When You Find a Good Piece

This week I purchased a 100ish year old secretary desk from a long-time family friend. I put a coat of lemon oil on it and filled it with white dishes that had belonged to my mom and mother-in-law. I stood back and admired my new addition and thought “that’s a good piece.”

And that’s exactly what my mom would have called it. I can remember her advice on investing in quality things. ‘When you find a good piece, whether furniture or clothing, if you can afford it, just buy it. Good pieces are timeless. Classics. Better to have a few good pieces that mix and match than a closet full of trendy things. Furniture will come in and out of style too, but you’ll always have a few good pieces that stay with you for a long time.’

Mom was right. I have a little black dress in my closet that is over 20 years old. It is a good piece. I have a chest of drawers that I bought for $5 from a co-worker when I was 17 years old. It was a good piece. It fell out of the back of a pickup truck during one of our moves. It’s still a good piece. I was recently shopping with my grown daughter and she picked up a top and said ‘I think that would be a good piece.’ I oozed joy that this wisdom had trickled down the generations.

Investment in good pieces doesn’t end with clothing and furniture. It extends to how we spend our time, investing in those things that become legacy. It extends to philanthropic giving, investing in causes that build systemic and long lasting support.

It extends to the kingdom of heaven. Jesus spoke in parables to describe His kingdom. One of His parables was about the pearl of great value. 

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. [Matthew 13:45-56 ESV]

Not all pearls have the same value. But when you find the “one,” invest everything for it. Finding Jesus is like that. A glimpse of His love and I knew He was worth everything. My whole heart. My undivided devotion. My life. He’s more than just a good investment piece. More than something to build community around. More than something to add to a weekly schedule. More than a classic bit of wisdom. More than a timeless keepsake or tradition. Lord, help me be sold out for only You.

Like Water on Rock

I’ve seen a lot of rock this week while visiting some gorgeous U.S. national parks.

The lovely rock formations on the horizon evolve from the battles that rock has with wind and heat and water. Wind is fierce and heat is mighty, but the fight with water fascinates me. Water appears softer than rock, but in the battle between rock and water, water always wins! In time, the water wears away at the hard surface of the rock. Even the tiniest of streams can form a deep crevice over time. It is the quiet persistence that becomes the power.

What a great analogy to the hard problems of life. In our greatest conflicts, we have a tendency to fight with our most powerful ammunition. Bring out bigger guns! Yell louder! Hurt more!

What if we changed our battle strategy and started fighting more like water? Slow and steady and persistent.

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. [Proverbs 15:1 ESV]

A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention. [Proverbs 15:18]

If the anger of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your place, for calmness will lay great offenses to rest. [Ecclesiastes 10:4]

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. [James 1:19 ESV]

These wise instructions teach us to fight more like water. Gentle, calm, slow, and steady. These aren’t traits of a loser. Win your next battle like water on rock.

Dear Graduate, Keep the See Saw Moving

Dear Graduate,

Your picture in that cute little mortarboard keeps appearing in my social media feed. Your pose of achievement is surpassed only by the pride in your family’s eyes. You have completed thousands of tiny tasks to reach this milestone. And now you are running off to the next one.

And that’s why I want to talk to you about see saws. You remember the ones on your kindergarten playground. Or you might have thought about your Physics lessons on fulcrums the moment you read that word. Can you feel yourself going up in the air and then down to push your feet against the dirt so you can rise again. You remember what it feels like to get stuck up in the air or bogged down on the ground.

See saws are my favorite metaphor for the balance of life. People call it work life balance, but I’ve never felt that term was accurate. For the longest season of our lives, work is a significant part of life, not separate from it. In other seasons our primary work is school or raising families. Even in retirement, we have the work of maintaining our assets and the work of giving back. So let’s just call it life balance instead of work life balance.

The kind of balance that you have riding a see saw comes by moving in rhythmic fashion. Life is like that. As long as you don’t stay in one part of your life too long, you can keep a sense of balance. You just have to keep moving between your responsibilities with some level of rhythm. If you spend long hours on work or school or hobbies at the sacrifice of rest or time with family and friends, you will feel stuck in one see saw position.  If you have so much leisure time that other responsibilities suffer, you will feel stuck in another see saw position. If you take a snapshot of a seesaw at any point, it will look unbalanced. But if you take a video over time as your see saw moves up and down, then you see it as keeping balance. Same goes for your life. Keep it moving to keep it balanced.

The advice that liberated me was “There is time for everything, but not all at the same time.” Sometimes my see saw patterns were measured in minutes and sometimes in long seasons. When my children were small, I put away certain hobbies and then picked them back up again decades later. And there were moments when I stood up from my desk and took a five minute walk and then returned to my deadline. Both sought balance.

The Ecclesiastes writer embraced this notion.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

                a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to cast away stones ,and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

a time to tear, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace. [Ecclesiastes 3:1-8]

So Graduate, there is a time for everything you were purposed on this earth to do. Pace yourself. You don’t have to do it all right now. Neither is this license to mooch off your folks for too long! But stay on the see saw and keep it moving.