Can a Small Adaptation Make You Happy?

As you know, we walk a mile to school every day.  I walk a mile to school and back every day.  As the weather dips below freezing into the single digits, I used to get grumpy about this.  I'd dread leaving my house to fight the bitter cold.

A Winter Coat! 

Not anymore. 

The Italian Mama alerts me last week to a sale on winter coats.  With my Christmas money in hand, I find a coat that promises to keep me warm.  I find one that will "keep me warm down to -15 degrees."  It's water resistant, has a "storm shield," and features deep pockets for my cell phone and camera (for all my outdoor photography sessions). 

Suddenly, my circumstances are no longer a problem.  In fact, I love this coat so much that I race outside each morning and tell all the neighbors how warm I am.  "I'm just wearing a t-shirt underneath this!" I cry out.  I think I actually skip part of the way down the hill. 

Living with flair means I embrace adaptations when my external circumstances cannot change.  I think about the supplies I need to endure and thrive. 

Bundling Up

It might be as simple as a warm coat. 

A Great Cloud of Witnesses

This morning, my friends and I huddle by the school entrance, making conversation with other parents and school administrators.  As we notice the line of cars pulling up to drop off children, I'm overcome with the desire to run up to the car doors, open them wide, and greet each child like he or she were a celebrity. 

London Paparazzi

I imagine each car to be a long black limousine. I even include fashion commentary like we're on the Red Carpet for some premiere.

My friend and I laugh about making this our community job each morning.  We wonder what it might feel like to arrive at school and have folks open your car door, celebrate your arrival, and compliment your outfit.  What if we even brought paparazzi to our morning Red Carpet event?  What if we really did announce a child's arrival?  You've arrived!  Welcome to school you beautiful, wonderful person!  You are very important to us! 

Walking home from the school, I feel like I've touched upon something eternal in that moment of opening a car door and celebrating a child's arrival.  Something about that act seems to echo in eternity. 

All of us parents, surrounding those youngest members of our community--celebrating them like that, protecting their journey from car to school entrance--represents a spiritual reality for me:  I too am surrounded by that love and protection at all times.  I have cheerleaders in the heavens. 

Doesn't scripture teach in Hebrews 12 that we are "surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses" who cheer us on, helping us "run with perseverance the race marked out for us?"  We cannot see the saints and angels, but aren't they surely there in some unseen realm about me? 

Later, I ride in my minivan across town.  As I unfasten my seat belt and turn to touch the door handle, I imagine them all there outside my van.  My Red Carpet event unfolds as I walk into the cold, bright day, surrounded by my cloud of witnesses.   

They cheer about me, celebrating and protecting.

(Photo, "Paparazzi at the ICA in London" by Justinc, courtesy of Creative Commons)

Take a Minute

I'm officially overloaded with work obligations and writing tasks.  As I sit at my computer, I become annoyed by my cat, Louie Von Whiskers, who knows the exact moment when I start to type on my keyboard.

This crazy cat believes that my computer work signals his need to nap across the keyboard.  I push him down onto the carpet, and he jumps right back on top of the computer--audacious, insistent, and. . . adorable.

"OK, you kitty," I say.  I take him in my arms, and he immediately curls up into a soft ball.  Purring loudly, he stays put, and when I try to lean over to type, he actually puts a paw on my arm to restrain me.  So I'm stuck here, holding this ball of fur. 

I do have one hand free.  Can I type with this one hand?  Not really.  But I can reach for my hot cup of tea that I'd forgotten I'd made. 

Here I sit, cup of tea in one hand, purring cat on my lap.  I think God gave me this cat to make me take a minute--a non-productive minute--to do nothing at all. 

I find myself so refreshed that I have to wonder what other non-productive minutes I might take today.  More tea?  More snuggling with animals?  What if I listened to a new song or gazed out the back window?

It can't all be work in 2011.  Imagine a cat sleeps on your lap and you can't move at all.  You have no choice but to lean back, drink your tea, and enjoy yourself for a minute.