Some Assembly Required...

How often have you heard it? Read it? Somewhere. Everywhere. On something. On everything. In the background of your childhood. On the packaging. Written in fine print. Hidden in the terms and conditions. Who knew it’d be so foretelling, so insightful, so prescient? “Some assembly required.” Like a chant. Like a mantra. Like saying the Rosary. A testament to how you’d spend your time and your days. A lifetime with tiny pieces. Trying to fit them in. Trying to figure out where they go. The not-safe-for-work superlatives you scream at all the some-assembly-required things. Bookshelves and patio furniture. Dressers, car seats, strollers, and outdoor grills. But, for the most part…ourselves.

You put yourself together. Bit by bit. Part by part. “Some assembly required”, like the Apostle’s Creed followed by a single Our Father. Sometimes you do it with clarity and precision. Sometimes fumbling and unaware. Sometimes with light and confidence. As if by a manual. As if provided with a step-by-step guide. At other times, in total darkness. In the midnight hour. Grappling with esoteric secrets. With hieroglyphics. An impenetrable mystery. Like Ikea instructions for building anything.

But, it’s all part of the process, isn’t it? It’s essential, right? “Some assembly required”, like three Hail Mary's and then one Glory Be. You have to be assembled before you can be stripped apart. You have to understand the structure of who you have been. The mechanics of what you’re made of. Before you can move beyond what you are.

That assumes too much fragmentation, you might say. Too much incompleteness, you suppose. “Is it warranted?”, you may ask. “Is it accurate?” How would I know? How would anyone? I can't even hang a picture, much less put together a life that isn’t crooked. That isn’t disjointed or out of place. That doesn’t wobble on one or more sides.

“Some assembly required”. Like announcing the Joyful, Sorrowful, Luminous, and Glorious Mysteries. All we have are assumptions, or, at least, that’s all we have access to. Everything is questionable.

We live in a world of absurdities. Some snakes have hip bones. Whales and dolphins have pelvises. Every human grows a tail in utero, and then it dissolves before we’re born. We share fifty-percent of our genes with bananas. Thirty-one-percent with yeast. Thirty-five-percent with daffodils. Does any of it make sense to you? “Some assembly required,” like another Our Father, ten more Hail Marys, another Glory be, and the prayer of Our Lady of Fatima. Forgive us. Save us. Lead us. Especially all those of us who most need mercy. A familiar pattern repeating, and none of it makes any sense at all.

Everything is made of small things. Electrons. Atoms. Nuts. Bolts. Screws. Prayer beads. Everything carries bits of something else. Nothing arrives fully formed. Nothing comes into the world as the thing it is. Everything starts as something other, becomes one thing and then another. Shifts. Changes, and then becomes something different yet again. “Some assembly required,” like Hail Holy Queen, mother of mercy. Our life. Our hope. Our sweetness. Everything is always becoming.

What you are is an unfolding. Not a structure, but a process. Not a noun, but a verb.

Neither immutable nor unmoving. You are something always evolving. Something adaptable. Some assembling and reassembling required, like a meditation without concluding. The sign we’re always crossing, in the many names of change.

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