I WANT CONTROL

I WANT CONTROL

The world spins whether I tell it to or not.

I love to be in control. I love to have everything lined up just so. I cannot begin to tell you how right the world feels when the counters and tables are clear, the dishes are clean and put away, and there is nothing out of place. There is just something in the order that speaks to who I am.

However, the world is not always a place of structure and perfection…. including the pieces of it I do control.

My life has been anything but structured this summer. We have spent more time away than at home… not to mention home is a new place (as of July 1st). We spent all of July between our old town, our new city, and two camps. We kicked August off with a trip to Boston for church plant training, during which I was missed my New Teacher’s Orientation for the county.

This week, I started my new job. I will be teaching in three different rooms. That means three times a day I will walk into a room that is not the set up I would have designed for my lesson if it were my classroom. One room does not have student desks (chairs only), and the other two rooms use chairs and folding tables. I used to move the student desks multiple times in a week to facilitate the best possible learning environment. I would always do it prior to students arriving…. so students could arrive to a place of order conducive to the lesson for the day.

I can try to do things the way I’ve always done them, which is guaranteed to fail in an environment that is no longer in my control, or I can learn to dance.

This picture of my daughter dancing in an empty ballroom captures something I can’t quite describe. I kept trying to label it, and I finally ended up with the word graceful.

The picture was taken inside a castle that was only partially built. Construction stopped because the world spun out of control. It is tragically romantic. (Check out the story of Boldt Castle.) Here she is in the center of a space that represents the unfulfilled plans and dreams of one man, and she is dancing…. beautifully… gracefully.

This is the choice. We can stop working toward our dreams and watch the world spin, or we can join in the movement. If the world is bouncing and circling to a million different rhythms, why not find one and dance?

Today I chose to dance a wild and chaotic dance. I’m sure my dancing will be much messier and a whole lot less graceful than my daughter’s, but I would rather dance than dig in my heals and cling to the idea of something that cannot be in a world that will not stop for me.

Will you dance with me?