...this gets resolved. All day yesterday I felt incredibly claustrophobic. It took a good night's sleep to surface the underlying cause. So here it is. Confession is good for the soul. I have to start with that. SO here is my short-coming of note du jour and the one that makes me feel imprisoned: a spoiled serving of the commandment "Thou shalt not bear false witness." It is also missing its preferred topping: the beatitude "blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
A few days ago, I was lunching with a friend, and catching her up on all the ways You are providing for us during this time of instability, God. But I didn't get quite literal enough in how much credit I gave You, particularly avoiding discussing certain of the more lavish provisions You're making through the people who love us. Why the shyness to share? Maybe because at a certain point, shame makes a person's tongue thick. It's my way of associating with the North Korean philosophy: self-reliance is everything! When I realized my fudging on sharing how very lavish have been your gifts (I simply called them great bargains, sheesh!) I felt this conviction stab into my heart: you just bore false witness. Clang! The barred door closed. So, I found my friend again and this time willingly embarrassed myself all the more by admitting the whole thing. She, being a woman who understands conviction and humility, received my head-shaking clarifications with a sympathetic laugh.
It felt like going over a hurdle that caused a stumble but didn't really drop me out of this arduous life race entirely. I put it out of my mind as being behind me, until yesterday. That was when I realized that same hurdle, when planted on different terrain, had the power to send me sprawling. Some background: I teach school. I have a minimal number of sick days, of which I will need to use more than half when my youngest has surgery. Also, he currently has strep and so can not go to school. I would need to use one of the precious remaining days to stay home with him now. My husband just started a new job this week and can't absorb a sick day at his own job just yet. Finally, my eldest had a day yesterday that was basically an all-day studyhall for any seniors who didn't need to take the PSAT test.
So here was my idea: have the eldest stay home (which I guess 90% of the seniors did) and care for his sick little brother. He wouldn't really miss anything, I could work, his dad could work...perfect. The catch was that I couldn't report this to the school. School law does not permit an excused absence from this all-day studyhall for a reason like "helping the family." That one-room-schoolhouse, pioneer mentality got dropped from the acceptable truancy clause a long time ago. So what did I do? I called my eldest in as sick, saying, "He's not feeling very well," to the attendance answering service. As I hung up the phone, I thought, "Crap! I just did it again." False witness.
I suppose I "felt" it subconsciously all day, expressing itself as a sense of being crowded in so many different areas of life, and indeed many areas of life are cramped and leave no margin for error right now, but at the root of my frustration was this bearing false witness thing. The square footage of morality feels pretty skimpy when you're faced with a choice like the one in this last scenario--as compared to the first--for in the last one the choice is not between good and bad but between bad and worse. Where's the area designated for "doing the best thing in that lay-out? So what if I could point to the fact that all the other parents were doing it! (to piggyback on a famous line the kids would offer) So what if I could draw comparisons, saying that--just today--I encountered another person doing this same kind of "fudging." And what's more I encountered it in the family of God. These would be great things to throw out, with a lot of hand gestures for emphasis, while sitting on a thick leather couch in front of a placid fireplace as I drink a tall latte in the Cafe Self-Justification. I'd share all this with my designated approval-granting friend. But if this friend were really a friend, I'd get a reaction more along the lines of: wanna see God? You blogged you wanna see God. If at first you don't find a way to be pure in heart, try, try again.
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