Please Pass the Chips

They say records are meant to be broken. So this week, I did.

To be fair, it isn’t technically a record. Just a bit of self-imposed criteria. The ‘record’ I broke is length of time between posts on this blog. There’s a good chance you hadn’t noticed. There’s an equally good chance you welcomed the reprieve from more bloggish noise. Whatever your perspective, my recent trek in the blogging desert sparked some reflection.

But while I was musing, life surged on. In some ways, it ran me over. Seems every waking moment these days is spoken for. Silence, solitude and rest are conspicuously absent. And what’s strange is that even with life’s tire tracks on my back, I crave more of what’s crushing me. I want to know. I want to experience. I must respond—now. I’m hypnotically drawn to the false energy of busyness.

It can be easy to get wrapped in culture’s paradigm of 140 character bursts. To feast on bits of disjointed conversation like a whale eating krill. There’s a non-stop banquet out there that leaves consumers curiously hungry. It’s an addictive paradox—one that’s nipping at my heels. One that shows, along with my record breaking, that I am a victim of my own lusts. Frederick Buechner was right: “Lust is the craving for salt of a person who is dying of thirst.”

I sure have been thirsty lately. But I keep eating the potato chips.

And the more I eat, the less satisfied I feel. I munch and crunch as I battle the urgent. The ‘tyranny of now’ cleverly confuses my needs and desires. Life slips into maintenance mode as I settle for easy, comfortable and quick. Priorities are dictated by energy level and meeting reminders. The cycle of days blurs. And before I know it, I’m breaking records.

My record breaking didn’t bring a moment of celebration. There were no cameras or interviews. What it brought was an eye-opening collision with reality. The reality of potato chip crumbs on the front of my shirt and the burn of salt on my lips.

I can’t deny the disappointment I feel in not meeting my own expectations – with timely blogging or anything else. But my disappointments are opportunities to expose my lusts. To admit unhealthy cravings. My recent reflections exposed some ugly things. But sometimes I need ugly to recognize beautiful.

I’d like to put the chip clip on the bag more often. To rest in my God who’s ‘steady as He goes.’ A God who wants me to be just, merciful and humble (Micah 6:8). The lusts of life will beckon. And if I’m not careful, I might find myself eating chips all day then wondering why I’m so doggone thirsty.