She had a lot planned for that week. She volunteers three
times a week at a charity organization, organizing the shop and serving people.
She also spends one day a week doing the paperwork for the organization. On her
spare day, she does the accounting paperwork for her husband’s business. She
also does an hour or two of cricket paperwork each week in the cricket season.
But this particular week, she also had an appointment, and an after school
engagement as well.
If she sticks to her regime, she’d accomplish it all. She
feels she needs a system otherwise she gets a bit overwhelmed. She’s even got
someone who can look after her boys if they get sick. She feels she’s got it
all organised.
That is, until Tuesday morning. One of her sons comes down
with the chicken pox. Upon ringing the lady who looks after her boys at times,
she finds out that she is going overseas the following week and didn’t want any
chance of catching anything more serious than a common cold.
After exhausting another avenue of child minding, she
resigns herself to the fact that she would have to pull out of all her
commitments for that week.
As she spends each day at home with her son, she realizes
that they discuss things that they’ve never discussed before. He shares more
things about school, his friends at school, and other things in general. They
watch a couple of DVDs; they even do some crosswords together.
It’s during this week that she starts to realize how task
orientated she’s become. Her focus has shifted from spending quiet time
together with others – family, friends, people she meets at the store, to
getting things done – meeting that check-list in her mind. She’s
realizing that she’s seeing the tasks, rather than the people themselves.
When was the last time she had reached out, to hold one of
her son’s hands at home, rather than to trim their fingernails?
How many times lately, was her mind focused elsewhere, when
interacting with those who had come into the shop? How many people had she
missed of those who had come in, looking for someone to talk to, rather than
something to buy?
She tries to remember the last time she just sat and had a
cup of tea and a chat with her husband. She’s forgone one or two of her son’s
cricket games lately, so that she could catch up on other things. She even
admits, to herself, that even story time had become task focused.
She starts to enjoy her time at the dinner table, not having
to rush preparing dinner or getting through dinnertime so that she can move on
to the next thing. Meals haven’t had a lot of thought put into them lately.
Friday night they even had time for a board game. It had been a long time since
the last one.
By the weekend she’s wondering, just who, are the needy, in
her life.
Had, the cause, that she embarked on all those years ago,
jumped into the driver’s seat, speeding past all the ‘go slow’, ‘give way’,
‘50km around the bend’, and even ‘stop’ signs?
Had
she become so task focused, that she had, somewhat, lost the joy and the
strength that comes from spending time with others?
Through task
coloured glasses, had she started to see, ‘seen’ organization, as more
valuable, than ‘unseen’ communion?
