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Being Busy: a Spiritual Issue

I am convinced when you work on a college campus, everyone is busy.  Talk to faculty and they are very busy, as they will be quick to tell you or complain.  Talk to students and one hears the same lament.  “I’m so busy,” they profess.  We can even ask the staff and they, too, are busy beyond belief.  And certainly, I have those periods where I also whine about being too busy.           

I know it is not simply an issue in the academy.  I know some folks in business who are quick to tell you how incredibly busy they are.  I suspect if we were to step into a hospital, the nurses, aides, doctors and others would echo the busy refrain.  Perhaps the patients are not busy, but everyone else is.  I even have to laugh.  So many monks I know would sigh about how busy the monastery has become.  Even though monastic traditions, like the contemplatives, have often incorporated too much to do that they feel like their monastic calling has been compromised.           

I wonder if this is a malady that only affects the kind of people I know and with whom I hang out?  I know there are places like nursing homes where the residents cannot possibly be too busy.  I am sure the caretakers for those residents are busy---perhaps too busy.  It makes me wonder if busyness is simply a given in people’s lives unless they are very young, very old or sick?           

I also wonder if busyness is not, in part, a spiritual issue?  My beginning assumption is affirmative: busyness is, in part, a spiritual issue.  And I don’t think busyness has to be a given.  I think there is choice---theoretically anyway.  But I also recognize busyness can be so chronic in a person or a group, that it no longer seems to be a choice.  Busyness can become so much a part of the culture---in my college, for example---that everyone in that culture has to be busy or they really are not “productive” or “carrying their own weight.”       

Being busy is fairly easy to understand.  Busyness only applies to folks who are actively engaged in something.  If you are doing nothing, you are not busy.  We can be busy with work, with people or with things.  Often we are busy with a combination of these three: work, people and things.  Clearly none of the three is inherently bad.  Work is good; people are good; and things can be good.  It is a matter of proportion.          

Perhaps that is the key.  When we are busy---or “too busy,” as we might lament---the proportionality is out of whack.  Work is good.  But work piles up and begins to push us to the limit.  Being busy means there is no end in sight; there is no break.  Being busy feels like we can hardly breathe.  We may be really good at work and, then, more can be added.  Being busy usually means we are feeling like we are at the limits.          

The same is true for people and things.  We can be so busy with people that there is no longer any space for ourselves.  Or we can be so busy with things, there is no let up.  Being busy usually means we can barely manage---we struggle to hang on.  We feel like we are being twirled by life and busyness speeds up so much, it feels like we will come apart.           

While I have not used spiritual language much, I think busyness is a spiritual issue.  Let’s reflect a bit on this.  Being busy usually means we are feeling off center.  We may feel out of balance.  I like the language of “center,” because that is a spiritual word for me.  Hence, if I am feeling off center, then I clearly am not “centered.”  In my understanding, spirituality is designed to center us in life.          

Spirituality centers us by connecting us to God---to the Holy One or Spirit of Life.  To be connected with the Holy One gives me a chance to know myself and, therefore, to be my true self.  When I am too busy, I am pulled out of myself.  I am “at my wits’ end” or “pushed to the limits.”  There is no longer the solidity or stability that comes with being centered.           

Being busy---too busy---threatens to turn me into someone I am not.  Busy people can become desperate people---on the treadmill with someone else’s hand on the speed button!  I may be in control, but it is perilous.  Often the only way I get off is to be thrown off (get sick?).           

If busyness is a spiritual issue, then we can address it in a spiritual fashion.  Spirituality naturally seeks to address busyness by bringing balance, some moderation and some common sense.  They are relatively simple, but seldom easy.  Spirituality must reassert that we have a choice.           

When I am too busy, I know I need some time alone.  I need some prayer or meditation to reconnect.  I know I need some others---some community---to help me step back from the limits, which have overextended me.  Busyness exhausts me; I need the space and grace to go back to my center---that vitalizing center.

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