Have You Seen My Shoe?

When I pour juice it spills onto the table.  When I stir a pot my food ends up on the floor.  Water dribbles down my chin with alarming frequency as if I've forgotten how my mouth works since the last time I took a drink.  Somehow I get grease stains whenever I wear tan pants to work from gym equipment I don't even use.  My life is full of unconsciously accumulated bumps and bruises and tiny scratches that bleed all over my clothes before I discover I need to buy more band-aids.  I missed the exit to the airport and drove my family 40 minutes in the wrong direction.  Then the gas light came on.

 Such is life for the incompetent.

 Unfortunately--more for the quick-tempered than for the patient--I have discovered a world full of creatures very much like me.  It is called Earth.  Here we do all sorts of silly things: lose important papers we've been safekeeping all week, forget to set a timer for the burning bread in the oven.  I've even heard of sleep-deprived mothers who misplace their restless children. Shocking, I know.

 In childhood I was taught the enriching doctrine that life began in Heaven, not here; that I was made of spiritual matter before I ever gained the physical.  I lived as a spirit child of a Heavenly Father, and He, wanting me to know all that He knows and be all that He is, sent me here to get a body and learn how to use it.  Such a belief relies on the truthfulness of two principles: 1) that there is a God and 2) that He has a body.

 This being the foundation of my education it is no wonder that I believe the human body ranks among the greatest miracles of the universe.  For centuries we've been baffled by it, inspired by it, pleased by it, and empowered by it.  With our bodies we become creators and explorers.  We experience powerful sensations from the soothing sounds of the ocean to the intense pleasures of sexual intimacy.  We've built civilizations, harnessed energy, traveled through space.  We are passionate and brilliant and capable people.  So where the heck did I put my shoes?

 I always considered mortality as an evaluation period to prove I could still be good even when God was far away.  I misunderstood at church when I was told this life was a "test."  Though I do, in fact, believe God wants me to be good in all circumstances, I now see life more as a training than a trial.  In training I'm allowed to go slower.  I'm allowed to start over.  I practice the things I struggle with until I'm ready to move on.  I'm allowed to drop the ball, miss the note, skip a question.  It's okay if my voice cracks, or my paint drips, or if the milk spills.  I don't have to stick every landing, (which is good considering my short lived career in gymnastics).  That doesn't mean the practice isn't important, it's just...practice.

 I think our physical bodies are more powerful than our pre-mortal selves could have ever imagined.  I think we are stupid sometimes because we're still trying to figure out how to use them.  I think that God is going to be very kind next time we see Him.  Maybe He won't be wearing shoes either.

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