Two Left Feet
That’s me in the image above….with 2 left flip flops on my feet. I was on vacation recently and thought that I had put a matching pair of flip flops in my backpack. Wrong! I wasn’t even paying attention to what I was doing when I put them in there.
We’ve all heard the saying, “I have 2 left feet.” It is usually in reference to dancing, meaning, we are clumsy. It also could mean we are stumbling or imbalanced.
How often do we have days when we just feel “off?” We feel like we are out of balance. We find our way through the day in a clumsy, stumbling kind of day.
And we judge it. I shouldn’t feel this way. This day is shot to he**. I should go back to bed and start all over. Why?
What is wrong with a day where maybe we need to pay a bit more attention to our steps? What’s wrong with a day where maybe we started out on the wrong foot? We can always get back in step. Might being clumsy be a reminder that I am not perfect, but human?
At first, when I saw the 2 left flip flops, I thought, “You idiot! Now what are you going to do? You are going to have to wear your sneakers all day.” But then I had a second thought. Why can’t I put a left flip flop on my right foot? Might I be able to still walk, but more carefully? So what if it feels uncomfortable or clumsy? As I have said to many people, “If you don’t see Jesus Christ, it isn’t the end of the world!”
How often do we get stuck in moments where we feel out of balance, out of sorts, mixed up, clumsy? We think we have to start over, or worse, we judge it. We think something is wrong with us. We go that deeply into ourselves and do damage.
What might our day be like if we just put the other left flip flop on our right foot and walk through our day with some attention paid to each moment? Maybe this awkwardness slows us down a bit and ask us to pay more attention to how we are moving through our day? Might we even take notice of the moments that call us to forget about the flip flop and make us more appreciative and alive? Might we take deeper notice of who we are and who we are living life with? Might we see God a little more clearly as we step into each moment?
Maybe we won’t dance so well with 2 left feet, but I wonder if we might dance with awareness in each moment of our day as we move beyond the flip flop and see the depth and breadth of life….in each dancing moment.
