11.16 // Manual Life

When I was sixteen, my dad offered to teach me how to drive manual while we were test driving a car in an empty church parking lot.
And I still don’t know how to do it.

It was early 2006, and we were looking for my first car. I had my heart set on this ten year old (so yes, it debuted in 1996), slightly rusted, light blue Sebring convertible from the used car lot in town. My parents, graciously, took me to look at it and drive it around. But once we got in the car and pulled out of the lot, my dad began listing all of the incredibly practical and wise reasons this car would be the absolute worst:
- It is (definitely) rusting.
- The tires have zero tread.
- You have to floor it to get moving.
- We live in Michigan. This car has no business being on the road in winter, especially with its soft top.
- Its totally overpriced. Only a purely fantastical teenager with no longterm thinking would buy this car.
(And at first, I was more than willing be that sucker.)
And knowing my father, there were probably 80 more entirely reasonable points in favor of turning that Sebring around on the spot.

But, my dad is as fair as he is wise. So we drove the Sebring past my high school and the Leo’s Coney Island we always went to when we skipped fourth hour, and the ski hill. And I imagined driving this beauty into my assigned parking spot at school with the top down. Living the dream.
But there were counter images that emerged, too, as my dad listed the car’s shortcomings. Mostly visions of heavy snow breaking through the top when I finally got to top speed. Or the driver’s seat falling out of the rusted bottom. Or being perpetually cold nine months out of the year. It was expensive and not as cool when you were revving the engine like mad to get up to 45MPH. My parents were right.

So when we got back, my dad asked if we could take a black sedan out for our next drive. His choice was a manual, so it was cheaper, and the price and condition were much better— as I’ll admit almost 14 years later. But clearly, I was not at all enamored at the time because I don’t remember the make or model or any important descriptor of that car. It was just…. black.
What I do remember is pulling into a side lot a few miles down the road so I could give it a go. And the driving lesson turned into a lot of crying and embarrassment and frustration— mostly with myself.

No matter how clear my dad’s instructions were, I could not figure out the clutch. And so I stalled that bad boy over and over and over. Eventually, I started freaking out, worried that I was going to ruin the transmission or the clutch or some part I knew nothing about, and so I demanded that my dad drive it back to the lot.

I’m sure the salesman could only imagine what had happened when he saw my red, tear-stained face and swift stomp back to our car. Dad returned the keys, and that was that.

About seven years later, Jackson bought an orange Honda Element that was also a manual, and even though we had that car for about three years, I never drove it once. I never made the effort to learn. And I chalk up my apathy to that day. Something about it made me avoid manual cars altogether.
(And yes, I know I should learn because you may need to jump in some laboring woman’s car and drive her to the hospital, and what if its manual, and blah, blah, blah. Quite frankly, I’d be FAR more confident just delivering the baby right there on the side of the darn road. Thank you very much.)

I thought of that random story tonight in my examen because my day felt much more like learning to drive manual than my convertible fantasy. The day (and all of my days lately) have been jolting, interrupted, and slow. We start to pick up speed and than, we stall: another kid gets sick with a fever and a mystery rash; there is a huge mess that needs to get cleaned up that involves colored pencils and a mural on the living room floor; someone needs a snack and a drink and another snack but not that snack; some random thing needs to be done at the church like giving a ride and making soup and packing boxes; another tot needs his toosh wiped.
(And yes, all of that happened today— or, like, in the past few hours.)
It feels like a jerky, awkward pace of life.

And when people kindly ask, “How was your day?” you are left to look up and crinkle your eyebrows and say, “I think it was okay?” A questions answering a question.
Was it okay? Because basically we never left that empty parking lot and someone is crying, but we are all still alive. So, yes, I think everything went fine. I think?

Our friend, Duncan, just posted a picture of his wife’s coffee cup. With the picture (right) he wrote, “Every ring represents a minimum of one time she had to stop enjoying the beverage to care for a child in need, most likely a cascade of needs between rings. What an amazing selfless job and task she has.”
And I know its not just me.
Or this dear mama friend, Liz.
This ringed coffee mug life on manual is all of us.

Its taken me a long time to hear the Spirit in the “cascade of needs”— all of the moment to moment disruptions, the distractions.
And while these rings and bumps in the road are annoying and frustrating, I am also wondering if they can be more.
At least, I hope they can.

When we brought John Taylor home from the hospital, I nursed him every two hours around the clock. Olivia and Benson, as wonderful and gracious as they are, had to adjust to these constant stalls in our day. And these nursing breaks were in addition to new diaper explosions and outfit changes and spit up canons. We all had to learn how to slow down and go with the flow. We had to get used to pauses, and how long it now takes to get out the door, and how mom replies with “one minute” or “not yet” much more often than before.

And I had to get used to this new pace, too. My busybody, productivity-glorifying self had to be okay with very little to show for at the end of the day. I remember sending Jackson and the older kids out to get fast food one night for dinner and immediately thinking, “Who am I? Who is this person that can’t just make dinner?”
There is shame that comes with this kind of life sometimes. When we can’t be like we used to, and everything feels harder than it ever did before.

And so I’ve heard the Spirit calling in these disruptions— to see them as invitations.
Especially when I sit down to feed John Taylor.
I am beginning to see those moments as small and sacred graces.

I have to stop. I have to slow down (at least a little).
This time to breathe is really important— for him and for me.
I have to stop doing and start being. Start listening.

Tonight I ask myself:
Am I holding my breath or really taking in air? Am I breathing shallowly or deeply, filling up my lungs?
Are my shoulders and neck tight? Are my hands or feet clenched? Can I release those muscles?
Am I thirsty? Have I had enough to drink? Am I caring for my basic needs?
How is my soul? What does my mind and heart and body say to me?
And what is the Spirit saying in response to these feelings or thoughts?
Where was God today? How did He move? Where did I see Him faithfully work?

I pour a drink and take eight deep breaths and close my eyes. All of it really slow.
Release, release, release.
A moment of peace in this jerky, stop-and-go day.
Every couple hours a pause to listen and be.

Parents, caregivers, and many others in demanding roles may struggle with elaborate meditative and/or prayer practices. It is simply hard to carve out a big chunk of time when the days start early and sleep is a precious commodity.
I was at a mom’s group right after I had Olivia, and the speaker pointed at all of us and said, “If you don’t have time to read your Bible, you have to make time! Get up earlier! Make a prayer corner and push the kids out! If you are entirely exhausted at the end of the day, you have not been living from Jesus’ strength and you need more of Him. You need to make it happen!”

Uhh no, speaker lady. Total wrong-o.
No.
The unnecessary shame and spiritual (not to mention physical and mental) unhealth that this kind of theology creates is disastrous. Especially when it creates fear that their kids or their own soul is in jeopardy.
If you’re impatient with your kids, its because you need to spend more undisturbed time in prayer.
Or maybe I need more than four hours of sleep a night.
If you’re tired and irritable, its because you have not prioritized Jesus in the way you should.
Or maybe its because I never finished a cup of coffee today, and my dinner consisted of eight Goldfish and slobbery banana.
If you feel like you are not doing enough, you probably aren’t; we can always get more of Jesus.
Or maybe this whole shindig is just plain hard. Period.
And we just need to recognize that what we can do in the intermittent moments of sanity is enough.

Instead this rotten advice that has been flung out to mothers over the past few decades, I have found that the most wise and kind and straight-up peaceful women I know have a totally enmeshed spirituality. Their faith and their lives are not at all separate anymore. They sing while they wash dishes. They ask their kids for forgiveness when they lose it over literal spilled milk. They pray while they nurse. They laugh when the kids finally go to sleep and then go to bed early. They see God in the antics of their children and friends and partner and all around. They remember bits of Scripture as their fold laundry.
Many beautiful and faithful mothers of young kids admit they don’t have set “devotion” time or an allotted time for spiritual disciplines.

Instead, God broke out of the box and is now accessible in their manual life.
The disruptions to efficiency are now invitations into deeper life.
The pauses are breath prayers, honest prayers.

Because good life is not measured by smooth, seamless days where everything plays out and everyone is healthy and happy in every moment.
No, good life is breathing through the difficult times and cracking a smile and sitting down every few hours and letting your coffee cups get all those rings around the edges.

Benson has come out of his room several times to look for his pacifiers that get lost in his sheets. And his eyes look dark, and he is itching everywhere. His sickness has disrupted my mother-in-law’s visit and church tomorrow and my writing (and probably my sleep tonight, too). And its hard and not fun. I’m not going to pretend I like it.
But it is also an invitation to hold Benson and speak blessing over him. (He rarely slows down enough for a hug these days.)
Its an invitation to imagine God holding me in my weakness, like a Holy Mother comforting and offering love.
Hearing his shuffling feet down the hall become funny, a quirk of his that I don’t want to forget.
I try to smile, even though I am very, very tired.

But I trust God is in this, too. He is near and close in this bumpy pace of manual life.