Thoughts

I almost feel like I should call this post "Deep Thoughts," with the ridiculous reference to the old SNL skit (only minus any perverted bits!), because...well, it's going to be overly..."deep," I guess, but more just emotional(ish).

(Wow, I should teach clarity and the ease of clear writing. Sheesh!)

I love old books, and have come across an author that I'd never heard of before- and won't, most likely, because I think, after a search on Wikipedia, that had she written today and not roughly 90 years ago, her books might be the cheap paperbacks sold in RiteAid. Whatever. In antique-y hardback form, they're much more appealing!

At any rate, I was reading one of Myrtle Reed's novels called "Master of the Vineyard" before bed last night, and came across this passage (between a mother and son arguing about the son's current profession and future):

Mother:
"Yes, for no man fails except by his own choice...Confronted with an uncongenial task, you slunk away from it and shielded yourself behind the sophistry that the work was unworthy of you."

Son:
"I hate it," he murmured, resentfully.

Mother:
"Yes, just as people hate their superiors. You hate it because you can't do it...I only ask you to remember that a man who has failed to do the work that lies nearest his hand is not likely to succeed at anything else."

For some reason, this hit me harder than it might normally, and brought to mind a quote I'd read recently by E.M. Forster: "I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have gone ourselves."

To set the scene thoroughly, and perhaps reveal why I was so struck, let's just say that although I was already in bed, the room around me could not have been more of a mess. Seriously. There were clothes all around, dirty and otherwise, things strewn across the dressers, shoes all about. And, that's just our room. The hurricane of chaos naturally had traveled throughout the house, destroying all sense of order and neatness with such completeness that I could not have easily cleaned or straightened it in under an hour. Even now, as I write this, there's an enormous pile of laundry sitting on the steps. Ugh.

I'd been feeling like a housewife-failure (stemming from the daily mess that is our home, and is something that I simply cannot get a handle on) when I found this passage. And, I know it all sounds so dramatic and overly sensitive to have it hit me, as if it were personally written for me at this moment, but...that's just how things went last night. (Cue the violins...) Maybe it's because this hasn't been a new thing, a new feeling, but something that I've felt for seven years! I mean, who doesn't?? Is laundry all there is to life? Cooking/cleaning up after meals? Sweeping? I know there are those women that seem to live for this stuff, but...I am not one of them, and have often felt oppressed by my duties. I know we should "do all for the glory of God," but...laundry?? Ugh!! I think, maybe, it hit me so because of the line about being convinced that the work was "unworthy." That got me. I mean, hadn't this been the nagging feeling attacking me in my daily chores, because surely, I was meant for better than this, right? More than this daily life of household duties?

This issue is definitely something I've been praying about, more so lately, and I've found that this passage was just a nice reminder that there are more important things to do than...whatever it is I waste time doing all day- and honestly, I can't even really put a finger on the culprit, as there are many, all springing from a root of laziness. I think I've just been mistakenly placing "importance" on things beyond me, outside of me, ie this theoretical working life where I spend the day doing "exciting" things that have nothing to do with cleaning up after others.

This is my home, the place where God wants me- shouldn't this be where I show my obedience to Him? Shouldn't this life, these duties, be where I show my love to my family? Lots and lots of thoughts swirling around my head after reading this simple, trivial novel...

This has been another episode of "Deep Thoughts"...