Giving Quality Time

Tomorrow classes begin. Spanish II, Hemingway and Faulkner, Intro to Fiction, and Shakespeare. Though I'm not overly excited about Shakespeare, I'm not dreading any classes this semester. I've already read four of the required reading for the courses in the past couple of months, a healthy diet of Hemingway, Faulkner, Mary Shelley, and Steinbeck, so I'm feeling quite prepared for what lies ahead.

In the past month I've been fairly productive and creative. Wrote a few mediocre posts, wrote a couple of songs, made some advances in my musical knowledge. The past month has been somewhat of a rediscovery of past creative energy that was eaten alive by mounds of school projects, reading assignments, and five articles for the school newspaper (only one of which I was happy with).

It is quite true that there are only so many hours in a day, and only so much we can do. Our time and resources are finite. Any thoughts we have of absolute freedom in choice are a delusion.

I live in North America, and though there are many exceptions I've recognized that my cultural tendency is to do anything and everything I can. No is not a part of my vocabulary. It is even more difficult when you consider the need around you. Kids need mentors, people need friends, the Red Cross needs blood donors, the House Rabbit Society of San Diego needs people to clean rabbits.... so much to do, so little time.

Saying no has been difficult for me, there is a lot of spiritualized guilt that goes along with it. "Why wouldn't you get involved with this great cause? It's for Jesus." The sad thing is that guilt tends to come from my own head. I don't want to let people down, I don't want to seem like I don't care about the rabbits of San Diego.

Jesus did talk about giving sacrificially, and I'm not one to pretend I should make my life as comfortable and care free as possible, but there comes a time that when we give so much to so many different things, in the end we don't give significantly to anything. I cannot connect meaningfully with all 700 people at my church, put quality practice in on the guitar, make dinner for myself and my wife, change the oil on the car, build meaningful relationships in my life, sit with a friend who is going through difficulty, play guitar on worship team, go to school, give guitar lessons, and take time to connect deeply with God, on a weekly basis.

So this is one of my goals for the year, and for my life. Give meaningful and deep attention to a select few items and people, because frankly I'm tired of constantly giving my wife, God and everyone else leftovers. I recognize that this means saying no a lot more than saying yes, which makes me look like a bum,