Courage stops looking for balance

I started to pray and it began to feel like rambling, trying to capture the image behind my closed eyes. As she inhales, Lord, letting muscles and joints fill with fresh fire, make room for more of You. She was looking for space – space to remember, space to enjoy. Space to notice the things she doesn't any more because life has come down to schedule and time is money. She wants nothing of that any more. As much as she wanted to make all the puzzle pieces fit together, she heeded the voice that said to throw them out and let him work.

We speak of balancing life like we all suffer from multiple, conflicting personalities. We pace in our souls, arguing with God for more money, more time, more acknowledgment – enough to maintain the balance of humility and sacrifice we agreed to. Like caged animals, we wonder if all this foot-stomping will wear a hole in the floor through which we can escape and taste pure freedom of desires uninhibited. Balance is a word we use euphemistically. We should say deserve, which really means entitled, which really means spoiled rotten. Rotten like molding food or missing teeth, not like adorable children with doting grandparents. Decaying flesh on a body meant to be made of heavenly stuff.

Balance captures a mysterious equilibrium that no one can quantify but everyone holds up as an end-all answer. How much can I spend on myself? She asks. It isn't that any of those things is bad, he says. It's about your heart. You have to find balance.

While we reach for wisdom, we're called foolish. Where we express the ultimate achievement of standing right-side up on two grounded feet, Jesus shook the world upside-down by its ankles. Where we carve out time for work, time for adventure, time for God, Jesus said leave everything and follow. In following you will work. In following you will adventure. In following you will give and not expect to receive because you are filled from the inside, like the oil that  never stopped flowing. 

When I find balance standing on my hands, it's not the result of standing really still and focusing on an unmoving object. It is spirit moving in opposite directions. My fingers cling to the ground, my the muscles in my arms and stomach constrict, and I take deep, steady breaths. Balance is anything but passive. It is the world pressing in disastrously and my Father lifting up faithfully. It is the tension of wanting life to serve me and instead asking God to fill me.

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I wrote this during a seven-day writing challenge in December. It's what I wanted to write today, and I knew I had once already. If there's one thought I've really embraced in my year of courage, it's this. Balance is not attainable because it's a lie. Life is priorities and choices and commitments, but mostly it consists of waking every morning to Creation, meet your God. We battle the world like we're an immune system, and we do it with joy and with flair. Because what is the point of keeping all those plates spinning, again? What is the point of all the things we want because it makes us look better? We ask silly questions about what we can and can't do because we want someone to give us rules to live by. I'm sorry, there's only one: Love God, love people. And if your busy! day prevents you from enjoying that calling, you're doing it wrong. Say what you mean and mean what you say.