Awaiting Orders
As we navigate with Zeke being a new military family, we are learning that much of life will perhaps be in a state of "awaiting orders." You will be assigned random tasks while sitting in an unknown future until they let you know a couple of days ahead of time, "You are headed to Virginia." Pack your bags.
Fortunately, Zeke has a golden personality for this and doesn't so much mind. He will make new friends on the bus. He wants to see more of the world anyway. Onward.
Sitting with him in that process, I realized that I felt a bit of the same...like my life was "awaiting orders." I needed or wanted someone to hand me a piece of paper or wake me in the middle of the night. This is what we need you to do. Here is your new life mission. Pack your bags and your heart and your mind. Let's go!
I like to do as I'm told. It's cleaner. Easier. That way, there is no questioning, and no one can be mad at me...I'm just following orders. Here's your job, Jody. Go get 'em.
For inquiring minds, so far that has not happened.
So in the "awaiting," here are some things I'm trying to get in order for the orders even if the order is the waiting.... :)
- Unself. I've got to learn to unself. This is not the selfishness vs unselfishness pull. But more on the ties to self-preservation...or the preservation of my people. Maria Popova says, "Nothing is more tedious than self-concern--the antipode of wonder." I cannot wonder or recognize where God is moving when all my energy is directed at self-preservation. I understand that the self-preservation drive is just fear. Kurt Graham says, “Only love, seems to be resistant to the ruling passion of fear—because it is willing to forget the basis of fear—self-preservation. Thus, from love, courage is born." I saw a love for my kids create in me a courage that rose about my self-preservation. Praying for a re-creation of that in the next season as well.
- Limits. Essayist Hadden Turner calls it "the goodness of our limitations and how essential they are for our flourishing." It is a reminder that we are all limited. No amount of technological advancement or AI or spiritual development will circumvent my human limitations. No amount of planning or research or talent or connections or money will overcome the five senses, the aging body, the certain death. Stop spending energy to fight them off and work within the goodness of my particular limits.
- Sonder. This unselfing and limits lead me naturally to this new word to me. Sonder. Adam Grant brought it to our attention this week with the definition, "a profound awareness that every person you encounter has experienced a lifetime of hopes, fears, loves, and heartaches that you will never know. Each moment of sonder is a reminder to appreciate how little we truly grasp about other's lives." John Koenig defines sonder as" the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own--populated by their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries, and inherited craziness--an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground...."
In the moments awaiting orders, I am trying to spend them sondering. It looks a lot more like listening to stories than finding ways to tell mine. It is quieter. Slower. It's moving from the fears of self-preservation so I can wonder at the people around me, the trees out the window, and the words on the page.
I imagine at some point orders will come in the middle of the night as I scramble to find my clothes and get on the bus. I'll accept them as they come.
I think I'll be better equipped for all the sondering.