EXCERPTS

Chapter 3: Get a Life!

I have come to the conclusion that the only way I am going to truly get a life—a less hectic, frantic-paced, adrenaline-induced rush from one task to the next—is to learn how to live following the Spirit’s lead.

I was invited to be the commencement speaker at a univer¬sity in central Florida. The students in this program took evening and weekend classes for two to three years in order to finish their bachelor’s and master’s degrees. The majority of them did this while working full time. Most of these graduates had spouses and children who came to celebrate the completion of this exciting chapter in their lives. There were tears of joy and shouts of praise as the students received their diplomas. Before the commencement service, held at a nearby Catholic church, one of the students shared how much she was looking forward to graduation. Weary of the driven pace she had been keeping for two years—working, reading, writing papers, attending classes, and taking care of two teenage daughters—she was looking forward to meandering a bit more, to slowing her pace, taking a day off each week, spending more time with her fam¬ily, and in her own words, “getting a life.” Having been there myself, I could understand.

In my address to these students and their families, I chal¬lenged them to think about the bigger picture of their lives. Life is more expansive than the cubicles we inhabit from nine to five. Success in life shouldn’t be defined by the number of checkmarks we place alongside our list of things to do. And life must not be held captive by our frenzied quest for more—more money, more prestige, more house, more stuff. The vision we have of life should lift our heads from the merely mundane and raise our sights to consider the lessons life delivers in things that are otherwise hidden from us: the tenacity of the dandelion pushing through the crack of a sidewalk heartens us to endure in tough times; the red-tailed hawk gliding effortlessly on the wind encourages us to trust the breeze of God’s Spirit that gently, and not so gently sometimes, seeks to move us out of compla¬cency. With wide-eyed wonder a child studying the movement of a bug reminds us just how marvelous and magical all of life is in its simplest forms. Why is it as children we wish our lives away in the anticipation of adulthood? Then as adults we wish our children away so we can find the time to play again. And when we are old we wonder how we got to the end of our days so quickly and, unless we learned to get a life somewhere along the way, end up mourning the life we could have had.

I still struggle with the battle raging within me between my bent toward drivenness and the desire to meander more in life. I feel as though I still slip between the surface of an insanely packed schedule and the unrelenting demands of those I as a pastor am called to love and lead. This struggle is not what I want to experience; nonetheless I find myself entangled in these competing directions all too often. Then in a moment of graced clarity, when I dare to lift my eyes above the merely mundane, I am reminded that it doesn’t have to be this way. I can find another way to live. I can choose, with the Spirit’s help, to drive less and meander more. I can color outside the lines and even make some new lines if I like. I get to choose. I can decide to live my life in a less chaotic way. No one else gets to make this choice for me. I can get a life!

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