Don’t streamline your way to apathy. Set a course that calls forth your best. Organization should direct our effort, not eliminate it. Let’s raise our sights and embrace the good work we are called to walk in.
In class with my high school seniors a couple weeks ago, we were watching the Modernity videos from Dave Raymond about the 1960s.
He included the historic clip of Kennedy announcing the goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade. This sentence from that speech jumped out at me:
“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.”
Of course my radar went off because he used the word organize, but also because I realized how different this use of the term is from our usual use as moms.
When moms are hunting for strategies to get organized, we are doing so to simplify and streamline life. Organization does do that, but not in the way we usually think.
Organization isn't to make life easy
When we think “simple,” we too often picture “easy” and “smooth” as synonyms. We are looking for the system, the solution, that will fix everything up. Once we are organized, we think, our mental energies will no longer be required. That’s our goal - to be disengaged automatons in our home. How inspiring is that?
Perhaps you think I exaggerate. However, consider what you think the payoff will be once you get your paperwork organized or your meal plans and pantry organized or your time management figured out. Isn’t it that you won’t have to think about it anymore? It will just exist in a “working” form. We assume that the better the system works, the less we will have to work.
In other words, our ideal organization will dehumanize us and our home. By seeking automation in the home, efficiency in our days, and minimalism in our efforts, we really are seeking to remove ourselves — even if only mentally and emotionally — from our homes.
We might still count ourselves as stay-at-home moms, but what we want is the ability to mentally check out of as much of the daily reality as possible. If we’re honest, the payoff we want from the effort of getting organized is to be disengaged.
However, as humans we have skills and energies to bestow. We will bestow our skills, energy, and attention on those things we most value and desire. We will take time with those things we think matter. In fact, giving our time and attention is one way of expressing, of bestowing, value.
If you ignore your children, they are going to doubt your claims about loving them. Love is not a feeling you carry around inside you, but rather an expression of care. It is the same with our homes. To love our homes — even homes that are less than loveable — we must care about them. We come to care about them by first caring for them, period.
Organization channels your efforts
Do you want to learn to love what must be done? Start by doing what must be done, not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because it is worthwhile. Our feelings follow action. We get in trouble when we wait for our feelings to determine our actions.
We can’t simply wait out bad feelings about our work or our homes or our husbands or our children, hoping that eventually we’ll swing magically into good feelings and have the oomph to act on those.
Want good feelings to magically hit? Repent of your bad feelings. Rejoice in the good work, whether you like it or not. Repeat. Inspiration, appreciation, and motivation will follow in the wake of obedience. Obedience will not follow in the wake of waiting on your feelings.
Organized and on-mission
To be organized like America was by the space race in the 60s is to be locked into a mission, a purpose, that motivates us. Such motivation comes when we are ready to give our full effort, rain or shine.
Kennedy said that America’s mission was chosen not because it was easy, but because it was hard. In the same way, we might be blocked in our own momentum and motivation because our sights are set too low. We aren’t convinced it’s actually meaningful to have a pleasant, operational home. A vague sense of obligation haunts us, but without clarity or vision. We choose the plan that seems easiest so we can eliminate the vague guilt, but the easy plan doesn’t actually give us purpose; it doesn’t organize our efforts.
Kennedy gave the nation a goal that called forth the best out of its people and inspired them with possibilities that necessitated creativity to achieve.
Do we even think about “achievement” as something possible in our homemaking? What would you like to achieve in and with your home? Is it a seemingly impossible goal that inspires you? Keep prayerfully brain dumping until you land on such a goal.
Notice that Kennedy’s audacious goal was not one achievable within a year or even two. Can you set a goal that will chart a course for a whole decade? Now that’s a goal that will organize and measure the best of your energies and skills.
“Being organized” does not mean moving to easy street where life won’t take so much thought and effort anymore. Such a goal organizes your life around laziness and apathy. So we shouldn’t be surprised when our attempts to get organized don’t work — apathy and laziness can never keep up organization of any kind. They never call forth the best of our energies and skills.
Organized to be serviceable and hospitable
What if we had our own visionary statements like Kennedy’s?
“We choose to keep our homes serviceable and hospitable in this decade, not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.”
The scope of “serviceable and hospitable” is so much more than “bare minimum to skate by.” We will have seasons where we will need a bare minimum version of serviceable and hospitable, and in those seasons this vision still applies. Even minimal energy is still energy worth investing and channeling.
And in those seasons where there is more energy available, “serviceable and hospitable” can mean more decorating, more cooking, more hostessing — recognizing that we aren’t going for easy mode, but an expansion mode that stretches and challenges us.
“Serviceable and hospitable” has so much scope to it, so much room for personal expression while still retaining mission and purpose. The potential for growth is vast, while the possibility for maintaining a minimum in tight seasons is also included. We can be working with that missional call even when we are not performing at our peak, when we are not the best we ever have been.
Get organized like a woman
Women must be able to flex. Our energy and availability cycles monthly. The kind of hospitality our minds and bodies offer shifts throughout our life — what is more hospitable than growing another human in our womb? Elaborate dinner parties are not required for hospitality.
We are humans, giving human-focused, life-giving care and attention. We are not machines to tune up, turn on, and let run. Our homes are also not machines to tune up and turn on, but rather stages for the drama of life. Our job as homemakers is set management, acting and director and producer with our cast and crew.
Next time you have an urge to get organized, think about the effect, the goal, that you are organizing around, organizing toward. Make it one that calls forth the best of you, not one that is designed to let you off the hook in the end. Imagine what kind of a place you want your home to be in ten years. Get organized to make that possible.
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