Are you Preparing to Live? Or living?
If you live in a rural area of the Northwest, you can count on losing power a few times each winter.
I like the way Terry Hersey, writer of the Sabbath Moment Blog describes what this looks like after a storm blew through:
This much is very true: without power, life slows way down. No computer or TV or phone (as our service was affected here as well). Which isn’t a bad thing. Silence descends, and you read your book with a flashlight. (I’m reading And There Was Light, by Jon Meacham.) You fire up the BBQ to heat water for coffee (and tea) and get ready to tuck in around dusk.
As a boy growing up in southern Michigan, many of my neighbors were Amish, and I remember envying so much of that lifestyle. I still do. But it messes with you in a world where you are enticed to “get stuff done” (items checked off the list, most all of which requires technology).
What hits me (when life slows or pauses) is how easy it is to wish for (hope for) a return to “normal” which typically means full and busy, somehow synonyms for being productive.
I smile recognizing how easily we fill our days, as if we are somehow indefinitely preparing to live. ‘Tis the demon of our insistence that time is meant to be filled. If it is not consumed, it must be thrown away—like food which spoils—and deemed useless. What’s more, “wasting time” carries a moral price tag with a requisite of guilt, implying that we will look back on our days through bifocals of regret.
As I read Terry’s words, “indefinitely preparing to live,” I think, how much of my life has been spent working through my checklist so I can enjoy the day when it’s done, and I can relax and just “live.” As if we have an infinite number of days to “get it done,” and an infinite number of days that will follow. We don’t, and for those of you who know my story, you know I came face to face with that fact four years ago.
The Psalmist writes, Be still, and know that I am God. Stillness and knowing God are linked. This experience is something we need regularly. The issue is, how do we work it into our lives?
Stillness is often accompanied by silence. This means there will likely be some discomfort. Boredom. Disengaged from our phones and devices for too long brings about a feeling that something is wrong. That kind of “wrong” is necessary. It actually points to and leads to something good. Something that benefits us.
More about cultivating stillness and silence and the good that results in my next post.
Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!
Curt Bumcrot, MRE
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