How to make it all work...........I don't know if I can "make" it work. I wish I could just go somewhere into my brain's hard drive UTILITIES and do a big DEFRAG. Just to get things to run smooth enough to get to some original files 'cause I'd delete the code line suggesting that I try to find balance in my life, i.e., my awkward pursuit of the Kingdom, nurturing my church planting habit, my family, my friends, my 3 jobs, my relationships across the board, my dog, my recreational endeavors..........('nuff with the list already).

It's such a keen, psycho-socially correct term to banter around.........BALANCE. I ain't found it yet but I can sure talk and counsel others about the need to find it. But maybe no more. So much in this way of life seems like anything BUT balance.

There's a saying coined by a veteran Metro driver regarding driving the Red Route, the Metro's feistiest and most tiring route, with which it is IMPOSSIBLE to stay on time. I was lamenting last semester about being consistently behind schedule while on Red. My colleague chimed, "The faster I go, the behinder I get."

The more balance I seek, the more teetering I do. In chasing after this elusive balance, am I just chasing after the wind? The momentary sensations of "balance"......are they just illusory lapses in cognition before the next monumental load to be encountered on the path?

I'm not staging a complaint here. I am just saying I am more willing to betrothe myself to the idea that finding balance in my case is sometimes an attempt to avoid pain/conflict/discomfort/chaos. Into my cistern-stew of self-effort soup, I dip my ladel only to find the same raunchy froth that neither nourishes nor satisfies. I cannot tame the churning mass of chaos on the edges of my ordered world. Its fingers infringe, sometimes incurring damage but always fostering the potential for inner contemplation and restoration. That is why prior to the furnace, there is not an "IF/THEN-GOTO" line......IF you encounter difficulty of circumstance or affect, THEN GOTO your reaction mode and avoid discomfort.

I suppose God creatively ordains the allowance of imbalance to deepen my shallowness- to question my neurotic aversions to the imposition of another's agenda upon mine. That the majority of the impositions are perceived and not manifest is evidence to the fact that I need the untimely inversions of my will being subjected to Divine interruptions. These teach me that balance is not an end unto itself. It's not trying to get the bigger kid off the see-saw for a more spindly companion. Permanent equilibrium is not a realistic possibility when there is so much self to crucify and fleshy parts that try to wry free from its cross. Spiritual formation is not machined from a die-cast.....it is formed from a pulpy mass with raw roots exposed. There is, however the Spirit's call to discipline, to submission, to denying onesself, taking up your cross and to the fellowship of suffering. There is movement between the extremes and the real possibility of joy in the journey.