(the now-married artist formerly known as Jenny Klejeski)
“Look at the birds in the sky;
they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns,
yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are not you more important than they?
Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?”
-Matt. 6:26-27
My recent wedding brought with it an extended visit from my sisters and their families, meaning my parents’ house was taken over by 7 nieces and nephews, ages five weeks to seven years. There is a particular kind of joy and exhaustion that comes from over and over bumping down the stairs with a 2-year-old, or doing the same sleight-of-hand magic trick for the endlessly stupefied 4-year-old, or soothing a floppy 5-week-old, or repeatedly letting a toddler use your body as a jungle gym, climbing up and flipping upside down.
My oldest nephew, Linus, likes to express himself in superlatives. When I gave him a big push on the swing: “I didn’t think it was possible to go so high!” “I’m a cardinal! I’m a blue jay!” “This is the most fun I’ve ever had!” I think I could have pushed him on the swing 50 times in the same way, and each time would have been the “most fun” for him. He also enthusiastically declared my wedding cake as “the best wedding cake he had ever eaten!” and my wedding dance as “the most fun wedding dance ever!”
His fervent accolades made me giggle, but in another way, caused me to see life through the profoundly genuine, childlike eyes of a 7-year-old. His innocent sincerity made me realize that he really did mean that it was the most fun, or most delicious, or most {insert adjective}. There was a newness and a freshness to each experience for him—an acceptance of things as a wonder-filled gift. It also made me realize how often I use superlatives for cheap effect, as a means of getting a reaction from my audience or as a tired way of trying to imbue meaning into otherwise shallow experiences (e.g. “that is literally the cutest puppy I’ve ever seen,” “you are the worst,” etc. etc.). Reality, rather than being treated as God’s sacramental self-revelation, becomes an arbitrary occasion for me to express myself, to define myself and my own experience, to make of the world a closed-circuit of self-expression.
Linus and his expressions of childlikeness have been bouncing around in my mind in a particular way during these first few weeks of married life. Certainly, these days have been marked with the delighted realization of having joined my life to that of my best friend and the novel excitement of setting up our new home together. Newness is everywhere. But also creeping in are the subtle anxieties of unprecedented adult responsibilities, the desire to categorize and control, and the temptation to fear that I’ll be an inadequate wife.
I want to be the best wife, the best homemaker, the best teacher I can be. And the best Christian. That’s an overwhelming burden. It makes me feel at every moment as if I’m supposed to be doing something else, or being someone else, accomplishing some other goal which feels impossible. Out of this anxiety, I find myself neglecting how God is speaking to me in the moment while frenetically attending to fringe duties with a sense of panic and anxiety. In doing so, I forget entirely what it means to be a child of God, failing to receive the gift of God in the moment, failing to work with the methodical peacefulness and joy, alongside Christ, that life affords me when I approach it rightly. Jesus promises me peace, peace not as the world gives, but as He gives. And He promises it to a disciple still on the journey—to a still-growing child.
My new husband shares my nephew’s childlike tendency to speak in superlatives. Like my nephew, he doesn’t do this, I think, as a mere rhetorical device, but as an authentic expression of how he experiences reality. Just the other day, as we were driving home from dinner and admiring a beautiful sunset, he declared it “the most beautiful evening I can remember.” It was a beautiful evening, to be sure. Was it literally “the most beautiful evening?” Well, it didn’t strike me as so, but maybe that’s simply because I wasn’t paying attention. I wondered if I even had it as a mental possibility to experience things in superlatives anymore. I’ve experienced so many beautiful evenings; is it possible even to expect to have a “most beautiful” one? Or do I just have a category for “beautiful evenings” now, that each new addition gets tossed into, without a moment’s appreciation of its uniqueness and possibility?
What to do about this?
In the Gospel reading at our wedding, Jesus commands, “learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them.” Jesus is inviting me to recognize myself as a flower, a lovely creature that he himself sustains. He is inviting me to enjoy the rains and the sunshine of his grace, and to know that His providence is providing for all that I need. He is inviting me to trust that, with His grace, He is gradually unfolding me, petal by petal into what He desires me to be. He wants me to pay attention to the gift of now and to allow now to be the now-iest now that ever now-ed."Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”
-Luke 12:32
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