Skip to main content

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.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I-Thou Relationships

Those of us who have read theology or, perhaps, those who are people of faith and are old enough might well recognize this title as a reminder of the late Jewish philosopher and theologian, Martin Buber.   I remember reading Buber’s book, I and Thou , when I was in college in the 1960s.   It was already a famous book by then.   I am not sure I fully understood it, but that would not be the last time I read it.   It has been a while since I looked at the book.             Buber came up in a conversation with a friend who asked if I had seen the recent article by David Brooks?   I had not seen it, but when I was told about it, I knew I would quickly locate and read that piece.   I very much like what Brooks decides to write about and what he contributes to societal conversation.   I wish more people read him and took him seriously.           ...
13 comments
Read more

Spiritual Commitment

I was reading along in a very nice little book and hit these lines about commitment.   The author, Mitch Albom, uses the voice of one of the main characters of his nonfiction book about faith to reflect on commitment.   The voice belongs to Albom’s old rabbi of the Jewish synagogue where he went until his college days.   The old rabbi, Albert Lewis, says “the word ‘commitment’ has lost its meaning.”    The rabbi continues in a way that surely would have many people saying, “Amen!”   About commitment he says, “I’m old enough when it used to be a positive.   A committed person was someone to be admired.   He was loyal and steady.   Now a commitment is something you avoid.   You don’t want to tie yourself down.”   I also think I am old enough to know that commitment was usually a positive word.   I can think of a range of situations in which commitment would have been seen to be positive.   For example, growing up was f...
20 comments
Read more

Inward Journey and Outward Pilgrimage

There are so many different ways to think about the spiritual life.   And of course, in our country there are so many different variations of religious experiences.   There are liberals and conservatives.   There are fundamentalists and Pentecostals.   Besides the dizzying variety of Christian traditions, there are many different non-Christian traditions.   There are the major traditions, such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and so on.   There are the slightly more obscure traditions, such as Sikhism, Jainism, etc.   And then there are more fringe groups and, even, pseudo-religions.   There are defining doctrines and religious practices.   Some of these are specific to a particular tradition or a few traditions, such as the koan , which is used in Zen Buddhism for example.   Other defining doctrines or practices are common across the religious board.   Something like meditation would be a good example.   Christians meditate;...
10 comments
Read more