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It has been a growing irritation – at least weeks in duration, if not longer. It has moved past being nibbled to death by ducks to being dope-slapped by geese – the big angry geese that used to chase us around the yard at my uncle’s farm. It is akin to that jittery feeling you get when you have about a half a cup too much coffee; an uncomfortable kind of "zing." I thought maybe if I could describe it, I could deflect it: “Bit off more than I could chew this semester.” “A perfect storm of trivial imperatives.” It didn’t work. The irritation continues to compound. Zing. Zing. Zing.You need to realize the extent to which this is an aberration for me. A woman, who knew me more than well, once asserted that I was the sanest human being she had ever met. While I like that notion, she, no doubt, overstated the case. Still, it is true that tranquility is a core value with me. Hence, being irritated and on edge drives me nuts!!
Then this morning I happened upon these two sentences in a blog on the LinkedIn News page: “Interruption-free space is sacred. Yet, in the digital era we live in, we are losing hold of the few sacred spaces that remain untouched by email, the Internet, people, and other forms of distraction.”
How droll. I cannot count the number of times I have preached that sermon, yet I had to see it on another’s screen for it to re-emerge.
Gradually, things began to refocus. I am teaching a new graduate course, so my class preparation and time in front of students is up by about 30%. My technology-oriented blogs are being reposted on Senior Correspondent, so they demand a more “professional” level of attention. I have begun writing a textbook for one of my standard classes. I have changed texts in another course so new support materials had to be developed for that course. We took some dear friends on their first visit to Chicago. Those are all new “distractions” and are added to the norm: We will cook Thanksgiving dinner for an undetermined number of friends and family. Two other couples will join us on our annual anniversary sojourn to Colonial Williamsburg. And the beat goes on and on and on.
Now, all of the above are things I have freely chosen. Yet, what I failed to account for was what had to be “compressed” in order to accommodate those evolving choices. And what is being compressed is my sacred interruption-free space.
What deceived me, and would likewise fool the casual observer, was that if I look at my days, little appears to have changed. I spend most of my day in front of students or in front of my “screens.” We watch our "DVR-ed" shows. I still read before sleep and meditate on either side of sunset and sunrise. But the invisible distortion of increased distraction is a strain on both my attention and intentions. Much of what demands my attention is now what others often blithely label "the real world", and much of my effort is expended to affect the prosaic and the mundane spaces of that reality. I realize the import of those slices of existence – they pay the bills and teach the students, but, nonetheless, I call them prosaic and mundane for good reason.
To what other arenas might I direct my attention to reduce irritation? My scribbled, and sadly ignored, midnight notes suggest some options like:
“The only truth embedded in the old saw that ‘God never gives you a burden too heavy to bear’ is that God never gives us burdens. Why would God do that? Life, not God, presents us with seeming discordances. Only a fool would seek them out; pain, hunger, deprivation, etc. Who needs them? But when confronted with them, the task is to discover the perspective that reveals their inevitable harmony.”And,
“If what we call the Devil is in the details, then it stands to reason that what we call God is in the overview.”Or,
“I always meditate before going to sleep, it closes out the day. Mindfulness trips the shutter of consciousness, and, in doing so preserves a snapshot of that iteration of our life, allowing us to observe and assess. Our vision should revolve, inward and outward, as we contemplate the moment, giving us insight regarding our progress on life’s journey and allowing us to appreciate the nature of the landscape through which we have chosen to travel. Mindfulness demands becoming a thoughtful – selective - photographer of our life.”
Those are the beginnings of engaging thought journeys that are being driven off by the squawking geese that currently infest my life. Hopefully I will discover the shepherd’s crook needed to drive the feathered furies back into a more manageable corral, and thus, leaving irritation behind, I will find the strength of will necessary to take up my more accustomed place in the shady glen of reflective serenity.
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