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Oversheduled and Underwhelmed: A Reality Check



I yelled at my husband this week. For coughing. And for being sick because it woke Ezra and I up in the middle of the night. One of those nights when you pray your child can make it at least four hours without waking up because you NEED sleep. And then in my craziness, I stopped, cried, and thought how could I be so shallow? My overscheduled life had overtaken my day to day relationships that I was snapping at my husband for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Soon after I asked him to forgive me, I took a few moments to recollect my thoughts before heading into work that next morning and realized what had happened: the disease of being busy was taking place right in front of my eyes. I lost my temper over something so incredibly mundane because I had allowed my life to be consumed with to-do lists; I yelled at my husband, and it broke my heart.

Do you ever have interactions with people when you ask how they are doing, and they respond, "I am good, just really busy..."? The inflection in their voice drops and you can tell it's almost a draining, depressing kind of "busy." In a recent blog post I read, author Omid Safi explores the so-called disease in further detail in a way that I found extremely convicting.

"The disease of being busy (and let's call it what it is, the disease of being busy when we are never at ease) is spiritually destructive to our health and wellbeing. It saps our ability to be fully present with those we love the most in our families, and keeps us from forming the kind of community that we all so desperately crave." -Omid Safi, "The Disease of Being Busy"

In my personal life, I struggle daily with the never ending pile of emails. For you, it could be totally different! I have tried removing my work email from my phone, only answering week day nights, prioritizing emails the first 60 minutes and finish of my day.  Safi suggests, and my coworkers as well, that it doesn't have to be this way. We let not only our minds, but our hearts and souls become so underwhelmed with the day to day we lose sight of the end goal: relational effectiveness. When we can respond to 'How are you doing?' with the current joys and passions of our lives instead of the never ending to-do lists, healing can take place. I so want that. Do you?

"I am always a prisoner of hope, but I wonder if we are willing to have the structural conversation necessary about how to do that, how to live like that. Somehow we need a different model of organizing our lives, our societies, our families, our communities."

 So with that, I ask how are the matters of your heart today? Are you giving yourself space to get dirty, make mistakes, forgo the to-do lists and save the emails for later? Because busy can wait, but the relationships we damage along the way of our disease to overscheduling hurt us more.

Take a moment for yourself and check out this week's new favorite dish: spiced apple crisp.

Ingredients:

For the crumb topping:

  • 1/2 cup of coconut flour
  • 1/2 cup of old fashioned oats
  • 1/2 up of brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • Dash of salt
  • Dash of ground ginger
  • Dash of ground cloves
  • 1/3 cup of unsalted dairy free butter, cut into small pieces
For the apple filling:
  • 3-4 large Granny Smith apples (best for baking but you can really use any that you have!)
  • 3 tablespoon of butter, melted
  • 2 tablespoon of flour
  • 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
  • 3 tablespoon of almond milk
  • 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
  • 1/4 cup of brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • Dash of salt
Instructions:
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
  2. In a medium sized bowl, combine the crumb topping ingredients with a fork or pastry blender until it resembles small crumbs. Refrigerate while you prepare the apple filling.
  3. Peel your apples. 
  4. In a small bowl, combine melted butter and flour until well blended. Add lemon juice, milk and vanilla extract. Stir in brown sugar and seasonings.
  5. Pour butter mixture over apples and toss to coat. Pour apple mixture  into an 8x8-inch baking dish and evenly spread.
  6. Sprinkle crumb topping evenly over the apples. 
  7. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown and top is set. 
  8. Remove from oven and let cool for at least 10 minutes. Enjoy! 
-Tina 
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Location: Tacoma, WA, USA

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