Another year, another Lent

Hi again, friends. 

Well, well, well. Ash Wednesday brings me back to the oooold blog after all. I'm not really making any commitments to writing here this Lent but if it happens to happen, go me! For now, some musings as I step into the season:

The beginning of Lent has me thinking about how I struggle with daily turning my thoughts toward God. When I have down time, where does my mind go? That is, if I’m even allowing myself to have downtime these days. Too often, I am trying to fill every moment with something to do….ashamedly, because it must make me feel like a better, more valuable person. Somehow, I can go to sleep peacefully so long as I have maintained status as the Queen of Efficiency, the Keeper of the Lists, the Multi-tasking Marvel.

But multi-tasking is a clever enemy. Must every action be coupled with another, upon another? To what end? Soon, even the most innocent of behaviors, like waiting for a tall glass to fill up from the filtered tap, seems like it is dragging on your time—creating a burden too many seconds too long to bear. What should I do with those extra fifteen seconds while the water does its thing, filling the glass? Recently, I find myself looking around, frenzied, to find a quick task like wiping a counter or clearing some dishes. When nothing presents itself, I retreat to the mental task list and even inside my mind can’t just find rest. Maybe I can spend time solving that problem or brain-drafting that email I need to write. Or maybe I should use this time to just be and think. What should I think about? Maybe I should meditate on scripture or pray or something.

Or…what about just filling the water glass? What about simply, unproductively, watching the water fill the glass, slowly and cleanly? What if I just did each task as it came about (and the spaces in between) and relinquished my propensity for constant productivity? Maybe I would be better then about taking each moment as it comes, task or no task….entertaining each conversation, each thought, each whisper from the Spirit that enters and exits my little stage throughout the day, Maybe I would learn that what I do is not (how-many-times-do-i-have-to-relearn-this?) who I am. Maybe I would be more patient with the little snags in my efficient daily order—the unbearably slow driver, the impossibly long grocery line, the incessantly turning “beach ball of death” on my computer. Or the bigger snags—the unexpected delay in receiving residents in the house, the creeping loneliness, the sadness of a friend who is ill, the fear for a family member in trouble. In the practice of making each task its own sacred activity, I might learn to listen better to what is really happening around me—what the people I love are saying- and not saying, what God is doing and speaking, what I am experiencing emotionally and spiritually. Could all of this come simply from just filling a water glass, no tasks attached?

I should probably give it a try sometime. …you know, maybe during this whole Lent thing.

For now I’m off to go sip some tea. Then read. Then sip. Then sleep. Because you just can’t do all those at the same time. Thank goodness.