The Art of Doing Nothing

Doing vs being.

Before I left on my sabbatical 2 and a half weeks ago, I spent weeks and months planning. Planning the itinerary, planning where I would be, and a lot of planning what I would do. There were many renditions of what that would look like.  First plan included writing an entire study on the book of Romans that our Poland missions team would study together in the summer. After my boss told me that sounded too much like work, I scrapped plan #1. The goal of this time being not to work- but rather rest and rejuvination. 

My next plan didn't include projects or study, but it was a plan in which I was running all over the states and Europe for 10 weeks, never staying in one place for more than a week or two. 

After talking through that plan and how it wouldn't actually be restful, I was encouraged to stay in one place for at least a month. To rest. To get into a routine. To be. 

Which brought me to this plan. 

Yet the concept of "doing" hasn't left me. I'm a person who tends to think that my purpose, my worth, is found in what I can do. What I can do for others, what I can do at work, etc- and if I'm not doing, then my worth is less or even gone. This mindset has gotten me to a not so great place in my life at times.

The most common question I received when leaving for my sabbatical was surrounded by this question. "So what are you going to do?" I have fought against this. I've attempted to not have plans, not make expectations and to work on the being. I know the askers of that question didn't have any deep agenda or were trying to put any "shoulds" on me, yet that anxious feeling would rise in me every time.

And yet, when I look at the stack of books that are sitting on the window sill in my flat, only one of them being mostly read ("mostly" because I skipped a big chunk of the middle- that's acceptable, yes?) I started to panic. I started to think about the main questions I will get when I enter back into "life" in Minnesota. 1) how was it!?!? And 2)...what did you DO?

My mind reels. What if I have nothing to show for it? What if I don't read a single one of those books in its entirety? What if I don't spend weekends in Prague or Budapest? What if I don't write another entry in my journal or this blog? What if all I can say when I get back is I drank coffee, I ate bread, I spent time sleeping longer and resting and I enjoyed being with friends. I sat and I watched the world around me. I just lived. I was me. I sought to listen to my creator, to have my eyes changed. Would that be enough?

At the end of the day, why do I do the things that I do? Who am I doing them for? Am I doing them for others? 

The lyrics of a song that I have no idea who wrote them go through my head more often than not "who will love me for me? Not for what I have done or who I have become?"

The reality is, I know I am loved for me. By my Heavenly Father, yes. And even by my family and closest friends. 

But do I love me for me? And is living for Christ, not for others and their affirmation enough?

And so I continue to fight the way my brain naturally goes. 

Part of me wants to not read another page of any book just to prove to myself that I can do it. That I don't need to DO. or to have "proof" that I didn't waste time. Proof that I was useful. That I have worth. That simply being is not wasting time. That simply being me is enough.