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Managing Our (Sacred) Time
There is a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon in which a very frustrated Calvin mutters, "I know God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now, I’m so far behind I will never die!" We’ve all been in that place where there just doesn’t seem to be enough time to accomplish what’s on our plate. But some people actually live in that place as a lifestyle! How uncomfortable is that!
My desire today is to look more closely at time and to understand that time has its own set of unique properties. Time is much more than the medium which allows us to get things done if we use it wisely. We understand time in three parts. The past, where we have been so far, and which has an enormous grip on our self-understanding; the future, which is that vast mystery which contains all that we can perceive of our potential. And then there’s the present… this is what I’d like to focus on today. Most of us tend to view the present in utilitarian allotments that allow us to get the laundry or a project done. Most of the time we are oblivious to the mystical properties of the present, of now, of the fact that it is right now where the soul awakes, if we can only focus for a moment – it is here, in the present, now where we find the doorway to eternity.
This, is the second of three sermons in January on beginning the year well. It is entitled, “Mastering our (sacred) Time. This will not be about how to set special time aside for spiritual endeavors or creation of a Sabbath – as worthy as that is. The premise today is that all time is sacred. It is sacred but hard to manage, and there are costs to managing it badly, and I want to take a look at what poor time management looks like spiritually and what the costs are. Too easily we can get into a mode where we waste time as though it were free and limitless. If time were money, we squander it in one’s all day long. The message in today’s sermon can be summed up in the motto: “Take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.”
So, how do we take care of the minutes?
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Some people are naturally better with time than others, and we all have our own preferred rhythms. I’m sure you have some loved ones in your life that like to keep busy - some people absolutely thrive on intense activity and full schedules. Some people can’t stand not being in the thick of it and function well within the intensity they create –These people don’t suffer in the least from over commitment. They seemingly can show up everywhere, remain invigorated and go to sleep (requiring little) feeling that a full day is a good day. President Clinton is an extreme example. For these people life is a banquet table where it seems they cannot be overfed.
Most of us aren’t like that. Many of us are social people who like to be “in the loop,” but we don’t currently have enough skill at managing our time, and so we pay a very real price for our over commitment that diminishes our quality of life. If you experience chronic bouts of feeling disorganized, overwhelmed or stressed then you are probably overcommitted. You try to fit in too many things. A cure may come from simply learning your limits. Learning your limits is more than practical – it is a spiritual endeavor.
Marilyn Paul, the organization expert I referenced a couple of Sundays ago, says that we often imagine things take less time than they do. We tell ourselves that a phone call will only take a couple of minutes, or we can eat our lunch in ten. Are you a person who just tries to fit in one more thing before you leave the house for a dentist appointment, and the find yourself sheepishly arriving twelve minutes late? Paul says, “Learning how much time it takes to do common activities is like ending a life-long argument. You might say, “It shouldn’t take that long.” And Life says, “But it does take that long. As it turns out, Life is always right.”
Another time issue many of us contend is having blocks on our calendar taken up by commitments we don’t value mainly because we don’t like how it feels to say no and so we say yes to things we aren’t enthusiastic about. If you habitually feel put on the spot by friendly invitations, or agree to things that you’re not really looking forward to, you can do something about it. One simple solution is to develop a habit of saying, “Can I get back to you on that?” as a good rule of thumb for any invitation. This gives you a little breathing space in which to gather your thoughts. It gives you time to consider things like whether or not doing whatever it is will give you energy, or whether it will connect you to people you care most about – or whether you are you excited about doing whatever it is. If the answers are no, decline the invitation. You may not think of this as spiritual work but it most certainly is. Over time you will do less of what you like less and what you do will be that which you value more. Use this approach over many years and your life’s unfolding will more nearly reflect the essential you. You may worry about hurting people’s feelings when you turn something down. The shift may feel awkward at first, but mature people who love you will not begrudge you if you decline occasional invitations out of lack of interest. Hopefully they will encourage you to be yourself.
And yes, church work is included. Do not say yes to church work that does not excite or interest you or that which comes up when you truly don’t have the time. I have said this many times to different people – belonging to a church at its best is like running a marathon, pushing yourself to remain involved at a pace that is too intense or in activities that do not feed you are a recipe for burnout. Pace yourself by choosing well. The church is meant to be a healing place. You should be fed by what you do here. When you work at things you love this church is a healthier place and you are healthier too because your giving is more nearly aligned with the spirit.
You may not think of saying no as a spiritual practice, but the way it works is nicely conveyed on the cover of your order of service. Take a look. For those of you who will see this on cable, or who will read this sermon later, the graphic is made up of the word no written hundreds of times so that the blank space left on the page carved out by all those no’s spells out the word yes. Saying no in the right places in your life adds up to a resounding YES. If you find saying no to uncomfortable and you aren’t good at it, maybe you should keep this on your refrigerator as encouragement.
There’s another time issue I’d like to address that may be a time spoiler for only a few of you – or maybe it’s just my own quirk. I think that many of us are not masters over the technology in our lives. Do you get captured once you sit down to watch television to the point where you watch what is on - and even it’s junk inertia wins? When you get up after watching - is your nervous system better or worse off? Are you a happier or more interesting? This may be just my issue, but I find that I need to monitor both my TV and car radio habits – because all too often I realize that I’m filled with mush or reacting to violence. It captures me when it shouldn’t. It’s junk food for the mind and yet sometimes I’m slave to it. This is another place where I have found that saying no is a good spiritual practice.
Let me tell you a story that gives the perfect perspective:
“Once a hunter spied a flock of quail who were feasting in the tall grass at the edge of the forest. With one swift movement he caught them all in his net. He took the birds to his home and put them in a cage behind his house. The poor birds walked around and around the cage crying and crying. But whenever the man came and tossed in seeds they greedily pecked them up. All but one bird, that is. There was one bird in the cage who refused to eat, and grew thinner and thinner.
At last the day came when the man planned to bring the fattened birds to the
market to sell. He looked carefully into the cage inspecting the quality of his
flock. When he noticed the thin bird, he opened the cage and took it out to
examine it more closely.
"Why, you're nothing but bones," he said. No sooner had he spoken than the bird
flew from his hand to the safety of a branch just out of his reach.
The other birds looked at their free sister and cooed sadly. The free bird sang
sadly back, "You ate your captor's food and soon you will die. I refused my
captor's food, and now I am free."
For me, TV, Talk radio and working on the computer are the food of the master – when I indulge my spirit deadens. I have to be wary. Sometimes, when I want to kick back and relax and veg – they’re okay. But if what I find there isn’t going to give me energy, doesn’t really even interest me then I’m doing a little worse than killing time. I am doing my nervous system and my mind a disservice. You may not relate to this as a problem – but sometimes for me it’s good to turn the TV off, there is a freedom in refusing to eat the captive’s food.
I hope I’ve made you more conscious of some mistakes we make in our relation to time. With some simple adjustments it is possible to live less of a rat race and to align what we do more nearly with our values. For most of us, doing less would be more, in terms of satisfaction and ease on the nervous system. Remember, small steps actually taken are more impactful than big steps not taken. I want to close with one more, I think, very practical suggestion. You may want to develop the art of the pause. Let me explain.
The other night at Religious Education Committee we started the meeting on time although not everyone was present – Laurie lit the chalice, and then, in an intentionally slow, calm voice encouraged us to enter the stillness, which we did, and spent a half minute or minute in silence. That moment of silence (pause) was effective; it was like we changed frequencies. Then we started around the table to check in – we each share a bit of what’s going on in our lives before we get to business. Well, during check in, someone whooshed in all hurried up, engaging the group in conversation, sharing what made her late. Laurie offered a soothing, “No problem, just breathe,” and so we all took five or ten seconds to breathe and then we started up again. Then in whooshed someone else all cranked up. Now it didn’t matter who was coming in and who was already at the table, the people coming in off the street needed to be given a moment to center, put down their mental baggage and join with the group. They had to slow down in order to catch up with themselves as much as with the group.
The art of the centering pause, is something we can do for ourselves if you so choose. Earlier I said the message of this sermon could be summed up as, “Take care of the minutes, and the hours will take care of themselves.” This last suggestion is probably the most powerful: Three or four times each day just stop for a moment and center: be completely still.
The best time to pause, I think, is not in the middle something – but just after or just before. For example, you’ve arrived somewhere – before you take your keys out of the ignition, make a conscious effort to slow down inside, breathe and feel your heartbeat. Or when you finish a phone call - stop – look around, see the colors, smell the coffee, listen to the hum of your furnace. This way we break out of the unconscious zone we are in and we come back to now.
To some degree or other, all of us are prisoners of our own habits, our own intensity and decision-making. We can change.
There is a story of a Muslim man who was put into prison for a crime he did not commit. A friend smuggled him in a prayer rug. The man was disappointed because he didn’t want a prayer rug: what he wanted was a hack saw or a knife. But after some time he decided to make use of the rug, and he would study the beautiful and intricate patterns in the rug as he did his daily prayers. One day he started to see an interesting pattern in the rug, a diagram of the internal mechanism of the lock to his cell. And then not long after, he picked the lock and was free."
I like that story because it suggests that the key to life, to living well, to freedom, to the change we need, lies within us in our values, assumptions, and experiences. It says that we have only to look carefully, and we will find it. I also like the image of the prayer rug. We began this morning with the premise that all time is sacred. When you pause, when you take that moment to find the stillness, spiritually speaking you are on that prayer rug – whether in the car outside the grocery store or at the computer at work – when you come back to that stillness, you are on that prayer rug.
And now, let us join together and sing Hymn # 352 Find a Stillness……….