Busy, Busy, Busy - Not So Much These Days

Busy, busy, busy - not so much these days.

One thing the COVID 19 pandemic has exposed is our national addiction to being busy. The sheltering-in-place mandates have disrupted and displaced all of the things we once did to fill our time. And the resulting time-on-our hands has left many (most?) of us feeling restless, antsy, anxious, and unfulfilled. We are hard pressed to fill our days in meaningful ways. What do we do with ourselves and with our time without our normal routines,  involvements, and relationships? How do we fill our time? It seems we are stuck with ourselves and we don't like the company we are keeping.

What does our restlessness tell us about ourselves? What does it tell us about our addiction to being busy?

Our restlessness points to how deeply we have bought into the philosophy of our society that values productivity over everything else, that values doing over being. We have tied our sense of value to what we do, especially to what we produce. We interpret being busy as an indicator of importance. Being busy has become a merit badge we proudly wear to validate that we have significance. What is the source of our value when we can no longer work or be productive?

Our restlessness points to our discomfort with being alone or with being still (a by-product of this productivity-oriented, doing-oriented philosophy). We are social beings. We were created for relationship. Consequently, we are prone to tie our sense of self to our relationships with others, to the roles we play in relationship to others, and to the work we do. As a result, we don't know who we are when we are not with others or fulfilling our normal roles or working. We don't know who we really are which translates into not knowing how to simply be.

Our restlessness points to our lack of understanding of or comfort with the interior realm of our lives. Being busy keeps our focus on the external realm which consists of events and doing. It allows us to avoid dealing with what lives beneath the surface of our lives.

Our restlessness raises the question: what are we seeking to avoid by staying so busy? What inner demons are we running from? Anxiety (archaic fear) is a factor in all of our lives. We all live with deep-seated fears about being inadequate or powerless, about having no significance or value, about being rejected or abandoned, about being hurt or dying. Those fears drive our lives even though we are not consciously aware of them. When we are still or alone, these old issues tend to raise their ugly heads. Staying busy is one way we avoid them and the pain they stir.

Our restlessness points to our failure to practice Sabbath. The Hebrew word translated as sabbath carries the meaning of ceasing, stopping.

The Hebrew people viewed the sabbath as a gift from God. It provided the opportunity to refocus, shifting attention and energies away from life's challenges back to God. It provided the opportunity to reorient, reminding them their true identity was rooted in their relationship with God, not in their circumstances or productivity. It provided the opportunity to silence the noise of the outer world so they could hear the voices of the inner (spiritual) world where the Spirit lives and works. It provided the opportunity to rest, especially rest from having to produce, as it reminded them of God's provision. It provided the opportunity to release anxiety, inviting them to trust God's faithfulness. For the Hebrew people, sabbath was a means of nurturing faith and trust in the God who had claimed them and redeemed them from their bondage.

Our restlessness - evidence of our addiction to being busy - points to our need to learn the lessons the sabbath teaches. It calls us to receive the gifts the sabbath offers.

In a sense, this COVID 19 pandemic is an imposed sabbath - a ceasing from normal routines and activities. And it seems that most of us don't like it. Some of us even refuse to observe it.

What would it take to learn the lessons and embrace the gifts this imposed sabbath has for us? What would it take to learn from our restlessness?