1 o’clock in the afternoon and just about time to put my girls down for a nap, which entails a story and a snuggle for however long it takes for them to fall asleep. (Parent as you will, but truth be told, I have absolutely no qualms about curling up next to my children as they drift off to sleep.) However that routine does call for a few adjustments on my part, mainly in the realm of, “Oh please dear children fall asleep because I need these ninety-ish minutes.” Parents, you get me. Whether nap time or bedtime, you adore days with your little ones, but for the sake of a sense of self, and a bit of sanity thrown in, down time is an absolute must. When the allotted time doesn’t go as planned you feel as though you are only a mile short of finishing the marathon when someone suddenly yells, “Hey, we miscalculated the route… you actually have 5 more miles to go!” Suddenly you become unpredictable. All that graciousness you gave to yourself and your children alike plummet like fine china at a flea market. And you know you’re going to have to pay for that broken tea cup. What you do you must own, and there are no refunds.
Although at 1 o’clock I am still in what I believe to be the last mile of the run, and the minutes that move along are enjoyable. Even restful. I hear a phone call come through, but it can wait. My little ones slip into slumber, and I inch away, checking in who it was that called and my heart flutters a bit. A phone call that I had been waiting a couple of weeks for that carries with it, perhaps even if unnecessarily so, a bit of an emotional attachment. Poised to return the call, I hear a stirring. (Noooooo.) Go back to sleep little one, I mutter sweetly. But not this time. Apparently speed-naps at the rate of five minutes are better today, and I begin to feel a bit desperate. Oh child, please go back to sleep. Not happening. Minutes tick. My attempts are futile. In what feels like only moments later, the second one wakes. (This can’t be happening.) All I can think on is the phone call I want to make – which would be much better made in silence – and ultimately a few moments to myself. Instead I receive a text message from Jordan: “I had to stay… can you put my Norman guitar downstairs by the door please? I literally have no time in between.” What was supposed to be a moment for him to come home and grab a bite to eat before heading out to teach lessons, turned into a grab and go scenario, and I knew what the better part of me was to do. Go make the man a sandwich. Simple in both amount of energy and time, yet that menial task had the immense propensity of stirring up a grumbling disposition. Mind you, even though it was my idea.
In that moment I sensed a soft reminder. Take care of what is in front of you.
That nudge was all it took. My lungs steadily exhaled. My very awake children became light to me again. My husbands already full day became a place to extend compassion, where a sandwich became instead too little. That phone call seemed trivial, and thereby unable to steer the direction of my attention. And although returned with noise in the background, my heart was better for what was first perceived as inconveniences morphed back into delights. All on the heels of one very simple reminder: Take care of what is in front of you.
Jordan recently came across the book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. Upon his suggestion, we began reading it together. I’m about two chapters in and already the author is pointing to what I have been keenly aware of in these last small handful of years. Take care of what is in front of you. Simple it may seem, but profoundly countercultural and requiring ridiculous amounts of intentionality. We both found it easy to resonate with the first few pages, as the author used phrases that have already been littered in our conversation: moments, being present, loving well, oh and figuring out how to interact with our devices (a piece of the conversation that taunts me regularly). Yet all of them grounded by a rebuttal to this one prominent level of existence as we know it: Hurry.
To hurry is to move in opposition to what is in front of you, which would seem like only a matter of common sense to resolve, and yet hurry is what we do with a gusto, and in a rather celebratory fashion. We pride being marked by both present busyness and future pursuits, and approach rather lousily our ability to be fully engaged in the moment for nothing more than the moment itself. Consider even our need to snap a photograph at just about every turn. We say that the moment needs to be captured, thereby being convinced that until an instance holds share in our future self – the scrolling through photographs self – then the moment’s value is only half complete. Hurry screams, albeit subtly, that where you are is not enough if it does not influence where you will be. This has been a lesson clawing for my attention over and over again, even with my intentionality of hitting it head on. For I, probably like most, have somehow come to believe, whether in consumerism or spiritualism, that the actions of life are to function as a means to an end. Or that what you do now is only worthwhile, or at least holds greater value, if it speaks into the trajectory of the future. So to lay beside my daughters, who seem unconvinced of an afternoon nap, is something I simply do not – or at least should not – have time for, as the need they are presenting no longer carries with it the weight of necessity, and the future self is lost. My time is precious and I need to move onto the next thing, whether that’s a phone call or, let’s be honest, a good thumb scroll through Instagram. No matter, if I do not receive the results I want quickly enough, then the moment itself succumbs rather rapidly to inconvenience and drudgery. Onto the next thing, we say, or be the fool that’s left behind, whether the last in a long check out line or a lagging entrepreneurial attempt.
What part of ourselves do we need to forego in order to embrace the part we’ve forgotten? The part that knows how to live life to the full because we know the fullness of life. Could it be as simple as a persistent mantra of take care of what is in front of you, or are there far too many alluring distractions, annoying speed limits, and photographable moments vying for our attention? Perhaps it’s time for a paradigm shift, and I can say rather assuredly that the about-face will demand your soul in order that you might be found once again.
EXPOSITION: Until we recognize that there is a need for change, any attempt to eliminate hurry is rather futile. The word is rather baked into our cultural DNA, and even praised. Perhaps the first couple of chapters of Comer’s book should be a pre-requisite to this question, but determine for yourself now if you want to live in the richness of a life that requires you to take care of what is in front of you. The answer is yours.
DENOUEMENT: Now go read the book. I’m right there with you.
RISE: Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. -Jesus