So You Are Busy? What Else is New? Part II

Life if busy. It just is. Answering the question "How are you?" with the reply "Busy" is about as telling and cliche as answering that question with "fine."

In fact, it was someone asking me that simple question "How are you?" that made me start to really comtemplate my busy life. It was a good friend's response to my usual answer of "Busy" that made me start thinking.

After the usual interchange "How are you?", "I'm really busy", my friend sarcastically said to me, "Of course you are. Who isn't?"

Simple enough response, but very telling. It made start thinking about how I hold busy-ness as almost a badge of honor. If I could list out 10 things that I had to do that day, and you could only list 8 things that you had to do that day, then I win!

Most commonly this competition happens with Matt and me. I want to impress him with how busy I was running around all day managing the house and kids, and he'll come back with how many meetings and phone calls he had. Both of us will walk away being unimpressed, because our busy-ness is different.

The other thought I went away with after my friend's sarcastic response to me was that may be life is just suppose to be busy. Maybe I'm not suppose to have loads of freetime. Maybe it is not that I am busy that is the problem, maybe it is how I HANDLE all of this busy-ness that is the problem.

So that is where my study began: How do I HANDLE all of this busy-ness?

As I study the Gospel looking for a Godly perspective on a busy life, I’m struck over and over the emphasis that God places on relationships. Honestly, placing relationships at such a high priority level does not help my anxiousness. When the to-do list is long, the task-master in me steps forward and plows through. Kids, husband, friends, neighbors, watch out. I plow through completing my tasks, but I leave a lot of rubbish for my loved ones to step around. How do I complete everything I need to do AND love on my friends and family?

God doesn’t give us impossible tasks but gives us ways on how to complete his will. It is His will for us to hold relationships at a high priority. The way I’m seeing that Jesus and his disciples did it, is that Jesus had margins in the mundane.

You may have heard the term “margins”. It is the idea that a person leaves space in their day for rest and relationships. Like the space left on a document, margins are available in life to make room for others and a person’s personal time with God.

God is opening my mind to the idea that this margin time can be found in the mundane things we do in life. Many tasks that we do that keep us busy, are so routine, that we can easily focus on others while doing it.

For instance, I imagine that as Jesus and his friends walked miles every day walking from town to town, their discussions were significant. I don’t believe that Jesus’s conversation and mental focus were on the stones in his way, his broken sandle strap, or how they needed to walk faster as night began to fall. I believe that He was fully focused on his company in the flesh or He was focused on his company in the Spirit.

Do I use my mundane activities to build stronger relationships? As I’m toting my sons around town on errands, do I avoid talking by turning on the radio? Am I so worried about being late or trying to get everything done that my mental focus is everywhere but inside the car with two other people? Am I so irritated by the slow driving of others that I spew ugliness in the car when my son continues to talk about how scary the grasshoppers were in Bug’s Life?

Or do I use that time to pour into my sons and teach them how being attentive is a perfect way to show patience and love?

Another time that we have margins in the mundane is at mealtime. Eating, something I look forward to always, is an extremely mundane activity. Jesus used the time of eating to build relationships. There are many examples of Jesus going over to people’s houses for dinner. A very relational activity.

Now for me, the thought of having people over for dinner often does not help with lessening my to do list. In fact, when I start putting together a meal for others, suddenly something simple, becomes very complex and stressful. Once again, family members get pushed aside as I prepare food, set the table, get those special glasses out, etc.

Again, God is showing me something about myself, and I believe it may be true for others too. I have spent too much time entertaining and less time offering hospitality. I believe we have taken the word “hospitality” in our vocabulary and replaced it with “entertaining”. I believe these words have very different applications.

I’ll start with entertaining. I use the word “entertain” when I’m trying to put on a show. I entertain when I want everything to be perfect. I entertain when I put perfection over my guests’ comforts. Very few people that I know of are comfortable with 3 different forks on the table (salad, main dish and dessert), and very few people I know care about a white wine glass used for red white. I would guess that while my table may look lovely in the white linen cloth, it just makes my guests nervous about dripping sauce on it.

I have been very guilty about entertaining over being hospitable. I have been known to search frantically for a delicious vinaigrette recipe, not because I think my guests would like it, but because I have a really cute bottle to put it in. There is a place for entertaining at times, but it is not to replace hospitality.

Hospitality is a very different activity. Hospitality is first and foremost concerned about the guest. Hospitality is not about the meal and presentation, but emphasizing the relationship above the meal. Hospitality would not mind a last minute guest. Entertaining would be appalled by a last minute guest.

Hospitality doesn’t mind if I place the goopy bottle of Ranch dressing right on the table, or if I serve a salad and forget the croutons. Hospitality is offering what food I have, and making up for what was forgotten, by the love and care I share with my guest at the table.

There is margin in the mundane when I am being hospitable. But entertaining leaves stress, and more busy-ness than true relationship developing. So rather than seeing a dinner invitation to neighbors and friends as a stressful, add to my busy-ness time, I should see it as a time to build a relationship rather than a time for excellent entertaining.

I believe there is something to this .. . margins in the mundane. I’m challenged daily to view the mundane activities in my life as opportunities to disciple a friend invited alongside me or coach a child, or pray to the Father. When I change my perspective on this, increasing my time focusing on relationships seems a little more doable.


You know, that I write all this with the intent to someday follow it. I’m not at all saying I follow Jesus’ example. One reason for writing this is to get it all on paper – harder to deny when it is public!

So, thoughts anyone?

So You Are Busy? What Else is New? Part I

Like many of you, I'm busy. Especially as fall gets into full swing, my schedule gets full, my to-do list lengthens, my head is swirling with people I need to meet with, people I need to call, things I need to begin and end, etc. I'm busy. You are busy. Aren't we all very busy?

There is an anxiousness that comes with being busy, that I don't find peaceful. I don't find contentment in my soul surrounding my hurried life. So I have been thinking a lot about how I should view and manage this busy life I hold onto.

I've been thinking a lot about Jesus and the disciples and how busy they were. In light of my own response to a busy life, I've been trying to learn from Jesus and his early followers how they handled busy-ness.

No doubt they were busy. Jesus had 3 years of full-time ministry. 3 years to change a whole paradigm of thinking. 3 years to set the world spinning in a new direction. To add to that, he had 12 very needy people (his disciples) who were close to him bombarding him with questions, misunderstanding his vision, and at times not helpful at all. Oh yes, and then there were the THOUSANDS of people following Jesus, touching him, asking for healing, asking for stuff, asking questions. He had the stress of accusations against him and the knowledge of how his life on earth was going to end. He had weddings and funerals to attend, the temple to go to, Pharisees to deal with, and transportation to all of these events, at BEST, was a donkey. Even then He was surrounded by crowds throwing branches in His way :)

With all this (and so much more), He still found time to fast and pray and commune with his Father, daily and often.

Jesus' disciples were also very busy people. After Jesus returned to the Father, the disciples still had a lot to do. Spread the Gospel to all nations was their commission. Do this without a stable income and without a permanent home. Do this all within the limitations of the Roman government and Jewish culture. Oh yes and to add to their to-do list, they had the urgency that the worldly rule, as they knew it, was going to end during their lifetime, and they had to spread the Gospel quickly. (we should still have this urgency). They had to maintain relationships, meet with leaders, write letters, serve others, walk everywhere. Teach, disciple, confront, and love others. They were very busy people.

And I'm a very busy person. I don't know how much our lives have changed when it comes to busy-ness. There has and will be lots of stuff to do. But why am I feeling unsettled by my busy-ness? Clearly, based on all the stuff that Jesus and his disciples had to do, having lots of stuff to do is not necessarily wrong. The busy-ness is not necessarily what causes my anxiousness and discontentment.

So how did they do it? How did Jesus and the disciples have peace and contentment?
How did they have time to do all these things with love and gentleness? How did they have patience with slow converts? How did they maintain relationships despite all the tasks they had?

That is what I've been studying and exploring. I have a few thoughts on it that I would like to share and like even more to have some input on what you all think. So welcome to part I of a series of posts entitled "So You Are Busy? What Else is New?"

Shark Week Conversations

I'm a big shark week fan. Discovery Channel shows a week of shark shows always in August. I used to announce it to my classes when I taught English. That was one of the first things they learned about me as I introduced myself to a new class of students -- I really like Shark Week.

So West now is old enough to join me in this interest of mine. I use some discretion when watching it with him. We skip over the shows entitled "Top 10 Shark Survivor Stories" or The Deadliest Waters" and go for the more mild ones entitled "The Great White Appetite" or "Shark after Dark"

Watching Shark Week with West has prompted many interesting conversations I'll share with you:

Swimming in the pool with my boys, I swim up to Creed yelling "Shark is going to get you!"
West snaps to attention and asks "Shark? What kind of shark?"
Clearly demonstrating his newly acquired abilities to decipher varieties of shark.

Cautiously watching the movie Babe, West got very upset when Maa the Goat dies. He rushes to me sobbing, crying to me "I don't like this movie. It is too scary. I want to watch the sharks now"

And it wouldn't be a conversation with West without something philosophical.

While watching "Great White Appetite":
"Mommy, why did God make seals?"

"Well, to show everyone how creative He is and for us to enjoy all the interesting animals"

"Oh. He also made them so sharks could eat them"

"No. God didn't want that at first. See that picture of a lion and a lamb sitting together? That is the way God wants it"

"Yeah. Like when Jesus comes back. Sharks and seals will cuddle."

"Yes West. Sharks and seals will cuddle" :)

First Catch

We went to a good friend's house for the 4th of July. He has an amazing place - perfect to relax and enjoy good friends. Our family had a great time and West and Creed went fishing for the first time.I remember catching minnows as one of the most fun things to do as a kid when fishing. Now, it makes me gag at the thought of picking one of those filthy, slimy things. Not sure what happened to me over the years.
I just kept envisioning my boys squishing their guts out. I encouraged them to get their hands wet and play with them, but I couldn't watch it.After much patience, West was rewarded with his first catch. He reeled it in himself.And like a true fishman, his tale of the fight and length of the catch was grandiose.

We Get Messy. We Clean Up

I have no aversion at all of getting messy with my boys. Don't mind at all, especially when it is entertaining for me too, which it usually is.

The idea of fingerpainting on paper morphed into fingerpainting outside and then why not fingerpaint with their bodies as the paper. I wanted to dump out the pool water anyway.

So we got messy . . . . .


Really messy.

Out of control messy.
And then we cleaned up. Into the pool!After this, we dumped the water, and made soapy mess of ourselves. Lots of fun.