When I was a young girl, our family use to go over to my grandmother’s house for dinner on Sunday nights. After dinner, while the adults sat around the table talking, us kids would go out into the livingroom and watch the Ed Sullivan show on a 13" black and white screen inside this huge box. It was there that I first saw the Beatles, but it was also there where I saw this plate spinning act.
According to Wikipedia, plate spinning is a circus manipulation art where a person spins plates, bowls and other flat objects on poles, without them falling off . While spinning any plate is a difficult feat for me, the plate spinners not only spin one, but the record holder has spun 108 with the help of an assistant.
I’ve never tried to actually spin a plate on a pole, but in life, there are many instances where I feel I have either tried this analogy or have been one of the plates. Let me explain.
Each of us is challenged in our daily walk to "do" a task. One task equals one plate on one pole. As we master the task, we feel we can add another plate with another pole. This continues on, until somewhere along the line we are spinning multiple plates on multiple poles and we think we are pretty darn good at what we do. The problem lies in that at some point, we may need to rest, take a break, go to the bathroom. The more plates we have spinning, the less time we have to do those things I just mentioned. Never mind sleeping, eating, playing. We have the tendency to think that if we just give each of our plates one good hard turn, that plate will continue to spin while we try our hand at juggling another endeavor.
Now, let’s give the plates a status. We have corelle, earthware, and fine china. Each of these types of dishes has different compositions. Corelle is more or less a plastic dish that rarely, if ever breaks…..I mean you could probably use it as a frisbee if it wouldn’t knock someone out. Earthware is a heavy duty plate, that withstands some of the bumps and bruises given to it, but if dropped it would break. Fine china – well lets just use this classification, if you look at it the wrong way it could break! Now back to spinning the plates. You now take these three types of dinnerware and put it on the poles. You give each one a good ride, but the key to the art is not letting any of the plates fall. But the key to the plates is not letting any of them break. So which takes precedence?
Each of us must look at our lives and assign value to the "plates" we are spinning. My fine china represents the people in my life and I am very careful not to take on too many because the patterns I’ve picked are vintage and irreplaceable. I would hope that this would be the case for others, but sadly it is not. Some people assign their everyday wear as their people and their possessions or jobs as their other plates. There is harm in that, because in my opinion people take precedence over everything other than God.
I have been the "corelle" and earthware pieces and have watched the people spinning me and have been aware of their needing time to address their fine chinas. It hurts to find yourself teetering or much less falling as they try to hurry to catch up. As one plate crashes they try harder, but continue to add more plates to their poles, rather than seeing that it isn’t the number of plates they have spinning that is important, but instead the quality of the spin they assign to each plate. But it is also hurtful to have once been considered fine china and then been relegated to the everyday knockoff. Regardless of its stature, once the plate has been knocked down, it is relegated to its demise.
We take on more and more plates in life to assign substance to our existence. Really? Yes, really! We have been fooled into believing bigger is better and more is the be all end all! I sit and watch as the people around me get fooled into believing that they will be able to beat the record of the plate spinner and while I wish to ask them to reconsider, it is not up to me to do so.
What consumes you and your time? Are you looking for meaning in the eyes of others, is that why we add plates to our poles? Or are you content with the fine china God has blessed you with and willing to make sure that you carefully spin each plate with love and care? It is after all, each of our own decisions.
Looking up!
Barb
According to Wikipedia, plate spinning is a circus manipulation art where a person spins plates, bowls and other flat objects on poles, without them falling off . While spinning any plate is a difficult feat for me, the plate spinners not only spin one, but the record holder has spun 108 with the help of an assistant.
I’ve never tried to actually spin a plate on a pole, but in life, there are many instances where I feel I have either tried this analogy or have been one of the plates. Let me explain.
Each of us is challenged in our daily walk to "do" a task. One task equals one plate on one pole. As we master the task, we feel we can add another plate with another pole. This continues on, until somewhere along the line we are spinning multiple plates on multiple poles and we think we are pretty darn good at what we do. The problem lies in that at some point, we may need to rest, take a break, go to the bathroom. The more plates we have spinning, the less time we have to do those things I just mentioned. Never mind sleeping, eating, playing. We have the tendency to think that if we just give each of our plates one good hard turn, that plate will continue to spin while we try our hand at juggling another endeavor.
Now, let’s give the plates a status. We have corelle, earthware, and fine china. Each of these types of dishes has different compositions. Corelle is more or less a plastic dish that rarely, if ever breaks…..I mean you could probably use it as a frisbee if it wouldn’t knock someone out. Earthware is a heavy duty plate, that withstands some of the bumps and bruises given to it, but if dropped it would break. Fine china – well lets just use this classification, if you look at it the wrong way it could break! Now back to spinning the plates. You now take these three types of dinnerware and put it on the poles. You give each one a good ride, but the key to the art is not letting any of the plates fall. But the key to the plates is not letting any of them break. So which takes precedence?
Each of us must look at our lives and assign value to the "plates" we are spinning. My fine china represents the people in my life and I am very careful not to take on too many because the patterns I’ve picked are vintage and irreplaceable. I would hope that this would be the case for others, but sadly it is not. Some people assign their everyday wear as their people and their possessions or jobs as their other plates. There is harm in that, because in my opinion people take precedence over everything other than God.
I have been the "corelle" and earthware pieces and have watched the people spinning me and have been aware of their needing time to address their fine chinas. It hurts to find yourself teetering or much less falling as they try to hurry to catch up. As one plate crashes they try harder, but continue to add more plates to their poles, rather than seeing that it isn’t the number of plates they have spinning that is important, but instead the quality of the spin they assign to each plate. But it is also hurtful to have once been considered fine china and then been relegated to the everyday knockoff. Regardless of its stature, once the plate has been knocked down, it is relegated to its demise.
We take on more and more plates in life to assign substance to our existence. Really? Yes, really! We have been fooled into believing bigger is better and more is the be all end all! I sit and watch as the people around me get fooled into believing that they will be able to beat the record of the plate spinner and while I wish to ask them to reconsider, it is not up to me to do so.
What consumes you and your time? Are you looking for meaning in the eyes of others, is that why we add plates to our poles? Or are you content with the fine china God has blessed you with and willing to make sure that you carefully spin each plate with love and care? It is after all, each of our own decisions.
Looking up!
Barb
No comments:
Post a Comment