Having a Case of the "MUNDAYS"?

I love writing. Especially on Mondays. Maybe I'm trying to avoid work, or I simply have an intellectual itch I need to scratch. But a lot of yucky stuff hits the fan on Mondays for me and I can't think of a better way to clean it all up than to write.

Once I get words down in black and white, I can begin to make sense of my internal life. If you're like me, you may wonder around muttering to yourself something that my aunt over-heard my uncle saying to himself, "So many thoughts running through my head." I bet she caught him on a Monday.

Mondays are ominous for the western man/woman, maybe even more ominous for the western man-woman (ha). They represent all the stuff that's got to get done in order to earn more stuff. The idea being that if we pile up enough material stuff, the other less tangible stuff, like troubling emotions, won't be able to climb over the piles we've made. It's definitely a rat race for most of us. Even for missionaries.

Mondays always remind me of a line in the movie Office Space, where an annoying lady in the office says to the poor stressed out protagonist, "Aw, it looks like somebody is having a case of the MUNDAYS." Later in the movie, he relates this to his buddy who works construction, asking if anyone has ever said something like this to him. His response is classic, "Na dude, hell no, I'd reckon somebody would get there ass kicked for saying something like that man" (Pardon my French. Ever notice how adept construction workers are at French?). Thus the picture of cooperate cubicle America is complete.

My guess is that a mixture of worry, fear and boredom fill the cubicles of this big country. That's why I believe the show The Office has been such a hit. It parodies all the stuff that just makes our stomachs tighten up at the inhumanity and ludicrous lives we live in these strange little offices.

Right now, I'm really blessed. I don't have to sit in a conventional office. I even get to blog! But I'm currently raising support to leave Chattanooga and slip into "cubicle world." As a support staff member with Student Venture, my guess is I'll be thumping my head on the desk with the best of them before my first week is over. Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to get to our headquarters in Orlando and begin my job in earnest: writing about the Gospel for young people, but I have a picture of a cubicle in my mind that I just can't shake. There's something inhuman about them.

I've related before how much I love the outdoors. Recently I've been getting up early enough to see the sunrise. Or at least see part of it. It's a magnificently refreshing thing, especially on Mondays. The reason for me that it's so refreshing is that I'm reminded of the fact that I'm simply a creature in creation under a creator. In those moments I'm reminded of my place, and most of the worries that accompany Mondays fade into oblivion like the darkness being chased away by the light.

God's light and truth encourages us not to worry. The most common command for us creatures in the Bible is to fear not. And here we live in a culture that thrives on fear. And this robs us of what it means to be truly human.

I hope that today you are reminded that there's a deeper reality than your MUNDAY and you can smirk at all the memos, to-do lists and restlessness that may rule your office. If you accept the real reality that your Creator reigns, you can happily accept you are but a small creature, special in his eyes and commanded not to worry. Or in my case to take your truckload of worries to him.

I hope this helps somebody. I worry it won't...