Last week I was very busy. Before the week began I thought it was mostly free. Then BAM. I look at my calendar and there is something listed on every lunch break and every evening! That is over-busy if you ask me.
I’m a planner. A Type A extrovert. I love to get things done, get things started, communicate, see people… I even like to be busy you could say.
But I also highly value life-balance. I know, through all I’ve studied in my health reads and through all I’ve lived so far, that quiet, peace, down-time, or Sabbath, you could call it, is vital to health, to wholeness and to peace.
So when I looked at that jam-packed agenda, which happens sometimes, I wanted to have a mini-freak-out; to allow the stress of “Oh no, how will it all get done? How will I have any time to rest? When will I breathe/read/think/be?!”.
But last week was different. Yes I had to fight for it, but I was able to live in the hustle without it living in me.
I think what happened is it got beyond my ability to “handle it all” in regards to the future things on my plate. I had to just surrender to it. So before the week began, I chose.
I chose to be present.
You see, if you sit back in your chair right now, if you breathe into this right now. Everything’s all right in this here, in this now. You can handle this one moment. You don’t have to handle all the consecutive ones right now.
Just be here.
Who are you with? Be with them. Enjoy them. Look at them.
What are you doing? Do that. Just that. You only have to do that one thing in this now.
For, “tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”
Or as the Message says it “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.”
All too often people get afraid of us “yogis” and our “Just be present!” invitations. But that sentiment didn’t start with us. It started with Jesus. The one who was the very embodiment of being present. Of mindfulness. Jesus knew who to live life. He knew how to be with who he was with. How to embrace the moment he was given, even (and maybe especially?!) when it didn’t happen as he hoped or expected.
My week ended up being lovely. Some engagements were later cancelled and I even got to rest. What if I’d worried about those plans earlier in the week? It would’ve been to no advantage. Isn’t that how worrying often works? We think it helps… but later it shows to be futile more times than not.
So, as backwards as this sounds, may you find rest in the busy. May you choose mindfulness over worry. May you choose presence here, now, over what will happen later.
Taste. See. Breathe it in. Be all here.
