No better than this: Blue sky, green leaves, warm sun, chorus of birds. Stealing a few moments just to be.
I recall a minister who preached on our propensity to be doing all the time. She noted our self worth is defined by how much we accomplish, reflected by too many e-mails, too many business trips, too many meetings to attend and calls to make and take. We spend ourselves, rushing from project to project, commitment to commitment, just in time.
With this frenetic lifestyle, we too often sacrifice the time and lose the opportunity to listen deeply to another person’s story, even to discern our own story. And at the end of the trail, will the busy-ness and long list of activities and accomplishments be worth the loss of relationship, the loss of balance?
Hard to say. The motivation to make a positive difference in the world is surely good. And there’s so much to do.
If we can’t get off the merry-go-round — if we’re not sure we even want to — let’s at least steal a few moments now and then just to be.
Indeed, it was a wonderful spring day in the neighborhood, Mr. Rogers — sunny and warm.
And an unexpected gift.
Planning to be in Europe all next week, I expected to spend a manic weekend packing and catching up around here, after being on the west coast much of last week. Late Thursday, starting to stress, I recognized that I didn’t have to go to Europe, that I should tend to the more pressing priorities at work and couldn’t afford to lose a week traveling.
Friday morning I pulled the plug, canceled my reservations, apologized to my co-workers whom I was to accompany, and shifted my focus to those more pressing priorities.
That decision allowed me to awaken this morning to a day of relaxed and infinite possibility, especially with my family in Florida. Just the dog and me. Both of us took advantage of the beautiful weather for walks, I wrote two blog postings, and I finished migrating this blog from Blogger to Wordpress (not a pretty process but I’m basically there — assuming you’re reading these words).
It’s also nice to officially express gratitude after an absence of some four months. Not that I’ve been ungrateful. Just lousy spiritual discipline.
No better than this: Blue sky, green leaves, warm sun, chorus of birds. Stealing a few moments just to be.