orderly conduct

Back in November- earlier this week- I was spending an unassuming evening- mostly by the fire stove- at my parents' house in Armstrong. As is not unusual in my character I was complaining. This nights complaint was about my wild and un-styled hair that seems to be becoming more uncooperative as the weather cools and the winter air dries out. My mom, who also suffers from wild hair (perhaps a case even more severe than mine) looked at me without missing a beat and stated with a smile, "Better to have the crazies on the outside of your head than the inside!" Then barely waiting for acknowledgement to her witty retort she turned and went downstairs, leaving me with her profound words of wisdom penetrating deep into my being.

As much as I am light-hearted and jesting about this story, the words really did stick with me all week and they came to be quite useful; like a mantra of sorts. Let me elaborate.

The virtue of this week was order. I have had strong organizational, logical, and systematic tendencies since I was young- I prefer not to use the term obsessive. I have expressed my penchant for order all throughout my life in my constant list-making, my use of daily organizers, the way I arrange my closet, the daily routines I create for myself, the way I show every step of my math homework no matter how easy it is and for how many years I have been doing it, the way I keep things that contain records but throw away everything else others may consider sentimental, clutter is destructive. I think that it is fair to say that I have a natural inclination towards order, and yet nowhere near being a, uh, a... 'master' of order even after almost 23 years of being good at it. Like other things if you don't practice, and reflect, you won't get better at it. So for this week I stayed focused on such things as: using simple methods to create order, subtracting things from my life in order to live soulfully, and enjoying the beauty and order of creation. 

As the week went on I began to notice that despite my outward tendencies towards order my inner being, my mind and my emotions can easily become chaotic and woefully disorganized, but with the help of quotes from Sacred moments and my mother's words of wisdom ringing in my ears, I tried to pay attention to creating order within myself. In moments where my environment was uncontrollably disorderly, instead of giving in I tried to rise above, you know. 

As one small example even when it was too late to clean my messy room, I prayed before I slept. This is hard for me, I like tidy rooms, and I especially like tidy spaces to pray in, but I let the crazies stay on the outside and kept the inside in order. Some nights I am too tired to clean and pray, so I let the prayers take the trump this week and I consistently slept better and felt better. Weird? Probably not.

Speaking of sleeping and praying and cleaning it is late and I am tired and I am flying to Calgary for a wedding in the morning so in honour of being somewhat orderly about my life I should wrap it up and go to sleep, after cleaning, and praying. Also as a somewhat ironic side note, it has taken me four sittings over two days to actually write this blog. That is how organized I am (NOT).

I particularly like the serenity of this quote from Jose Ortega Y Gasset, "Order is not pressure which is imposed on society from without, but an equilibrium which is set up from within."

This week coming up will focus on the virtue of loyalty.