what about me
“Hey Mom? What are you doing?” Riley asks, bending over my shoulder with her eyes on my computer, thick, brassy hanks of her hair falling away from captivity behind her ears. She straightens a little, tucks those errant strands back away from her cheeks, never taking her eyes off my screen.
Of course, she can see plainly that I’m creating a checklist for Adam’s weekdays during the summer. I have to do this for Adam every year, because without a list, the freedom of these less structured days means he gets lost in the weeds of his own addictive behaviors. He obsesses over phrases of music, noting time signatures in rows on a white board; he plays and replays videos of other people playing his favorite video games. Without a productive, screen-free list, Adam can’t break free of his own perseverations. For my son, the problem goes hand-in-hand with Autism, but Autistic people aren’t the only ones who have to practice intentionality to avoid spiraling into unhealthy and purposeless consumption. For some of us, spiritual formation begins with discipline, because without it, we never can seem to find time for the relationship that sets us free. We have to make plans to spend time with God, just as we make plans to exercise and drink more water.
Others of us discipline that relationship to death.
In fact, it is the neat row of small black boxes, the dates and bolded headings, that catch Riley’s eye as she makes her rounds, peering into all the rooms, scanning for things amiss like a hawk looking for prey. She probably has regular times for these rounds if I cared to track them, more chronological than about exact times; she’s always lived as though life is a string of balanced dominoes that tilt and slide, kicked off by the lean of a nearby neighbor.
“I’m making Adam a checklist,” I say, knowing it would be unnecessary to respond at all if that were actually the answer Riley’s looking for; knowing she really has a connection she wants to make, other things she wants to know.
She shifts, glancing furtively to the right, putting her weight on one leg and jutting out a hip merely so she can prop up her hand. She isn’t trying for subtlety, though; she always flicks her gaze when she’s wondering if it’s right to ask the thing she really wants to know.
“Are you making one for me too?” Riley asks finally, sounding like a dreamy window-shopper. She leans in to see what I’ve included for Adam. Immediately in my mind, I’m transported to another scene, to Jesus walking next to Peter, with John following a conspicuous distance behind.
“But what about him?” Peter says, glancing over his shoulder. The situation is flipped; Jesus has been saying hard things, telling Peter about suffering that awaits him. Peter wants to know if John will have to suffer too.
“What is that to you?” Jesus says. “You must follow me.”
Just like Peter, we spiritual siblings have this way of making comparisons. Just like Peter and John, we can mistake everything for a competition. Even though we celebrate individuality, when it suits us we think things should go the same way for everyone. We long for the same gifts; we want to claim the same spiritual strategies; we covet someone else’s circumstances. We want to level the playing field.
In the passage, Jesus asserts His authority to shepherd each of His sheep the way He wishes. He tells Peter to mind his own business, to get busy focusing on the path prescribed for Peter.
“In all your ways, submit to me,” God says, “and I will make your paths straight.”
In ancient times, they did this for kings, making level roads across wild lands, which is of course why the prophet Isaiah urged, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him (emphasis mine).” The real royal way for us will be the one God makes when we stop looking over our shoulders and submit to Him.
“No. I’m not making one for you,” I say now to Riley, trying to remember the plan I had been whipping together for Adam when she walked through the door.
Quite the opposite of Adam, Riley’s diligence is her obsession. She mitigates anxiety with a healthy dose of self-reliance and a whole lot of repetition that ultimately robs her of rest and often impairs her productivity. She doesn’t know how to enjoy free time. She loves a good checklist and always has; she memorizes them and files them in her mind. If I ask, she could recite the one she kept on her first iPod. She could tell me the list she used three years ago to get ready for school. These days, she makes and keeps her own lists, always with hard-pressed boxes beside, written in the pages of her planner. She writes so deliberately you could close your eyes and feel the words with your fingers. Making lists takes Riley so many hours she hardly gets around to following them. I can relate; I used to spend so much time keeping prayer lists that I hardly had time to pray. I can get so task-driven that spending time on relationships feels like an interruption.
“Why not?” Riley says, feeling bruised, stepping back a little, still with that hand perched on her hip.
“Because you don’t need one,” I tell her, smiling, thinking of the number of times I’ve begun discipleship groups telling the cerebral people to expect God to stretch their capacity for spiritual intimacy; telling the feelers in the group to expect God to train them to be more intentional about spiritual practice. God meets us where we are and grows us as we need to grow. Our standardized strategies and careful comparisons usually don’t work for spiritual formation. They don’t work in parenting either.
I grab a sticky note from the dispenser on my desk and jot down five things I know Riley loves to do for fun but never does because she’s checking off her lists. I tell her I want her to spend all day doing any of these things.
“It’s not a checklist,” I stress, extending my hand, pulling my fingers free of the adhesive. “You can’t do all these things today, and you’re not supposed to do all these things today. Don’t mark them off.” I tell her this knowing I will later find her marching through them in chronological order, mentally ticking boxes I haven’t created.
I know I will have to interrupt her, right at the moment she says, “next I need to….” I know I will have to put my hand over the list and ask, “But what do you want to do?” I know she will sigh, that she’ll come the closest she ever comes to being annoyed with me. She’ll look at Adam’s checklist, resting her fingers on it just a moment, and then she’ll roll her eyes a little because I won’t relent, and that’s all okay. It’s what she needs.
