Well, my internship is almost over. As I write this, I have 18 days to go. That’s 25,920 minutes left. It’s been a wild ride. Sitting here, drinking my ever-present cup of coffee I think about all that’s happened in three months. Other than boot camp, I can’t remember a time in my life that so much has been squeezed into such a short spot on the calendar. Things like,
- Learning to milk the goat
Working in the garden (well, more like playing in the dirt, but Brendan has been kind and gracious and called it working)
Learning to use StoneEdge (never mind…if you don’t know what this is, you don’t WANT to know)
Bible studies
Discussion groups
Spiritual Companion meetings
Dorothy Day
Mother Theresa
Killing James (the first and only “crime scene” in the history of Koinonia)
Chapel
Sunny Acres
The Egg House
And so, so much more…
No one has asked me yet, but I’m sure before long I’ll be hearing the question, “What did you learn most during your internship?” In a word – ALOT. In a more important word – CONTROL. Puzzled? Read on.
Every emotion we tend to label as “negative” — fear, anger, hate, frustration, envy, jealousy, etc. – stems from my wanting to be in control. In control of people places and things. Someone doesn’t do something that I think they should do, I get angry. Someone else gets a duty that I wanted, I get jealous. Someone doesn’t put the keys back to the truck I’m wanting to drive, I get angry and frustrated. If only everyone would do things the way I wanted, then life would be so much easier – for everyone.
But it’s not going to happen. So what’s the answer? Give up the need to be in control. Simple, right? Yes. Easy? No, but it’s getting easier.
I realized that it’s pretty hypocritical of me to want to do this Christ-like thing and still want to be in control. I can gauge how much of Christ I’m letting live in me by watching how much control I need to have. And I can tell how much control I need to have by the number of times I get angry, fearful, hateful, frustrated and so on.
I’m in AA…Alcoholics Anonymous. We’ve got a prayer called “The Serenity Prayer”. It goes like this:
God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Now you might think the tricky part for me is to know what I can change and what I can’t. It’s fairly simple. I can’t change anything beyond the tip of my nose. That’s right. People, places and things are beyond the tip of my nose, so they’re beyond my control – and I can’t change them.
I can only change what’s before the tip of my nose…me. And I think that’s where the courage comes in. It takes a level of maturity to see when I’m screwing up…which is often…and have the cajones to make that change. But since I don’t have that level of maturity, I’ve been blessed with a lot of friends and family here at Koinonia that help me see when I’m getting things backwards.
When I let my ego take the lead, I can mess up this Christian walk fast. In AA we’ve got a definition for ego that you might be familiar with.
Edging
God
Out
So I need to remember to let God have the throne and keep self out of the way. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get a refill on the coffee.
Oh hell, who took the last of the !@#$# coffee!!!???
