Truth on a grocery list

I was tidying up our main living space this morning, muttering to myself about the incredible accumulation of crumbs, paper scraps, raisins, M&Ms, and broken bits of crayon on the floor I’d just swept yesterday. I was breathing sighs of gratitude for hardwood, not carpet; and I was mentally churning over the array of chores and errands available for my attention today. 

I need to make a list! I realized. Grabbing the nearest scrap of paper littering the living room, along with a Halloween-themed pencil, I scribbled, ironically: paper. The stack we keep by the computer—the one that gets raided regularly for craft projects and ends up in pieces on the hardwood floor—was gone. Next, toilet paper. Then juice, cheese, chocolate chips… (Some people would be grossed out by mixing grocery items with toiletries. Not me…not after living with infants and children for nearly 12 years.)

“What are you writing?” Pearl the master mess-maker inquired.

“Making a list of things we need,” I mumbled back, trying hard to channel the household deficiencies I’d noted recently onto the (literally) crummy piece of paper.

“Like toys?” she asked eagerly. My eyes scanned the kaleidoscopic collection of plastic entertainment cluttering our kid-friendly home.

“Of course,” I agreed, not wanting to lose focus to explain to her the meaning of “irony.”

Toys, I jotted on the list.

Satisfied, she went back to her mess-making. About a minute went by. I kept scribbling, she kept crafting.

“Did you write ‘Jesus’?” she wanted to know.

“Huh?”

“You should write ‘Jesus’ on the list,” she insisted.

“But I can’t buy Jesus at the store,” I said, very grown-up-like.

“But Jesus is definitely something we need!”

Amen, dear child, amen.

The real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.  And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind. — C.S. Lewis