Ordinary Bits of Life
“Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Deuteronomy 11:18-19
My mom shared this passage with me several week ago, when I was wondering how I could help my kids learn to be a little less self-centered. The passage came to mind last weekend while my girls were playing and then arguing over a game of hopscotch.
Instead of heading to Cheekwood with our cameras to photograph tulips, which was Plan A for the afternoon, we were hanging out at the condo. Hannah had been running a small fever the night before. Too many times one of the girls was just a little bit under the weather on Sunday, then sick enough on Monday to have to stay home from school. I figured that a quiet day at home would be safer than heading out to church or Cheekwood.
The weather was beautiful, so I decided that a little spring cleaning was in order. We headed down to the garage to sort through all the stuff that had accumulated there all winter. As they rummaged, the girls found all kinds of toys and games they had forgotten about, and so they were having a pretty good time. Eventually, the sidewalk chalk made an appearance, and Hannah drew a quality hopscotch court on the sidewalk in front of my driveway.
While the girls were hopscotching, I took a break from cleaning out the car to check Facebook. At this point in the weekend, I hadn’t talked to another adult in at least 24 hours, so I felt I was due a little adult conversation, even if it just consisted of a few Facebook comments. Thus occupied, I didn’t notice the conflict brewing between the girls over hopscotch.
It wasn’t a surprising conflict: one hopscotch court and two kids doesn’t add up. Someone wasn’t sharing, and soon enough both of them got pretty noisy. I intervened. I separated the two of them, heard both sides of the story, and adjudicated. A second hopscotch court was drawn, and things calmed down.
The hopscotch fight wasn’t World War Three, but it was a conflict I might have prevented had I been paying a bit more attention to the girls. I was wrapped up in my own world (I’m not blaming Facebook here–any adult interaction would have played the same role) and I was disappointed that we weren’t enjoying the flowers at Cheekwood. (Remember, I’m an outside dad.)
I wasn’t focusing on the ordinary bits of life.
“Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” I have opportunities every day the girls are with me, no matter how ordinary the day is, to teach them how to get along, how to be kind to others, how to love God and love others. With that mindset, a simple game of hopscotch becomes an opportunity to practice sharing. I missed that opportunity last week.
A couple of days ago, I watched the documentary Life in a Day. On June 24, 2010, thousands of people all around the world shot video of their experiences that day and uploaded them to YouTube. The documentary crew edited the resulting 4500 hours of footage into a 90-minute capture of life around the world on one day in 2010.
Most of the film focuses on, well, the ordinary bits of life. People getting out of bed, brushing their teeth, making breakfast, playing with their kids, praying, dancing, being silly, connecting with others. Okay, there was one pretty spectacular skydiving scene, and the guy from Korea who had been biking around the world for seven years was pretty exceptional. But so much of the film featured the little things.
Watching the movie, I was moved to see beauty and significance in the ordinary.
“Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”
Let’s not miss out on the opportunities of the ordinary.
Image: “Hopscotch,” Andrew Morrell, Flickr (CC)