There is a myth of busyness – that we have too much to do, and too little time. We all have schedules to keep, responsibilities to carry, people to meet, jobs to do. Our “to do” list is never ending, and there are often seasons of our lives where the list is filled with tasks faster than we can check them off. We can feel an inner pressure to get things done, or we worry about letting others down when we fall short. Yet, what if this busyness is not real, but an illusion? What if our busyness is something self-manufactured and inherently avoidable?
As I experience my own busyness, I recognize that it keeps me from being present in the moment. I’m always moving from task to task, completing each one so that I can move on to the next. While this makes me very efficient with my work, in my hurriedness I can become distant from others.
A simple example just from the other day: I’m working at my desk, responding to emails, mapping out my day. A coworker comes in with some paperwork for me, but then uses the opportunity to tell me about her weekend. As she starts going into the details, all I can feel inside is irritation. I’m frustrated that this conversation is taking me away from the very “important” work I need to do, that this is – she is – an interruption to my day. How horrible am I??!!
At the same time, knowing myself well enough, I can sometimes catch this inner resistance and give it some direction. Fortunately, in this situation, I did catch my irritation, put it aside, and gave myself to her in that moment. I engaged with her, asked questions, found out some things I didn’t know, enjoyed her company. I treated her with respect, and I treated her like a human being. And in so doing – this is the ironic part! – I also treated myself like a human.
When we see ourselves only after what we produce and what we accomplish, then we make ourselves machines. Yet when we see ourselves and others after the mystery of who we are, we experience our humanity. As the philosopher Paul Tillich would say, we are living in the “eternal now.”
The mystery of the future and the mystery of the past are united in the mystery of the present. Our time, the time we have, is the time in which we have "presence." But how can we have "presence"? Is not the present moment gone when we think of it? Is not the present the ever-moving boundary line between past and future? But a moving boundary is not a place to stand upon. If nothing were given to us except the "no more" of the past and the "not yet" of the future, we would not have anything. We could not speak of the time that is our time; we would not have "presence." (The Eternal Now, Ch. 11, Pt. III)
Tillich’s primary question here is: “How can we have presence?” But this presence is more than just temporal. When we think about the core of who we are, we often look to our past, our experiences that shaped us, for good and for bad. We also look to our future, our ambitions, hopes and dreams. The things we set our hearts and minds to give us direction and purpose. While these things do have a temporal quality to them, they also shape our identity. In this way, our “presence” is the sum of all that we are, both past and future, but brought into this particular moment of time.
Bringing this back to my reflection on busyness – when I am caught up with my “to do” list, so much so that I cannot participate in the humanity of a fellow coworker (or even my own humanity!), I am living in a moment other than this one. I am projected out into the future, experiencing all that needs to be done, even before it is completed. I have lost my presence.
We should be looking for presence in the ever changing moments of our lives, having a knowledge of our fit, of our purpose, of the glory being worked out in and through us. It starts with knowing who we are and who we aren’t. We have these illusions of self that need to be broken. Or, put more constructively, we are unfinished statues, longing to be broken free from the bondage of stone that surrounds us.
Tillich goes on to talk further about the presence we do have:
The mystery is that we have a present; and even more, that we have our future also because we anticipate it in the present; and that we have our past also, because we remember it in the present. In the present our future and our past are ours. But there is no "present" if we think of the never-ending flux of time. The riddle of the present is the deepest of all the riddles of time. Again, there is no answer except from that which comprises all time and lies beyond it -- the eternal. Whenever we say "now" or "today," we stop the flux of time for us. We accept the present and do not care that it is gone in the moment that we accept it. We live in it and it is renewed for us in every new present." This is possible because every moment of time reaches into the eternal. It is the eternal that stops the flux of time for us. It is the eternal "now" which provides for us a temporal "now." We live so long as "it is still today" -- in the words of the letter to the Hebrews. Not everybody, and nobody all the time, is aware of this "eternal now" in the temporal "now." But sometimes it breaks powerfully into our consciousness and gives us the certainty of the eternal, of a dimension of time which cuts into time and gives us our time. (The Eternal Now, Ch. 11, Pt. III)
For Tillich, acknowledging our presence is a recognition of the eternal. All of our moments – past, present, and future – are interpreted in this moment of time and thus give meaning and direction to our time.
When we slow down from our busyness and experience this moment… (Do it now! Stop. Breathe. Listen. Feel. Experience this moment.) …this moment in all its fullness allows us to rest. We are not burdened by our past, nor fretful of our future. We are at rest in this eternity of time (within a single moment!), and so can give ourselves fully to this now.
And the beautiful fruit of living in this eternal now is that we get to share in each other’s humanity.
Source for top image.