Occam's Razor

In the course of my daily work, I can pull up some pretty sophisticated information about my company's accounts. Instantly. Handily. Invaluably for the many in-the-moment decisions I'm asked to make. I can do this... given that I can correctly spell their names.

You have to enter proper business names JUST SO to make our fancy search tools work. Type "and" where there should be an ampersand or an apostrophe-N, and you're sunk. "No records found." (Right about now you should know that I work in the wedding industry and am looking up often small, often quirkily named bridal boutiques. Let's just say ours is not a retail category that feels confined by grammatical rules. Think Toys R Us or Chic-Fil-A... with flowery adjectives + female names. Louisa's Lovelies. Gorgeous Girlz 'N Gowns. Karen's Krowning Glories.)

To get at the data I really need, that will let me weigh in on the pressing requests being made, I've developed a system of quickly paring back what I type when at first I don't succeed.

For instance, I could type "Yolanda's Unique Expressions of Love" (an admittedly insane, but truth-based hypothetical) and find no records. So I'd immediately try "Yolanda's U." This amended search will find my best match and yield the exact "Yolanda's U-Nique Xpressions" I was looking for.

I'm so good at this step, at work. But so bad at it in life.

...Because isn't paring back a pretty good system for living, too? When in doubt, cut through the excess. Get back to what you really, really know ya know. Reduce. Razor. Whatever. Just stop floundering and go back to the beginning. Find a bit of certainty and build from there.

I have a hard time getting back to the beginning. I have a hard time not floundering.

I just have a hard time, of late.

I realize that I complicate my inner life by racing around the circular ruts of my mind, rather than razoring down to the fundamental bits that will allow me to seek and find.

(Anyone else reminded of what we are to "seek first" in the book of Matthew? A refresher. Ouch! Such a convicting reference. Because those tracks in my brain were NOT created by thoughts of Kingdom-seeking. More like carved through my own whirl of self-centeredness.)

Right now, I need to work on the first few letters of my personal search. All the information I seek is out there, at my fingertips if only I key in to the surest few words.

Here's what I know I know...

God loves me -- inexplicably, really, but yes! -- and has a plan for me to do good and live well. In this life. And not in the distant future.

The everyday I have right now is not that plan.

God's plan does involve me loving Jeremy and Miles and Owen more fully, more abundantly, more recklessly.

And it involves finding more time for a lot more people.

Beyond that, I acknowledge I've lost my way. I've typed a whole string of characters into being and can't figure out what to cut, to pare away, so that answers appear.

But I'm seeking. And I seem to recall some other words from Matthew that help clear, and not convict, the troubled soul. "Seek and ye shall find."

...Ask and it shall be given unto you. Al-le-lu, Alleluia.

God, I'm looking for another way to live. I will try to seek it with my whole heart. And I trust that you will lead me unto the place.

Amen. Amen. Amen.