Do you make lists?
In our busy lives of undulating intention and meaning, many of us have so many things to do or pray about or decide on or file that it is hard to keep up with it all. We work almost as hard to keep our "plates spinning" as we do to follow through on our responsibilities – real or imagined. And sometimes…we work awfully hard to ignore our must do lists.
I have ADHD. This reality not only makes me prone to impulsivity, distraction, and high energy, but the ability to spin my plates, your plates, your dog's plates, and then to forget about the plates all together and go off for an ice cream cone and run about the park.
So I make lists – often in a few different journals, notebooks, and on sticky notes. I even have a nifty app on my Android called "ColorNote" which helps me simultaneously keep track of my grocery list, weekly/immediate To Do list, and my Monthly To Do list. ColorNote has been a blessing on so many levels.
And I've wondered if this need-to-remember-all-sorts-of-to-dos-and-things is part of our American/Western culture or did it spring up in antiquity? Even God had his Top Ten long before Letterman, but in the everyday ordinary lives on the ancients, did they haul so many responsibilities around that they required an iScroll or the Franklin-Cavey organizational management system for shepherds? It doesn't seem so.
Do we muck up and fluff up our days because we must or do we feel more important when buzzing around Mach 10 with our hair on fire? Hmmm. I just don't know.
I picked up my copy of Henry David Thoreau's Walden years ago and only last Sunday cracked it's spine to read it. I loved the first chapter, "Economy", as Thoreau details how he crafted his home and life for two years alongside a friend's Massachusetts lake. A little further into the book and I'm enjoying most of it – which is great!
It was a surprise to see that even H.D. had a few lists; lists detailing expenditures*, wages earned (as needed) and more. It was satisfying that even he launched out on a journey-sort of a Kingdom Journey to abandon his comfort zone and live with intention (though I think he may have bristled at "Kingdom").
The oddkin brilliant son of a pencil manufacturer, he left the hustle and bustle of Concord city life for a few years of respite, deep thoughts, and hard work…and time for play. He left it all so he could live with intention; the same reason many of us drive deeper into the forest of doing, lists, expectations, ambition, and achievement. Intention.
My intentional move to North Georgia and the journey it has launched has pulled me out of the soup of doing into the disquieting quiet of new people, place, purpose, and prayers…"lists" offered to an unseen God. Park Creek Court is no Walden, but I am learning in the contrasting stillness compared to the whirling dervishness of "life before". It's not easy nor is it often welcome. In this time, I've found the challenge to uncover 1,000 Happinesses or Thankfuls, to "cease striving and know", to ask for help, and be still – whether being still means a tromp in the woods, a mile in the pool, or laughing through my attempts at yoga (TIMBER!).
All of this red clay and new ground has uncovered emerging lists and wiped out a few old (or "is wiping out" a few old) lists. Selfish ambition, note-worthiness, and out-running fear are bullet-points no longer given space on my to-dos though they creep back on at times. Instead, I have given voice to my Kingdom Dream and am crafting new Top 10s and a Bucket List.
I have no idea where all this will lead. No. Flippin. Idea. But I do appreciate your good company and those prayers along the road. Below are a few mile markers that I've found on this journey and I've put them into a Bucket List of sorts.
Allie's North Georgia Bucket List
Daily: to close the gap between God and myself – the gap I create in my shenanigans
Love my kids: to support them and see them without hovering (because they are such cool people!)
Love my friends: to support and engage with them
Go Zip-lining
Climb, hike, walk, run, swim, and play as often as possible & hopefully in good company
Take time for Wonder: to look at bugs, under rocks, at the way the sun streams through trees & fog
To hold kids and love them – sing to them – in far flung places – getting all goobered up in the process
To add value and not take away from inherent value
To Explore the town, hills, city, Atlanta, region, world
To dance like Matt in far-away places and around distant fires
Live with or without a list, but with people and time in quiet as job 1
To tell the stories of life and lives along the road as an offering – bearing witness to an unseen God
What's on your bucket list?
Well said! I am with you! Both as I feel like I am in a similar place but also with you in that I am cheering you on as you continually check things off your lists!