The Lost Has Been Found

Today, my husband found my I-pod. It had been missing for almost two weeks--even though I knew it was somewhere in the house. I am embarrassed and ashamed to admit how miserable the loss of the I-pod made my life.

The house is a bigger wreck than usual because I hate, hate, hate household chores. Only being able to plug in to the Wicked soundtrack or the latest installment of Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me! makes them even begin to be bearable.

Plus, there is the block-out factor. My daughter doesn't get to watch TV during the week, so on the weekend she becomes a television addict. Glued to cartoons and Nickelodean pre-teen comedies in the playroom off the kitchen whenever she doesn't have something else going on. And my uber-sports fan of a husband keeps the television in the bedroom bouncing around between American football (okay, I know that's over for now), international soccer and cricket. My I-pod is often my only escape from the television noise of our weekend life, barring leaving the premises.

It has been an almost Herculean effort to exercise without music blasting between my ears. I bet my muscle-tone has already diminished and my BMI has increased by at least 2 points in the last 10 days.

I know what you're thinking. It's not a good sign that being left alone with my thoughts has just about driven me crazy, but it's really not as bad as it sounds. There are times when I can be silent and open to how my mind is working and what God may be trying to tell me--but only when I can really be silent. I do that in my car or on those rare occasions when I'm home alone or am up (like tonight) after everyone else is asleep or before they wake up in the morning.

I realize that everyone's lives are chaotic. But some of us deal with that chaos better than others. Trying to juggle being an urban pastor and a suburban mom overwhelms me quite frequently. Very rarely do I get the chance to go on silent retreat. But I can plug in those headphones and block out everything else for a period of time while I fold laundry or mop floors and not answer the phone or check e-mails. Quite often a three-minute Christine Kane song does me a lot more good than a three-minute prayer. I'm hoping God is okay with that. I suspect she is.