The Busyness Business

Friday 7/18/2015 6:19 AM

I’m sitting quietly in the living room of my brother-in-law and sister-in-law’s house having my morning devotional time. Outside I hear the chirping of birds and the rustling of leaves as the gentle breeze caresses the morning, the foreplay of dawn. It is the time of day I cherish the most, a time to reflect on my life and my relationship with God.

I am in the middle of an extended time away from home, from the busyness and the routine of my work-a-day world. I enjoy spending time with my family and with friends but the solitude of a quiet morning energizes me like nothing else does.

I always thought I enjoy the solitude the most but I am rethinking things after reading the writing of Stephanie Ford in her book, Kindred Souls. She writes, “Contemporary life provides precious little space for discernment, given the overriding burden of time. We hurry from one task to another, expressing thoughts and emotions on the fly but rarely sitting down to discern what they may be saying to us. Even accomplished multitaskers know moments of loneliness. In a quiet, predawn moment or while daydreaming between gulps of coffee at a traffic light, an ache may surface. We yearn to share the ordinary ups and downs of our lives with someone, the unspoken prayers we don’t feel comfortable uttering at a church meeting and experiences like the moment when we realize God had healed our heart after years of grieving a loss.” Perhaps it isn’t the solitude that energizes me but rather the opportunity to discern my thoughts and emotions and to share them with those I love.

It seems like the normal busyness of my life teams up with the faux busyness I allow to be thrust upon me by modern technology and social media to preclude me from sorting through all the information with which I am bombarded and separate the wheat of my life from the chaff.  I pray that when I return to my regular routine I will get rid of some of the faux busyness in my life to afford the opportunity to discern.