Conversations and contentment

I have a habit of getting into conversations with strangers in random places. Last weekend we were out of town at a hotel with an indoor water park. I was in the restroom with one of the girls when we struck up a conversation with a housekeeping employee cleaning the facilities. She noticed my middle child intently watching her refill the automated paper towel machine and asked, “Do you see what I’m doing here? I bet if you had my job when you grow up you would make twice as much as I do now.”

The uniformed lady with braided gray hair and a sweet smile went onto tell us that when she started working for the hotel many years ago she made $4 an hour, but now she’s 57 years old and is up to making $14 an hour. I offered, “I’m not sure your rate has gone up enough in all those years.” But instead of jumping on that bandwagon, she said, “Nope. It hasn’t. But my work is easy. I get paid just to clean all day long. And I get free meals here. Breakfast, lunch, or dinner… before, during, or after my shift. I can’t complain when they feed me. They have the best bacon and eggs in the mornings.”

Humbled by her optimism I said, “Well, you sure are doing a great job because this is the cleanest water park I’ve ever seen.” With that she smiled and we parted ways.

I’m not sure conversations of this sort are totally coincidental. Sometimes these random run-ins with people whose lives are different from mine jolt me into awareness. I have a frustrating tendency to be pessimistic and critical and certainly wouldn’t be one to describe cleaning up after people in a hotel as “easy” work. In fact, I would tell you it’s been “hard work” having my kids home for days on end this week while our school is out for illness. With the exception of this past Monday, a child has been home with me and our routine has been thrown off for the past eleven weekdays.

Woe is me, and many are my first-world problems.

Back around Thanksgiving I came across a Parker Palmer quote that I keep readily visible on my phone because it convicts me nearly daily.

It requires no special talent or effort to look at our world and point out the things that numb us, or dumb us down, or depress us. In fact, it’s a no-brainer! But becoming keenly and consistently aware of what’s good, true, beautiful, and life-giving around us and within us demands a discipline: we must open our eyes, minds, and hearts. And we must keep them open.

It sounds a lot like a verse I remember memorizing as a teenager. I like how it reads in The Message:

“I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.” — Philippians 4:8

Why is this so hard??

I think winter magnifies discontentment. It feels harder to notice beauty and pay attention when we’re stuck indoors amidst seasonal germs and angsty children. But, I want to believe there is still much that is “good, true, beautiful, and life-giving around us and within us” even in the winter. We just may have to look a whole lot harder to see it.

The thing that is giving me life today {after I got over the huge mess that has overtaken the 1st Grader’s bedroom} is the makeshift hospital she and the other two have set up for their stuffed animals.

There are patients lining all the walls, probably twenty or so in total. There are mats being used as beds and water bottles being used as IV’s.  Some patients have minor ailments, like Sasha. I just hope she doesn’t “frow up” on the carpet.

Others, like Minnie, have more serious issues going on.

If you can’t make out the doctor’s small writing… when Minnie eats, her heart doesn’t “whirk.” That’s kind of major.

Mary is doing well in recovery after getting into a car “reck.”

I’m most concerned about Fred:

He has a heartbeat, praise the Lord. But, he has blud. shot. eyes. And he’s fighting a timpercher. I happened to notice his diagnosis in the doctor’s binder:

God bless, Fred. He appears to have the dreaded chicken hops.

Maybe someone who specializes in fowl disease can develop a vaccine for that soon. Meanwhile, we will hope for his speedy recovery.

And I will hope for your weekend to be free of flu and illness and full of at least a few things that are good, true, beautiful, and life-giving. Spring is just around the corner.