I have never been accused of being too quiet. While I am small in stature, I have a loud voice and an even louder voice. I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes my laughter cuts through the silence at inconvenient times. One of my professors, who had a wife the same height as me, commented that short people get all the emotion of taller people but in smaller packages, so it comes out in significant expressions. That has certainly been true of me. 

And yet. 

And yet, I am often more reserved about speaking my truth. Especially in the community.  It doesn’t feel safe. Because of the times when I have said what is accurate and of value to me, it has been debated with the rigor of examining intellectual concepts instead of noticing that it isn’t an idea being discussed, but me—my very self.
Hence, there is a need for more spaces where we encourage people to speak their truth in a way that respects other people’s truth. It sounds like “love your neighbors as yourself,” but we aren’t always good about that. We want to demand that others respect us while failing to respect them. 
We honor that we are created differently. We think differently. Express ourselves differently. Process information differently. And so, we respect ourselves in speaking our truth and respect others by making room for them to do the same. 

​How could such respect, modeled and lived into and help change the tenor of conversations, one at a time?

I have decided to give up on telling people how busy I am. I know that seems like an odd statement, but three different circumstances have made me re-consider my stance on busyness the last few weeks. 


First, everyone is busy. I have yet to run across a person who tells me that they are feeling relaxed or that they need to have more things to fit into their schedule each and every day. That rages from young parents to my parents, who are both now retired, but often comment that they are busier now in retirement then when they worked. We live in a world where busy seems to be the norm and I want to play even a small part in breaking through that pattern. 


Second, I have given up on proving to the congregation that I serve that I am busy. Those that understand already get it - they know how I fill my days. And those who think that I am twiddling my thumbs, just waiting for Sunday to come - if they don’t know the job of a pastor by now, me stating that I am busy is not going to change their way of thinking. 


Third, and perhaps most jarring for me, was talking with a classmate recently and he kept leaning into the narrative of how busy he is and how he didn’t really have time for this program. The reality is, this is not a mandatory degree program by any stretch, we are simply here to learn for the love of learning and the sake of those whom we serve. And, we are all busy. Hearing the words “I’m busy” as a response to the question “how are you?” Coming out of someone else’s mouth made me consider how they sounded coming out of mine.


So this leads to the question - now what? How do I answer the question “how are you?” If not with “busy” or “tired”, which if I’m honest is half rooted in truth and half rooted in wanting to prove my worth. If I sat all that aside, how am I. Or maybe more aptly, who I am. 


Well, that is still a question in process, but one that is worth considering. 


What would it look like for you to give up on busy?

​

Jesus, 
The world around us is filled with so many words.
Words
Coming 
At 
Us
All
The
Time.
I feel like so much of ministry is being spoken at and speaking to others, that I crave the moments of silence. The moments of holding hand of a person who is struggling in a place deeper than words can reach. Or sitting in silence, simply watching a child soak up joy like the rays of the sun, as they twirl around and giggle with glee.
Spirit, help me be thoughtful with my words. Not rushing to fill the silent spaces simply because others want me to or expect me to. Rather give me the words to say at the right moments and remind me of the holiness of staying silent when standing on sacred ground. 
Lead me to listen more than I speak. And in the listening may I be ministered to by you as I am sent out to minister to others. Bless, yes, my words, but bless the silence, equally so, I pray. Amen.

“I wonder what the Trinity may be saying to you through that noticing,” my spiritual director recently asked me after a particular difficult month. It seemed like everything around me was slowly imploding and I found myself unable to hear what the Divine may be saying to me through each struggle. Instead of joining me in my mental and verbal self-flagellation, my spiritual director turned to wonder and in doing so invited me to join her. 

​Often when faced with difficult circumstances, we jump into fight or flight as the individual experiencing the trying circumstances. I either want to attack it head on and get out of it as quickly as possible, or I want to flee from the trying circumstances in any way possible. And if someone is looking into my pain and heartache from the outside, the most common response is to give advice - to try to fix things for me.

​I wonder where the posture of wonder shows up in your everyday life and how it transforms you? And I wonder where wonder is calling you to a different posture? Let us be people of wonder,  allowing it to spill out from the circle into our everyday lives.