Saturday for the Soul

Here's what I'm doing today:

Saturday for the Soul:

Making Peace with Time, Making Time for Peace

A gathering for women who want to develop healthier ways of living in Time and connecting with Eternity. We will hear stories from each other and see what Scripture says about Time. Through sharing, prayer, journaling, and meditation, our goal is to leave with down-to-earth understandings of how to bring more peace into daily life.

I'm really excited about having a "Saturday for the Soul." I know I need it. A friend of mine teaches this workshop, and she said that she invited a few friends whom she thought would really benefit from the day. Their reply? "I'd love to, but I don't have time." She laughed when she told me about it. "They're stressed out about time, but they don't have time to learn how to manage their time."

I'm always stressed about time. And I definitely need more peace in my life. I'll keep you posted.

Misery Loves Company

Last week on one of my posts , Ian, a McCarthy enthusiast who’s pursuing an MA, posted a comment about the newest book on my must-read list: Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. It’s on his to-read list, too--and has been since last December--but, as he so eloquently put it, “due to time constraints and life” he hasn’t been able to read it yet.

Ah, Ian, I feel your pain. Sometimes, it feels like I’m so busy reading what I “have” to read and taking care of inconsequential items like buying groceries, doing laundry, and making sure the health department doesn’t condemn my house, that there’s not enough time to read what I “want” to read. And I feel guilty even writing this because I actually do like what I’m studying.

Maybe it’s just that old stubborn childishness surfacing: “Nobody’s gonna tell me what to read!” Maybe it’s laziness—Instead of working, I want to be entertained. Maybe it’s jealousy. When you’re working hard on a degree, it seems like everybody else is getting to read whatever strikes their fancy, while poor-old-me has to keep my nose to the grindstone. Of course, the same thing happens when you’re teaching. You spend all your time reading and preparing for the classes you teach, and recreational reading time is all too short and precious.

Oh well. At least I know I’m not suffering alone.

Rollover Minutes

My cell phone plan provides me with rollover minutes. Any minutes that I’ve paid for and don’t use this month can be rolled over to next month, when I may feel the urge to talk more. A good plan, I think. Awfully handy sometimes.

But I can’t help thinking, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had rollover minutes in real life? All those minutes wasted in check-out lines, sitting at stop lights, or waiting in a doctor’s office could be rolled over, claimed when we have to work late and wonder how we’ll have time to prepare supper, or when we need to clean house on Saturday but would really like some me-time, too.

I’m sure all teachers would like to roll over some minutes from the first of the semester to the end of it, when grading research papers and final exams and figuring and posting grades overwhelm us.

Many parents would probably like to roll over minutes from their children’s infancy to the teenage years, for just a moment or two to regain the calmness of rocking that sweet baby in the midst of angry confrontations and power struggles with teenagers growing into adulthood. Or they’d like to rollover as many minutes as possible from those overtime hours worked at the expense of a little league game or a piano recital.

Spouses might want to rollover minutes spent on the boss’s special project to the missed anniversary dinner or from at least one business trip to that constantly-put-off weekend getaway, a second honeymoon, maybe.

And in the final years of life, alone in an empty house or tucked away in a “retirement village,” I imagine a lot of people would like to claim those squandered minutes to talk to a friend long gone, to once more squeeze a loved one’s hand, to plant a garden, to take a brisk walk, or just to wake to the coming day with purpose and energy.

There are no rollover minutes in life. I hope I never forget it.