This was originally written in 2022, as a schmoozeletter subscriber email
Yesterday, my kids asked to go for Slurpees. My car needed gas, and I love a good multi-task, so we hopped in the minivan, and headed over to the 7-Eleven/ gas station. (Do you also wonder why they use the digit 7, but the word eleven? I mean, they're a successful chain, so I'm sure there's some marketing intentionality there- at the very least it makes for a conversation piece... or a parenthetical aside:)
Now, I've been pumping gas for almost two decades, but it still makes me feel kind of grown-up and accomplished. Not sure why. Maybe cuz I didn't get my driver's license until my mid 20s? But in any case, I felt extra-cool using the little shmitchik that holds the pump pumping, so I could wait in my comfy car, while it fills up with gas and the kiddos filled up with carbonated, caffeinated sugar. (My life is glamorous:)
So I'm sitting in the car, all smug and self-satisfied by the efficiency of it all. The kids come back in, bringing with them that magical wafty-aroma of blue raspberry, coke, and flavored coffee as they slurp their aptly named treats.
I turn the car back on, get ready to pull away, and then thankfully, out of the corner of my eye, catch a glimpse of the hose still mockingly stuck in the side of my car. I shudder to think of the awkward mess that I just avoided. The kids laughed as I sheepishly got out, removed the hose, replaced it, and closed the valve (? cute lil round door over the hole where the gas goes). Then I commented something I say a lot: "Sometimes the easy stuff is harder than the hard stuff."
For the absentminded among us, it's so painfully easy to forget or mess up the "easy" tasks. My ego likes to frame this as being a "big picture person."
But I know there are plenty of "big picture people" who are more attentive to and competent about detail. And plenty of careless, scatterbrained people who aren't especially preoccupied with solving the deep mysteries of life. Some of us just get distracted from the technicalities, and have to work a little harder at the "easy" tasks.
In this week's Torah portion, Teruma, there is great detail listed about the minutia of the Mishkan, the temporary temple used by the Jews until the construction of the formal temple in Jerusalem, centuries later. Every year, when I get to these portions, describing the fabrics, metals, wood, raw material, hooks, loops, and construction technique, I'm struck by the mundane dryness of it all. Yes, there is symbolism, and it's beautiful. But this a real, concrete, material edifice, and the details mattered. It wasn't considered materialistic, though it was certainly opulent and magnificent- with gold, silver, copper, and luxurious woven and embroidered fabrics.
This is because a spiritual value, at least in my tradition, is that physicality isn't necessarily shallow or superficial. It's a vehicle for the expression of holiness, when channeled intentionally. It fuels us for the journey of our soul. (Sorry about those car puns- they make me silly-happy.)
I try to remind myself this when I need to get busy with the relentless quotidian details and dry technicalities of running my own home, family, and body- the shopping, fixing, cleaning, organizing, cooking, and maintaining that I find so tedious. I try to remember that it's not a distraction from the "big picture"- it's the stitches of the exquisite tapestry that comprise it.
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