Holiday at the Sea?

"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." - C.S. Lewis

Yesterday morning, I arose at the pleasant hour of about 9:30. I boiled some water, took my shower, then made morning coffee in my beloved french press, which was given to me by my parents for my birthday. (Funny how much things like that mean to me as I get older. I frequently try to figure at which point in my life I stopped asking for toys of the children's variety.) While my coffee brewed, I started making my breakfast: red potatoes, onions, eggs, and sausage all fried together. Just as the food finished cooking, the sun came out, and it occurred to me that I should sit outside. Our deck is severely lacking in the area of seating. So I settled for the roof.

It wasn't long before I was laying on my back on the roof with my eyes closed, soaking in all the vitamin D I could and singing to Zac Brown Band. Right about the time I realized what I was doing, I thought of this quote and started laughing.

"Far too easily pleased? Are you kidding?" I thought. That was the most fun I'd had in so long, and I was doing NOTHING. Yet this quote was telling me that I should want more than that. I realized I really would have just as much fun, if not more, making throwing mud around than I would going to the beach. Being able to sit on the roof in the sun was a huge blessing to me, and yet somehow, according to Lewis, I was supposed to be striving for more.

Being easily amused has given me so much joy in all of the little things that people always overlook. All the little wisecracks or the puns that occur in conversation and cause groans from everyone else make me laugh more than things that everyone else finds hysterical. I don't know what it is, but I actually like being content with the little things like mud pies.

Because there's sand at the beach.

And that stuff is IRRITATING.

Reading Job

Job has been the source of some confusion to me. The first time I read it, it was weird and hard to follow. The second time, I felt like I understood the general idea, and wondered why it took nearly 42 chapters to get it. The third time, I suddenly realized that it was written like Proverbs or Psalms, and could be put bridging the gap between history and poetry. But then it read like a musical. For real: who talks like that?

"Hey Eliphaz, I'm depressed, scratching between my boils with a shard of broken pottery"

"No worries, I'll tell you you're sinful in a poem off the top of my head."

*cue the harp here*

"Did this really happen, or is it just some kind of crazy metaphor?" I asked. I guess it makes more sense to believe that there was a guy named Job who's life stunk for awhile than to believe that God would become a man to save the people that would kill him. I believe the latter of the two. It makes sense to believe the former.

So then the fourth time (this morning) I remembered that Job's friends weren't really any help to him, or so it's been said to me. But as far as I could gather, everything they were telling him was true; he just knew it already, and expressed as much. So Job spent 40 chapters whining about how righteous he was, how he was being punished for no reason, and on and on and on and on.

I wanted to play Eliphaz and be like "DUDE. You self-righteous, arrogant, whining little boy. SHUT. UP. Yes. Everyone's dead, but you shook that one off like a champ. Yes, you hurt. But you crying about it isn't going to solve anything."

While I am only about halfway through Job, the little booger is irritating me. I'm gonna be excited when God shows up, rocks his world, and puts Job back in his place.

I say this knowing that we all whine every now and again. I feel like I've been whining my whole life. We even whine when our friends try to help, but we don't want to hear it because all we know is our own pain. While many of us don't get the fireworks that Job does, I know I could use one when I whine about my life. Especially because I have a job, a place to live, food to eat, friends and family that love me, a church to attend that isn't in danger of getting torched, five quilts on my bed, and an air purifier on top of my dresser.

So I'll fight through Job. It'll probably still confuse me, but it seems I take something different from it every time.