the wrong kind of settling

Looking at my buddy's barn a few weeks ago, I offered my thoughts on what might be wrong:

"well.......it's settling"

I have a profound knowledge of the obvious

Then I started to laugh and he said "Reborn! Don't be laughin' at my barn!"

I told him that I needed to come back with a camera...that it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen in the biz.

Now, there is plenty of good settling. Seriously. In all things be content the scriptures say....and I think that the two are fairly interchangeable. But I think that there is plenty of bad settling too. It's characteristic of our lazy society to "settle". Right now we settle for half-truths spouted out by politicians rather than do the hard work of thinking. And we settle for second best-constantly.....second best in our expectations of what life could be, of what our communities could be. And as we settle for second-best, all of a sudden what we have settled for has slipped to third, then fourth place. And the sad fact of the matter is that we don't see it.

Kind of like that overgrown patch of mess growing behind my garage that has covered the aluminum canopies that once graced our front windows, but were removed within a week of living here. At first I thought "I'll just stick these back here until I can take them to the salvage yard" and before I knew it, spring had sprung and slowly the pile was covered by summer vegetation. And now I don't even notice it.

Seriously? You don't notice it? Everyone that visits Sycamore Hill notices it.

This is the wrong kind of settling. And so is allowing things to numb us to the point that we've lost our passion for the things we once cared so deeply about. I've been experiencing that numbness I never thought was possible and I can't decide if it is settling, or if it is contentment. I've had conversations with two people in the last week and both recognized a sort of passion when I talked about historic preservation or a Christian's role in local social justice issues.

It seems though as quickly as the eyes light up something else shuts down. I think it may be an insular response. It may be my way of accepting the wrong kind of settling. I like to blame God for this one-at least I'm honest here. Sometimes I have this image of God and me standing 100' apart, both with our arms folded waiting for the other to make the first move. And I think, geesh, I've moved a lot in the last four years. Time for You to move big guy.

I played my kids in checkers and chess last night. Both were checkmated. I'm ruthless, I know. One of us is in checkmate and I'm not sure who it is.