Busy, Busy
(Lev.13:1-2, 44-46; 1Cor.10:31-11:1; Mk.1:40-45)
In 1930, the British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that we’d all be living in a ‘leisure society’ in the 21st Century.
He thought that because of growing populations, rising incomes and modern technology, we’d all be enjoying a 15-hour working week by 2030.[i]
He was wrong, wasn’t he? Today the standard working week in many countries is 40 hours, but many of us work much longer than that. The social researcher Hugh MacKay says we’ve all become obsessed with the idea of appearing busy, and ‘busy, busy’ has become a kind of mantra in our lives. [ii] Why?
One answer is that our society thinks it’s important that we ‘have it all’ and that we look successful. So, we work long hours to pay for everything, and working hard has become a sign of success. But some people are now so successful that they don’t even have time for their families.
There’s another reason why we’re so busy. Geoffrey Plant, in his book Releasing the Captive, says we often keep ourselves busy to avoid listening, for frantic busyness can be a wonderful hiding place. He says that if you stay busy for long enough, you might never have time to listen and you might never have time to look at the things and the people you’d rather not see. You also might never have to face the situations or questions you’d rather avoid. [iii]
In his book Christian Reflections, C.S. Lewis tells us how to dodge these awkward things. All we have to do, he says, is ‘…avoid silence, avoid solitude, avoid any train of thought that leads us off the beaten track. Concentrate on money, sex, status, health and (above all) on your own grievances. Keep the radio on. Live in a crowd. Use plenty of sedation. If you must read books, select them very carefully. But you’d be safer to stick to the papers. You’ll find the advertisements helpful; especially those with a sexy or snobbish appeal.’ [iv]
So, keeping ourselves distracted is a good way to side-step the truth of our lives. However, the Tibetan teacher Sogyal Rinpoche says this is a form of laziness. In his Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, he contrasts Eastern and Western types of laziness and says they’re quite different.
Western laziness, he says, ‘consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there’s no time at all to confront the real issues.’ [v]
Is that you? Are you constantly filling time and killing time?
Many people today are so fed up with their frenzied lives that they dream of a sea-change or a tree-change. I expect, however, that what most of us really need is a ‘me-change.’
In today’s Gospel, Jesus returns to Galilee after 40 days in the desert, and he tells his followers to ‘Repent, and believe in the Gospel’.
Now, repentance doesn’t mean being sad and miserable and feeling guilty for our sins. Repentance means changing the way we think, changing the way we feel, and changing the way we do things.
Today is the first Sunday in Lent, and in Lent we’re all called to follow Jesus into the desert. Not a physical desert, but a spiritual desert, a quiet place where we’re alone with Jesus in our hearts.
But why a desert?
Well, the desert is many things. It’s a holy place. It’s where the Jewish people found their way to God. It’s where they first discovered that God loved them, and it’s where they learnt to become faithful and loving.
The desert is also a place of silence and solitude. It’s a place of blue skies, bold colours and sharp contrasts. It’s where there are few distractions and the truth is plain to see. And importantly, it’s a place where everything slows down.
We don’t need a sea-change or a tree-change to find inner peace. Instead, let’s try a ‘me-change,’ by withdrawing with Jesus into our spiritual hearts.
Jesus wants us to step off our ‘busy, busy’ treadmills, and start spending quiet time with Him, listening to Him and learning from Him.
We don’t have to fear what we might find. Jesus was tempted in the desert, but He was also comforted by God’s angels. And when He left the desert, He was crystal clear about what he had to do.
Let’s do the same this Lent.
Let’s spend some quiet time with Jesus in the desert.
[i] John Maynard Keynes, Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren. 1930. https://assets.aspeninstitute.org/content/uploads/files/content/upload/Intro_and_Section_I.pdf
[ii] http://www.theage.com.au/news/hugh-mackay/busy-mind-your-own-busyness/2005/09/16/1126750124980.html
[iii] Geoffrey Plant. Releasing the Captive. Garratt Publishing, Melbourne, 2011.
[iv] C.S. Lewis, The Seeing Eye, from Christian Reflections, Eerdmans Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI. 1995:167-169, 171.
[v] Sogyal Rinpoche. Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. Ebury Publishing, London. 1992:19