Reclining in My Car

For a very simple reason, today was a wonderful day.

The reason? I cleaned our car. And I didn't even give it the full treatment. I only cleaned the inside not the outside. But, boy, did that make a difference. You see, our car had not been cleaned since, oh, before the winter months. So, yes, it was an utter disaster. I think there were enough empty pop cans under the seats to put our daughter through college. On the odd occasion I would empty our car of some clutter, but let`s just say there were remnants of a Tim Horton`s muffin underneath the front passenger seat for . . . . well, let`s just say long beyond it`s natural expiry date. I`m not entirely sure it was still a muffin when I discarded it today.

My wife makes fun of me whenever I clean the car because whenever I do, or at least quite often when I do, I insist that we go for a drive almost immediately. Going for a drive in a clean car is a much different experience than driving in a car that one could lovingly refer to as `the trash can.` However, today I did not have this option only because upon completion of the cleaning ritual my wife and daughter were still in preschool. It`s no fun by myself. And besides, gas prices these days more or less rule out superfluous car trips. So after this cleaning ritual, the car simply sat in our driveway, looking much the same outside, but looking much better inside.

And so I did what any reasonable person would do in this situation. I gathered together some books--namely my Bible and a couple of commentaries to begin thinking about my next sermon--a glass of ice-water, and sat in the car in the driveway with the radio on. I actually sat in the front passenger seat, put the seat back, read, prayed, and rested. I rolled down the windows and eventually closed my eyes. I even dozed.

Mondays are sort of my day off. Though often they are not very Sabbath-like. I think it was Eugene Peterson who referred to a day off as a bastard Sabbath, and he`s pretty much on the mark there. Mondays tend to be when we go for groceries, run various errands, and do any needed shopping. None of these things, especially when crammed together into one day when accompanied by an energetic three and a half year old, is very restful. Thankfully, today we had to do none of those things. Granted, I did run one errand to the local hardware store for vacuum bags (otherwise cleaning the car would not have happened) and then proceeded across the parking lot to the local Pumpkin Patch (farmer`s market) for some fresh fruit and veggies. But none of this felt rushed. Even cleaning the car didn`t feel work-like. I took my time. There was no hurry. Honestly, cleaning my car felt nearly Sabbath-like. This is so even though I wasn`t exactly doing nothing.

What would be work for some people was not work for me. I was out in the sun, enjoying the blue skies, cool breeze, and the sheer experience of doing something that brought satisfaction and obvious results. It sure didn`t hurt that I had been anticipating the pleasure and joy of cleaning the car for several weeks if not months. Even if while cleaning it I wasn`t physically resting, at least not until I was done and sat in the car reading for a spell, I felt like my spirit was at rest. And this is a much more important thing.

A Daddy and Daughter Day

So far today has been a special sort of adventure. And it's not the kind of adventure that happens too often. Today was a rare daddy-daughter day. Here's some of the things we did:

• Had donuts at Tim's
• Played Thomas and friends on her train table
• Played with Lego
• Ate macaroni and cheese (her favourite!) for lunch
• Made Pillsbury chocolate chip cookies for dessert
• Played hide 'n go seek with blankets and pillows
• Took her for a ride around the neighbourhood on her tricycle and visited our milkman
• Spent time playing on her slide in the backyard
• Went for a walk in the woods behind our house
• Tossed rocks and stones in a brook
• Came home, watched Veggie Tales and ate more chocolate chip cookies
• BBQed hot dogs for supper
• Visited our next-door neighbours (where she was given another cookie!)
• Had a much needed bath
• Got ready for bed
• Read bedtime stories and devotions
  
  

As you can see, it was a full day. As you can also see, it included a variety of "treatsies," as she calls them. What can I say, we don't have many days like this! Daddy gets to spoil his little girl on such occasions!

What I enjoyed about it is that it was completely silly time. It was completely non-work time. Once, when I was on the computer but not really working, she upbraided me and said, "No work! Play with me!" Wise words. While not overtly religious in any sense, our day together still had a Sabbath-like quality, and I was reminded about how necessary, even if difficult, it is to spend time this way. Of course, she had no trouble at all spending a day with me without doing any work. I guess I can learn from that!

Shhh . . . Again!

Today, sometime around mid-morning, the power went out in our neighbourhood. It doesn't happen very often and as usual it didn't last terribly long. But when it did go out, that meant the TV was off, we couldn't listen to the radio, there was no phone ringing, and even a couple of our appliances which were in mid-cycle stopped. We couldn't go online either. So for a short time we had to endure an imposed silence of sorts.

I didn't mind.

Lately, I've been feeling more stressed than usual. The pressures of ministry, home, and finances sometimes have a cumulative effect that ends up being more than the sum of their parts, and that's been true the last little while. And for me, if I'm already on edge or feeling irritable or stressed, noise can easily exacerbate my attitude. And by noise I mean any media. Sometimes my daughter, whom I love dearly, can make unwanted noise too. But, blessedly, during this brief respite from noise, she was with my wife reading stories. It allowed me to sit back and quietly read my Bible. There wasn't much else to do or much else I could do! It almost felt like God was telling me to sit down and shut up. And to sit down and shut up is not far from a description of what Sabbath ought partly to be about.

But quiet has to be self-imposed too. The power usually is there to make the appliances whir, the TV to distract, the laptop to hum, and the phone to ring. So effort is needed to find room for quiet in a world that far too often tempts us to fill every waking moment with noise. Even lately I've noticed a desire in me for more quiet, for more evenings of simply sitting with my Bible, a good book, or even a good magazine. My recent experiences of the sound of silence, however short-lived, have thoroughly reminded me of this. But the challenge I face is whether I will willingly allow silence to penetrate my otherwise noisy life.

All I know is that perhaps having quiet around me is related to having quiet inside of me, that allowing myself the experience of silence will hopefully promote a stillness of spirit, a space into which God can speak and be heard. And this is really the trickier part: stilling the noise on the inside of the heart and mind. Even if there is quiet all around, I can be all noise and distraction underneath. That's one of the reasons I suspect we surround ourselves with noise of whatever kind: to keep the restless sounds of our hearts from being heard. And I suspect that there are times when this may be more or less unconscious. We aren't always aware of our attempts at self-distraction; they become effortless and habitual. It doesn't take a whole lot of motivation to turn the TV on or surf the internet; deliberately placing ourselves in a position to listen to the stillness of God's voice requires discipline. That, unfortunately, is something many of us, pastors included, desperately lack. We fear what we may hear, perhaps?

But God desires to speak to us. Indeed, he has spoken to us ultimately in his Son, the Word. And he speaks to us in the words of Scripture, which tell of the Word. He is present when we pray. In fact, he is present even when we don't pray. He is always present to us; but we are not always present to him. And being present to God is all the more difficult when we allow the inferior "words" of everything else around us drown out the possibility of hearing his voice. Maybe what we need are more power outages!