While Jesus and his followers were traveling, Jesus went into a town. A woman named Martha let Jesus stay at her house. Martha had a sister named Mary, who was sitting at Jesus' feet and listening to him teach. But Martha was busy with all the work to be done. She went in and said, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me alone to do all the work? Tell her to help me."
But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things. Only one thing is important. Mary has chosen the better thing, and it will never be taken away from her."
Luke 10:38-42
I was reading someone else's blog this morning and as I finished, I just shook my head. It was all too familiar to me. Being busy. This is not my struggle, but it was my mom's. Is it yours?
I think anything from my childhood that upset me, I countered by becoming just the opposite. Maybe it was my survival insticts. Being overly busy was one thing that always upset me about my mom. She could never just sit down and enjoy things. She HAD to be doing something all the time. She was good at visiting while doing other things...but it was the face time I craved. I wanted her undivided attention. I wanted her sitting down close to me, focused.
I may overcompensate too much for this in my own life. I spend my mornings sitting next to my children, snuggled on the couch with them while they watch their morning cartoon. Could I be getting a lot of work done during this time? Oh for sure. There is always laundry waiting for me. Dishes that didn't get washed from the night before. Dust holding my children's handprints there are on the entertainment center. I could have gotten us all dressed and out the door for the errands that need to be run. But I want my son to FEEL me there with him, without having to look up. I want to hear every word he says. I want to show him that I care about if Dora takes the circle path or the triangle path. I know not everyone can do this, but you do have time after work. Or do you?
Stop and think about all the activities you are involved in? If there are more than two or three, then think about how fully you commit yourself to each one. Are you giving your all to each activity? And if not, then why are you involved in it? How do you feel about other people who half way participate in the things that are important to you? Does it frustrate you?
Do you really need to be in PTO? Will your child suffer if you aren't? Do you really need to have your child in gymnastics AND softball? Karate AND cubscouts? Does that leave them time to enjoy the programs at church? Does that leave them time to enjoy their own backyard at home? Are they home enough to remember what their rooms look like? Or are you teaching your children to be overstretched too? Do you really need to coach their team? Or can you just enjoy watching them play? Do you really need to be their scout leader? Or can you just enjoy hearing what all they learned? Do you really need to be the room mother? Or can you just send snacks with your child? Do you really need to chaperone their field trip? Or can you just enjoy letting them tell you about their fun trip and all that they learned, with big, excited eyes? Do you really need to help organize a fundraiser for the school festival? Or can you just buy extra tickets or donate goodies for the cake walks? Do you really need to be involved in this or that activity? Or could you replace it with serving in a ministry at church? (Are you teaching your children to be fully involved in activities or fully serving others?) Do you really need to spend the day driving to Old Navy to get your child some cute clothes? Or can you just get them an outfit at Wal-Mart so that the day is free to spend with them? Do you really need to mow this weekend? Or can it wait a few days? Do you really need to spend everynight after they are in bed cleaning and doing laundry? Or can you just crash on the couch and catch up on some mindless tv? NONE of these things are bad! In fact, they are all wonderful things to do. But if you do too many, you are just killing yourself and for what? Do you really think your child cares that you are Supermom? They just want you to be with them. And not just as a passenger in the car on the way to the next thing.
Even as an adult, I used to beg my mom to just come sit down and visit with me. "I can do this and talk at the same time!," she would say. Yes, she could. She did it very well. But that's not what I wanted. I wanted HER. I craved HER. I was always super needy of her, and I think that's why. I could never get "full" of her. She was a queen at multi-tasking, as a lot of us are. But I just never want my children to feel like they are never quite satisfied with the time I give them. Now, my mom is in Heaven...her life cut short. I bet if she would have known her days were coming to an end, she would have spent more time FULLY on us and less out pulling the weeds.
Don't be a Martha, spending your time being SuperWoman. Let your children call you Mary. It won't hurt to slow down, I promise. Being busy is a good thing...just be busy doing the RIGHT things.
I'm including the blog post I read earlier, in case you are interested in reading it. You can find it below:
Macaroni Meditations by Jonalyn Fincher
When Dale and I had been married less than a year I remarked how nothing was more thrilling than doing more than one thing at a time.
Knitting while watching Pride and Prejudice (A&E version).Finishing a novel while drinking tea, a persimmon cookie waiting on the side.
Making a phone call just as I search for an exit ramp.
Nursing Finn while watching 30 Rock.
Downloading pictures while answering email.
Simmering macaroni between folding laundry.
Dale simply repeated my words, “nothing more thrilling” and creased his brow. No further comment.
If I can dash down the snow packed steps to our basement door outside to start a load of laundry, pick up some more diapers (stored in the basement), run upstairs, start the timer, get water boiling for pasta, kick some dog toys into their corner farther from Finn’s avid hands, scoop my wee one up for some attempts to feed him butternut squash, separate his laundry, add the pasta, turn on some music, screen a call, do my make-up, let the dogs out, stir the bubbling pasta, turn the heat down, wipe Finn’s face, change a diaper, ask Dale to watch him, check the laundry, balance the jacuzzi outside, run inside and find the pasta nearly boiling over, but just in time to rescue another burned stove top, I feel sort-of superior.
I feel darn good about myself.
Look how much I got done in my 30 minutes?
My not-so-hidden point: what did you do with yours?
Spinning several plates at once, juggling several balls, all the burners on, a pot on every one has been the way not just for me, but for most Americans. We judge each other by our business. I’ve heard that to ask someone in China, “How are you?” the expected answer is, “I am very busy, thank you” because if you’re busy you must be fine. Look at how many people want you, need you!
Every now and again…okay, every day, one of the dozens of things I’m doing will grab my attention, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of it. My attention stolen to a clamoring Finn, or growling among the corgis, a buzzing text, an urgent, painful email and then, the threatening macaroni boils over.
I always take my anger out on the macaroni. How entirely uncooperative!
Hard to feel amazing, accomplished, a deft and very important woman when the house smells like burned pasta.
I’m not sure I have the patience to watch over macaroni during those valuable “simmer for 8-10 minutes.”
Which convinces me of something embarassing and childish.
I have a core belief that there’s enough time. I’m racing against the clock, saving up time to spend it, like gold.
I think I actually believe I haven’t been given enough time.
I’m starting to think macaroni is a discipline to alter the time-Nazi in me.
I seethe and roil, just like the water, when I just stand there, alternatively stirring and wondering if I should dust behind the lazy susan. Spotting a dead fly, trying to run and get the vacuum to suck it up between stirring. I’m no longer noticing the macaroni. Sometimes I accidentally drop the fly into the macaroni!
Just kidding.
Mother Teresa said that prayer can be learned by watching the flowers. Well, I don’t have any to watch at the moment. My flowers are buried under dozens of inches of snow outside my window.
But I do have some macaroni.
My grandfather was a master at noticing the stuff right in front of him, from the way an animal cracker’s face smiles to the cowlick on my son’s crown. He once sliced open a chocolate bar, carefully unfolding the aluminum foil that preserved the treat. I was wriggling to pop a piece into my mouth. But Papi took his time, pointing out the fine, onion-skin quality of the foil, how easy it was to impress.
I was young enough to be impressed. Papi, like Mother Teresa, like David the Psalmist notices how the world teaches us how to respond to God and ourselves. Staring at, meditating on the stars, the sea, the Leviathan, the storks, the goats is something David did regularly (Ps 104). God tells Job to notice the world to help him see God (Job 40-41). Jesus commends us to the lilies and the birds (Matt 6:27, Matt 8:20) to better know him.
Next time I make macaroni and for the next 365 days, I want to pause for those 8-10 minutes and notice what I’m doing, to build an altar in the world.
I will stir and notice the way the old pine knots in the panelling. I will look at what has been done, the clean stove, the ordered bottles, rather than what needs doing. I will do more than glance out the window between flurrying and see the living knots in aspen of White Woods. And for 8-10 minutes I will read the world as reverently as I read the Bible.
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