the illusion of control

I like to control things. You do, too. If you say you don't, you're a liar. We all like to maintain a degree of control over our lives...or at least think we do. It's psychologically damaging to live without some sense of order and autonomy. Some people use violence as a means to exert authority over the people and circumstances around them (I don't think any of you are that kind, and if you are...please don't read my blog). Some people use money. Some people use power. Some people adhere to strict rules and schedules and cycles of tradition. I'd be one of those who do that last thing. While I love spontaneity and adventure, I also realize I put a great deal of energy into trying to replicate the last good, functioning day I had. I take a great deal of comfort in routine.  I think that if I can just find the right set of things and keep doing them the same way, tragedy and trial won't be able to find me. There will be no block of time scheduled in for them to make an appearance.

Yeah, right.

So, this morning I found myself angry. Very unusual for me. I get frustrated. I get impatient. But anger is rare. As I sat pondering what had put a bee in my bonnet (an expression I use as often as possible), I realized it boiled down to one thing that had been gnawing at the back of me for the last few months....

I have absolutely lost control of my life. Sort of absolutely. Not absolutely-absolutely. But, yeah.

Trials in my life have come in three categories:
1. The ones that come as a result of others' bad decisions like my divorce, and like my estranged cousin running off with my inheritance from my grandfather's death that was supposed to cover my tuition. Those are never fun. And are all-encompassing spiritual exercises in forgiveness.

2. The ones that come as a result of my own bad decisions, like my bout with problem drinking as a teenager and with anorexia in college. Those carry a lot of guilt and I would rather not have endured them, but I learned valuable lessons and thank goodness(!) have kept from repeating any of my big mistakes up to this point in my life.

Finally,
3. Those darn trials that just "are". Death, lack of opportunity, illness and disease and disaster. Thorns that infest the ground. Things God has anointed for the good of one or many, or simply prevents from happening even though he could.

Only the second category lends itself to my doing anything to prevent it. And even then, as a human, I'm naturally pretty stupid so there's no way I'm going to avoid every pitfall no matter how much self-control I exert.

For the first 30 years of my life, I believed that all my efforts and obedience could somehow make a difference in just where and how and with who I ended up. For the last 6 years, I've been unlearning that false concept. False for me, anyway. Not that I don't believe in hard work and discipline and constant effort...it's just that I don't believe they'll always take me where I want them to anymore. I can love and teach and be a good example to my kids but it doesn't mean they're not going to mess up. I can spend hundreds, even thousands, of hours writing and polishing a manuscript--but it doesn't mean it's ever going to get published. I can send up daily, humble prayers of gratitude for all I have been given but that doesn't mean I get to keep it. I can spend years eating healthy and exercising (like my mom did) and still end up with cancer. Clearly, I put my heart and soul into nurturing my marriage and look where it got me.

Control is an illusion. Hope is an invented behavior.

Have I depressed you enough yet? :)

It's actually a good thing--that unlearning I've been doing. I feel like I'm entering into a new phase of my relationship with God called "total surrender." I've been there before, but it's always been a brief stop, until I felt I could gain some sense of control again. This time, it feels like I'm going to be here awhile. The near future could be potentially, likely, bleak and scary. I sense there will be even further 'descending below' ahead for the boys and me. I know God still wants to hear what it is *I* want, so I make my will known. But in the end, I have to say "Thy will be done" and totally mean it.And continue to follow and love Him no matter what happens, no strings attached. Because ultimately it is He who is in control. Although it feels like I'm in a runaway roller coaster at times, God is still very much in command. I trust that. I'm a *little* ticked off at Him for making me ride this stupid ride in the first place when I'd rather just be eating funnel cake and watching kids clog, but He's ok with that. I think He even expects it.

I'll close by saying that it was a combination wonderful and horrible past weekend for me during a working vacation. I had a few moments slap me in the face with that painful reminder of how little control I have over anything. How I can get turned around and lost in an instant, even when I have the directions I googled in front of me. (read as: metaphor. also read as: reality) Stuff happens. As my plane was taking off toward home, I thought for a minute how amazing the concept of flight is. How we actually learned to launch ourselves, against all common logic, into the sky. Pondering on that and the fragililty of control, I took out my notebook and wrote the following:


Faster, and faster still. Now we're off the ground, my stomach lifting with the wheels, the grayed lumps of warehouses shrinking rapidly beneath us. Flight. "See, this is proof," I rationalize, "that if you go fast enough, push hard enough against it with a carefully measured amount of force, you can overcome it-- that clamp of gravity, that any thing that says you can't, that says 'this is where you belong and this is where I will keep you.'" Oh, it is an illusion for sure though. It is a dangerous and fleeting trick that could end in my fiery, screaming death at any moment. But just for a while, hypnotized by all this endless horizon, all this boundless sky, I do not realize it. Or do not care.


I'm tucking my last scrap of optimism into my sock for safe keeping and trudging onward towards that distant pink spot of blissful  normalcy where maybe, once again, I will find that sweet balance between acting and being acted upon. Hope to see you on the other side.