Spirals instead of circles

  I recently took a class on Christian Spirituality. I kept being referred to circles...and I kept being annoyed. Circles are complete, flat and enclosed. Until I enter my heavenly reward I am incomplete, many layered and constantly opening new doors...or having them opened for me and being shoved through! However, the frustrations I face in this life often feel VERY circular. The last dish is dried and put in the cupboard as I pull out the pots for making the next meal. My hands are hardly dry when I'm grabbing the bottle of Dawn and starting in on the next sink-full. The last piece of laundry is placed in the drawer and there's already items piling up in the basket for the next load. The argument starts and VERY familiar phrases start popping out...in fact, sometimes, it's like reading a script...a well worn one, at that.
   I think it's probably good that I don't want circles in my life. At the very least I'd like to see my life unfold in a tightly sprung corkscrew pattern...At the most a widely stretched spiral, like a DNA helix stretching up, begging to be climbed and conquered! Either way, when I'm given the eyes to see, the ears to hear and the will to act, I can move up a notch, instead of simply finding myself "back at the beginning". Even if I slide backwards, there's still the hope of upward movement.
   There are words I think of as "circle" words. And I use them all the time, because I'm tremendously inconsistent and host a great pity party! They are not bad words, and serve their purpose very well if looking at life in a spiral sense. But in the circle sense they are suffocating..."the struggle", "the uphill climb", "heavy labor", "taking up our cross"...I find myself thinking..."just another 50 years...that's all there is, and then some relief." Oh, to jump off the circle onto the spiral and KNOW that the struggle produces a victory, the uphill climb brings me to a mountaintop from which to fly, the heavy labor brings forth a child in which the hope of the world may reside, and the cross leads to a day of resurrection and bright shining light and joy.

  Challenge for today: When I wash the dishes for the 3rd or 4rth time, or take down laundry in order to make room for more to hang, I am going to talk to myself OUT LOUD. I am going to speak the names of my family members, including me...and verbally bless them. I am going to speak aloud a happy memory of each, and a hope for their future. We are a project that is moving ahead, after all. We're not simply going round in circles.