Real Life Confessions of a Service Sleeper: “It was all a blur!”

By Dan Carpenter in Thinking About Sunday on 7/24/11

A Blurry Hurry - Confessions of A Week to Forget

Startled abruptly into panic from sleep, with no idea where or when I was, I looked around. A dissembling fear churned me as I assembled myself and, taking note of the little things like the three hundred people in the room with me and the overhead monitors, I breathed easier. I knew this place. I took just a second and ensured I’d not drooled, and paused amidst the chagrin sweeping me to thank God for not allowing me to scream, twitch, fall off the chair or otherwise publicly humiliate myself (Yes, yes, I know; he was apparently reserving it for this bog - but what can we do? He’s God.) Lifting my head awkwardly from my chest, where it had apparently burrowed, I pulled my eyes to the front - only to find Di returning the gesture, her eyes right on me. “Aha.” I thought, sizing up the situation. I was, indeed, in church. And it appeared that - however briefly, however innocently - I had fallen, noticeably, asleep.

The irony took just a second to hit. Embarrassed, I could only hope that Di would understand - it wasn’t her, it wasn’t the message, and it wasn’t any lack in my faith. It was pennies to the cent what she was talking about - it was my week. A week which I’d like to say had been intense, impressive, accomplished or memorable, but cannot because it wasn’t - it was just a blur of ‘had to’ moments, some more needful than others, all seemingly unavoidable.

In retrospect it was a mediocre feature, shot with a fuzzy lens, and it told a meandering and listless story of our hero (that’s me) stumbling from one obligation to the next, triumphing blearily over a draining, ceaseless, and monotonously unexciting adversity. Not exactly Oscar material to be sure. But, with a smile hinting at nausea plastered upon my face i did indeed get it all done - but at what price? What does it say about my life?

Questions you’ve just got to ask yourself when you pass out in a church service aimed right at the harried and hurried - the kinds of people most likely to pass out in church. God, who does seem to endlessly enjoy coincidence and irony, seemed to be posing the questions himself - who am I to deny God?

So I checked. I asked, dug, squirmed, answered, listened, considered, and concluded. Which sounds like a lot but is really pretty simple - I just took a hard look, that’s all. And found, despite the surface appearance and the embarrassment, that I’m doing all right. In that wonderful way God has of rewarding us for being faithful, I was able to let go of any embarrassment or conviction on my heart - because it’s needless. Because though it’s a shame to have missed any of the service, it wasn’t because I was hurried - I wasn’t harried, obsessive, or foregoing the scent of roses - I was just really (really) busy. I learned that while I do have some changes to make (and always will) in letting the worry of hurry make things blurry - its not how I live my life on the whole. While my week may have been busy to a ridiculous degree - it isn’t a result of habit. A fact which makes all the difference.

Because one embarrassing moment or busy week, no matter how ironic, doesn’t equal a conviction. That’s a hurried judgement. It’s irresponsible to assign, even to the self, a sentence handed out so canned and ready - God expects (I expect) a bit more consideration from us when considering ourselves and His standards. Judgements, more than most things, deserve an unhurried and unwearied state of mind. So I paused and then looked deeper yet again and found that for the most part I was clear of the danger - the busyness of my life happening sporadically if intensely, the patterns clear of the true danger of the hurried self.

The danger of habit.

Which is what Di’s message was all about (and yes, thank you, I checked later). The habit of hurry. The habit of living life to the fullest schedule.. without full meaning. A habit which can run our lives straight out from God’s country and into the wilds of the world - obsession with accomplishment and pride of place leading hearts and minds ever further astray form the values we cherish. Which is dangerous stuff. It’s an important thing to look at and it was a good message to preach - it deserves our attention.

Why?

Precisely because it’s undramatic - because it’s neither gambling or adultery, fornication or pornography, lies nor fraud. As such it’s mostly ignored by the gatekeepers in our culture - untreated as a set of temptations that lead towards self diminishing habits and away from god. Because it’s just not as sexy of a topic as the darker or more obvious sins. We dont have a cultural fascination with this topic - it doesn’t scare us enough to keep our attention. It sits ignored - except for by Di. Who is right. It needs to be addressed. Because everything in our culture opposes her stance - our culture states that your value is in what you do. That busy people are good people. That involvement equals improvement. That validation lies in obligations. And it’s just not true. It’s not true at all.

We’re called to be better - in every way - to be smiths of accountability, constantly forging a more refined self and a closer connection to God. A truth that applies to all aspects of life - not just the dramatic, the emphatic, and the exciting. A fact that stands in teh face of a lot of cultural learning - instincts that call us to keep an eye on the dramatic and the dangerous at the exclusion of all times. Which isn’t right - its an approach to life so out of balance that it simply isn’t true.

Yet it isn’t true either that a busy week, a crisis, or a heap of needs all at once will necessarily lead you astray. That being busy is in any way a sin… thats not it, not at all. Because life can and will get busy. Sometimes crazily so and with good and Godly reasons. No matter how much we love balance or engage with the world around us we will, without question, have weeks that take us to our edge. Crises will evolve amidst the calm. Health will become illness. Family will need us and need us now. That’s all part and parcel to a life lived and lived well.

So the question becomes one of looking closer, of being careful of motivations, of frequency, and of our self honesty - a question of habits. So, if you’re like me and your life gets busy - but you’re not sure with how much hurry - then ask some hard questions. Take a close and unflinching look. Be honest with yourself and look for patterns or habits. And when you find questionable things - look to why’s behind what you do - look to your motivations. That will tell you what you need to know.

Why?

Because there’s an awful big difference between falling asleep in church because you were trying to impress your friends and falling asleep in church because you were caring for your ill mother late into the night. It’s a difference so big its defining - it’s the difference between handling the consequences of life well lived and habituating the avoidance of truly handling your life.

That’s quite the difference.

As to which one I found in myself… well, that would be telling.

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