Doing Nothing

Where have you been?
Out.
What have you been doing?
Nothing.

It is time to sing the praises of doing nothing.

Nothing.

Taking time off. Time for oneself.

Delicious stuff.

And in history a fairly rare thing. For most of humanity for most of time, time has been, is work. Rest is occasional. Doing nothing scorned if not actually criminal.

One of the great gifts of the Jewish tradition was the idea of sabbath of rest as sacred. I am also forever indebted to the Taoist wisdom of doing nothing. They got it down pat.

Nothing is very important. Understanding nothing is the key to wisdom. Doing nothing is the art of wisdom.

Now we find it each in our own way. While I endlessly recommend sitting down and shutting up and paying attention as the great discipline of nothing, of doing nothing, we also need to find it in the rhythms of life.

Whatever our circumstances.

My life follows a rather unusual rhythm in our culture. From somewhere around the beginning of September through the latter part of June I more or less work seven days a week. I get breaks, but they’re in the nature of part of a day, maybe a half of a day. There are a few long weekends in that course of time two dedicated to intensive meditation retreats, which while not work are certainly not time off, either, but also on average two or three that genuinely are time off, with a trip, once a year again on balance down to Manhattan, the others to other favorite destinations such as Northampton or Brattleboro… But, for most of those ten months the major focus of most every day is the care of the church I’ve been graced with serving, is working, is doing.

But there’s more. Then there’s a whole month off. Really off. With only the rarest exception… Over the years this has included travel, mostly within the country, driving trips often, and a couple of times visits to, so far, England and Ireland. Lovely experiences, good memories after…

And informing these low level activities is a great sense of, and a love for, a cherishing of:

Nothing.

Bits of this nothing slop over to that second month. Contractually this is supposed to be “study time.” A concept I don’t actually have down pat. What I prefer to do is keep my conventional office hours, begin the various things that need to be done to get the church year started, confer with the senior staff and lay leadership, scheme and plot and prepare. And hit those meetings that are critical to the functioning of the church, particularly our Board (which we call the Prudential Committee), our lay ministers and a couple of others… But I continue to take the weekends off. Mostly for being around the house and a little, exploring, this year anyway, our still new lives in Rhode Island, but with a little away time in New England…

But all this larded with lots of nothing.

For me a perfect balance of work and rest, of on and off.

Some doing.

Some nothing.

I recall when people were touting the idea of a thirty-five hour work week. I thought it a great idea. But like flying cars it appears to have been a fantasy, something the French have been able to pull off, but few others. (And I gather even there an institution under attack) Instead, now, the pull is to work harder and longer and be ever more productive.

A dangerous thing.

Probably necessary.

And very, very dangerous to the soul of humanity.

I love my work. Deeply…

But, without some rhythm that includes rest, genuine rest, genuine doing something else or just nothing at all, particularly nothing at all, not only does productivity suffer, but the savor of life itself is diminished…

So, whatever your circumstances.

Stop. Somewhere along the line. Ideally regularly.

Stop.

And do nothing.