What is the Cure for Busyness?

Go Find the Kind of Hammock That Survives a Tornado

“Tornado Warning” cut across my phone’s notifications a few nights ago. Unexpected, yes. Surprising, no. Central Texas regularly has strong winds, and the tornado variety make an appearance a few times a year.

Once our area was in the all-clear, I took a few moments to peak outside and saw the metal frame to our hammock flipped on its side. The hammock itself was a tangled, knotted mess.

Truth is - that’s at least the third or fourth time the same thing has happened.

—

15 years ago we came back from Costa Rica with a brand new, multicolor hammock. Before we ever had a chance to recline into it, The Winds picked it up threw the hammock into the deep recesses of our attic.

13 years ago we came back from Belize with a vibrant green-and-blue hammock along with a fresh resolution 1) to use the hammock and 2) most definitely not lose the hammock. No dice. The Winds immediately and rather forcefully threw it to the back of our garage storage closet.

(The beauty of Belize)

A few years ago, we were hiking beautiful mountain trails just outside Salt Lake City, and this time we were older and wise. We bought an incredibly durable hammock - the kind you only buy if you know you’ll be using it for years to come. If you spend enough, you’ll definitely use it. Right?

Would you believe - The Winds got that one, too?

—

Whether Costa Rica or Belize, the beach or the mountains, a nature reserve or a National Park, oftentimes we pick up an item or two.

It may be…
A seashell or
A rock or
A landscape painting or
A t-shirt with peaceful rapids cutting across the front or
A hammock.

Frequently, it’s an item whose very essence suggests some of the sublime gift we experienced while away:
Less hurry, more slowing.
Less doing, more receiving.
Less worry, more trusting.

(A Belize moment of slowing-receiving-trusting)

And I wonder if we don’t get these items because something deep within would like to import more of this slowing-receiving-trusting sensibility into our daily rhythm.

The hammock, I think, represents our attempt to set out an unhurried space for regular rest, renewal, and creativity. A space for focus. A space for being. A space for connecting.

But here’s the Windy truth:

Every time I return from my travels with hammock-in-toe the Tornado Warning flashes across the heading of my life, The Winds immediately pick up, and things go crazy.

Emails flying.
Meetings falling onto the calendar left and right.
Texts swirling.
Deadlines pressing.
Challenging interpersonal dynamics grating some facet of work or life.

And you better believe The Winds care not how colorful or pricy the hammock was or how determined I was to return differently - next thing you know that hammock has been thrown with abandon to the back of the closet.

And the worst thing about tornadoes? Feeling entirely helpless before them.

A few torn and trashed hammocks later, I think I get it:

Good intentions are doomed before The Winds of Busy.

What is a person to do?! When Busy is the air we breath, is it possible to hang a hammock that lasts? Is there any remedy to the Crazy regularly swirling around and within?

I’m still trying to figure that one out, but… here is what I can say by based my observation of hammocks that actually get set out, used, and endure: they are always tied between two, large trees.

That fact alone suggests at least Three Basic Hammock Truths which I hope get us reclining in the right direction:

1. Hammocks need to be anchored to something much bigger, deeper, and more enduring than itself.
   
   This is where a spiritual foundation in one’s life becomes paramount. It is exceedingly difficult to anchor hammocks on the latest metal framework being sold. Want to be less busy?! Try this tea/pillow/radical-make-your-life-over-in-12-days-assessment! Many a recently-crafted metal framework have been toppled by The Winds of our society.

   
   But Judaism, for instance, is a spiritual tradition with roots thousands of years old. You know what the single most important day in Judaism is?¹
   Shabbat.
   Rest.
   Hammock first.

   And notice how it’s a calendar-ed priority. A whole, Hammock Day.
   
   What does it look like to tether our lives to something Bigger, Deeper, and More Enduring than the years of our life? Can we look at the Traditions far Bigger, Deeper, and More Enduring and heed the calendar-wisdom? Between what two days/events/hours can we tether non-negotiable Hammock space?

   

   (Costa Rica beauty inviting a glimpse of the Hammock Day gift - beauty, being, and perhaps even clarity about a path previously not seen/taken/appreciated)
   

2. Hammocks are anchored outside.
   
   This is part of their intrigue. Yes, we could go lie on a couch inside our home. Or even set up a hammock inside. But something within knows that there is a different kind of rest, re-centering, and even fresh vitality every time we are outside.
   

   What does it look to prioritize outdoor rhythms? Calendar them? Make them part of the daily routine?
   

3. Hammocks are anchored in community.
   
   The two trees remind me that the things that matter most to us are protected best when held between at least two people - if not more. Tornadoes can wreck individual lives. But a community of people? Even when a few are hit hard, isn’t it amazing to watch how the community proves beautifully instrumental in bringing the hit-hard-people right back along?
   
   What does it look like to have another person or two join you in anchoring a new rhythm? Where might that conversation start?

—

Life lived at the whim of The Winds is tiring. Painful. And actually, it wrecks a lot of lives (we use terms like addiction and burnout when trying to give language to what happens to lives spent too-long running with the Wind).

And too often our best answer is to find a vacation, haul back a hammock, and hope that this time surely(!) the tornadoes will finally settle down.²

(Brimming with confidence that no tornadoes will be underway upon returning from vacation)

But by now we know: Good intentions are doomed before The Winds of Busy.

Which means we also know: It’s time to study the two, large trees that anchor the kind of hammocks that endure.

1. Timeless Shabbat (Hebrew for Sabbath) wisdom from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in his 1951 classic, The Sabbath:

“Judaism is a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time.  Unlike the space-minded man to whom time is unvaried, iterative, homogeneous, to whom all hours are alike, qualitiless, empty shells, the Bible senses the diversified character of time…Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious.”

“There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.”

“The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh day we try to dominate the self.”

“The Sabbath is the presence of God in the world, open to the soul of (humans).”

“The Sabbath is a metaphor for paradise and a testimony to God’s presence; in our prayers, we anticipate a messianic era that will be a Sabbath, and each Shabbat prepares us for that experience.”

2. Or we try and purchase our way out of Busy. Ever notice how…

Luxury car commercials don’t sell the engine but the peace of life surrounded by leather, music, and tinted windows that lock out every last exterior sound?

Or how beautiful, intuitive pieces of technology invite a simplicity that feels like it puts lack-of-busy peace within a button’s reach?

Or how the fundamental allure of noise-cancelling earbuds is that your ears hear no Wind?