How have you used your precious time and attention so far today? This week? What will you do tonight?
Have you ever been in the shower and forgotten whether you have shampooed your hair yet because you’ve been lost in thought?
I remember I think it was second grade. So I was maybe six. We were sent outside for an extra recess. There were men cutting down a tree and then cutting it into pieces. I was totally focused on what they were doing and how they did it. I have no idea how long it was before I realized that there were no other kids around. Strangely, I just went back to the classroom and found my seat. I don’t recall any comments.
There is a story, this could have been me but it wasn’t, of a little boy in elementary school. He was staring out the window totally lost in thought. As each classmate and then the teacher noticed the room grew noticeably quiet. This brought the little boy back to present reality.
“What were you doing?” asked the teacher. “Thinking,” said the little boy. To which the teacher responded perhaps a little too quickly, “Don’t you know that you’re not supposed to think in school?”
Is this not an important part of the well lived life? To sit and think. Ancient people had time in the evenings and perhaps mornings to sit and think. Modern life of the past two hundred or three hundred years has robbed us of that time.
Remember, even Jesus went off to be alone to sit and think and rest in God. That is a good example for us.
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