What Does It Matter?

Being ill for so long with an illness that isolates you from the world, separates you from the mainstream and away from the hustle and bustles of what we call life can sure give one a different perspective of things.

Some may call it rebellion, I choose to call it having a better view! :) So many things have changed, yet many remain the same, just more exposed like freckles on an unpainted face. I suppose I've always seemed a bit 'different' to my friends. Perhaps that's because I walk to a different Drummer and His beat isn't quite the monotonous march like everyone else's but more a rhythm syncopated by the rhythm of a timeless day.

I suppose until one is yanked off of the assembly line you can't see how automated our lives have become. It's only when we can't do a thing anymore and get hassled about it that we just might stop and question the value of the thing to begin with! And so it is that I've been watching the world out there with a different pair of eyes.

I've been homeschooling my daughter. Strike one. Actually "unschooling" her. Strike two. I don't have a credit card. Strike three. Nor do I get up with the birds, or shop til I drop. I'm not impressed by initials after names. My, that must count at least a whole inning right there! But I don't care. :)

I've watched my kids get older and raise kids of their own. It seems like everyone is so busy these days working, working, working that no one has time to live anymore. And I can't help but question what kind of life is that?! I've seen some go way in debt to acquire a few initials only to work for the following twenty years to pay it back. What good is that? And before you know it we're all topped with gray and all that we've acquired is sucked away, too often due to the abuses on the old bod' from all those years of push, push, push, on medical bills and/or nursing homes...

I've come to view 'education' as the result of curiosity and need to know. I see occupation as something that usually only occupies the majority of your time but I think it should really be something you do to put food on the table, then end, or if you're very lucky, something you enjoy doing. At the very least it shouldn't take up all your time, unless you're an artist. (LOL)

We don't do 'normal things' in this household much anymore, or at least we don't do them in the normal ways. What does it matter really? To some people out there it seems to matter a lot. I know because they're sure let me know it! But really, what does it matter? If our days and nights are a bit skewed does it matter as long as we're getting enough sleep? If my daughter chooses to learn something she enjoys first and hopefully gets good enough at to feed herself with, what does it matter?
And if I don't define living in the same way you do does that make me wrong? After all doesn't this life belong to me? And just perhaps my reason for living, my purpose is not the same as yours.

Someone once referred to God's kingdom as the Upsidedown Kingdom for it seems upsidedown from the way the world operates. The last are first. The least is the greatest. What the world sees as having no worth the Lord sees as having great value. The older I get, and just perhaps because of my CFS/FM/MCS glasses, that upsidedown kingdom looks more rightside up to me. So much depends on what your vantage point is--- Chronic illness can give one a heck of a view out above the mainstream!

So next time someone comes along and grills me about my daughter's schooling methods or our odd hours or wondering why I'm not panicked to have my clothes smelling like a fresh spring rain of an irish morn like theirs do (stinky is a better description of it)don't be surprised if you see me doing a little syncopated jig while singing "What does it matter?"

Well I've never been to heaven
But I've been in Oklahoma
Well, they tell me I was born there -------(not really)
But I really don't remember
In Oklahoma or Arizona
What does it matter
What does it matter

Zona