The Mess Is The Work.

After my mother died, I took to organizing and cleaning.

I bought drawers liners and sock dividers.  I arranged my highlighters by color.  I started Kondo folding all of my clothes.  I developed a laundry schedule, where the previous agenda had been: “Wash the clothes when the hampers overflow.”

My husband was bewildered by clean towels every weekend. 

Much of this, improbably, has stuck.  If I was going to have a weird grief response, I can only think this is one of the better ones to have: a deep, driving urge to impress a calm and neatness over everything, to tuck away all loose ends, to fold up and put away. 

The irony here is that my mother was a cleaning obsessive par excellence.  I was an endless source of frustration for her because of how I chose to keep—or not keep—my house.  If I left clutter out, she would sit quietly for hours until she burst out: “Are you going to put that away somewhere?  Are you just going to let it sit out?”

Elisha requested a double portion of Elijah’s spirit.  I didn’t request a double portion of mother’s militant ability to organize and clean, but somehow I possess it ever since she’s gone to be with Christ.

I’m sure a psychologist could tell you that this is something about me trying to assert control over the uncontrollable.  I’m almost certain that’s what it is and I’m not a psychologist.  In the absence of my mother, I’ve turned to whatever is at hand—underwear, paper towels, knickknacks, pens—and bent it to my will.

I don’t like loose ends.  I don’t like messy edges.

There is a set of drawers in my house that won’t close.  I don’t know what mechanism failed internally, but no matter how firmly or how many times you close them, they just…slowly open again.  It’s maddening.  Nothing sets my teeth on edge more than the sight of a bureau of drawers all half-ajar. Every day I close them all; by night they’ve rolled open again.

When we finally decided to purchase new bedroom furniture I nearly wept for joy.

And I write this because, despite my efforts to keep everything around me neat and clean and sensible, life continues to be anything but.  My new leadership role at work has taught me the absolute impossibility of control.  I make plans; they go awry due to a slew of variables beyond my control.  People don’t behave as I expect.  Work inches beyond its boundaries and my stated hours.  The drawers won’t stay closed.

This is why, perhaps, I found reading Numbers 11 recently so incredibly gratifying.   At the end of his tether, Moses stomps up to God and says:

“Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their ancestors?”

God, I did not give birth to these idiots.  I don’t own these people.  I want nothing to do with them.  Why am I obligated to shepherd them around?  Why am I the pack mule for this group of ingrates?  Do you hate me this much? (11-12).

Then he asks God to kill him so he doesn’t have to face the ruin of everything before him.

I’d say Moses is being overwrought, but I have lived this!  So many plans, ideas, sketched-out instructions go awry beyond my wildest dreams. I go to God asking to relieve me of the curse of the burden. It would be funny if it wasn’t so frustrating. 

Recently, I worked with a colleague on a project I was meant to oversee.  He volunteered to carry it out for me, eager to engage.  We came up with a careful plan.  We decided how we ought to proceed and in what order.  “Does this work for you?” I asked.  “Can you do this?”

“Absolutely,” he said with firm conviction.  “This makes total sense.”

Two days later I got a call: my colleague had gone rogue, abandoned our careful plan, piped up at a meeting we agreed he wouldn’t pipe up at, started a small war, made a lot of people mad, and made even more people confused.

I called him.  I bit my tongue until it bled.  “So,” I asked lightly, “what happened to the plan?”

“You know,” he responded warmly, oblivious to the chaos he had caused, “I just decided to wing it.”

This is where we are called, to the mess, to the plans gone awry, to the chaos.  Reading Acts is enough to show you: yes, the new church was passionate and loving and brimming over with the Spirit, but they were also a cesspit of trouble.  They argued and bickered and complained.  They pointed fingers and misbehaved.  Half of Paul’s letters are sorting out nonsense that never should have happened.

And again: this is where we are called.

I stomped into a dear friend’s office recently, complaining. A Moses moment, if you will.  I could lead well, I said, if only people would let me.  If they’d listen.  If they’d carry out what we all decided and agreed to do.  If they stopped breaking promises or lying outright or complaining or letting their cynicism overwhelm our ability to get anything done.

My friend only laughed.  “What you’re describing is leadership.  The mess is the work.”

I like end states. I like the clothes folded.  I like the highlighters organized and the spice bottles in a neat line.  I like crossing off items on my to-do list. But the day-to-day work God has called me to is different: the drawers don’t always close and the items move from day to day on my list and the spice bottles fall over and roll around.

It doesn’t mean I stop trying.  But it means I give a lot of grace—to others and to myself.  It means I try to find God’s presence and listen to the Spirit while the chaos is happening, not after its died down.  It means I’m growing comfortable with what I can’t control.

The mess is where we do our work.  The mess is the work.