We slowly stepped around it in the field at the tree farm. You know how you’re looking for which side will go against the wall? This tree had no bad sides. Brenda wanted slim but full, and the whole thing looked perfectly full top to bottom. The branches draped in a circle on the ground without a bare spot anywhere.

Brenda loved it. “It’s so beautiful!”

We got it home and in water and turned it this way and that to see which angle was best. It still didn’t matter–all sides were equally full.

We wrapped it in lights and hung the silver and gold balls. Then put on the harp and cross ornaments.

Brenda goes, “Hmmm.”

We hung the little plastic icicles. Stood back and looked. Moved some things around. Stood back and looked some more.

“Something’s missing,” Brenda said.

I said, “Maybe it needs some contrast, something red or green thrown in.”

“Nooooo,” She said, “I like silver and gold like we always have. Do we usually have more lights?”

“No. Exact same lights.”

We both began realizing what was wrong.

The tree is too perfect.

Too full, too symmetrical, too straight.

It’s boring. It needs some nooks and crannies, some branches sticking out here and there, some bare spots, a live squirrel popping it’s head out, something. It doesn’t look real.

Living things have strengths and weaknesses, holes and surprises. You think you want everything fixed, running smooth and predictable, but when you get it you’re disappointed.

You’re not wired for a perfect life.

As I go through my imperfect life today and this week, with imperfect people and surprises, with my own bares spots and my own awkward branches sticking out, I hope I can remember this perfect tree that has something very wrong with it. I hope you remember it too.

And when a squirrel pops his head out . . .

I think I find most help in trying to look on all the interruptions and hindrances to work that one has planned out for oneself as discipline, trials sent by God to help one against getting selfish over one’s work.

Then one can feel that perhaps one’s true work–one’s work for God–consists in doing some trifling haphazard thing that has been thrown into one’s day. It is not a waste of time, as one is tempted to think, it is the most important part of the work of the day–the part one can best offer to God.

After such a hindrance, do not rush after the planned work; trust that the time to finish it will be given sometime, and keep a quiet heart about it.

Annie Keary

Can you think of a recent imperfect day or occasion that was beautiful because of the imperfections?

(photo by BigMan50)

But you can’t make your neighbor like it.

In our news the last five days we’ve seen a war zone of stories about generals and their families, and about women hiding in homes from telephoto lenses. We don’t see the very human part of the conversations going on in those families and homes. But we can guess.

We can guess it’s not much fun right now. If only you could reverse time and go back to when things were normal! 

And with all the cameras, stories, and scoops on what really happened and why, there’s bound to be some really bad reporting mixed in there somewhere. And when you’re the subject of the bad reporting it just drives you mad.

Isn’t the truth bad enough? Who gave people the right to invent your motivations and dig up irrelevant stuff and get so much wrong and then act like vultures and broadcast it to the world? Who do those people think they are?

It’s too late for that.

It’s too late to complain or try to control.

You’re not going to get any sympathy.

You’re just making it worse.

The time to influence people’s reaction to you is when you make the decision or do the deed.

And even then you don’t have much control.

Back in the old days I could choose to drink, but I couldn’t choose my wife’s reaction. Lecturing her on her reaction would be idiotic, even if she got some details wrong.

You can choose to finally tell your boss off. You can choose to give your spouse the silent treatment and be convinced they deserve it. You can choose to belch loudly and repeatedly during your daughter’s wedding vows.

You can do all that. You’re free!

But you can’t choose the consequences, or control what people say or think about what you do.

Most of the time your life doesn’t change so radically in one day that you are either President or you’re not.

Presidential candidates see the fork in the road coming.

Almost always, you don’t. 

Ten years ago next week I was released from my job. Total surprise. But when it happened I instantly knew big changes were ahead. I didn’t know what changes, but I knew they were on the way.

But even that is not how most big change comes. Usually big change sneaks up without a word.

My life also forked the afternoon I met my wife at a summer job after high school. But I didn’t know it that day or for many more days, weeks, and months.

Or a chance meeting with a stranger in the door knobs aisle at Home Depot leads to a friendship and later a job, moving across the country, and new friends for your kids who soon take up competitive duck herding and motorized chariot racing. And become world champs. Everything changed while shopping for door knobs but you never knew.

Multiply that times dozens or hundreds in your life.

Aren’t you glad most life-changing moments are not like election day?

You couldn’t handle the drama.

When did your life fork but you didn’t know until long after you went through it?

Say you’re attacked by Martians. They’re little green men, they’re acting aggressively, and there’s a large red “M” on the side of their spaceship.

It would be normal for you to defend yourself.

You’ve seen War of the Worlds. So you fight. And you lose. Or maybe you win and go “whew!”

Later, amidst the carnage of battle, you discover they aren’t Martians at all. They’re from the planet Maloomba.

And that aggressive behavior you observed was not aggressiveness — it’s normal conduct on their planet as they go about daily life. What looked like weapons are tools they use to survive and do their work. To them, you attacked first.

Oops

They aren’t for you, they aren’t against you. They’re just being who they are.

But you didn’t know any of that

Until now.

You only had your own limited judgment, perspective, and experience. And you put total confidence in it.

You’ll react differently the next time little green men in a spaceship with an “M” on the side appear. Your perspective has changed.

And in a lot of other ways you might decide to be a little more cautious about jumping to conclusions.

Perspective matters

Choose yours with patience and humility. Get all the help you can to make sure you know what you’re seeing.

Save your energy for the real battles. There will always be plenty.

Sooner or later you always get to the basement, in every relationship, family, workplace, organization, neighborhood, church.

The basement is not where the bodies are. It’s not where the bad stuff is.

The basement is where you see the stuff you don’t like

It’s where the sausage is made. It’s the tangled underside of the quilt you love.

It’s the first argument where you realize that new special person doesn’t really play fair. And they think the same of you.

It’s underwear on the floor and the toilet seat up, but to them it’s you griping about normal stuff like underwear on the floor and toilet seats up. All multiplied times a thousand.

It’s HR polices, decisions that seem silly, lack of appreciation, misunderstandings, quirky bosses, and ‘personalities.’

It’s the pastor’s long stories, the style of music, the ministries they emphasize, the ministries they don’t emphasize, offenses all around, and ‘it shouldn’t be this way, this is church.’

The basement is different for everybody

The things you find in the basement are not the same things others find. Some see you in the basement. And you see them.

I think in any new thing, you can expect to see the basement within a year or two. Maybe three. The more involved you are, the sooner you find it. The longer you’re there, the more you see.

At first everything is wonderful. Upstairs is bright and welcoming. The lights are on, the floors are swept, the dishes clean. This doesn’t mean it’s phony or fake; it’s just the way it is.

When you see the basement at the beginning, you leave, right? It’s the reason you don’t marry that person or take that job or go to that church. The lights aren’t bright to you.

So what do you do when you finally find the basement later?

That, of course is up to you.

What is not up to you is whether or not the next person or place has a basement. They do, guaranteed.

Expect the basement

Expect that the nature of the basement is that you disagree with what’s there and don’t like it.

And expect the temptation to fool yourself that the next basement will for sure be better than this one.