The Violence of Busyness
The coffee and fresh scone slathered with jam and cream were fabulous, as was the conversation. I was with my friend Martin in the Piano Bar of the Europa Hotel overlooking Great Victoria Street. It was a warm and comfortable space on Monday in January as the sun was setting on the city. Outside the homeless of the city were looking for a fairly safe and warm place to spend the night.
Homeless Jesus
During our conversation Martin asked me about my sabbatical and what I had been learning. I talked about slowing down, having time and space for what God was up to in our lives. I spoke of the three miles per hour God, the God who walked the face of the Earth. I mentioned the idea of margin, giving us time and space for Holy Spirit interruptions. We also talked about the previous week’s 4 Corners Festival. How at the first event we had been challenged to see one another as siblings, we also talked about how powerful the photography exhibit on homelessness in the city had been. We brought the two pieces together and asked if we saw the homeless as our siblings?
Our time together was ticking away, I wanted to make the most of it as I knew I wouldn’t see him again until my next trip to Belfast, but I had dinner plans with another friend and his wife and didn’t want to be late.
A little after half-six I apologised to Martin for having to end our time together. We prayed and I left, hoping I still had enough time to pick up a bottle of wine before getting to my friend’s house on time. You see, I’m wired to think if I’m not five minutes early then I’m late. I’ve always valued promptness.
I stepped out of the hotel and onto Great Victoria Street. I took a deep breath as I paused for a moment knowing it would be a while before I was back in the centre of the city I love.
I turned left towards Glengall Street and the Great Northern Car Park where I had left my car. Just before I turned the corner a young homeless woman was sitting on the ground wrapped in an old, torn, blue sleeping bag. My guess is she was in her early twenties, about the same age as my daughters. Like my daughters she had long blonde hair and glint in her eyes, she said “Hiya!” to me, I looked at her, made eye contact and said, “Hiya!” back to her and kept on walking.
I turned the corner onto Glengall St. and stopped. “Should I go back and give her five minutes of my time? What time is it? Do I have time to get her a hot cup of tea or coffee and something to eat? There’s a Cafe Nero right here. How much money do I have in my pocket, should I give her a tenner?” I pulled out my wallet to check, also checked the time and decided I didn’t have the time to help, my “Hiya!” would have to be it. I had somewhere else I had to be, a tasty warm dinner and a glass or two of red wine was waiting.
Everything Martin and I had been talking about just moments before was being tested and I was failing. It’s easy to self-justify in the moment, “Sure, most people wouldn’t even have said ‘hiya.’” “You can’t help everyone.” Those statements, while they may be true don’t do justice to what I was thinking. I’d walked by a sister in need. I knew it and the words of Jesus were ringing in my ear, “Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” I was a goat.
As I got into my car to drive away I remembered a story my friend, whose house I was now going to for my dinner, told about the Australian pastor John Smith and his love for the homeless. Steve wouldn’t have cared if I had been ten, twenty, or thirty minutes late for dinner.
I had an opportunity to show I cared and I missed it. Don’t let the pressure of linear time prevent you from doing something at the right time.
A day later I came across this thought from Thomas Merton.
“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”
We need to slow down to be fruitful and live a life in harmony with the Holy Spirit.
