F is for Finding your pace {white space for your weekend}

I think we’ve finally found our pace.

{at least for now}

This fall will be three years that we’ve been at our church/job, and although of course we have our good days and bad days like any other family, I feel like we’re finally in-stride with our family’s pace. I stepped away from my role as Director of Women’s Ministry and now get to focus on leading Bible study, and we’ve whittled down our evening commitments to only 3/week. Mind you, I love our commitments, but when there’s too many of them we begin to resent the very things we love.

Thinking about this pace that feels so good reminded me of a phenomenal book, Margin, that I read a few years ago. If you’ve never read it, check it out! A few thoughts from the archives…

Americans have reached an all-time high point for depression, anxiety, suicide, stress, burn-out, abuse, and divorce.  While life-expectancy is at an all-time high, perhaps quality of life, that is happiness and contentment, is at an all time low.  Something is wrong. Perhaps it is that we have reached a limit and we’re in desperate need of margin.

Margin is defined as the space between your load and your limit. On a piece of paper, the margin is the white space between the written words and the edge of the page.  As a grader in seminary, let me tell you that my #1 pet peeve in grading is opening a paper and seeing that the student has done one of three things:  used size 10 font instead of 12, snuck in 1.75 line space instead of double, or changed the margins ever so slightly so the words creep over dangerously close to the edge of the page. They might think I don’t notice…but after reading 25 of them, I notice!  And far from being impressed by their covert ways, I am annoyed because what this tells me is that they were incapable of completing the assignment in the given space.  So, they have to cheat by doctoring margins.  That bugs me.  I have been known to write across the top of the page, “Ah!  Give me some white space!”

So we have done this with our lives. In the name of diligence, we have clicked on those margins and dragged them closer and closer to the edge of the page, instead of simply acknowledging the appropriate boundaries necessary for mental, emotional, physical, financial, and spiritual health, and respecting those boundaries.  Instead we have arrogantly assumed that the rules of margin aren’t for us, and we’ve packed our lives to the point of breakdown.

If you’re not convinced that this is an epidemic, check out these stats from the doctor who authored the book:  “Adjusting for population growth, ten times as many people in Western nations today suffer from unipolar depression, or unremitting bad feelings, without a specific cause, then did half a century ago.  Americans and Europeans have ever more of everything except happiness.”  In one morning, nine of the eleven patients this doctor saw where on antidepressents.  We are truly living in a “deteriorating psychic environment.” He observes that “millions of suburbanites seem to find that ‘the good life’ is only endurable under sedation.”

Not only are we sad, we we are overfed, under-exercised, sleep-deprived as well.  We are in more debt than ever before.  We have less leisure time, even though it was predicted in the early 20th century that by this time we would be down to a 2-3 day workweek because we could produce all that we “need” withing that amount of time. Ha!  Whoever predicted that took no classes in human behavior.  We don’t work for our needs. Instead, the workweek has risen rapidly over the past 20 years:  “The average work year for prime-age working couples has increased by nearly 700 hours in the last two decades.”  Exhaustion, burn-out, stress, and mental breakdown have become the norm.

I know it’s not simple, but I pray this weekend you and your family can enjoy some white space.

We’re actually camping at the beach right now — sand in our toes, smoke in our hair and s’mores in our teeth.

A little white space is good for the soul. Thanks for reading — happy weekend.