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What to do when doing less

By Anonymous
In a sermon this summer responding to the text of working Martha and idling Mary, I said that "doing less" might save the world (from climate change) and might save our souls, too. I preached this into a world of frenetic activity, to people with suffocatingly busy lives, with multiple and/or life-draining jobs, with children whose schedules could justify hiring a personal secretary to manage them. I preached it to a world that finds silence uneasy and stillness suspect, a world in which progress could only be measured by increased productivity.

It was a different world than the one I find myself in now.

Suddenly, life has ground to a halt all around us. People who once felt like ghosts in their own homes are stuck within it for the foreseeable future. Jobs are being done remotely, and often, not at all.

The sudden, violent shove into a new way of being has meant the loss of many of the structures and schedules that gave our lives meaning and purpose, and we know there are a great many losses to come which we cannot yet imagine.

So what does our faith have to teach us at this time where we really are forced to do less? What does Christianity have to say about isolation, social distancing, self-denial, scarcity, and living in confined spaces, whether it's alone or with a few other people that you’re quickly tiring of?

In fact, we have a very old and rich strand of tradition called monasticism which could shed some light on these current questions of our lives. For the months to come, the clergy of Calvary Episcopal Church will be writing and ruminating with you about the Desert Fathers -- a group of folks from the 3rd to 5th centuries who fled to the wilderness to pursue a life with God and who brought us what we now call Christian monasticism.

We hope you’ll join in the coming conversations on our blog as we make a way in this desert before us.

God’s peace,

Amber 

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