Doing less

April 7, 2007 10:08:45 AM

This morning, up about 5, sitting on the front porch of this farmhouse, reading and listening.

Two or three roosters compete with one another, chanting from different directions, at different distances. One cries out, and another answers. Again and again.
A straw broom swishes on concrete, sweeping leaves from the front driveway.
Two little boys walk along dribbling their basketballs rhythmically, side by side, in sync with one another.

The breeze brushes branches together.
At the road, I see a vehicle drive by with several passengers. I feel no need to join them.
I stay on the front porch until the mosquitoes get the best of me, along with the smoke from the cooking fire next door.


Good Friday was an odd day for us - we could not stay awake. When we weren't eating, we were napping. When we weren't napping, we were eating. Mostly, we napped. We regained some of our lost rest.


Holy Saturday, today, is odd in other ways. This is the one day of the year when, Colin tells me, mass is not held. The lectionaries, for this one day out of the entire year, list no gospel readings.
The family here deliberately does less. We eat eggs, and food from a can, and watermelon. Right now there's no TV, no music. I notice no pressure to rush around, to get things done. Things do get done - breakfast is cooked and eaten and the table cleared, a couple of people have gone to the city or to the town market for groceries, but the pace of life is so much more leisurely than what we live with normally.

The pace of life here has always seemed more leisurely, and that sense is pronounced today.
So often back home, we would tend to do more - on this Saturday I would be mowing the lawn, running errands, cooking and cleaning, trying to pack into this one day everything I couldn't get done the rest of the days in my week.
There can be a great pressure to fill one's time with endless activity, even sometimes pointless activity.
But maybe we need time out.

Spiritual writers talk about the need to be present in the way we deal with our time and our relationships. They speak to, and against, our tendency to divorce body and mind. Our bodies may well be here, at this place, at this moment, but our minds have gone on ahead to other things, other times, worrying about or planning for - or longing for - a place or an event we are not yet really part of. We inhabit two times or places at once and can do neither justice. I spend so much of my time in this condition - talking to someone on one topic but thinking about something else entirely, constantly distracted, and all parties suffer for it. Even at times when I need not be distracted I find myself unconsciously avoiding quiet and solitude. We are not made to be so divided.

There is something very refreshing about this change of pace - removing distractions and the drive to distract oneself. The challenge when we leave will be this: we need to find a way to maintain this sense of presence in our everyday lives.