Reading Time: 3 minutes

So this week, my eldest son’s chores have included assembling a bookshelf from Ikea (a true test of manhood), raking and bagging part of the yard, and mowing at the neighbor’s. I admit to a small degree of happiness when he asked, “Mom, where’s a hex wrench?”

See, he’s 14 now. And that means it’s T minus four years till a vast assortment of his advice will come from college students just as clueless as he will be. So this morning, before he crawled out of bed, I sent this list of life skills for teens to my husband for printing.

Playing mom-of-teenager (plus any other hats, like, oh, working mom) can get a little cray-cray. Sometimes I feel like to live in this century is to live within in a blur, like we’re on a merry-go-round that’s too fast, yanking us off-center. As Westerners (and I lump myself into that), when asked how life is, half of us will answer “busy”. But what if the tyranny of the urgent keeps me from the critical?

To cob a quote from Pepsi, everything around me is saying Live for Now. My Twitter feed is constantly updating, as is my newsfeed on any given website. When I scrolled through the clearance section of a website this morning, I must have seen eleven times, Hurry! Not many of this style left!

And this is what I realize: There’s so much to pay attention to here. To buy. To have. To do. To want.

The Trees We Sit Beneath

There’s a true story I love about New College, Oxford. Founded in 1379, it’s one of the oldest colleges in the world. This article describes, with photos, the great dining hall. Thick English oak beams span its ceiling. And when I say thick, I’m talking in the vicinity two feet by two feet.

But a hundred years ago, an entomologist discovered the ceiling suffered perilously from a beetle infestation. But how do you finance–and find–a ceiling like that?

Someone wondered if even the trees around the college might be an option. So the Forester was called in, who responded, “Well sirs, we was wonderin’ when you’d be askin’.”

Because back when the college was founded, a grove had been planted for this very purpose. Every generation of Forester had passed on its protection to the next. Now, I’m not great at math. But that’s about 1250 years of foresight.

What We Give Up

Whenever I remember this story, it startles me a bit. I think of an obscure passage in the book of Hebrews that speaks of the sin of Esau. I used to wonder, what does that even mean?

Maybe you’ll remember the Old Testament story it refers to, about 1900 years earlier. Esau comes in all hangry from a hunt. He’s a big, sweaty man with an empty stomach and big, hairy paws. And his conniving brother Jacob has anticipated this. Because he made some man-chili, or some kind of stew with lentils anyway (lentils, folks. You have to be really hungry to crave lentils), and knows Esau will have about one thing on his mind. Esau’s presumably desperate and salivating. (Again: lentils. Gee whiz.)

Jacob, being a bit of a creep, goes in for the kill. He’ll give his twin brother the stew if he sells his birthright. As in, all of his inheritance and leadership in the family. As in, this will be a generational shift.

Maybe I just had too many Honey Nut Cheerios this morning, because it feels like a no-brainer. And yet:

Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob.  Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way.

Thus Esau despised his birthright.

And it’s easy to think, Well, that was stupid. 

But is it really so far-fetched to think we might be so preoccupied by present appetites and shiny things that we miss what’s real, and what lasts longer than a good bowl of soup?

 

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