"You used to be much more… muchier. You've lost your muchness."

So said The Mad Hatter to Alice in the great novel, Alice in Wonderland.

I feel that quote all the way down to the marrow of my bones! I used to be much more ... muchier! I fell off the radar for weeks (months?), and not writing here for the sheer joy of it has been one of the casualties of the radar drop.

I have missed this space. It makes me feel muchier!

I was organizing a big conference at church.

I was fighting with my health insurance company that decided to not cover the one medication that has put my colitis into remission after 7 years of struggle. (Thanks for nothing, Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield!)

My new car got backed into by a school bus.

I have been helping my folks.

We got a new puppy.

You know ... life.

Why is it that the things we most love are often the first to go to the wayside when life gets busy? Is this some kind of Murphy's Law?

Whose ever law it is, I am fighting it. Recommitting to myself. Recommitting to the things I love.

Taking myself to my favorite coffee shop (Hey, Sidecar!) and reading and writing for the sheer heck of it. I did that yesterday. And I saw my favorite physical therapist. I went to the Sportsplex and walked and did some planks and wiped a friend's tears as we walked around the track for a bit. Then I went back to Sidecar, ordered a ginger-honey tea and opened my computer, not to work but to get back to this--the kind of "work" that doesn't in any way feel like work.

It is hard to fight your way back to yourself sometimes, isn't it?

We often don't think we are worth fighting for. Not when the world around us is going to hell. When people are struggling to pay for groceries and heat and getting swept off the street in the name of "America First." When wars rage despite the lie that they have been ended. When cruelty reigns supreme. When struggle is ubiquitous and terrifying.

Why should we get to do the things we love to do?

It was the great St. Catherine of Siena, the 15th century Italian mystic and general badass, who said: “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”

What if - even when everything feels terrible - this is still what we are to do on this earth?

Become who (and do what) God meant us to be (and do), and by doing so, set the world on fire in a really good way.

Of course, there will be times when urgent needs crowd out the activities we most love, and we should step into those times with strength and loyalty and duty. And then, we should scramble and fight our way back to finding time to do the things we most love in this world. The things that make us feel most like who God meant us to be.

For life can't be all duty.

Often it must be pure, unadulterated, uninterrupted joy.

Never apologize for doing what brings you joy.

For when you do, God might just set the world on fire. And you might find your muchness again.

Photo by Cristian Escobar on Unsplash