Calendar Follies

Calendar Craziness November 17 2009

It’s a free-for-all!

These little boxes on a page –

Some filled in, and some still empty –

Like a puzzle in the paper.

That little book is with me always.

Every talk and email requires that I look at it.

I discuss meeting with a friend.

She takes time and then gets back to me.

By then, the box she picks is full;

Another meeting has slipped in,

A photo-finish in the race.

It feels like playing Musical Chairs --

Events circling round my calendar,

Grabbing spaces when they can,

Jostling, pushing, not at all polite!

And yet, I'm feeling free from time’s constraints,

As I live with an awareness of the life beyond this earth.

Only love matters.

Love is a new dimension – without limits or regrets.

In love, time expands to what is needed

To accomplish all that must be done.



Reflection:

This is my life, this procession of moments. It’s interesting to note that I’ve been feeling a greater sense of freedom to select the best use of each moment, rejoicing in the moments rightly spent.

I seem to have learned to some extent that even when I am doing what someone else needs done at a given point, I have a choice in the matter; doing what the other person needs is satisfying for me as well as helpful for them. The same is true with commitments of time to organizational needs. I’m much more willing to see such gifts as a happy choice on my part than I used to be.

Part of this change of heart may have resulted from losing you, My Love. During your illness, I often felt constrained to help you or to do the household tasks that you would have done had you been able, but couldn’t. It was hard to be responsible for all the needs of two people. It often put me back in the space of being a mother responsible for her child’s needs whether it was convenient or not, no matter how tired or overwhelmed I might be feeling.

But after you left, I realized deep in my heart what a privilege it had been all along to do what the person I most loved in the world needed me to. I also realized that it was my choice – my loving choice – to do everything I could. I learned, somehow, that this was the only thing really worth doing with the moments of one’s life – sharing love with others.

Nothing else really matters in the perspective of eternity. That’s what changed for me when you left – the realization that life is about eternity, not about the moments that tick by here on earth. It’s about giving rather than getting or holding. As with Christmas celebrations,  deep happiness comes from the love we can show to those around us.

Tonight, I went to visit my daughter and grandsons. My son-in-law is traveling on business, out of the country. The kids and my daughter were tired of being with each other all day, and my daughter desperately needed a bit of freedom. I would previously have grumped about the need for me to step in. Instead, I did step in, and spent time playing with the kids and loving them, so that my daughter could go off and do things she needed to do for her own comfort and peace of mind. I realized when I left to come home that I’d been able to change my schedule and my expectations of what I was going to do this evening, and I was glad that I could do so. I had fun with the kids, and was really happy that I was able to give my daughter this gift of time. Grace inhabited these hours. The kids responded to my attention and played happily so that what I meant to do worked. They were occupied, content, and out of my daughter’s way. Somehow, there was enough time to spend helping, and also to accomplish other things that seemed important to me this evening. There was magic going on, and I was grateful. Life seemed worthwhile.

It’s ironic – the complexity of my calendar has increased, yet I feel more centered about how I’m using time. I have a greater sense of personal power in doing what seems important to others, and at the same time I’m experiencing a sense of fulfillment in allocating my time to things that are important in the transcendent view of life – aware that the life beyond this physical one is real, and that earthly life, despite appearances, is not what’s important. Opening up my view of life has somehow expanded resources for me outside of measured time, so that the hours and minutes seem newly elastic and abundant. What an amazing change!