God is In the Silence

Yesterday, the kids and I stopped between the post office and the grocery store for a quick cup of chili. After sitting down and enjoying our hot lunch, we held hands and headed back to the car. As I strapped myself in, I noticed the lady in the car next to me cramming (honestly, she was cramming) a sandwich into her mouth while talking on the phone rapid fire, chewing all the while. It's likely that I stared for a minute. I first thought, when did we (society as a whole) lose our manners? And secondly, when did we lose the time to sit down and have a proper lunch?

I think about things like this all the time. Mainly, when did society go so wrong? I'm fairly certain that my mother's generation did cram food in their mouths and talk on the phone. I know that my grandmother's generation did not. They didn't eat standing at the kitchen counter. They did not multi-task, unless you count holding a baby and stirring dinner multi-tasking.

Jen has a series going on about searching for the peaceful life. Her husband attempted an experiment in their home to use no artificial light for several days. Unfortunately for him it didn't go past a day. But it's a very interesting concept. A forced relaxation of sorts. If there is no light, we cannot keep going, going, going like the Energizer Bunny. We must sleep, or at the very most, relax and read by candlelight, or better yet, talk to each other.

Jen says she had a conversation with her grandfather about how he got everything done in his day. Did they rush around, always feeling behind the eight ball, so to speak? He said, "no." They didn't rush at all. And I know if I had that same conversation with my grandma she would say the same thing. They did what was required to fill their vocation in life. They did it well, most of them But, they knew their limitations. They didn't try to do it all. When did we buy in to "I can do it all?" Why did we buy into it? Who needs to do it all? Is it our dissatisfaction with the vocation we chose, that we think we can bundle several vocations into one?

I know that if I asked my grandma if she would have wanted to do other things, say blog, for example, when she was raising her family, she would say "no." She would not have attempted to do anything outside what was required to raise her children and be a good wife. She really knew her place and stayed within its boundaries. It was her simpleness. Not simplemindedness, just simpleness, as in uncomplicated.

I think that somewhere in time, our society, at least "Western" society, took the wrong turn when we bought into the need to do everything and have everything. It's human nature I suppose, and trying to be the best is not actually a bad thing. But, I truly believe that we have to work within the limits of our vocation to truly be happy. Otherwise there is no end to what we will attempt. There is no time at which we light a candle and say "It is dark. I will rest."

A year ago I was using a daily schedule similar to that used in A Mother's Rule. I found it very helpful to have a day for each chore -- laundry on Monday, Wednesday, Saturday kind of thing. Somehow I got away from using the schedule and I need to get back to it. I find it very helpful to have every thing scheduled because it helps me avoid the need to try to get everything done at once. I don't have to worry about laundry on Tuesday, because I don't do laundry on Tuesday. Kind of like the candle thing again -- if it's dark, it's time to rest. I think Jen is right that human beings need stops. We have to force ourselves to put life in its place.

A few years ago I started planning our Sundays to be days "at rest." It's something we should have been doing all along, but we weren't. So, I started making certain that my laundry was done on Saturday and I didn't need to make a trip to the store. With rare exceptions, we don't work on Sunday, unless it's an enjoyable work, like gardening. I think I need to start doing that more with my days. Use my time wisely to make certain that I'm not burning the candle at both ends. Or actually maybe I should make certain I am burning the candle -- only on one end and only at night. Because God is found in the calm, the simple, the silence.
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