Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett

I was driving home last night after work and I was listening to music on my iPod as I drove. I was flipping through songs on “shuffle” setting trying to find a song that fit my mood, when I came across “Just Dance” by Lady GaGa… I was NOT in a dancing mood. The next song that came on was “The Way You Look Tonight” by Tony Bennett.

So that got me thinking. I am strange. It is probably unusual for Lady GaGa and Tony Bennett to come back-to-back on a music playlist. But for me, in that moment, it was exactly what I needed to shake me from my stomach ache-induced state of crabbiness. After a whirlwind of 14 hours that one might call my day, I was exhausted. Nothing terrible happened. It was just hectic. I actually got to enjoy watching a Chuck-E-Cheese game malfunction and continually spit out tickets for me. It was beyond jackpot. Jackpot

But this contrast of the craziness of Lady GaGa and the intimacy of Tony Bennett made me chuckle. It brought me back to myself. This may sound stupid, but I actually am at peace when things are quiet and it’s just me and my thoughts. I guess I like myself.

In fact, I think I am actually pretty good at finding peace in the midst of crazy circumstances. Maybe that just means I am simple-minded. I would take that too

So then I get home and am reading Thomas à Kempis’ Of the Imitation of Christ. Heres the quote that I come across, “A pure, sincere, and stable spirit is not distracted in a multitude of affairs, for it works all to the honor of God and inwardly strives to be at rest from all self-seeking.”

I like that. I am currently making it my goal.

He continues, “All perfection in this life has some imperfection bound up with it; and no knowledge of ours is without some darkness.”

“When it spins, when it swirls, when it whirls, when it twirls” -Em.

Life has a chaotic way about it.

Whether my schedule and mind looks like Lady GaGa or Tony Bennett, or when I am feeling perfection or imperfection, or when knowledge shows light or darkness, I am now striving to have a pure, sincere and stable spirit. The “multitude of affairs” is not the hard part… that comes naturally.

It is the “works all to the honor of God” and “to be at rest from all self-seeking” parts that are the point.

I think if this were not true, Jesus would not have been able to forgive his executioners while hanging on the cross.