Timeliness: Trivial Pursuit or Spiritual Temperature Guage?
I feel a little guilty every time someone admonishes everyone to avoid being late to church. The admonition doesn't need much defense since everyone knows it's rude to interrupt others' worship. And don't we all know that we should spend at least a few minutes before church starts to get into the spirit of worship? And couldn't we all manage this if it was a little more important to us--especially if we don't have chores and children?
Well, no--to the "managing" question. For exactly the same reason we can't all manage to keep our home tidy at all times, or our relationships constantly sweet, or our mind absolutely focused on every sermon we hear.
Some of us simply can't remember to watch the clock, or notice clutter, or read relationship factors with the mind of Christ, or keep our minds from wandering. To be sure, we try to develop routines and systems and disciplines and habits that help head off each of these public or private embarrassments or griefs, and much of the time our corrective measures work. But not always. In some cases, managing one of them successfully all but guarantees that others will simultaneously fail. We remember to be sweet, for example, but we can't be efficient and timely at the same time. Our family might remember the sweetness but the public sees our lateness. When the public sees our timeliness, our family remembers our short-temperedness.
I remember the frustration I used to feel when we had a young family and everyone needed to be at an evening service. Getting there on time was an all-day effort. Get everyone up early so we can have breakfast early so we can have school early so we can have lunch early so naps can happen early so chores can be done early so supper can be eaten early so baths can happen so getting ready can happen so leaving on time can happen. Can you imagine how stressful those kinds of days were? And how discouraging, if, after all that effort, we still arrived at church a few minutes late? The sense of failure was compounded. We had not had a relaxed family day at home and we did not appear to be respectful of the church gathering--mostly because I had not remembered to look at the clock often enough in the last 30 minutes before church started.
For me, reflecting on the problem of not making it to church on time usually produces one of several results. Sometimes I review the situation to see if I can find a way to tweak the preparation process to ensure success (keep resetting the timer to go off every 15 minutes to remind me to look at the clock--or every five minutes as the starting time approaches? Make sure Hiromi gets up early enough?) I almost always get up before he does. At other times I conclude that this problem is something God understands, some others never will, and maybe it doesn't matter all that much.
What do you think?
Well, no--to the "managing" question. For exactly the same reason we can't all manage to keep our home tidy at all times, or our relationships constantly sweet, or our mind absolutely focused on every sermon we hear.
Some of us simply can't remember to watch the clock, or notice clutter, or read relationship factors with the mind of Christ, or keep our minds from wandering. To be sure, we try to develop routines and systems and disciplines and habits that help head off each of these public or private embarrassments or griefs, and much of the time our corrective measures work. But not always. In some cases, managing one of them successfully all but guarantees that others will simultaneously fail. We remember to be sweet, for example, but we can't be efficient and timely at the same time. Our family might remember the sweetness but the public sees our lateness. When the public sees our timeliness, our family remembers our short-temperedness.
I remember the frustration I used to feel when we had a young family and everyone needed to be at an evening service. Getting there on time was an all-day effort. Get everyone up early so we can have breakfast early so we can have school early so we can have lunch early so naps can happen early so chores can be done early so supper can be eaten early so baths can happen so getting ready can happen so leaving on time can happen. Can you imagine how stressful those kinds of days were? And how discouraging, if, after all that effort, we still arrived at church a few minutes late? The sense of failure was compounded. We had not had a relaxed family day at home and we did not appear to be respectful of the church gathering--mostly because I had not remembered to look at the clock often enough in the last 30 minutes before church started.
For me, reflecting on the problem of not making it to church on time usually produces one of several results. Sometimes I review the situation to see if I can find a way to tweak the preparation process to ensure success (keep resetting the timer to go off every 15 minutes to remind me to look at the clock--or every five minutes as the starting time approaches? Make sure Hiromi gets up early enough?) I almost always get up before he does. At other times I conclude that this problem is something God understands, some others never will, and maybe it doesn't matter all that much.
What do you think?
posted by Mrs. I at
5:16 AM
6 Comments:
We are early to church simply because we have to be. Jason meets with the others on the leadership team prior to starting time. (We are occasionally late to those meetings. Suffice it to say that we have a 3 and 6 year old who sometimes need training more than being on time and sometimes mom just does not have her ducks in a row and quacking.)
I seldom notice who is late unless they make a large show of arriving. I never have been able to understand why it bothers some so very much when others are late. It's life, stuff happens, we are all far from perfect. I tend to think more ill of the person getting perturbed than the tardy one. :) My take.
By
Anonymous, at 11/28/2010
I think you are a very wise woman. It would be nice if we were all early, but then what? People would talk aloud as though it's a family reunion, and then somebody would surely be disgusted about that.
By
Louisa Martin, at 11/29/2010
Love covers a multitude of sins. Maybe we all just need a little bit more love.
Ann
By
Anonymous, at 11/29/2010
Have you read Foreign to Familiar by Sarah Lanier? If you haven't, you ought to. Being on time is an art or a discipline we can learn (harder for some than others, for me it is harder, I think) but is more valued in some cultures than others. I think there is a difference even from one part of the country to the other, though we travel so much as to make it a bit confusing... I often wonder over another hot culture versus cold culture thing--how can we know when we are being courteous in a hot culture climate by being indirect versus the indirect communication of fear and laziness?
By
Rose Mary, at 11/29/2010
That you raise the question at all is a reflection on our culture. I wonder whether it has even occured to some of my fellow Christians in this part of the world that there could be a connection between spirituality and promptness. I'd enjoy a post on America's time scarcity mentality.
By
Craig, at 12/09/2010
Craig, I've thought before about how our time consciousness make no sense at all to people in many other cultures, but I didn't think of it while I was writing this post. Your mentioning it blesses me and makes me feel that maybe it's OK not obsess unduly over the matter.
On the related subject--write on it yourself and send me a copy. (Invitation--not command.) I'll put it up as a guest post and give appropriate credit. Or tell me what you're thinking and I'll see what I can come up with.
By
Anonymous, at 12/09/2010
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