man. I don’t intentionally set out to grow a beard most of the time. I just don’t shave one morning, and again the next morning and so on until someone (usually Sheri) asks me if I’m growing a beard again and why didn’t I just keep the last one I had. I have no answer for that. It just happened because I wasn’t paying enough attention to my own face. (Have you seen my face and is this really a great surprise to anyone?)

My weight is the same. I don’t notice the pounds accumulating one by one, but here I am a good 50 pounds or so heavier than where I should be (according to those know-it-all-smarty-pants doctors.)

The length of my hair, the ever-dwindling pile of firewood in the winter that never replenishes itself, the ever-increasing pile of ash in the bottom of the wood stove, the pile of dishes, the state of the litter box, the amount in the bank account, the length of time since the last birthday card was sent or the last anniversary remembered (Happy 1st anniversary to my daughter Jessica and her husband Brandon), other important dates that have come and gone, the time that’s elapsed since we noticed that our kids are growing up, realizing that our families are growing apart, the frequency of visits to the in-laws, the last time “I love you” was said with real feeling, the visiting of friends that used to be almost every day but now doesn’t happen at all, the time that goes by between phoning loved ones, checking on each other, the regularity of reading our scriptures or getting down on our knees to give thanks, how long it’s been since we took the time to remember what’s important, the accumulation of dirt on the mighty Jeep, the growth of the lawn … all change at a pace that we don’t notice until we find ourselves at a place where it can no longer be ignored or unnoticed.

I’m not trying to be a downer here. The truth of the matter is that this is how things happen. Here a little and there a little.

We don’t expect our children to be born ready to enter the business world and fend for themselves. We expect them to learn things, yes. But we don’t expect them to absorb everything that we would like to shove down their little throats just because we want them to know that fire is hot and gravity can be their enemy when they’ve climbed to the highest branch in that tree. We know that they learn what they need to know when they need to know it, and then they build upon that previous knowledge until one day they realize that they have mastered something that was previously thought to be impossible.

I am thankful that I was raised in an atmosphere where my imagination was allowed to run wild. Sometimes it got me in trouble, sometimes it spawned great ideas, and sometimes it was just fun to dream about stuff.

I am about to embark upon an adventure that began somewhere in my past with an idea that I can’t even really remember. I didn’t set out to be a home builder. I never thought that this is where fate (if you want to call it that) would take me. I’ve done so many other totally unrelated things and I’ve been so many other totally unrelated things. Building homes just snuck up on me. I guess if I had been paying close enough attention, I would have seen this coming somewhere in my past. But that’s how things go… here a little, there a little until I look up and notice what I’ve become, and have the audacity to be surprised.

Things happen like that spiritually also. I never made a conscious effort to fall away from my beliefs, it just happened while I wasn’t paying attention. And when I finally noticed where I was, I thought that I was too far gone to ever be able to find my way back. And then while I wasn’t paying attention, my core beliefs found their way back to the forefront of my everyday thoughts, the standards that I had set for myself years earlier began to manifest themselves in my daily behavior, and I found that hitting my knees to give thanks was a lot harder then I remembered only because it had been so long.

Have you ever found yourself face to face with someone that you used to be really close to but had just stopped making contact with for no apparent reason? Awkward, huh? All of those things that you used to share together are no longer part of your daily lives and so you struggle to find any commonality until you give up and go your separate ways. Sometimes we get lucky and find that common ground before the awkwardness becomes too great to bear, but sometimes we let the moment slip by and give up because that’s easier than actually working to rekindle a relationship.

That’s what happened with me. It was just easier to go about my daily life and avoid discussions with God because it had been too long and I didn’t really know what to say anymore. That relation ship was gone and I didn’t know how to get it back, you know. It was easier to avoid reading scriptures than to do the work involved in applying the lessons therein to my own life.

But you know what? I began to read, and then reading became easier. I began to pray and praying wasn’t so difficult after a few times. I went to church one time, and then going to church was something I looked forward to instead of dreading because I hadn’t been for so long.

Just as easily as we can develop bad habits, we can develop good habits. Just as we can forget to do the important things, we can remember to make them a daily part of our lives. Wouldn’t it be great if we could automatically hold on to the things that make our lives great while not having to work to keep them? Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we could decide what and who we want to be and then become that person and just stay that way without any effort? Doesn’t work that way though.

After our adventure with the water pressure and the investigation into the problem and the numerous trips into town for filters and filter wrenches and the effort it took to make things right again so that we have sufficient water pressure with clean water, I’m a little more in tune with what is coming out of the faucet. And after the effort it took to relearn what I had forgotten, I’m paying a little more attention to the state of my own spirituality.

I don’t want to take any more weak showers, and I don’t want to have to fight my way back from the dark and dreary places that I’ve found myself.

I really do enjoy writing these thoughts of mine on this blog. I don’t know who reads them and that’s really not why I write. These posts help me to clear off that mentally cluttered mental desk of mine. When I started this blog, I wrote every day. Little by little though, I slowed down until one day I looked up and found that I hadn’t added anything in quite a while. I almost screamed out loud when I made a visit to that mental desk and saw what had piled up there.

I was tempted to set fire to the whole thing and just start over, but I decided to write this instead. I said from the very beginning that I write for myself and that remains as true today as it was when I first said it. So I’ll work a little harder on clearing off that cluttered up mental desk of mine, here a little and there a little. I hope it never gets completely clean though… what would I do then?

I’m pretty sure that I’m going in the right direction now, but I’m not that much different that most things that go in this world… I go a little at a time, working on things here a little and there a little until I look up one day and notice that I like where I am, and I’m really kinda surprised that I’m here.

Until next time…