I did my online shop this morning and for the first time in four months there were no delivery slots available. There is talk again of limits on toilet rolls and other stuff and I could only get wholewheat noodles (too healthy?) - signs perhaps that we are trying to gain control in an uncertain world.
But buying non-wholewheat noodles in abundance isn't going to bring any certainty in an uncertain world (even if we could get them). It'll just mean we will need more storage and will have to negotiate the Ikea queue.
As we're stretched like a cloth on a tenter trying to find some slack somewhere to make it a bit more comfortable, the hooks that hold us pull us tighter, and something feels like it has got to give.
As well as the spare room full of toilet rolls, that pulling and stretching comes out in other unhelpful ways - in snappy behaviour, in ill health, in retreating further within. Something breaks and we run right at the risk in front of us and beyond and find ourselves in the middle of a crowd with no way out and the edges of the cloth begin to tear...
This permanent state of uncertain tenterhooks is not good for us. So how do we survive? How do we loosen the tension a little and sit slightly less uncomfortably in amidst in the strain?
Firstly, we have to accept we cannot control the situation. What will be will be. I don't cry very often, but in the last few weeks there have been moments where I cannot take the lack of control anymore and they've bubbled up inside. I have begun to learn to distinguish the things I can change and the things I can't and am trying to lay them down by distracting myself with other nicer things.... and laughing.... because sometimes laughing is all we can do. If we can laugh in the face of peril, then we are probably doing a little bit OK.
Secondly, we have to accept that we cannot control other people's take on the situation. In our frustrations with those who are not prepared to follow social distancing guidelines appropriately - who hug and kiss like it's gone out fashion and think that other people don't find mask wearing uncomfortable too but are wearing them anyway (over their nose) because it's the right thing to do right now. We can't go and force that mask on their face or drag them away from the embrace they are loving, so instead we must walk away, what will be will be, the problem is not ours to own. Choose to step back and not be involved.
Thirdly, we must, we must indulge in self care. Like putting your oxygen mask on a plane before you give it to the person sitting next to you, there is a need to ensure that we keep doing things that release the tension of the hooks. For me it is walking like it's going out of fashion and releasing my frustrations on an unsuspecting person on the end of the phone or whatsapp or zoom. It's making space for a bath because that's the only time I simply am. It's indulging in my current addiction to Married at First Sight Australia (on All 4 - amazing). It's holding onto the hope that one day this will all be better. It's being determined to be more positive than negative however hard that is. It's continuing with the laughter before it turns more sinister. It's breathing, and breathing and breathing again.
This practice of pausing, of catching our breath, of refilling, of finding rest, it's a practice that's been there right from the beginning of creation on that seventh day when God rested. In breathing in the rest that God embedded as normal in this world the state of uncertain tenterhooks becomes easier to bear, the laughing becomes more of a natural thing and the pulling feels a little less eye watering than when we are trying to control the tension of the hooks. Lean in, let go.... God is.
Jesus said this:
"Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace" (Matthew 11:28ish-29ish (from The Message)).
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