Birds in My Schedule: Redeeming the Time

The days are evil.

It's a fact. Actually, YouTube may be the most particular and specific evil in my days, but it can be Twitter, Reddit, ye-olde-blogosphere, or even (though it pains me to admit it) that beloved hub of all things, ranging from the humorous to the vapid, from the just plain annoying to the genuinely thoughtful, that great facilitator of mental interaction when time and circumstances refuse otherwise to comply, Facebook.

I used to make New Year's Resolutions as a child and a teenager. Made them in spades, and had the usual appalling track record in actually keeping any of them. Partially, of course, this is because I was attempting to craft in myself the "perfect" human girl, a blend of disparate elements fictional and real, Biblical and eminently self-centered, Victorian and modern. This venerably intentioned vow toward rigorous self-improvement never appeared to come to much fruition, as is often evident by how many of the resolutions were the same every year. "I shall continue to endeavor to..." Oh, yes. We all know what that meant about how much endeavoring had gone on before.

This led to me largely attempting to give up the habit of resolutions by the age of 19 or 20. But, I am also a child of my family, and at that a child of a predominantly Texas Aggie family, with a large helping of Scottish blood, and together this all means that tradition is holy law to every fibre of my being, so of course I didn't stop making resolutions at all, really. I just altered my mode of trying to improve my years by gradually attempting to aim at more concrete self-improvement.

This year, I am facing a number of challenges to myself, but they're different ones than I've ever done before.

Firstly, I worked largely with my parents and a couple of others to address what I should improve on this year. I've never before considered my resolutions or goals to be topics of discussion or debate. (Well, probably because for a good ten years I had a respectable internal sense that told me that all rational humanity excepting myself would find them all to be entirely ridiculous in every particular...this, I may say, was an utterly correct suspicion and may be proven by reference back about 5 volumes in my diary. But, moving on.)

Secondly, the so-called resolutions of this year actually aim at concrete goals which themselves theoretically progress toward real events in my life. Twelve-year-old me was interested in being a paragon of flawless femininity/a romantic heroine/queen. (Okay, I still want to be queen.)  But chiefly, young-twenties me is concerned with assembling the functional skills to hold and apply for a salaried job, be reasonably regular in my schedule, stay in meaningful contact with all my important people, and manage to feed myself by some method other than the pub next door. (I've memorized the table numbers. And the menus items. And prices. Desserts are £4.95, two-for-one.)

And, in a sense, it's beginning to dawn on me that a lot of these things come down to schedule.

I hate the word schedule. I couldn't even pronounce it properly as a child. Actually, even more bizarrely, I used to open my dad's briefcase every morning and claim that I was putting birds in his schedule. No one ever had the slightest idea why. But, I can tell you that my "normal" schedule is FULL of birds. They fly right and left, they chase their tails and start squabbles and block out the sky. I chase every last one of them off into the trackless blue without a second thought. 

In other words, I forget to eat reasonably often, and I am generally unaware what day of the week it actually is. I have to check my phone. Even it may have gotten birds...usually the I-forgot-to-write-that-down bird. I basically can't see my schedule for all the birds having a Bacchanal up in there.

And so I have been attempting to regularize things like bedtime. Getting-up time - with NO snooze button! Three meals a day at reasonably sane hours. Time each week to plan those meals. Time...to find and repurpose. This is the hardest.

I actually had never (probably deliberately never) thought about how many hours of my life are spent doing things like YouTube, Facebook, and aimless perusing of a couple of fashion blogs which I'm actually sick of reading. I find the days so short not only because it's January in England and it gets dark at 4pm, but because I make the days short. Because I dither, and chase mental birds, and have been known on occasion to walk around with half an outfit and half pajamas on for hours past noon while still mentally reflecting that I must have breakfast very soon, really.

Redeeming the time. That's the King James version. In the ESV, it says: 

"'Awake, O sleeper, 

and arise from the dead, 

and Christ will shine on you.'

15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise,

16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil."

I often hate to admit that this is true because it means that, frankly, my parents were right. (Parents, I love you. Please resist any urge to say you told me so.) I have inveterately hated words like "dawdling" and "hurry" all my life because me and this time-thing were just never on the same page. It was like the worst group project ever. Birds all over the place. Feathers, flying.

But this year, I suppose I'm finally old enough (or desperate enough) to take many years of kind upbraiding into consideration. And I have a problem with time.

Today, I deleted YouTube from my phone. A small step, I suppose, but it's not like I do the hairstyles that I watch all those videos on, anyway. I never have time.

But this new year, I have prayed and I have cried, and I will continue to pray and cry and strive, that somehow I will learn to make good my time. To get to the end of the day and not wonder where on earth it went and if there's anything to eat. My dad has been entering into awesome partnership with me over recounting what I've actually accomplished at the end of each day. (Which I haven't done in a couple of days. Sorry, Daddy!) My mom has been a great encouragement in providing kitchen encouragement and suggesting other sensible ways to arrange life and tasks. (Thanks, Mommy!) 

And sure, there will always be birds in the schedule, because I am not and never will be a storybook girl with a perfect life. Life has birds in its schedule. 

But, it never struck me before how powerful that verse is. The Lord says that we are to awake! To rise up and live wisely. That we can redeem the days! A powerful word, that redeem. To leave a product, a good deed done, a task completed, a thought fully articulated, or even just a day of rest fully enjoyed, is a beautiful and awesome thing that shares in our Creator God's work of redeeming his beloved Creation.

 That's worth leaving a bird or three unchased.