Confusion

"Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching. . ."

Ephesians 4: 14

The new year is a good time to take stock in how we have lived our lives in the past 12 months and to envision what we hope to be in the next 12 months. As I age, I am much more comfortable admitting my faults and weaknesses, seeing them more as lessons to help me move past them, think for a short moment about why they happen over and over, but move beyond that to a conscious effort to rid myself of them. To be aware of bad attitudes, or unkind thoughts and seek actively to change them, not just make excuses for behaving that way or blame it on some childhood truth that no longer is a truth for me. I heard it said that after age 35 you can no longer blame your parents or upbringing for your actions. So no excuses to be found in blaming others for what you are as an adult.

What I have noticed in myself is that I often feel unsettled, unsure of the direction to go, for me its been a long battle that has arisen from a love of reading and learning all that there is to learn out there. With the world so much smaller, thanks to the Internet and modern technology that puts us in touch with whatever our interest of the moment is, we can fill our heads with so many different teachings. As good as that can be, it can also do a lot of that tossing back and forth action.

And even if you are not interested in much beyond cooking and cleaning, that too can become a battle of trying to keep your balance. There are a million sites out there telling us how to cook this way or just as many telling us just the opposite, with many millions somewhere in between. You can find yourself stocking your pantry with 12 different food plans in one year, and leaving your brain in a state of constant confusion. Same thing with lifestyles. Budget crunching to excessive living are all right before us in the latest issue of some magazine at the check-out stand.

So whats the cure for all this confusion....well, I can look back to my mothers generation and see that they cooked what they cooked. Maybe a new recipe here and there but not to extremes like we see. Raw foods, vegan diets, low carb, high carbs, and on and on. Not just a new recipe, a new way of eating all together. Clean foods vs dirty foods ? First time I heard that I thought, "well just wash them good !" Coupon shopping vs no coupons. Frugal cooking vs gourmet cooking.

Natural vs man made. So many conflicting ideas just bombarding us on the TV, the Internet, magazines and from your friends !

Oh yes, back to the solution to all this. One method that just keeps coming back to me, probably because we lived it, is to just limit what you watch, what you buy for books and magazines and to find like minded friends. There are very few Amish and conservative Mennonites that are being tossed about by every wave out there, simply because they don't even know those waves exist. They have chose to ban all sorts of chaos from their lives and you know what, there is more peace in their lives from it. My rebellious spirit just hates even admitting that. So here is the thing...if you don't know whats out there, you might seem a bit less sophisticated and less worldly for sure but at least you are not having to restock your pantry every month with a whole new way of eating, and you sure don't know that purple is out and orange is in for fashion. No concept whatsoever of what the phrase "high end " means so no need to shop for it, and no need to seek ways of being frugal, you have always been frugal. No need to de-clutter, you never had clutter anyway since you don't shop on a whim or even know what the commercial told you you HAD TO HAVE !

Maybe my point is this, we are allowing ourselves to be so influenced these days that we are like infants being tossed about, not grounded. No solid foundation because we keep introducing more stuff into our lives that just simply confused us.

Will you die if you stop watching TV, no. Will you die if you stop reading a zillion different books, no. Will you suffer if you simply cook good food, the kind with ingredients you can read with no radical approaches, No. We have lost our way with so many roads leading us no where.

Live simply, avoiding the glossy magazines that make us think our home is not habitable because we don't have granite counter tops or matching appliances in the kitchen. Its a lie. We can even cook wonderful meals on a gold tone electric range that is 35 years old !

We will survive if we don't have our nails done or wear 3" heels . We will make it just fine if we are not "well read" by modern standards. Our children will do fine without being "gammers" or Internet access 24/7 in their rooms.
We will find peace in our hearts and contentment when we make a choice to not be lead astray by all sorts of information that does not serve us well.

I am making changes this year to limit what I subject myself to. Limiting myself so I can be more solid in my thinking. Tunnel vision that leads us to the right place in the end is not a bad thing at all.

And frankly, I miss my closet of 5 weekday dresses and 2 special occasion dresses. It sure was easy to care for.