just got back from our walk. i'm fading fast. must rest. need pillow. losing energy.
and my husband looks like a teenager, zipping around the apartment telling me i need to build musclemass. (HA!)
my daughter, is coming a close second, she just ran off somewhere.
while i lag behind the crew, wanting only a pillow and to be left alone. yes, i'm a slacker (or hadn't you noticed?). between great lengths of "contemplation," yeah, that's what it's called. and writing (which mandates silence. like now, i just shushed my daugther who walked in with a stack of books and "just thought of something.")
saw this moving the other night called waking the dead with billy crudup and jennifer connnelly. good movie, i needed a tear jerking romance. that fit the bill quite nicely. see, when i'm tired i use cliches. anyway, there is this one scene where she is telling him to go awol to avoid the vietnam war, go to canada, or something. and he says,
that is easy to say because you can't be drafted.
she plays an activist who says,
that is so patronizing (blah, blah, blah)...sometimes meaningless acts are all we have.
and it got me thinking. beware the line that gets me thinking.
but if an act is meaningless, as my entire life seems to be at times. is not the very fact that i'm living out this meaninglessness what imbues it with meaning? thereby rending it meaningful? hmm.
stick with me here.
i told this to my best friend trish last night. she said,
so you think your life is meaningless?
at times,i said.
she wouldn't let up. she's like that.
you think your life matters to no one?
i'm silent.
what about your girl?
i did not want to yield on that point (because she got me. in jousting, she had just broken her lance on my head. the only way she could have done more damage was to have dehorsed me, but i rode on).
who cares if i wash another dish? really?
well? it doesn't matter to her?she asks
it does,i concede. not happily, mind you.
at least she doesn't dance on my crumbled argument. she is gracious. but i have to acknowledge my seemingly meaningless life does mean something. i guess it is the act of washing another dish that seems so meaningless. the cleaning of another floor. cleaning the bathroom, my God, an argument could be made for that being a meaningful gesture, but the rest seems like mindless routine to me.
the kind of thing that would make me say,
there is nothing new under the sun. all we have are meaningless acts.
and i guess i do say some of that. but my point is, convoluted though it may be, that the very fact that we are expending our lives on these acts, makes them meaningful.
my husband and daughter directly receive 90% of my life's work. these meaningless acts of cleaning, washing, whatever. if most of my life's work is essential mundane, then i can be taken out by that and wallow in freakish misery forever. or i can trust that there is some hidden beauty. some mystery for me to uncover. the crusty dishes and crumby floors all amount to something. because they make up the majority of my life, devour the greater part of my energy by sheer volume alone.
there are no meanless acts. that is all i'm trying to say.
2 comments:
trish writes me this:
How about combining some of that meaningless activity with contemplation. I don't know about you, but when I wash dishes, cook, whatever, my mind is occupied with all sorts of activity -- phantom conversations past and present, daydreaming, chatting with God, scheming and planning, figuring out what was really meant by the lyrics to Dust in the Wind, etc.
And when you think of it, ALL acts are meaningless, apart from the fact that human beings are involved in them, so the answer to your question is Yes! the fact that you are living out a moment renders it meaningful.
And the Renee response may have been my lance, but I also have a quiver full of smaller weapons -- for example, even your musings about meaninglessness impacts the universe -- each one of us who reads your honest, struggling words is comforted that we all aren't a bunch of weirdos. We, too, wonder what is the damn use of all the useless crap we do each day -- it's just you're the only one writing about it.
And that is meaningful, woman, VERY meaningful. And then, of course, there's the speaking into other women's lives thing -- which counts a lot for recipients like me. And you're a terrific listener, which can be done while cleaning the bathroom or not. Sooo....
your "life's work" isn't really housework -- that's just the contribution your physical body is making to your household and family and generally making sure dirt and germs don't take over the universe. Unless you're saving someone's life, what you do with your body isn't all that significant. But what you do with your mind and with your emotions and with your mouth -- Ahhhh now there's work! And work worth doing.
I love you, treasured friend.
The wisdom and exhorting of words from this friend can stand alone. If i were to add anything,it would be the visible. If lives that seem so unmeaning have friends so caring, then there must be meaning from that unmeaningful life!God loves what seems by others as unmeaning to confound the wise by His Glory.
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