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"Sauntering -Stop Eating the Bread of Anxious Toil"October 27, 2002 I want to introduce yet another text today; this one is from Henry David Thoreau. It is from an essay he wrote called "Walking". This is a wonderful essay about walking in nature and valuing it, but what particularly stuck me in light of my reflections on Psalm 127 this week was the concept of sauntering. A way of moving through life that is not rambling or reckless, but confident. Not too fast, peaceful, relaxed, observant - like pilgrims moving slowly toward the Holy Land. This is a way to move through life. But it is most definitely not the way most of us move through life. Everywhere these days I hear people, including myself, complaining about the frantic pace of life. It has hit me more strongly since I've been in Boulder, since the area we left in Michigan was a bit more rural and a tiny bit slower - but people there complained as much as here. Traffic is intense here. I find that one reason to ride my bike is that I actually feel less stressed just not entering the stream of traffic in the Boulder, Denver area. There is a lot of it, and people are in a hurry. Laura says I make it worse because I've fallen back into my Chicago speed of driving - which is wilder, I confess. But the intensity of the speed of life is everywhere. Computers and the internet have led us to expect instant action, instant messages, instant removal of money from bank accounts, instant information, instant letter to friends, instant everything. Lines and traffic and a slow Internet connection are almost intolerable now. The concept of multi-tasking is one that I find hard. Someone might say, "I'm just not good at multi-tasking" as if this were some kind of disability. I'm not good at doing three things at once: driving a car, talking on a cell phone, telling the kids to settle down and looking for the store I'm going to, all at once. Is there something wrong with the person who can't do this? Is there something right about them. But I'm as guilty as anyone. I catch myself reading emails, opening mail and listening to phone messages in the church office at the same time - to save time. But then I need an hours rest time later in the day to recover from the frantic pace I've set for myself. Children are unknowing victims of this new pace of life. I hear many people complain about how children are over programmed today. Everyday of the week has a full schedule: school, music lessons, soccer, marching band, youth symphony, basketball clinic, choir, Tai Kwan Do, tennis lessons. The list goes on. Now some of this busy-ness we can do something about. In Walden, Thoreau wrote, "Our life is frittered way by detail. Simplify, simplify." We can simply our lives in many ways. A book Laura and I have been reading is called Simplify Your Life, by Elaine St. James. In it she has a bunch of suggestions about how to make my life less complicated, such as; removing the clutter from your house, buy in bulk, plant a garden, run all your errands in one place, stop buying clothes that need to be dry cleaned, get rid of your lawn, drop call waiting, don't answer the phone just because it is ringing, etc., etc. Great stuff, though I confess I have found it a little stressful trying to live up to her ideal, but that's my problem. The point is, there are conscious things we can do to simplify our lives and it is important to do this for the sake of our health, our children, our grandchildren, and the people around us, like the other drivers. I'd love to see a group gather from our congregation that would meet regularly support each other in our efforts to simplify life. But we can do tons about our own lives, as many of you already have, and we are still stuck living in this overprogramed, intensely busy society of 21st century America and Boulder in particular. What are we going to do about that? This brings me finally to the Psalm for today, Psalm 127 - "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil: for God gives sleep to God's beloved". Isn't that exactly what the frantic life feels like, "eating the bread of anxious toil"? The solution offered by the Psalmist is perhaps the only one that ultimately helps our condition of anxiety that grips our culture. The solution is that God is acting and working all the time that we are frantically trying to do everything. Unless God is working with me, I labor in vain. Unless God is doing something about the problem I am so concerned about (that is raising healthy, happy children, for example) I am worrying in vain. But the Psalmist assures us that God gives sleep to God's beloved - God builds houses and churches and families. We do not labor in vain if we trust that God is acting. And if we do trust that God is acting - there's the rub!- then we will relax and not eat the bread of anxious toil. We will take time to look around at life and relax a bit. We will take the time to saunter, as Thoreau so beautifully proposed. Sauntering is what I propose we do in life. As Thoreau says, "sauntering through the woods, and over hills and fields absolutely free from all worldly engagements." He was talking about the one who is out in the woods, having set aside their worldly responsibilities, but I think it is a worthy goal of a way to walk through life. Sauntering; walking peacefully - as the Desiderata advises, "Go placidly amidst the Noise and haste and find what peace there may be in silence". I envision an ideal for myself where I will trust God so much that I can put my grief and my worry, my responsibilities and work, by family and loved ones, in God's hands, and be free. Free to saunter through life, engaging the world around me, trusting what is and what is to come, and consigning the past to God. Psalm 127 teaches us that we can be a peace if we have faith. The peace of the pilgrims on the way to the Holy Land can be ours if we see ourselves on the way to a Holy Land of sorts. Or better yet - we are walking in a Holy Land -God's creation. And we can trust God - a la sainte terre - let us be Sainte-Terrers - saunterers. 2650 Table Mesa Drive
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