Sacred Mundane: The Blog

It seems a bit odd for me to be writing about margin in time during a season of relative timelessness–holiday.  The 4th of July, and I’m venturing to guess that no one is reading this blog today :-), because you are either sleeping in, camping in the great outdoors, sitting watching the Independence Day fireworks, or consuming hamburgers, baked beans, and potato salad.  I am, in fact, doing all of those things as well.  But all that to say that it seems an odd time to be discussing our overloaded lives.  But I can remember a time, in years past, where I only wish someone had hit me on the head with this book and told me to quit killing myself. 

As we’re obviously still talking about margin, it seems natural that margin in time would be scheduling your life in such a way that you have more “free time”, right?  But first, I think we have to challenge our attitudes about busyness.  Up until almost two years ago, I remember that whenever someone asked the obligatory greeting, “How are you?”  I would inevitably respond, “Busy but good.”  Always. I remember once stopping and thinking, “Why do I always say that I’m busy?”  Because I was.  I think that is the response of a lot of people. Busy but good.  And at the time, I think that I derived a sort of pride out of being busy.  After all, I was juggling full-time work with full-time seminary, commuting 1 1/2 hours each way, staying overnight at my brother’s house one night a week to make it all work.  Before that we were both in full-time ministry in Corvallis, burning that candle at both ends and in the middle, literally melting down.  In some ways, I thrived on that. I didn’t have kids, I love being organized, and the challenge of it all was exciting.  And I realize now that I gained a lot of value and identity in being busy.  Why do we, as Americans, place inherent value on being busy?

For example, Henry David Thoreau said, “Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise to noon, rapt in revery.”  Because he is famous, and a genious, we think “Wow, that is beautiful. What a great thing.”  But what if our neighbors did that?  Or your spouse?  We’d criticize them as slothful.  Swenson says “our modern view of time is to compress it and milk it for every nanosecond of productivity we can get.”  I believe that is spot on. 

You’d think with all of our time-saving mechanisms that we’d have all sorts of margin.  In the early 1930s John Maynard Keynes observed, “When we reach the point when the world produces all teh goods that it needs in two days, as it inevitably will…we must turn our attention to the great problem of what to do with our leisure.”  Sorry, John, you missed the boat on that one.  In fact, Swenson observes that “the amount of genuine leisure available in a society is generally in inverse proportion to the amount of labor-saving machinery it employs.”  Ha!  Can you believe it?  We have bread machines and dishwashers and automatic sprinkler systems, and yet we have less time than those in Third World countries who spend evenings sittingon their front porches bouncing babies on their knees. 

In this category of margin would be the introduction of Sabbath rest.  The Sabbath is not an New Testament requirement, but I believe it is wisdom for man to spent 1/7 of his week in rest, true rest.  This doesn’t mean we set rules about not lifting certain weights and it doesn’t mean it has to be on a certain day (pastors can’t rest on Sundays!).  But it does mean that we choose to LiveDifferent. We choose to ignore the gnawing culture need to constantly get ahead, and we choose instead to take ourselves out of the ballgame, just long enough to breathe, refresh, turn our eyes to God, and listen to His still small voice.  I am NOT promoting greater time management here. I’m not saying let’s be more efficient so that we can get more done. I’m saying, to heck with it–let’s get less done and worship God more and recognize that our value is not based on what we do.  Yes, let’s labor for the gospel, let’s spend ourselves for Christ, but as one smart farmer said, “I cannot get done in seven days what I can get done in six.”  When we are truly aiming to work for God, His math works it all out.  Here are some ideas, for building better margin into our lives in the area of time.

1. Turn off the TV.  (I know, i’m always bashing TV). Turn off all electronic mediums, just for one day (I’m a coward here, I feel like I can’t live without my laptop.)  My sister-in-law wrote a neat blog about mental detox week…consider something like this. YOu’ll be surprised how much time you have.

2. Practice Simplicity and Contentment:  “With fewer possessions, we do not have as many things to take care of. With a simpler wardrobe, our choice of what to wear each morning becomes less time-consuming.  With a smaller estate, there will be less debt bondage to our work schedule.  Everything we own owns us.  We must maintain it, paint it, play with it, build space in our house to put it, and then work to pay it off. Perhaps if we had fewer things we might have more time…”

3. Be Unavailable.  We are now capable of being reached at all times.  I don’t care what the Blackberry ads tell you, they do not free you up to spend time with your family.  Being in bondange to your cell phone, home phone, email, Blackberry, whatever, can be incredibly draining. We must have margin and boundaries.  Create some.

4. Think Long-Term.  Consider the Tyrrany of the Urgent. It drains us of energy, time, and resources.  Think long term and plan your life thoughtfully, according to long term plans. Yes, chaos happens. Tonight Dutch pooped up his back and then rubbed his back against the couch. 🙂  Stuff happens, and we adjust. But think long-term rather than simply reacting to each moment. This helps us better control our time.

5. Get Less Done but do the Right Things.  “All activities need to be assessed as to their spiritual authenticity…we must have God-centered criteria with which to judge all activities.”  I always remind myself, God will allot me time for all the activities which He has ordained for me to do.  Consider and perhaps cut back.

6. Be Available.  Pastor Bruce Larson says, “It is possible that the most important things God has for me on any given day is not even on my agenda.”  Have I created enough of a margin, white space, in my life, that when Divine interruptions come I am able to embrace them as God’s scheduled work for me? 

7. Kari’s extra:  I think that the best gift you can give your kids is time. I know many couples schedule their lives FULL of activities for the kids–classes, swim lessons, parties, trips, vacations, but what the kids really want is for parents to sit down, get out the Legos and just play. Or read. Or talk. Or have a tea-party. Kids just want our time, unhurried, with no agenda.  I really believe that kids in America are absolutely starving for unstructured time with their parents.  And yet it’s so hard, as parents, to lay aside the busyness and the “to dos” and sit with our kids in the grass and watch bugs.  Lord help me do more of that.

So this week let’s LiveDifferent by creating margin in our time.  Waste some time with God this week.  Stand in line and refuse to look at your watch. Let other people go ahead of you in traffic. Schedule a free hour and do nothing.  Sit with your kids and read stories.  Ask God to give you a peaceful, unhurried pace in your service for Him.  And have a fabulous holiday weekend.  Enjoy your time.

Tonight I sat around a campfire, on the beach, with the crashing Pacific Ocean waves just yards away.  No annoying wind, just a crackling fire nestled down into the sand, with sitting logs on three sides.  My brother, Kris, and Jeff built the fire, scurrying around like boys, eyes dancing, collecting sticks and engineering the perfect fire.  Once the fire really took off, we tore open the bag of marshmallows, procured the necessary sticks–not too short and not too thick–and began roasting.  I sipped my hot chocolate and pulled my blanket tight around my shoulders, although by now my shins were getting hot so I laid down next to the fire, in the sand, gazing up into the darkness, savoring the sweet moment of forgetting the job search, the morning sickness (almost forgetting it until I tried to eat a marshmallow and remembered that nothing tastes right), the need to find a place to live, the upcoming arrival of baby #2 complete with financial needs.  For a little while I was back in college, eating marshmallows with my brother.  I was again a newlywed, walking hand in hand with Jeff through the sand. 

We’ve been here, at the beach, for the past 4 days. We leave Wednesday, and I am just reminded again how sweet it is to get away.  And this is my idea of a vacation.  A beach house (paid for by my parents…this is key), a stone’s throw from the crashing waves, and walking distance from the Alsea Bay, where we can use the paddle boat and Dutch can play in the shallow water.  Walking distance from a little mart where we can get milk and cheerios if need be.  Walking distance from the point where hundreds of seals gather, where we can take Dutch and watch with delight as he “Whoa!”s and points in awe.  This is the place where we can cook our own food, eat like Kings (healthy ones), and savor delicious dessert every night. This is where I can curl up in the huge wicker chair with the cream cushions and put my feet on the windowsill and look out over the ocean, lost in thought, or read for four hours straight, like I did today.  This is where I can turn on the dryer to muffle out the noise while Dutch sleeps. 🙂  This is where the huge family dining table can seat all of us, my brother and his wife and daughter and my parents and us and Dutch.  This is where we can all curl up and watch a movie together.  This is where Jeff and Dutch can bike, where Kris and Nikki and Jennika can take off in the afternoon for a hike. WHere Kris can surf (he really did!) and the boys can fly their kites and Mom can have pneumonia but still somehow enjoy the whole trip from the solitude of her room, listening to the joy and watching from the huge bay windows in her room.  This is where we have that beautiful balance of together and alone time…the mix of freedom and belonging, which is one of the strengths of this family that I will always appreciate. 

ANd this, mixed with the forced change of pace that pregnancy brings, has been good.  With pregnancy, I have permission to nap (today I got up at 6:30, walked on the beach with Jeff and Dutch, then came back, ate a bowl of Cheerios the size of a mixing bowl, then went to bed and slept from 8:30-10:30.  How awesome is that?)  With pregnancy I have permission to break all the rules of eating at appropriate times. After my Cheerios, and a big lunch, I went back at 2pm for another 1/2 a chicken salad sandwich, then at 3pm I polished off the strawberry shortcake, then at dinner I didn’t touch anything except the chicken, but filled up on Tillamook Mudslide ice cream afterwards.  I actually really enjoy the freedom…you can always just play the “I’m pregnant” card and pretty much anything goes. 

The other thing I love about pregnancy is that it allows you to be weak and to accept help.  My sister-in-law has been an absolute dream on this trip.  The very day we got here my mom came down with pneumonia, and after a trip to the hospital, has spent the entire vacation in bed.  I was in charge of planning all the meals and bringing the food, which I did, but that was before morning sickness, so now that we’re here I want absolutely nothing to do with preparing raw chicken and sauteeing onions.  She has swept in and joyfully prepared meals that I planned (that’s never as fun as preparing your own planned meals), and doing dishes, cleaning. SHe’s been a dream. ANd it’s been so freeing to just say, “Here is the recipe. Can you help me? I can’t do it tonight.”  It’s been good to say, I”m sorry, I’m a disaster right now and I’m so tired I can’t think.  Please forgive me for being a bear.  As always, she understands.  After all, she was pregnant once too.

So, this long and rambling post is basically telling you that it’s so good when life is interrupted and we’re knocked on our back a little, knocked into a soft chair with a good book and a view of the ocean. I admit, I still fall into panic mode: “We need a JOB and a place to LIVE and we have a BABY on the way!” But most of the time God is gracious enough to allow me to remember that today is today, and it is all I have.  He holds my tomorrow.  So, tonight I sit here, in a dark room, listening to my toddler son breathe noisily through his stuffy nose, and my husband breathe quietly next to me, his chest rising and falling in soft rhythm.  Across the wall sleep my brother, his wife, their daughter. Across the hall sleep my mom and dad.  Outside the waves are still crashing.  Tragedy is happening somewhere.  Rejoicing and celebrating are happening somewhere. ANd the waves are still crashing.  And God is still God, and allowing me this sweet vacation, this rest for my soul and body.  Thanks, God.  Thanks.

How much things can change in a week!  Last week I had thought I’d be able to write pretty authoritatively on the topic of exercise and physical energy, embarking on my Hood to Coast adventure with high hopes and fresh legs.  Well, as you know I was relieved of my running duties, which was a relief indeed, but what you may not know is how sovereign God is in all of it, because the very next day I found out that–surprise!–I’m 6 1/2 weeks pregnant.  Yeah, there’s a curve ball for ya!  So, needless to say, in one day my world turned upside down.  Instead of running 15 miles a week, I’m sleeping every chance I can, living on toast and crackers (morning sickness always kicks in for me right at 6 weeks), and let’s just say that having defined muscles and improving my mile time is the last thing on my mind.  How things change in a week. 

However, the beautiful thing is that even though some things change, in a way nothing’s changed.  My husband always likes to remind me that life has rhythm.  We always think of things in terms of balance, but really it’s an ongoing, continuous rhythm of life.  There is a time for everything.  A time to race, and a time to sleep.  A time to run Hood-to-Coast and a time to eat toast every morning.  Neither season is more important than the other, the key is that we are in tune to God’s rhythm for our lives and that we respond by making the appropriate margin in our lives for the season we are currently in.  If we live in constant defeat thinking that we “should be” doing something that’s for a different season, we will never be content. So for me, my season is to get rest, get plenty of mild exercise like walking, and eat nutritiously and take my vitamins.  It might be your season to kick butt and take names by running a marathon or studying for the bar exam (although I pray I am never in those seasons).  That’s up to you and your God…

But Margin in our physical lives, enhancing Physical Energy, is essential no matter what the rhythm of our life is like right now.  You don’t have to look far to see that in our country lack of exercise, sleep deprivation, and obesity are absolutely rampant.  We are overfed, under-slept, and under-exercised.  So what can we do: Get Marginalized!

Numerous studies have shown that the less you sleep the more likely you are to be overweight.  Good sleep habits help breed good nutrition and exercise habits. When we’re tired, we’re more likely to eat and less likely to exercise.  When we’re rested, we’re more likely to exercise and eat nutritious foods because we’re not running on empty.  It can be a vicious cycle, but when it’s broken, there is a health and vitality that is so powerful! 

So how is this related to progress?  We’ve been discussing that progress leads to shrunken margins.  Well, progress has provided electricity and artificial lighting, which is wonderful, but now we don’t have to sleep when it gets dark.  We can stay up all night working.  We now have food in overabundance, without any regard for requirement and without any labor to gather it in.  We have transportation and convenience, without the thought of the need for physical exercise.  I was sickened on our last visit to Boston to see Drive-Through Dunkin’ Donut shops!  Drive-through donut shops!  Get out of your stinkin’ car and walk in to the place, or better yet, don’t!  Walk to the store and buy an apple!  Oh, sorry, got a little out of control there.

Evidence of this?  Americans today get 2 1/2 hours less sleep per night than they did 100 years ago!   Only 15% of teens get the minimum recommended 8.5 hours of sleep they need per night.  Sleep deficit, as mentioned before, has been linked to obesity, attention deficit disorders, and depression.  Then, 55% of American adults of overweight or obese! The majority!  That is astonishing.  The progress of our great nation has taken us out of the fields and out of our beds, and onto the couch where we sit up all night watching TV and eating Doritos.

So, how can we respond? How can we LiveDifferent by getting marginalized in this area?

1. Take Responsibility: No one can change your life for you.  Yes, there are seasons (new motherhood, studying for the bar exam, (that’s for you Megs), etc. )but think longterm and make changes that will benefit you over the long run.

2. Value Sleep:  God gives His beloved sleep.  Choose to get enough rest. Step out of the rat race and determine how much sleep you need to be at your best.

3. Develop Healthy Sleep Patterns: go to bed at the same time each night and get up at the same time each morning (by the way, evening sleep is more valuable than late morning sleep–so Benjamin Franklin was right. Personalize his quote for whatever it is you’re striving for (i.e. “godly” instead of “wealthy”): “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, ________, and wise.” Don’t eat within 2 hours of sleeping. Limit caffeine. Turn your clock to the wall. Give yourself time to unwind. 

4. Avoid overeating.  This is the easiest way to shed extra pounds without even thinking about nutrition.  Just cut your portions in 1/2. It’s actually easier than you might think.

5. Avoid processed food, instead buy fresh fruit, vegetables, and stuff without packaging. My goal when I’m grocery shopping is to get the least packaging possible.  It’s an easy way to keep things healthy.

6. Drink lots of water.  At first you might have to force yourself, but it does become a habit.

7. Exercise for health. I think that a huge pitfall we fall into in America (and I do it!) is that we exercise for vanity.  As long as we exercise for vanity we have the wrong motives, and I maintain, God is not pleased.  Our goal is health, to benefit our hearts and live well so we can serve God and bless His people. It is not to have the 6-pack that others will envy, the defined horseshoe triceps on the back of our arms, or the to-die-for-delts.  Yes, Jeff and I certainly do have the goal of keeping ourselves fit and attractive for each other, and there is definitely nothing wrong with that, but is the goal to please each other or for vanity?  The best way to benefit your health through exercise is through building cardiorespiratory endurance.  This includes simple exercises like walking, jogging, swimming, or bicycling 30-45 minutes 3-4 days/week.  No gym membership necessary.  Strength and flexibilty is helpful too, but if you only focus on one area, focus on your heart.  This is the key. 

So these are just some simple ways to build Margin in to your physical life.  Just like last time, I’d love to hear your ideas too on how you’re are currently or will in the future implement these or other ideas.  I passionately believe that we are whole beings, connected in body, spirit, soul, emotion, and mind. When we take care of our bodies, we are more likely to take care of our spirit and mind.  They’re connected.  This is just one piece, but it is crucial.  And it’s an area where we desperately need some work.  Let’s LiveDifferent this week…even if that just means going to bed a little earlier tonight and maybe, just maybe, skipping that second brownie.  Thanks for reading.

…but I promised that I’d let you know when I finally got an article “published” on the E-zine Suite101.  Here is my first article, nothing spectacular, but it’s there: Investing Time Makes Marriage Work. 

Also here are a few of the latest articles for goingtoseminary.com.  Again, please don’t feel obligated to read them, but I promised I’d give a heads up. 

Is Seminary Highly Competitive?

Resisting Sedentary Seminary

Happy reading!  Stay Tuned for LiveDifferent Challenge (14): Get Marginalized! (Physical Energy)