The Speed of Life

Instead of taking some time this morning to sit down and write out a script, I gave that time to cook an excellent big breakfast for my husband and me: pumpkin pancakes, bacon, and bananas. We had an excellent leisurely breakfast. While eating, I was thinking about going with the flow instead of doing a whole bunch of prep time ahead of time. I decided to do that this morning with the story for today. I wasn't sure how it would turn out, and I still don't know, but I'm sure it will be awesome. I did think of a couple of times in the last week where I went with the flow. Everything is working out much better because I did that. I'll give you those two examples right now. 

One time was on Thanksgiving Day; I hosted Thanksgiving Dinner. We had my two daughters and their significant others, with my husband and me. Six of us, just the immediate family. If you make mistakes with close family members, they tend to forgive you. And I did forget to put the vegetables in the oven to roast. 

I had decided to serve the meal in courses instead of, “On your mark, get set, go pile your plates up and gobble everything down all at once.” I decided to spread it out a little. We had an appetizer course, a salad course, the main course, then we had a dessert course. I was going to serve them separately so that all the different types of food weren’t piled on the plate at once. It's  weird to have jello salad next to green salad next to Turkey and gravy. It felt better to have things in separate containers…anyway, that's just me. I planned on putting the vegetables in the oven when we started our salad course so that the vegetables would be done when everybody was done with their salad. It takes about 20 to 30 minutes to roast veggies. If I had gone according to my plan, they would have been done perfectly in time to have them come and fix their plates for the main course. But I forgot. We finished the salad course and sat around the table visiting, waiting. Then suddenly, I remembered I was the hostess and that the hostess had forgotten to start cooking the vegetables. I already had them cut up. I just had to put them on the cookie sheet with oil, salt, pepper, and thyme. Next, I had to turn the oven on. It took a little while to preheat and then 20 more minutes to bake. Finally, I said, “Let's play a game. Let's play a game while we wait.”

All the other elements of the main course were hot enough that they would stay warm while we took a break. We left the dinner table, went downstairs to our family room, and sat around a round game table. All of us played a card game. Every once in a while, I'd run back upstairs and check the vegetables. We spent probably 30 minutes playing, and then the food was ready. I put everything out. We enjoyed our main dish on slightly less full stomachs than if we had started the main dish immediately after the salad. 

Sitting around after the salad, we talked about watching a Christmas movie.  Right after Thanksgiving is when we kick off the Christmas season. The Friday after Thanksgiving is the day we transition into Christmas. We put up our Christmas lights; we decorate our Christmas tree; we decorate; we start Christmas shopping; and we write our letters to Santa. We do all that stuff that weekend after Thanksgiving. So watching a Christmas movie sounded great to kick off the Christmas season after dinner. We picked a favorite family comedy during the second course of our dinner to watch that evening. In between the extensive meal course and dessert, everybody was super packed. I heard, “I'm not ready for dessert yet.” So we decided to watch the movie we picked during Round 2 of our Thanksgiving Feast.  So we watched a two-hour film while we let our main course settle. Then we had our dessert after the movie. 

Dinner usually takes about 15 minutes to consume and takes about 4 hours! And it was  the most amazing Thanksgiving ever. It was totally in the flow, and we got to flow with it, starting when I realized I had forgotten something. Usually, I would get super upset as the hostess or even a guest if I forgot something at Thanksgiving dinner. I think most people would. I would probably apologize and be very embarrassed. 

But we went with the flow. We had time to breathe, time to digest. I talked to my kids  the next day. I asked them, “what did you think about Thanksgiving?”  I was curious how our Thanksgiving dinner lasted, probably about; everyone said it was terrific they loved it. So I said, “Okay, that's how we're going to do it from now on because I loved it too. And just like that, a new tradition is born.

Bonus: I didn't feel full at any particular time during the day. We got to spend more quality time together. We got to play interactively. We got to visit, we got to play a game, and we got to watch a movie. It felt like an actual holiday instead of a big feast where you stuff yourself and then lay around for the rest of the day. A new tradition was created out of necessity because of a mistake and going with the flow. That's one example of when we went with the flow, and everything turned out amazing. 

The second example was yesterday. I volunteer to be the choir director for my church group. It's not my job, but we hadn't had a choir for two and a half years, and I was missing music in our congregation, so I said, “I'll  do it. I'll be the choir director. I'll get somebody to accompany us. We'll do some songs.” I know many others were missing the choir, too…singers and listeners.

We practiced several Christmas songs and did a piece last week for Thanksgiving. So we have four Christmas songs we have been practicing. So it's a little prep and, of course, the time to practice on Sundays. 

Then an opportunity arose to participate in a community performance of Handel’s Messiah. So I've had a two-hour practice every Sunday for that. Then yesterday, one of the leaders in my congregation came to me and asked, “will you plan the Christmas program?”

I'm thinking, great! With an initial note of hesitation. But I said, “Yes, but I'm going to need some help.” So yesterday, for 30 minutes, a small committee and I put our heads together for about 30 minutes. I shared an idea we had done in a different church congregation about 15 years ago. The idea was to have people in the audience come up and share 2 minutes about a favorite hymn, and then the congregation sings it.  It worked exceptionally well when we did it many years ago. Christmas is on Sunday this year, and I didn't want to put much effort into preparing, planning, and getting people to put together musical numbers for yet another event that was mere weeks away. Everyone loved the idea… a problem solved and not much effort on the part of the leaders because the program would be created at the moment by the audience!

All I had to do was send an email yesterday giving them a sample script the congregational leader could announce from the pulpit so the audience would know what to do and when. So I typed up a script that evening and emailed it to them…done! I know it will work because I have seen it successfully done. They trust me, so we are good to go.

I am allowing myself, our leaders, and everyone who is musically inclined to have to prepare a particular performance number for the program to have an easy flow on Christmas Day with our congregational gathering. So that day, no one has to prepare ahead of time. It released the burden for everyone. It’s a blessing to be musically talented. And everyone knows that Christmas is the time for ALL the performances. This way, everyone can enjoy the Christmas program stress-free!

Our exercise today is to continue being in flow through this holiday season. We know that there will be some things we want to be involved in that require preparation ahead of time and for us to be in performance mode. But, even if you are not a performer, hosting parties, meeting new people, or choosing a gift for someone you don’t know well…these are all opportunities to do what’s required for us to put our best foot forward. Sometimes, we can allow flow because it’s okay if things get messed up. We can let things be not perfect. We can go with the flow, and maybe a new tradition will be formed. 

I pray that as you put these things into action, you can have a holiday where you partner with God, focusing on Christ and the most important things. Instead of trying to put so much effort into making things perfect that we forget to go with the flow and allow God to guide us in a way that we become more like Christ, who never prepared anything ahead of time…not where He was going to eat or lay His head.

I believe God made me forget to put the vegetables in the oven. It made for an unforgettable Thanksgiving. This is the type of holiday that we want to have and that we should have. I also believe the Christmas program was left to the last minute yesterday for me to be invited to put it together on the spot. If I had known three months ago, two months ago, or a month ago, I probably would have been trying to get people to perform musical numbers on Christmas. Instead, we did our Christmas program the week before, and we had something wonderfully spontaneous for Christmas Day with no stress on anyone.