The rain plinks the roof in a lazy, half-alseep rhythm. I think of the day ahead and the many things that are waiting to fill it. Not one of them could be described as lazy or half-asleep. I contemplate, plan, break it down; I try to manage what seems no less than wild. I'm already feeling anxious and tired. Goodness. A simple life can go all kinds of crazy sometimes.
But is it, really crazy, this life? Or do I look at it through crazy lenses without even realizing? Do I automatically regard a full day ahead as a frantic, harried one, labeling it as if I could possibly know? Do I become the frantic, harried one, uptight and difficult, simply because of the many anticipated occupations of the day?
My mind wanders to the idea of stewardship, and I see the gently aged man who I always see when I think about this. His trim body and agile way speak to his years of natural work; conditioning and strength have become him. There's an honest fade to his work clothes, and his felt hat (it's raining, so of course it's the felt hat today) shades or shelters, depending.
He's never hurried or harried, but steady. Sometimes I even think he's slow. But I watch, and the even stride he keeps accomplishes what needs accomplishing in the minutes that fill his day. He takes each task in turn, and lives it, giving himself to it, and receiving fulfillment from it. Not pressed into frantic, glazing the day over with a rigid, prickly crust, his movement is fluid and timely, meaningful and accomplishing. He's not a doer of busy; he's simply a keeper of time.
A keeper of time.
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