The Creative Spirit: “I’m busy…”

“The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.”  – Galileo Galilei

I was up before dawn today and sitting on the screen porch as the world went from dark to light once again. It does this every day, or so I’m told, although I’m not always there to watch it. Or perhaps I’m up and about but not present enough to notice. This morning, I had scripture across my knee, a pen in my hand and a journal nearby, my favorite posture and attitude for taking in the world around me — silent words, quiet thoughts and the prayer of solitude.

I just finished one of the busiest few weeks of my professional life, orchestrating the logistics and planning behind the second presidential debate of this electoral season, a massive event at my university that attracted thousands of journalists of every ilk and angle and an estimated television viewership of some 60 million. I’m both exhausted and invigorated, honored to have been a part of it all (despite the content and tenor of the candidates, which I have no desire to get into here…) and glad that it’s in my rearview window.

So this past week, I’ve heard the same version of pretty much the same question and comment from many, many friends, colleagues and even people I’ve never met before: “How are you doing? I bet you’re tired. How are you still standing?”  Indeed, it was a busy week with lots of early morning rises without paying much attention to the sun doing its ritual ascent. But this experience and these questions have reminded me to ask myself some deeper questions about the role of “busy-ness” in our lives.

In a larger sense, I think we live in a world that honors “busy.” When we ask each other, “how are you doing?” the typical answer used to be — it seems to me — “I’m doing fine. And you?” More recently, it seems I’m hearing something different. More and more, what I hear (and perhaps what I say myself) is: “I’m busy.” “Busy” is how we’re doing. It’s a badge of honor. It’s a message that says, “I’m important, and I’ve got to be moving on because I got something else to do.”

Don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot of work to do and some of it is important work. There’s good, creative “stuff” to be done. But when I begin to define myself by how busy I am and how much I have to “do,” I have perhaps lost (or forgotten) a better and more authentic part of myself. That part sits on the screen porch and waits for the sun to rise. It takes in the beauty of the world, mixes it with the Word and presence of God and then decides what I’m going to “do” and how I’m going to “spend” my day.

My presence and openness to God, to the world and to those around me — and especially to those in need ­— defines me in a much greater way than the pride of my busy-ness. My silence before God labels me in a way far superior to the accolades for what I have accomplished.  For in that quiet, I hear a voice that says, “I’ll tell you who you are. You are mine and you are loved. Everything else? Mere busy-ness. Rest here. Rest in me alone. You have chosen the better part. Let me ripen you like the sun ripens a bunch of grapes.”