My Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
In her talk, 'Spirituality in Ministry,' Rosalind Brown made an almost throwaway comment that struck me like a thunderbolt. I did not write down her exact words, but the gist of what she said was, 'Busyness is the single greatest obstacle to holiness.' There is nothing new in those words; we have all heard them said many times and have, doubtless, said similar words ourselves. But what struck me that day as a word of God to me, and came back to me the following day as a word for us all when so many of you left before the final address saying that you were exhausted or that you had things that you urgently needed to do.

'I just don't have time to do the things I want to do' is a cry we hear all the time, and is one that I constantly make. But the truth is we all have exactly the same amount of time - 24 hours in every day. Joan Chittister in her book 'The Rule of Benedict' quotes the words of a wise Mother Superior to a novice, 'There is enough time in each day to do what God requires of us.' It's not that we don't have enough time, it's what we do with our time that is the problem. For some of us the problem may be one of time management, and we may need to learn how to use our time more effectively. I suspect, though, that for many of us the problem is a spiritual problem that will never be resolved by better planning and greater time management skills, but rather one that requires the re-ordering of our spiritual life.

In 'The Genesee Diary' Henri Nouwen tells of how he left a hectic, demanding and tiring schedule as a Professor at Yale University and celebrated public speaker and writer to spend a 7 month sabbatical at a Trappist Monastery. The decision to take that sabbatical was the result of a frenetic lifestyle in which he found himself wondering what was turning his vocation to be a witness to God's love into a tiring job? He says:-

' . . . Questions kept intruding themselves into my few unfilled moments challenging me to face my restless self. Maybe I spoke more about God than with him. Maybe my writing about prayer kept me from a prayerful life. Maybe I was more concerned about the praise of men and women than the love of God. Maybe I was slowly becoming a prisoner of people's expectations instead of a man liberated by divine promises.'

In Genesee, as he reflected on his recent life, Nouwen was struck by how disjointed it had been and how everything he did became just another task that had to be met and that left him feeling increasingly exhausted. Of course he could rationalise it all and say that it was all part of his ministry for God, but he began to realise that what he was doing was scattered simply because there was no real focus to it and that there was in his life a 'lack of one-eyedness,' a lack of single-mindedness that resulted in 'a divided heart.' His frenetic and disordered lifestyle was simply a reflection of his own disordered and restless heart and he began to realise that there would be no real change in his external world until there was a transformation of his inner world.

As I have thought and prayed about those words, 'Busyness is the single greatest obstacle to holiness,' I have found myself asking, 'To what extent is my vocation to be a witness to God's transforming love degenerating into a tiring job that masks both my witness and my calling?'

I suspect that much of what we do is driven by fear rather than love; by the need to live up to our own desire to succeed or the demands and expectations of others, whether it be that of family, diocese, parish, churchwardens or parishioners. We feel a need to prove ourselves and justify our existence. And when that happens, inevitably we will find ourselves driven to the point of exhaustion, 'a prisoner of people's expectations instead of someone liberated by divine promises.' Our liberation, surely, is to grow deep and be so 'rooted and grounded in Christ' that we are not threatened by everything and everyone.

However, there is also, for all of us, a deeper question, and that is: 'To what extent is the busyness of my life in this fragmented and fragmenting world, a reflection of my own inner restlessness and fragmented-ness?' We have all heard the words of Benedict, 'Prefer absolutely nothing to the love of Christ,' many times and know them to be words of wisdom and truth. But for most of us those words express a desire rather than a reality. We all know the importance of prayer and solitude for our lives and for our ministry and long to be able to spend more time in prayer and reflection. But while we all pray, worldwide, studies show that for most of us the desire for more and deeper prayer remains no more than that - a holy longing.

Our busyness is forced upon us by the demands of ministry, but it is also a means of avoiding God and so evading the painful journey of transformation. It reinforces the illusions both about ourselves and God with which we surround, protect and comfort ourselves and allow ourselves to hide from our ourselves, our own inner emptiness and our need for God.

'Busyness is the single greatest obstacle to holiness,' says Rosalind Brown. Unless we take steps to confront our busyness and control it, it will control us and will ensure that, for whatever reasons drive our busyness, we will never even see how disordered and broken our lives have become and will never come any closer to knowing ourselves, God, or who we are before God.

Nouwen fled to a Trappist monastery at Genesee in much the same way as our desert mothers and fathers fled into the desert; not to escape the world and its busyness, but to confront both the busyness and the emptiness of their own inner world. We may not have the luxury of fleeing into the desert or the monastery for an extended period of time; nevertheless I want to encourage us all to use this Lent (and perhaps the quieter period after Easter) to interrupt and reorder the busyness of our lives. But, even as we do so, let us remember that re-ordering so as to allow you greater space for the quiet, watchful, attentativeness to God that lies at the heart of our calling. Having said that . . . . . . .

May you journey deeper into God this Lent.

+Brian

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