In Pixar’s latest film, Incredibles 2, Mr Incredible has a really great experience. Rather than gallivanting around the world fighting super villains, he’s fighting a much harder battle: running the home. This time around Mrs Incredible gets the spotlight and kicks butts in the process, while her husband comes to realize how hard it is to be the homemaker.
The writers of this movie sum up his exhaustion that so many of us parents can relate to in his conversation with Edna:
I haven't been sleeping. I broke my daughter. They keep changing math. We needed double-A batteries, but I got triple-As, and now we still need double-A batteries. Put one red thing in the load of whites, now everything's... pink. And I think we need eggs.
I feel you, Mr Incredible. I feel you!
Productivity Required
All the organization in the world won’t help when you lack margin. As I’ve been working my way through Getting Things Done recently, I can’t help but think our obsession with being productive is necessary because we have so much stuff. Physical stuff, sure, but also stuff of every sort. Digital stuff. Financial stuff. And expectations (real or perceived).
The worst part of having so much on your plate is that you cannot focus on one thing for too long. There are so many projects on the go and I can only make one or two steps of progress before having to move on to the next thing. Having a solid “system” of some sort is required to maintain some semblance of sanity.
This has been on my mind more in the recent weeks. Two changes precipitated this:
- My wife started a preceptorship to get back into nursing after 10 years away and 2. Summer holidays started. As a remote worker with a home office, this has impacted me. With a family of six, margin was already in short supply, but these changes have meant I have to be on top of my game.
Not just taking care of the details. But also being more ready than usual to deal with emotion. And relationships. To nurture (not my forté!)
We’re not in the garden anymore, Toto
All of this comes to a head in one word for me: striving. In this world, there is always a pressure weighing on us. There is always more to be done. There is always a need to meet. It has no end. Striving can have a positive sense, but I’m referring to this definition:
to struggle or fight vigoursly
This occurs in all areas of life, but our home is a concrete example. We live on a small acreage with space between us and our neighbours on each side. And the wilderness encroaches. Every year I have to fight to stop the forest from taking over cultivated land. If I were to stop mowing and pruning the back of our lawn, it would quickly be overtaken: trees, wildflowers, invasive weeds of all sorts would move in. Ignore this need for several years and there would be no lawn.
For this reason, the story of Adam and Eve being banished from the Garden hits home for me. In Genesis 3:17–19, God gives delivers this curse to Adam:
Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
I take this literally and symbolically. I see the literal work of the wilderness fighting against human effort. But I also believe this applies to all areas of life: we have to constantly strive against the chaos and, ultimately, death.
But … but!
The Promise
There is good news: rest is possible. Jesus makes this promise so beautifully in Matthew 11:28–30
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Rest, true rest, is a promise God makes for his children. And it’s what I cling to the most. I’m not the most charismatic Christian around. But I once experienced a vision early in my walk with Jesus that I’ll never forget.
Somewhere in the early morning when you’re half way between asleep and awareness, I found myself drifting in a wooden rowboat in a lazy pond. Not a breath of air rippled the water. The boat was under a large tree, the kind with droopy branches almost touching the water’s surface. Through its canopy, the light streamed through, dappled and suffusive and not at all too bright. I say “light”, for I had no sense of the sun being there … the light just was. And for all the imagery, the strongest sense was one of absolute peace. Contentment. And a presence.
He was there and I had no need or want of anything. No anxiety, no care, no striving. Just rest and a trust that my Father can and has and always will take care of things.
I often force myself to recall this vision. I need it when I feel the pressure of this world and my inability to do all that needs to be done.
