Much More a Part of Our Vernacular.

Thanksgiving break just ended. It’s Sunday morning and I’m back in my single room in the girls’ dorm. The lights are off, save for computer screen and the little sun peeking in through my curtain. The floor is still. No one hurrying to the shower, no one hurrying to church, no one hurrying to do homework. Yes, including me. I haven’t been still for some time now. Papers and exams and books and quizzes and family and games and shopping and going and doing have filled the days that make the month now past. Don’t get me wrong, I love my studies and I love my family; but I love this stillness, too. And we haven’t seen each other in a good while.

And this morning I’m wondering why…

Why is it that “go” and “do” and “work” and “go” and “do” are much more a part of our vernacular than “be” and “still” and “rest” and “wait” and “be” and “still”? When did they consume our thoughts and days? And why is stillness so strange to me now? Even this morning, guilt hangs over me for not going to church. Conviction, no. Guilt. My tendency is to do rather than be, to go rather than rest. And this morning, “be” and “rest” are awkward for me, strangers in my world. So, why?

We are a people consumed with “do” and “go”, I would answer. We are a running people: we run to work, we run marathons, we run on foreign oil, we run on Dunkin. The point is, we run. We go and do and hurry and rush. We are conditioned to haste, indoctrinated with urgency. It must happen now; we must leave now; I needed that email yesterday.

So no wonder I’m uncomfortable with silence and stillness this morning. They knocked and entered quite uninvited, quite unwelcome. More than that, they came in and took a seat, made themselves at home. Even made me miss the rush to church. Well, this is awkward. What do I do with them? What do they enjoy? Where do they want to go?

Or maybe these are the wrong questions. Maybe “do” and “go” questions don’t translate well. That scares me. Maybe no questions at all is more fitting. And that intrigues me. Maybe we’ll just sit here. Just quiet. Just still. And maybe we’ll even become reacquainted. Now that? That would be nice.