Please Hold

It is snowing like crazy. Roads are closed down. Cars are in the ditch. Businesses are closed due to the weather. Grocery stores are short on eggs. Flights are being cancelled. Schools are on snow days. Plans are being put on hold. Earlier this morning our neighbor came to plow our road, and in the process got his rig stuck in the ditch. A few minutes later my husband and two other neighbors rallied together with snow shovels, tow straps, and pickup trucks to pull him out.

In short, it’s winter. The days are short, the nights long, and there is an otherworldly stillness that fills the air with the sound of silence.

Winter is a reminder that life is unpredictable. It can change in a heart murmur, a snowstorm, an icy patch of road, or a power outage. It’s a time to remember that we are meant to rely on one another. Check in with each other. Share a meal, lend a hand, and maybe a snow shovel.

Winter is a reminder of the importance of slowing down and allowing life to come to just short of a halt. We ignore these slower days at our own peril. Times of dormancy are necessary for life to spring forth in new ways. In nature, and, in our bodies, our work, and our souls.

Winter is a reminder to be present to the here and nowness of our lives. It invites us to set aside our to-do lists and settle in for a spell. Lord willing and the creek don’t freeze, there will be ample time to get back into the groove of doing. This short season offers the possibility of establishing a pace and a rhythm for the year before the year establishes one for us.

I’m writing this as I am on what might be a five-hour hold time to book reservations for a much anticipated trip to Scotland later this year. The snow continues to fall outside my window. There are good leftovers in the fridge for dinner, firewood is stacked on the porch, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are in the playoffs, and I’m at my desk writing.

Winter is life’s way of putting us on hold. Minus the elevator music.

Time-Frame

A recurring thought as I look ahead to a new year is that it not get away from me before it even starts. It is so very easy to allow my days to be in charge of me rather than me of them. There is a distinct difference between being in charge of, and being in control of. In charge implies that I’ve built a framework within which life can organically play out, making room for both the planned and the unexpected. Control on the other hand, suggests attempting to desperately hold on to all the moving parts. Of which there are too many to count.

Having had the unexpected privilege of building a custom home, I was able to observe first hand the process of framing the house. This wooden framework is later hidden behind the walls within which we live and work and play, but it is what makes all that living and working and playing possible. It creates the shelter within which we live. It defines the different rooms and areas we inhabit, and creates a kind of order within even the most chaotic of days can occur.

Our time can be likened to a kind of home as well. It is the shelter within which we live, and to hold up to all that life brings our way, it too is in need of a solid framework. One that creates and defines distinct spaces for who and what we care about. A structure that both protects us from taking on too much, and enables us to love, help, and heal the world that is within our reach. Which, I believe, is why any of us are on the planet in the first place.

Putting such a framework in place doesn’t happen by chance. First and foremost, it requires our intention. How do we intend to spend our days? What gifts do we intend to offer to the world? What and who matter to us, and based on that, what impact do we intend to make and how will we do that?

Along with intention, creating our framework requires our attention, not only to details, but to the bigger picture as well. How can we bring our attention to who and what are right before us, and yet not lose sight of the larger view? How can we commit ourselves to what is ours to do, and refrain from jumping in to what is not?

As Annie Dillard reminds us, How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. The timeframe of our lives is unknown to us, which is all the more reason to build a solid framework within which to live whatever time we have.



Setting A Time Limit

There are many things I’ve learned from my good friend Mark Christensen, the mastermind behind and founder of the Learning Point Group, a full-service consulting firm that focuses on leadership and supervisory development, as well as workforce learning.

One of the simplest and most useful things I’ve learned from Mark is the practice of setting a time limit on something that needs to be done. Over our years together there have been times when we’ve had to complete a project, solve a problem or come to a decision. In those situations he would often say something to the effect of, “We’ve got twenty minutes to think this through and come to a decision.” Or, “We can commit the next four hours to this, and then we’ll need to move on.” It wasn’t an effort to cut corners, but rather an understanding of the value of time, and a belief in our ability to accomplish something good in the time allotted.

It is easy to let something take more time than it needs to. Or to put something off because we can’t commit as much time as we would like to our effort.

Today I had the chance to put this good practice to good use. I’m on the hook, in the best possible way, to give a reflection (aka: sermon) at our church in a couple of weeks. There are not a lot of days with much open space between now and then, so I decided to channel my good friend. I sat down at the computer and said, out loud in my best Mark impression to make it official, “You have two hours to pull a solid draft of your message together.”, and then proceeded to get it done.

When something is looming large on your mental horizon, consider channeling Mark. Set a time limit and get to work. You'll be amazed at what you can accomplish!

Photo by Mike from Pexels

Time Traveling

The further I go in life, the more I am learning to trust that timing usually works out for the best. Suddenly an appointment gets cancelled or a meeting is called at the last minute, and I realize that the timing is better than originally planned. A calendar that was too full opens up, and days that were heavy with commitments lighten up. Conversely, when space opens up on my calendar it makes the room needed for the unexpected opportunity, the urgent need, or the last minute change.

When we hold on to our time with the death-grip of control, it becomes almost impossible to encounter what life brings our way with a sense of curiosity, grace, and adventure.

Instead of controlling time, I am practicing cooperating with it. It’s actually pretty fun…most of the time.

Photo by Stanislav Kondratiev from Pexels

Stewardship

A month before Tom retired this past June, we booked an Airbnb for three days at the Oregon Coast for what we came to call our Pre-Retirement Summit. The first morning we pulled our chairs out onto the deck, and French Press coffee in hand, settled in to capture our individual and shared vision for our future. It was time to chart a new course.

Summit: Day One

About midway through that first day, looking back over what we’d heard from one another, It became clear that what we were really talking about was stewardship. In the time we have left on the planet, how do we want to care for and make meaningful use of who we are, what we have to offer, and the various resources at our disposal? It seems to me a good question to ask periodically at any point in life, and for us it was a great exercise, as it always is, to carve out time to look at the bigger picture.

As this new year begins, we are working to be mindful of the priorities established and the commitments made at our little beach getaway, but it is hard work. It would be much easier to just allow the days to unfold as they will, do what is right in front of us, and allow being productive to substitute for being purposeful. But that is not stewardship, which is the only thing that will help us stay our course.

Beach Sunset

Front Loading

Last year got away from me.

Before I knew it, I was chasing after the days, and never seemed able to catch up. I felt perennially behind, and making time for who and what mattered, including time for myself, felt always just beyond my reach. It isn’t a way I’d choose to live, and yet chosen it I had.

Not this year.

In order to do it differently, the idea of front loading comes to mind. To front load an enterprise is to commit a large portion of energy and resources at the beginning in order to set that enterprise up for success.

January is my month to front load the enterprise that is 2019.

• To look out over the year and build in time for who and what matters, including time for myself.

• To look out over the year and build in margins and open space.

• To lay the foundation for the work I will offer in the world this year.

• To identify the filters through which I will run my decisions.

• To practice the discipline of taking a birds eye view of my calendar.

• To remember that just because there’s nothing scheduled doesn’t mean that time is available.

• To take time at the beginning of the year to envision what it will mean to end it well.

The amount time I have in this new year won’t change.

How I steward it can.