I am not sure where you sit on the responsible meter, but I swing very much to the ‘Own it baby, if you see a problem fix it.’
Sometimes I am just so darn responsible, my son calls me a police man and we happily go about our day saving the world.
When I’m walking the beach in the bay, if I see a dog on a non- dog beach, it takes every part of my self control not to ask the owner to go down to the dog beach.
On these days my son calls me Ranger Mum.
I like rules.
I thrive with boundaries
but I also like messy, spontaneous and down right ridiculous.
It’s like I swing between moments of madness to ‘lets make everything neat and tidy, finding everything that needs a place’.
I am realising that the spontaneous, immature, child like me, is just as important as the mrs responsible that sits awaiting to be called upon.
The greatest tragedy I find, is people who don’t know how to swing between the sublime and the focussed.
There are great times when we need to be responsible and just get stuff sorted.
Then there are days where we need to throw caution to the wind and just be silly.
The brilliance is reading the social situation, the people, our intuition and learning to read the moment with strength.
Whether we should just stop being so responsible and be a little reckless or whether we need to buckle in and discipline ourselves saying yes to the opportunity that avails.
Sometimes we take ourselves way to seriously and stick to our routine far too rigidly and other times we don’t allow boundaries to bring good practice and peace into our everyday.
The art of finding balance in these imperative parts of our personal culture, is often creating space to reflect on the tone and tenure of our hearts.
I am passionate about prayer, not because I’m a religious person, but it brings out the best in my personality and helps me find my true essence.
This prayer from the book of Colossians makes me feel secure;
So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.
When I pray, I seek and I find what is my responsibility and what is not.
I find that I have a place, I have a purpose and often the responsibility is my Creator’s, not my own.
The greatest peace comes when I remind myself that one day we will be properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies and the ‘other worldness‘ that I feel will some day make sense.
C.S Lewis says it perfectly…
If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.
Sometimes we just need to remind ourselves that the responsibility we feel to make a deep and lasting contribution to the earth is purposed.
But at the same time remember that we were designed to do it in partnership.
A walk of trust.
A walk of discipline.
A walk of sometimes just letting go and being carried knowing that in the end it all doesn’t matter.
A walk of lightness, love and deep rooted faith knowing it will be okay if I just do nothing and relax today.
You were designed to be responsible and make a big impact.
You were also designed to be a little wild, carefree and light.
