Friday, March 6

Scripture: You shall not wear clothes made of wool and linen woven together. (Deuteronomy 22:11).

Observation: There are commandments in the Old Testament that seem, well… odd. The commandments forbidding murder and theft and enforcing good behavior like returning a lost donkey to its owner make sense. But why would God care about keeping wool and linen separate? Deuteronomy 22 also prohibits farmers from sewing two species of seed in the same field and yoking an ox and a donkey on the same yoke. Again, why would God care? God takes a special interest in order, structure, and the separation of the ordinary from the precious. This is the God of creation, after all, and the created world operates on order and structure and the separation of one kind of thing from another kind of thing. The ocean breaks on the beach, but the water is not the sand. The stars shine in the night sky, but the star is not sky. The hair on my head and the nails on my fingers are made from the same substances, but there is a clear difference of form and structure between them. As for the wool and linen not to be woven together, the wool is hair from an animal, usually sheep or goat, and linen is spun flux seed, the material of a plant. Wool was for everyday wear; linen was the material of priestly garments. The God of structure and order likes to keep things structured and ordered, and one example, as nit-picky as it may seem, is the commandant to keep the wool with the wool and the linen with the linen. Thank God for this kind of God, for without this attention to structure and order, where would the boundary between ocean and land be? And how would the stars generate enough light? And how would my body function?

Application: How much of my life have I surrendered to entropy? Where is my life unstructured and unordered? And how much better off, healthier and happier would I be if I harnessed my God-given power to make my life make sense? Is there a time and place for unstructured time and unordered play? Yes! I’m thinking of lazy Saturday afternoons and cuddles with my child. But my entire life can’t be the unstructured free time of a Sabbath. Wellness requires an element of putting things in their proper place. When I structure time for greater productivity, make my lists so I don’t forget the important, apply order to my time and space, and chase away the mess in my office, I am tapping into the creative power of God. Like any serious artist, God knows that great art requires the discipline of structuring time and space conducive to making the art happen. Humans are no different, but way smaller.

Prayer:

When my beloved arranges the kitchen cabinet so that our favorite coffee mugs are toward the front and the boring coffee mugs are toward the back and the seasonal Christmas mugs are on the top shelf out of daily reach, I see a glimpse of the Artist of all things who likes to apply structure and order to things and not out of a creepy sense of compulsion but because good art requires the discipline of structuring time and space to create the conditions for good art to happen; and so, when I see the sanitation workers hauling away my trash, and my dad making long to-do lists on his yellow sticky notes, and the housekeepers of my church making clean lines on the carpet with their vacuum cleaners, and the dapper gentleman at church dressed to impress with his matching jacket, vest, and pants, and a bathroom countertop so clean and shiny I imagine (honestly) that I might as well have lunch on it, and a spice rack organized in alphabetical precision, and waves staying behind their divinely-ordained boundary on the shore, I see the conditions for good art to happen, conditions the Artist is using to make beautiful things where beauty need not exist, but because You are good, you wish for more beauty and so drive us to be as You are: disciplined agents of creation expanding toward greater beauty. For careful attention to detail, less mess and less frenzy, greater diligence and discipline, and a healthy appreciation for play I pray. Onward we go: amen.