Monday Morning Musing: busybusybusy

Just over three months into this new call and I find myself noting/saying that this week my calendar is full. I am busy. busybusybusy. And then someone died and someone else's son attempted suicide and....I have to re-imagine the calendar and the busy. This morning I set my vacation responder on my email for this Sabbath Day in the same way I would set a guard around my heart or a fence around the garden so the rabbits wouldn't eat what is growing. I remembered the ways I allowed the zeal for previous calls to consume me, to occupy my mind and heart and days in ways that were unhealthy and unfaithful. And I stepped back...to breathe and to note those things that will still be there tomorrow, after I've taken this day of rest.

Rest doesn't always have to be physically idle, although reading a book curled up by the fire for the day is fine way to rest. Rest can mean a hike or a walk or moving our bodies on the yoga mat. For us, today, rest is going to mean filling up our hearts with our grandgirl, who is mastering the art of crawling.

That busybusybusy calendar will be there waiting tomorrow. For this day, though, rest.

As she does, the Holy Spirit surprised me this morning with an article in my Inbox by the fine writer Anne Helen Petersen, about this very subject. The article is long, but the final paragraph is a beautiful summation:

The right kind of busy is indicative of a mind in touch with itself and in deep connection with others. It’s constantly recalibrating, re-examining, rethinking: what’s enough? What should I do more, and what should I do less? It means having a calendar that’s at once full and with built-in flex. It breathes deeply and sleeps soundly. The right kind of busy is a feast. I don't think I'm there yet, but that's my heading.