From the Editor
Kevin A. Miller
January 1, 1997
My cranium must be thicker than most, for it took me several years to hear what a friend was saying. "When are you going to slow down?" she would ask me.
"Oh, this is just an unusually busy time," I would say cheerfully. "But it's going to slow down in a couple of months."
Three months later, she would ask again. I'd give the same answer. This continued, like a tv rerun, until I finally got the clue: It's absurd to pretend I've been abnormally busy for five years.
The issue intensified last fall when I flew off a jet-ski going 40 mph and sustained a concussion. Unable to shake the dizziness and nausea, I reluctantly decided to take two weeks away from work to try to recover.
Weak and woozy, I began to pray about this oddly persistent busyness in my life. Was it drivenness? A desire to make a difference for God? A need to find affirmation from others?
Since then, I have discovered that reconstructive surgery of the motivations is more complex, and takes longer, than I'd imagined. But by God's grace I'm making progress in three areas:
Achievement. It's beautiful to work hard and accomplish much, but a drive for achievement can wring the water out of a soul, leaving nothing for prayer, joy, patience, family. And most congregations and denominations will applaud you while you slowly kill your spirit in this way.
I've found the most help in this area from a Christian writer six hundred years and a wide ocean away. Julian of Norwich, as she's known, can't stop writing phrases like, "The love that God most high has for our soul is so great that it surpasses understanding."
Reading her, at first I felt, She just can't get off this love theme. But then I realized, What else is there in life? Isn't the best thing to receive God's ...
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