This week we took 6 kids to Wellington to experience Te Papa and other Wellington type activities like standing at 45 degrees into the wind, walking to the van without getting wet and navigating the London style streets without having a psychotic episode. We did it all; except the last bit.
In Wellington, if you want to get somewhere you cannot avoid the fact that there is going to be a one-way street or road work that means a complete rethink of what was supposed to be a simple journey. It’s at times like this when I think of holidays without kids and a destination without frustrations.
Holidays can be simultaneously fun and frustrating because our holidays always mean more children. Subsequently my life moves from being concerned with their needs to being completely overrun by them.
At some stage in our lives there are large tracts of time in which we can feel trapped by the weight of responsibilities that appear to crush all the casual enjoyment of life. Moments of spontaneous excitement are rare discoveries under a cloud of routine and organisation that guide each day’s events.
At first I thought this was a modern conundrum caused by excessive and unrealistic hopes. However I met a woman in Rest Home recently who recounted her life as young mum in the early part of last century, washing clothes in a wood fired ‘copper’ and making nearly all their food from basic ingredients. Reflecting on her story I realised that if my life has a certain imprisoned feel to it, my actual freedoms now are greater than they have ever been. Yet I’m still not fully satisfied. Why is this? Change!
A generation that once disliked change for the sake of it has now been replaced by a generation obsessed by it. It’s difficult to remain satisfied with any one thing for more than a period of time - and a short one at that. We all have our toys; for some it’s electric gadgets and for others its shoes. After a while we just don’t like them anymore despite their being in perfectly good condition.
Contentment is a deep human longing because it appears as a state of being that is happy and at ease with “what is”. Yet it seems so allusive. “When the kids leave home”, “when we get the next house or car” then we will be content.
Contentment is not complacency. Contentment sees the challenges and gifts in all situations. It’s not that everything must remain the same, it’s simply having an inner sense of peace despite the sameness. A big part of contentment is living in the present and not the future. It’s seeing the presence of God in today’s tasks such as raising a child, going to work, grieving some loss or struggling through pain.
For me, God is the God of the very ordinary rather than the extraordinary. And considering the boundless nature of God who is largely unfathomable, that’s pretty extraordinary if you ask me.
© Digby Wilkinson 2007