Doing

I’ve heard it so many times now, I’m beginning to think there’s something in it. As I listen, I wonder about them and about me. I have a problem I realise. And maybe you do too. My problem, and maybe yours, is that for me it’s mostly about doing. I measure my success (if that’s what it is) by what I do. Maybe it’s more accurately about achieving: what am I achieving? You see, a lot of my time and energy is focused around what I am doing (or achieving). And we seem to think like that a lot. We encourage each other to be doing lots of things: a job, a hobby, voluntary work. We tend to think that people who aren’t doing things are lazy, or inept. I don’t like it when I ill and can’t do the things I think I have to do. One of the things that been a challenge during this lockdown and post-lockdown (if that’s even a term) is what I have not been able to do. In fact, one of the challenges has been to find to other things to do while I haven’t been ale to do the things I would normally do! We had the hiatus over the exam results which seemed t provoke a lot of angst about what students were then not able to do because their grades were not what they had expected or been predicted. At it’s worst it was presented as almost the end of the world because what students were going to do was taken away. I recognise there was a lot of real angst and challenge in all this. But it does seem to be focused around doing. And we encourage it. We tell our young people to aim high and we encourage them to achieve. I’m not saying this is all bad. It’s not. There is a sense in which it’s good and right and very Christian to make the most of the gifts and talents we’ve been given. But. But there is a thought that goes through my mind. And it often goes through my mind when I’m sitting listening to a tribute at a funeral. Like I did yesterday. People do talk about what someone has achieved when they speak of them at their funeral. They do. But often they speak more about who the person was. They speak about friendship. They speak about the influence a person had by just being themselves. They speak of carrying the imprint of a life with them. I have yet to hear anyone say how much money anyone left to them. I have yet to to hear anyone say how much stiff someone owned. I have ye to hear anyone speak of the things that I think I am working towards with my obsession about doing. Truth is, at a funeral, when someone speaks about a loved one, mostly they talk about who they were, not what they did or what they amassed while they lived. I’m guessing you have been asked many times: what do you do? I wonder how many times you have been asked: who are you becoming? Yesterday, as I sat and listened to tributes about who a person was, I fond myself asking: who are you becoming Ian? Dallas Willard said this: “the most important ting in your life is not what you do; it’s who you are becoming. That’s what you will take into eternity.” Maybe it would be good for me to think about that. Maybe it would be good for you too!