Tip of My Iceberg

In a home where the young people are closely attentive to their devices, two-year-old Cal isn’t limited by a screen. He operates with a little bit of whimsy and a lot of moxie.

I envy his flexibility.

In a time when people are defined by the circumstances of social distancing and a virus that refuses to be fully understood, we’re all struggling to figure out how to do life responsibly and well.

Not a concern for Cal. His focus is on what’s happening now. How he can be engaged in the present.

With additional adults around giving him consistent attention, he’s become quite the singer and dancer. New skills he’s embraced with joy. Definitely an auditory learner, he’s picked up songs from “The Greatest Showman” and is even beginning to learn some from “Les Miserables”.

He doesn’t know all the words or the moves, but he makes up for it with enthusiasm.

The little guy can really hit the high notes.

We’re all doing life differently right now. It’s made me more aware of how I want to show up on a day-to-day basis since what people see of me is often just on Zoom or FaceTime.

How am I communicating my two-dimensional self to people who have three-dimensional needs?

I’ve had to re-evaluate priorities, rethink methods, restructure how I do my job. It’s been very doable, something that has been a pleasant surprise.

What I’ve found is that it’s also easy for me to become dependent on my screens and devices for engagement. To limit my thinking and doing to technology.

I’m becoming my grands!

With the tension of the virus and the need to reopen businesses equally as critical, we’re all being asked to think differently, to evaluate how we do life differently. Everyone needs to make their own decisions about what they should do.

No judgment.

It’s not just about ourselves. It’s how we care for others who are hurting worse than we are. We need to see others who aren’t as fortunate with jobs and health as more important than we are.

I need to embrace an attitude of generosity that seeks to give to and encourage others. Not obsessing about what isn’t working for me now, what I can’t have or do because of limitations.

I watch Cal, who lives fully for the moment. He enjoys what he can do, even though his own freedoms have been limited by living with us and not having opportunities to play with others as he loves to do. He’s not whining about what he doesn’t have or can’t do.

He’s making the most of what can be done. And right now, that’s singing at the top of his lungs to the same song over and over again.

We have no more control over our circumstances than Cal has. He’s living out who he is with what he knows to be true.

God is in the midst of these circumstances if we’re willing to see Him. He’s challenging us to be the people He’s made us be–compassionate, kind, generous. Qualities we really can’t fully live from apart from Him in us.

Who will I be today?

Who will I live for today?