Be Still

I like ideas. I also like tasks, lists, and activities. The feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction when I cross the final item off my long list of ‘to do’ items for the day is one of my favorites. I have also always liked rules and rubrics, with their transparency and well defined limits, telling me exactly what to do in order to accomplish my goal. Conversely, I tend to get frustrated with projects and people who expect things of me, but do not lay out guidelines in a clear way.

I realized some time ago that this tendency often led to my treating people as tasks, and to my getting frustrated with others who ‘got in the way’ of my ‘to do’ list. While I have (am still working) worked on this problem, what struck me recently was how much I had let this tendency pervade my prayer life. My general thought process: “I want to be holy. What can I do to be holy? Dear God, I love you. What can I do to be holy? If I go to mass every day, pray more, read spiritual books, or become a nun, will that work?”  The general idea of this: “what can I do, God, just tell me and I’ll do it?!” You can imagine the ensuing frustration when I cannot figure out the answer…

 And yet, as I’ve realized before, this is neither possible, nor (fortunately) what God wants from me. This revelation came about when a friend pointed me to a familiar verse in the Psalms: “Be still, and know that I am God” (46:10). In this request, God is not asking us to do anything, but rather simply to be. In our task oriented culture, it is so hard to even know what it is simply ‘to be’.  What can it mean ‘to be’ with God? How can I be with someone I cannot see? The saints got it; Mother Teresa has a famous quote about ‘looking’ at God as prayer. My question was always, how do I get there?! 

What I failed to understand was that this ‘being’ with God isn’t the end to arrive at, it’s the whole point; just as loving my mom or sister or friend here on earth isn’t about doing anything, it’s about spending time, building a relationship, being with and for the other person. Our actions matter in these relationships, but much more so the relationship does the relationship itself.

I’ve realized in my struggle to overcome my task oriented nature that I am much happier, much more who I am meant to be when I ‘waste’ time with others, simply being with them. How much more so will this apply as I simply try to ‘be’ with God.