Crowded calendar

I told Thomas Kelly about my schedule as we walked along the path. I was proud and thought he’d be impressed. He said, “Gosh, you must be really important. Or maybe you’re trying to prove something? Oh, I know what it is!” he said excitedly. “You’re like me! You don’t yet know how to say, "No.”

I was injured by his words because they stung like the truth roughly applied to my life.

I said, “Well, what would you cut?”

He said, “I learned this the hard way. I’d cut everything, then put back only what you sincerely feel God is calling you to do. And it won’t be much.” Then he said, “God never leads us into a scramble. Never. If I’m hurrying along breathlessly trying to meet all my many obligations it’s me that designed that obstacle course NOT God. You probably have one, maybe in very rare cases two things you’re actually called by God to do. That’s it. People like you and me, we tend to crowd the canvas full. God intends for us to have more space.”

His words heaped feelings of both panic and the possibility of freedom on me. 

Sensing this he said, “You have a Divine Center, everyone does, and your job is to allow yourself to sink down into that Center. Rest there, give yourself to God who resides in the center of your being as the Light Within. This is Christ enlivening your soul as the Source of your being. Then, listen for the one thing you are called to do in this life. Then, God will give you back to the world to do your one thing with love.”

“Is it that simple? I said. Is that it?”

Thomas Kelly said, Yes, well, there’s one more thing. 

“What?” I said.

“Then you die," he said, "You lie down in peace at the end of your life and finally realize that this whole thing is God’s deal not yours.”

This was a lot for me to take in. I said, “What do I do now?”

He said, “Do you know Thomas Merton?”

“Yes,” I said.

Merton said " When you find your, Yes, it will be surrounded by 1000, No’s.”

“Ask God to help you find your, Yes, then practice saying, No.” said Kelly. “The next time you show me your schedule I’d like to see lots of blank space. Then you’ll have something to brag about and something to live for.”

I told Thomas Kelly I had to go. I was embarrassed because I didn’t think I could do what he was asking me to do.

As I walked away he said, “Can I say one more thing?”

I stopped, turned, and said, “Sure.”

“Merton said this too. You’re trying too hard. Think of an apple. How does it ripen? Does it chase the sun? No, it sits still and the sun ripens its skin over time.”

I just stared at him.

“That’s all,” he said. I watched him walk down the path and disappear around the bend.

I stood there for a long while with an increasing sense that everything had changed.