Get Messy

     Growing up, there were 2 big shows about science geared towards kids, shows that we'd sometimes watch in school: Bill Nye the Science Guy and The Magic School Bus. It's hard to think of two more fun people to learn science from than Bill Nye and Ms. Frizzle. While Bill Nye was great to learn science from ("Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill"), today's post is going to focus on the latter, mainly because Ms. Frizzle had a memorable catchphrase.

     The Magic School Bus originally started out as children's book series and later a television show on PBS (and has since been rebooted on Neftlix with The Magic School Bus Rides Again). The show was filled with great field trips - to outer space, a haunted house, a volcano, even the inside of a student! The show was also filled with some star power - Little Richard performed the theme song, Lily Tomlin voiced Ms. Frizzle, and the likes of Dolly Parton, Dan Marino, and Alex Trebek guest starred (err, voiced) on the show. Each of Ms. Frizzle's students on the show had their own catchphrase as well. There was Arnold's "I knew I should have stayed home today," Dorothy Ann's "According to my research...", and of course Phoebe's "At my old school...". That said, no one had a more memorable one than Ms. Frizzle's "take chances, make mistakes, and get messy". 

     There's a lot that we can learn from Ms. Frizzle - and not just science. Her catchphrase telling her students to "take chances, make mistakes, and get messy" is something we can apply to our lives. In the past, I've written about the importance of taking chances and making mistakes, but what about getting messy? Is it really a good idea to be telling people to get messy, let alone children? Considering's today post is titled "Get Messy," my answer is: of course it is. 

     There are all types of messes in this world. There's messes like dropping an ice cream cone or spilling milk, there's messes that are best described as predicaments or overall turmoil, and of course there's the mess that is politics, but that's another story. None of those sound like particularly good things - particularly dropping an ice cream cone. But then again, they usually give you a new cone if you're a little kid. So what exactly is good about messes and getting messy?

     Well, one about getting messy is that it means that you're doing something. If you're a kid and come home covered in dirt and/or mud, it means you were outside playing. In a time when kids are playing video games and always on their phones, just getting them outside is encouraging.

     One thing I've found from running cross country and running in general is that you get more messy than you'll think - shirts will get soaked with sweat on hot & humid days, socks and shoes will get covered in dirt, and everything gets covered in water and mud on rainy days (or if you accidentally step in a puddle). Rain and mud are just about the worst things for a runner...and yet, some of my most fond memories of running have come in those very conditions. I can remember one cross country meet where it poured rain from start to finish and was completely soaked at the end. This past 4th of July I went running with some friends at Memorial Park and right as we were about to start it began to pour rain...we decided to run anyway and got breakfast afterwards. Heck, even the first half-marathon I ran in it was raining at the start.

     There's just something inherently fun about getting messy, whether that's coming home with grass stains all over one's jeans after playing backyard football or all sweaty after playing ultimate. To get messy means to get down and dirty. Our friend Forrest Gump once said you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes - where they're going and where they've been. When you see someone with muddy, grass-stained shoes or older, beat up ones, it's pretty easy to tell where they've been. 

     One can also look to volunteering and helping others and see how that often means getting messy. In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, I helped out at church where our class went to houses of those impacted and we provided relief work. That meant getting covered in sweat, dirt, drywall, and so on. And it was all worth it. Growing up, I went on church mission trips in middle and high school, which meant painting, yard work, construction, and even playing with kids. One way or another that meant getting down and dirty and getting messy - whether that was getting paint on shirts or giving countless piggyback rides to kids. It's amazing how helping others often means getting messy. That may be because we're inherently messy people, a testament to just how much we need God and how Jesus Christ came to serve and save messy people like ourselves. 

     Although there is a value in getting messy, this isn't to say we should intentionally go out and make messes or that there is no value in being clean. As one person once said to me, "clean hands are happy hands". There's the phrase "a cluttered house is a cluttered mind" - and there's definitely truth to that. It's so easier to come home to work with everything clean and organized versus clutter. Still, there are times when one can't help but get messy. 

     I'm reminded by Toy Story 2 about the importance of getting messy: the movie centers around Woody being faced with an important question: does he want to be Andy's toy for a few more years knowing Andy will grow up or does he want to last forever in a children's museum in Japan? To complicate matters, Woody's armed got ripped off (and later repaired), meaning that staying with Andy could also mean getting thrown out if he got damaged again. In the end, Woody ultimately chooses to stay with Andy. Woody had the opportunity to always be clean and last forever but he turned it down because it would have meant never being loved again. And for a toy, being loved inherently means getting messy. 

     Sometimes we spend so much time caught up in keeping ourselves or our possessions clean that we forget to have fun along the way. What fun is it to have something if you never use it because you don't want to get messy or damaged? Sure, it may mean a short shelf life, but nothing lasts forever. And if having fun or helping others means getting messy, I'm all for it. After all, there's a reason washing machines and laundry detergent exists. 

     If you ever were to ask Ms. Frizzle what time it is, odds are she'd either say "It's time for a field trip" or "It's time to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!" Well, you heard her - go out and get messy! But first, I need to clean up my kitchen.