Seesaw Living...

"If you are conservative and not somewhat liberal, you be too tight. If you are liberal and not somewhat conservative, you be too loose." Doctor Gilchrist, one of the African American preachers at the New Baptist Covenant, hooked us all with that pithy statement. It was a reminder that balance and perspective help keep us from sliding off the fulcrum of our seesaw lives.
As a person living with ADD, finding and keeping that balance point in my life is crucial, and difficult. My therapist keeps reminding me what comes naturally for the majority of our population will always be a struggle for me. The gift of my ADD’ness is creativity and single mindedness when my attention is engaged. The curse of my ADD’ness is my multitasking wandering around in the wilderness looking for a burning bush life leaves the daily busyness of life half tended. Simple tasks take on monumental importance when I feel overwhelmed with all that must be done. Long ago I learned I was not the chair of a committee type nor am I an organizer. I am full of ideas and vision. I can see what others cannot but I can’t set up a slide show so that you might see it, too.
Living as an out of sync person requires a great deal of grace and forgiveness as well as a clear sighted understanding of your own way of being in this world. It is frustrating to have to always work harder than others to get simple life tasks completed. The temptation is to be angry, see only the cracks in your own head, judge yourself by others standards and throw up your hands in defeat. Being a minority has never been easy.
One of my constant spiritual disciplines is to check my looseness and tightness. If I be loose, my creative juices are flowing and I can get a lot done, especially if it is something fresh and new. The danger in too much looseness is running amok with no structure or simple goals. If I be too tight, I can’t get started. I wander around and worry about what needs to be done and can’t get on with the doing of it in an orderly fashion. Somewhere in all this looseness and tightness is the balancing point, a place where I can be calm and creative and contributing to the work of living in this world. Often I can find that point of grace but have great difficulty living there.
When I try to imagine what this point of grace looks and feels like, I remember the waltz. To waltz is to rise up on the balls of your feet, arch your back slightly, lower your shoulders, relax into grace, feel the beat of the music and dance with your partner. The one-two-three-ness of the rhythm, the circling around the dance floor and your partner, the lilting movement of your feet and body, the wordless communication between the dancers as they slide gracefully around the dance floor... When I am able to let go and be in the moment of the dance without worrying about whether I am doing it right or not, my soul laughs in joy even if my feet are a little clumsy. I want to stay there in that moment, to live as a dancer who is able to change her steps to match whatever music is playing. It is so hard sometimes to see my dance as graceful when I feel so out of step with the orderly structured world.
"Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing; thou hast loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness that my soul may praise thee and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to thee forever." I am created in the image of God and have a unique dance to offer to God in the overflowing gladness of my soul. Thanks be to God for all of us who are a little skewed and out of step. May our life dances bring joy to God and may we find peace in our own life’s choreography. I feel like a little waltz...