tidy

Regular bloggists will know that I perform magical illusions as a hobby / obsession / therapy / art form / entertainment. You can read more about it here where there are also links to my magic website (it’s a website about my magic, not a magical website) and to my StewTube Magic channel that contains videos I made during the Covid Lockdowns (remember them?).

I love performing for people. I love the joy and wonder it can give, and I also enjoy the applause (who doesn’t?). I recently spent an evening performing magic for a local organisation who were celebrating their 50th Anniversary. I started off performing ‘walk around’ – chatting to guests as they gathered and showing magic that could happen without the need for a table. Then, once they had been seated in the banqueting room I performed magic at the tables. It was a long evening but the feedback I received was encouraging and I was able to share lots of joy and wonder with the guests.

I had chosen a range of illusions to perform so that it wasn’t just playing cards, and even the illusions with playing cards had extra aspects involved so they weren’t your standard ‘pick a card’ and ‘here’s your card’ sort of illusion performed by uncles at Christmas. I had spent quite a while sorting out which illusions I would take and then rehearsing them, discarding some and finally coming to a set of illusions I could carry around with me in my pockets.

But when I got home I had the tedious task of sorting through them all and putting them away in their places on my shelves and in my drawers so that I can find them again. The performance was on 5th September and I have only just got around to sorting everything out (including the illusions I had started practicing and then chose not to use). It’s over 3 weeks since the performance.

I have put it off, and put it off. It’s not really because it’s boring – it makes my life a lot easier later if I have put things back in their designated places. It’s not really because it takes a lot of time (it took me less than half an hour). It’s just that I couldn’t be bothered. They weren’t really in the way so what’s the problem?

I think we humans have a natural tendency to put things off that are unimportant and not urgent. There’s a matrix that’s supposed to help us prioritise what we do

If something is both urgent and important we make that top priority

If it’s important but not urgent it is less of a priority

Next come things that are urgent but unimportant

Finally we get to the things that are not urgent and unimportant

The knack is deciding whether things are urgent and / or important. What criteria do we use? Someone else might thing something is urgent but it’s not urgent for us. We might consider something to be important that is unimportant to others. You get the picture.

This musing, and having a sense of satisfaction from reordering my illusions, got me pondering about things and people that are important to me. Over the past weekend our church held a Weekend of Thankfulness and we were encouraged to consider things for which we are thankful, and to thank God for them. There are significant and obvious people and things for which I am thankful. But there are also insignificant and obscure people and things for which I am thankful. How to decide?

This coming Sunday I’m concluding a short series looking at Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi. Philippians 4:8 reads:

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.”

The words ‘whatever’ and ‘anything’ in that verse seem to be key. Saying ‘thank you’ for anything that is excellent or praiseworthy cultivates an attitude of gratitude which in turn brightens our perspective on things – even tidying up!

Be blessed, be a blessing