Oh, to be Spaghetti!!

I was once told of a word picture to describe the differences between men and women's brains. Men have waffle brains, women have spaghetti brains. Men have compartments and can function efficiently within each segment regardless of what's happening in the others (to a degree of course). Women on the other hand are completely interwoven, like noodles, and if something is happening on noodle number four it's happening on noodle 79. I've been seeing this waffle vs. spaghetti idea play out in the different cultures here... and as we live life in the Village, I realized that as always it's an 'us versus them' thing and yet again we are the odd-balls. So in this addition, we are the waffles and they are the spaghetti.

As Americans, we are masters at compartmentalizing our lives. We call it "switching gears", so in keeping our waffle analogy, this means hopping over the wall of thin bread into the next waffle square. The sqaures are anything in your life... work, family, goals/vision, parenting, friendships, church, relationship with God, finances, neighbors, etc, etc. Think about your own life and how many different squares you have, and if they are truly related to one another. I find that some of my squares can (and do) exist completely independent from the others, although that is changing rapidly!

The spaghetti-types would be everyone except us... as always :). Their lives are giant plates of noodles, the sticky kind that you can't pull apart and it looks more like a confusing clump than individual strands. Everything connects, everyone is part of this messy plate, and they don't know anything different, and I asume they have no desire to (well... maybe the youngsters being raised here, but that's another post entirely). The idea is that everything flows into everything else, and this big hot mess is the beauty of having all things in common and owning the true identity of group or community.

I submit to you that their God, gods, religions, idealogies - whatever you want to say - is the sauce. It is poured over everything, and the entire plate is saturated by it. Their faith and gods are at every turn, under all they do, and covering each move. We tend to live our spiritual lives more like a waffle topping plopped onto the middle that may or may not spill over into each square. Our work, school, finances, even relationships can be untouched by this and it can just stay in the section of church and maybe a quarter of our finances and relationships. It's an interesting concept, and it has probed me to really live like my kids and nieghbors and money and husband and church are not only connected but saturated by Jesus. Oh Jesus, fill up these squares, every single one!!!