Order in the court

The 60s and 70s were times of upheaval and turmoil by most readings of American history. But my life back then was comfortingly orderly. We grew up with simple routines that were, looking back on them, almost comforting. Every school-day morning the clock radio flipped to 7 a.m. and woke us to the sounds of WBTM’s playlist that seemed to consist solely of Paul Simon tunes. My sister and I knew to slip on the clothes that had been laid out the night before. We could hear Daddy in the kitchen boiling water for our cereal. Mama combed our hair while we spooned our oatmeal. Even the last minute rush out the door was part of the normalcy of our mornings.

Then it was laundry on Friday, housework on Saturday morning and church on Sunday. And still there was time on Sunday afternoons to take a drive to visit family friends. By sundown on Sunday we’d still be playing tag and catching lightning bugs while our parents lingered over their goodbyes. No one was frantically trying to get ready for the next frantic week. It was peaceful because times were different. But also because my parents lived and raised us according to their sense of order.

What happened? Those routines worked for all of us—or seemed to. (My mother was often late for things but never frazzled and frantic as I so often am.) So why am I not following that lead?

In so many ways, I’m freer than my parents were. There are fewer rules, more choices and more "conveniences," so my life is much more “anything goes” than theirs. And while that would seem to make things so much easier, it also seems to open the door to chaos. Having a whole cornucopia of choices means… well, that we have to wade through all of them and decide what to do. Frankly, it’s all too much.

I’m not nostalgic for the 70s. (The eyeglass frames alone are enough to make me never wish to turn back time.) But I need more order in my life.

People who know me will think I’m heading into OCD territory; I have a rep for being pretty organized. But “order” the way I’m thinking about it feels a little different from “organization.” The latter has a whiff of everything-in-its-place rigidity. Order feels more fluid, more instinctive. Order isn’t uptight, but it is focused. It’s about being on purpose.

My first step toward a more orderly life: A more orderly mind. My brain is so frantic with thoughts that it’s hard to get a thought-out thought…out. You’ve got to make sense to yourself, self-help guru Iyanla Vanzant likes to say. I’m so busy doing and going and rushing and responding to the needs of other people that my hours are often consumed by tasks that seem necessary at the time, but that don’t always yield much at the end of the day. Even getting my life in order has become a task that I’m rushing through and tripping over.

I’ve got to stop. Stop trying to keep up with the self- and society-imposed demands to respond— instantly and cleverly—to every request that hits my desk or my ear. I need to be still long enough to see what’s really needed. (First, I need to check for what I need. But that’s a post for another day.) I need to stop to get a sense of what really makes sense and a sense of how best to move toward that. If I give myself space to breathe and think—and ease myself away from the tendency toward swift, blind reaction—I have the feeling that a sense of order will follow. May it be Divine Order.