I wish I was a Benedictine, sometimes, with my routine set and most of my days looking roughly the same. I'm a creature of predictability, thriving when I know I have a schedule I can rely on. I want a steady rhythm to my days, and instead I have a wandering flow.
But there's a rhythm here, too. Not, maybe, of the traditional kind, though there are still enough hours in every day for work, for my soul, for my family, and for rest. And if the days aren't rhythmed, the weeks often are. The same tasks are done, just not always in the same places.
I find myself doing a lot more listening, these days, to God and to myself. When I listen, I know what comes next, what to do with these few minutes here and those over there. I know what is important when, and everything eventually gets done without any piece starving.
I know what it's like to starve, to feel hungry for 10 minutes alone because I've pushed myself to work through all the open space in my days. It's insistent and snappish, this hunger, and it doesn't go away for ignoring it or telling it to wait a couple of years. So I take time, here and there, as soul and spirit call, and find my work and family better for it.
Nothing feels completed these days, not most of the time. Laundry is done in fits and spurts, often over several days. Work is finished piecemeal, and even prayer serves the desperate interruptions of waking kiddos. But life is not about finding answers and maybe we are never really done, anyway.
3 comments:
Yes. I love this for you -- that you have found rhythms that Eugene Peterson calls "unforced." I remember being so excited to hear that a helpful takeaway for you from the rhythmed life series I did at Still Forming was realizing that you need rhythmed weeks more than rhythmed days. That was such a cool thing to learn from you.
I love, too, hearing about the listening that you're doing, how much the listening in small moments informs the next thing best to do, and then the next. I think that's more of how we're meant to live in the daily -- moment to moment with God -- rather than depending on huge heaping gulps that we get in one place that we then hold our breaths to keep until the next time we can take another big gulp. Moment by moment throughout the day instead ... just like breathing.
amen dear. i love hearing your words and your heart. it makes me miss you just a little more, in a way, but it feels good to know what you're thinking.
I smiled to read this. And nodded, as I pondered my own journey towards finding rhythms. Sending you hugs and prayers as you settle into rhythms that work for you.
Miss you!
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