A Stitch in Time

I have started a cross stitch project. A picture of what it will someday look like is just to the left. Sand introduced me to cross stitch years and years ago. I don't remember the circumstances of why she might have done that. I did one little piece, and recall being reasonable pleased with the process, but not pleased enough apparently to try it again. Of course that was back in the day, as they say. I was working long hours and didn't feel any need to find a pastime.

Things change however. Now, I am not working long hours. I am busy with this and that -- a future blog will treat the issue of shelves, for example. I've put up more shelves in the house in the past year than in the entire rest of my life. And I have yet to encounter a boring day. A significant amount of my time has been devoted to trying to regain some spiritual discipline in my life. Finding myself outside the former NUMMI plant with a big boot mark on my butt presented me with the opportunity to do a self inventory, and one thing I knew I had to do with my time was to re-establish some spiritual discipline. Perhaps because I am a product of my culture, I assumed I could knock that out in a few weeks and move on. Well, either I was spiritually more decrepit than I thought, or spiritual renovation occurs on its own unique timetable, but here it is almost a year later and I find that if I had to estimate how much I've accomplished, I would say that I am maybe 75% of the way to where I want to be.

Where do I want to be? Just a bit further, I'm sure.

During this past NFL season, Troy Aikmen (the former Dallas quarterback and now one of Fox television's sportscasters) made several references to young quarterbacks reaching a point in their play where "the game slows down." He was referring to that point at which experience begins to kick in, and a player starts to see more of what's going on around him. He's been around the block enough to quickly recognize patterns and is able to anticipate outcomes and recognize opportunities more easily. It happens in every workplace. There are those people that seem to be so calm and collected in their jobs, and they're smooth, seemingly always one step ahead.

I think I will be able to recognize when I reach the point where spiritually "the game slows down." There will come a point where prayer will flow more naturally and easily. There will be time when I won't have to think so hard about what is the right thing to do next. There will come a time when no matter how much turmoil there is around me, I will be able to be at peace.

Oddly, there are incredibly mundane things you can do to obtain these lofty goals. "Avoid idleness," Father Dom Lorenzo Scupoli advises in the 16th century classic The Spiritual Combat. "Avoid idleness and be awake and vigilant, and busied with the thoughts and deeds which befit your state of life."

There really is some wisdom in that. Of the people that I've talked to that are retired -- voluntarily or otherwise -- the ones who are having a hard time coping talk about being bored or feeling directionless, and the ones who are doing well say they keep themselves busy doing something they like. One guy now has enough time to devote to his long time hobby of restoring old cars. That's a little too rich for me of course. I am cheap, something that I listed as a good point on my personal inventory incidently. That's one of the reasons that cross stitch appealed to me. I spent less than five dollars on this project (a kit that includes fabric, thread, instructions, and even the needle), and another couple for the plastic hoop that holds the material. For that modest investment, I will keep myself occupied for many hours, and in the end have a pretty little piece of art.

There is a satisfaction in having an activity to pass time, something to keep the mind from wandering too far afield. That might have been obvious to everybody else in the world, but I don't know that I would have understood that a year ago. I was too busy to understand the beauty of being busy.

So, how many cross stitch projects and how many new shelves will it take before my game slows down?

I'm just hoping my game slows down before it stops, if you catch my drift.