Busy

So being a linguist, I've started noticing things I never notice before.  Like if I hear a crazy, random sentence, I'll think, "That sentence has never before been uttered throughout the history of mankind." 

But, this is not the case with the sentence, "I'm busy."  Most children probably hear it before they're old enough to say it.  The sentence is either said (or implied) often.

I first noticed the "I'm busy" in Texas.  Everyone was so.... busy.  It's not that people weren't busy in Omaha and Michigan.  They were.  They just didn't... make a show of it (for lack of better explanation).  The whole structure of my church in Texas was built to address "I'm busy".  You get involved in a life group (LG) so you can talk to your life group leader instead of the pastor because, hey, the pastor busy.  And yeah, he is busy.  It is logical.  There was even an intermediary layer between the LG leaders and any of the pastors.  But you should still only go to your LG leader, and your LG leader would determine if something you're dealing with should be brought up the chain, and they'll probably ask the person "above" them first.  However, if you showed that you could "do the stuff" the church wanted (evangelism, discipleship, were just general "leadership" material), then he or other leaders would probably have time for you. 

An example of this was with my friends we'll can Brian and Peggy.  Most people, if they wanted to talk to the senior pastor, they'd have to wait a good two weeks.  But Peggy "did the stuff" and was leadership material -- outgoing, out spoken, and just really done a lot of stuff.  She knew she could get in to see the pastor within 2 days.  But her husband who was a little more quiet (but complete effective at gathering men together... quietly) would have to wait the standard 2+ weeks. 

It was all perfectly logical.  I even had a dream to drive all this home -- that people are busy, I need to know my place, and stay in it.  In the dream, I was at my youth pastor's house in Omaha while other people were there.  But someone decided that I made myself too comfortable.  They pointed out that if everyone made themselves comfortable, the pastor and his wife would be totally overrun with people, and they only had room in their lives for about 12 people, and nothing personal, but I just wasn't one of them.  You know, they're busy.  But the implication was that they would have room for me if I were just "better" or "more". 

Sometimes "I'm busy" is just an excuse.  We're not busy.  Maybe we're overwhelmed, maybe we're depressed, or maybe we're just being lazy.  But not necessarily busy.  Of course, sometimes we really ARE busy.  Working full time, being in grad school, going through a volunteer training course on Tuesdays and Thursdays this month plus other volunteer stuff... Yeah, I'm busy.  So how do I organize my time so that I'm not too busy for what's REALLY important: people?

I must confess, the time in Texas around the busy-people rubbed off on me.  I used to not mind interruptions when working, but now I'm more irritable.  "Can't you see I'm BUSY?!"  I hate feeling that way.

I remember often saying, "I'm busy," right after I graduated college.  Every time I said it, I knew it was a lie.  That's right -- a lie.  I wasn't busy.  I was depressed.  College was over. Friends moved away.  I started a new job.  I had been around only singles within a few years of my age, now I'm working with married people who are at least 10 years older than me, married, with children.  But in our busy culture, "I'm busy," is the perfect excuse to get off the hook without actually saying anything... real.

The woman who mentored me in Omaha, she was (and is) busy, but she never made me feel like she was busy.  She found ways to include people into daily life -- she'd have me over every week while she cleaned the house. 

Being busy is a big value statement.  Of course there's validity to times when we really are busy, but how do we communicate those times while still communicating people are valuable?  I know in Texas, the messages was I'm too busy... for you. Or, you're not worth my time.  But people do have worth -- and there needs to be a place of affirming a person's worth while being reasonable about the limited number of hours we have in a day.