I was in a store last week when I heard a lady on her cell phone, chattering away with cheery enthusiasm.
Her side of the conversation basically went like this, "Well, I have to go by the store and pick up the birthday cake and then make potato salad, and then find that chicken casserole recipe I lost, and drop off Kim at ballet class and run by the Post Office and then go and get the oil changed."
Do you know what I wanted to do?
I wanted to march right up to her, tap her on her shoulder and say, "Excuse me, ma'am. May I borrow your busyness?"
Steve and I used to be addicted to busyness. To adrenalin. To crises. To over scheduling. To being needed. To being indispensable.
So when I heard this lady going on and on about her busy life, I felt a brief, strong moment of envy. I wanted someone to be relying on ME to bring the potato salad. I wanted to, once again, have too many things to do and too little time in which to do them.
It has occurred to me more than once that a lot of us seem to derive our self esteem from being over tired, over extended, and over scheduled.
I mean, think about conversations you have with people around you. You ask your neighbor, "Hey, how are you doing?"
She replies, "Well, okay I guess, but if this summer gets any busier I don't know what I'll do. I've been running around like a maniac trying to get everything ready before we go on vacation, and the kids all need me to take them places, and I haven't cleaned my house in a month, and the dog needs to go to the vet, and I had to work overtime three days in a row and I am exhausted!"
Bingo!
She suddenly feels useful and needed because she is frantically (and happily) over scheduled. And you admire her for it, maybe even more so than if she had replied, "Well, I'm feeling very well rested, and I've crossed the last thing off my to do list and I think I'm just going to spend the rest of the afternoon reading a book."
Because Americans are all about busy. We're all about doing stuff faster, doing MORE stuff a LOT faster.
Take communication for instance.
We started out with the Pony Express. Four weeks for your letter to get to your Great Aunt Martha in Boston? No big deal.
A short while later, the telephone is invented. But not many people have it. Most folks still rely on slow and ponderous methods of communication. But it's still okay. Because "frantic" isn't yet the most important word the American vocabulary.
Pretty soon, there is cross-country telephone service. And the pace picks up a little.
And then in the 1930's and '40's, radio and TV start to make an appearance and the soul of the nation starts to change.
Then it's fax machines, the first computers, the first cell phones. The thought of waiting a month to get a message to our dear old aunt in Boston is unspeakable. Because we are impatient! We are important. We are busy! And we are important because we are busy!
Or so we think.
And you know the rest of the story. E-mail, instant messaging, test messaging and Twitter all conspire to pay a visit to a nation of people who can't stand silence, who can't stand to wait for more than a few seconds for ANYTHING.
Three minute oatmeal isn't fast enough. We must have one minute oatmeal. No wait! That's too slow. We must have INSTANT oatmeal!
And busyness becomes the new badge of worthiness. If you're busy, if you're over scheduled, if you're on the brink of a breakdown because of your commitments and responsibilities, then you are looked at with such great admiration that those might around you might even be tempted to ask, "May I borrow your busyness? I want to feel important, too!"
Our pastor is preaching through the Twenty Third Psalm. Yesterday he focused on the verse, "He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside still waters."
Don't you know there weren't any cell phones ringing beside those still waters?
Don't you know that in those green pastures, the only "Twittering" going was bird related?
When Nathan was in Israel earlier this year, he was strongly impacted by the Jewish peoples' weekly tradition of observing Shabbat. Although Shabbat is translated as "rest," its meaning goes even further by encouraging active rather than passive abstinence from work.
In other words, those very wise folks in Israel make it a priority to rest and to cease from their labors. Nathan said the shops close down, and families spend time together and there is a wonderful sense of restful quiet no matter where you go.
He said, "Mom, why don't people in American do that?"
Good question.
Actually, ministers are the WORST culprits for not taking time off. As I said earlier, Steve and I spent a lot of years addicted to adrenalin. We were addicted to the ridiculous belief that if we took off a day or even (gasp!) a whole week, that surely all of Christendom would collapse. We were important and we were needed and we were crucial to what was going on. And that was a great feeling.
But that was then. This is now.
For seven months now we have been unneeded. We have been non crucial. We have had no adrenalin pumping to get addicted to. Our Type-A, workaholic personalities have had to do an about face and our frantic, overworked selves have had to learn the strange skill of lying down in green pastures.
And yes, we have needed this time of rest. Before it came, we were both very "stretched." Steve, especially, was burned out in every sense of the word.
But now, seven months later? I would really like to borrow someone's busyness! I would really like to sew myself back into the fabric of a church and a community--people who rely on me, people upon whom I rely.
Steve and I have stayed active over these past months, simply because we're wired in such a way that doesn't allow us to give ourselves over to doing nothing. But it's not the kind of activity we're used to. It's a little lonely, a little solitary, a little strange to stay busy outside the context of friends, church and community.
We're ready for the pace to pick up a little. We're ready to be needed again. And I know that that time is not far off, when I will once again have so much busyness of my own that I won't be tempted to borrow from someone else.
But when that time comes, I don't ever want to ever forget the serenity of Shabbat. I don't want to be guilty of sprinting by the green pastures God has prepared for me. I don't want to fail to remember that I am created in the image of a God who found it needful and helpful to take a time of rest.
I am not indispensable. And neither are you.
Isn't that the best news you've ever heard?
Her side of the conversation basically went like this, "Well, I have to go by the store and pick up the birthday cake and then make potato salad, and then find that chicken casserole recipe I lost, and drop off Kim at ballet class and run by the Post Office and then go and get the oil changed."
Do you know what I wanted to do?
I wanted to march right up to her, tap her on her shoulder and say, "Excuse me, ma'am. May I borrow your busyness?"
Steve and I used to be addicted to busyness. To adrenalin. To crises. To over scheduling. To being needed. To being indispensable.
So when I heard this lady going on and on about her busy life, I felt a brief, strong moment of envy. I wanted someone to be relying on ME to bring the potato salad. I wanted to, once again, have too many things to do and too little time in which to do them.
It has occurred to me more than once that a lot of us seem to derive our self esteem from being over tired, over extended, and over scheduled.
I mean, think about conversations you have with people around you. You ask your neighbor, "Hey, how are you doing?"
She replies, "Well, okay I guess, but if this summer gets any busier I don't know what I'll do. I've been running around like a maniac trying to get everything ready before we go on vacation, and the kids all need me to take them places, and I haven't cleaned my house in a month, and the dog needs to go to the vet, and I had to work overtime three days in a row and I am exhausted!"
Bingo!
She suddenly feels useful and needed because she is frantically (and happily) over scheduled. And you admire her for it, maybe even more so than if she had replied, "Well, I'm feeling very well rested, and I've crossed the last thing off my to do list and I think I'm just going to spend the rest of the afternoon reading a book."
Because Americans are all about busy. We're all about doing stuff faster, doing MORE stuff a LOT faster.
Take communication for instance.
We started out with the Pony Express. Four weeks for your letter to get to your Great Aunt Martha in Boston? No big deal.
A short while later, the telephone is invented. But not many people have it. Most folks still rely on slow and ponderous methods of communication. But it's still okay. Because "frantic" isn't yet the most important word the American vocabulary.
Pretty soon, there is cross-country telephone service. And the pace picks up a little.
And then in the 1930's and '40's, radio and TV start to make an appearance and the soul of the nation starts to change.
Then it's fax machines, the first computers, the first cell phones. The thought of waiting a month to get a message to our dear old aunt in Boston is unspeakable. Because we are impatient! We are important. We are busy! And we are important because we are busy!
Or so we think.
And you know the rest of the story. E-mail, instant messaging, test messaging and Twitter all conspire to pay a visit to a nation of people who can't stand silence, who can't stand to wait for more than a few seconds for ANYTHING.
Three minute oatmeal isn't fast enough. We must have one minute oatmeal. No wait! That's too slow. We must have INSTANT oatmeal!
And busyness becomes the new badge of worthiness. If you're busy, if you're over scheduled, if you're on the brink of a breakdown because of your commitments and responsibilities, then you are looked at with such great admiration that those might around you might even be tempted to ask, "May I borrow your busyness? I want to feel important, too!"
Our pastor is preaching through the Twenty Third Psalm. Yesterday he focused on the verse, "He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside still waters."
Don't you know there weren't any cell phones ringing beside those still waters?
Don't you know that in those green pastures, the only "Twittering" going was bird related?
When Nathan was in Israel earlier this year, he was strongly impacted by the Jewish peoples' weekly tradition of observing Shabbat. Although Shabbat is translated as "rest," its meaning goes even further by encouraging active rather than passive abstinence from work.
In other words, those very wise folks in Israel make it a priority to rest and to cease from their labors. Nathan said the shops close down, and families spend time together and there is a wonderful sense of restful quiet no matter where you go.
He said, "Mom, why don't people in American do that?"
Good question.
Actually, ministers are the WORST culprits for not taking time off. As I said earlier, Steve and I spent a lot of years addicted to adrenalin. We were addicted to the ridiculous belief that if we took off a day or even (gasp!) a whole week, that surely all of Christendom would collapse. We were important and we were needed and we were crucial to what was going on. And that was a great feeling.
But that was then. This is now.
For seven months now we have been unneeded. We have been non crucial. We have had no adrenalin pumping to get addicted to. Our Type-A, workaholic personalities have had to do an about face and our frantic, overworked selves have had to learn the strange skill of lying down in green pastures.
And yes, we have needed this time of rest. Before it came, we were both very "stretched." Steve, especially, was burned out in every sense of the word.
But now, seven months later? I would really like to borrow someone's busyness! I would really like to sew myself back into the fabric of a church and a community--people who rely on me, people upon whom I rely.
Steve and I have stayed active over these past months, simply because we're wired in such a way that doesn't allow us to give ourselves over to doing nothing. But it's not the kind of activity we're used to. It's a little lonely, a little solitary, a little strange to stay busy outside the context of friends, church and community.
We're ready for the pace to pick up a little. We're ready to be needed again. And I know that that time is not far off, when I will once again have so much busyness of my own that I won't be tempted to borrow from someone else.
But when that time comes, I don't ever want to ever forget the serenity of Shabbat. I don't want to be guilty of sprinting by the green pastures God has prepared for me. I don't want to fail to remember that I am created in the image of a God who found it needful and helpful to take a time of rest.
I am not indispensable. And neither are you.
Isn't that the best news you've ever heard?
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