“I am only one, but still I am one.
I cannot do everything, but still I can do something.
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something I can do.”

Edward Everett Hale

Thursday, 2 June 2011

Moments to be experienced

"So the day became one of waiting, which was, he knew, a sin: moments were to be experienced; waiting was a sin against both the time that was still to come, and against the moments one was currently disregarding." (from Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman)

I really don't like waiting days. You know the kind of day I mean - when you've got things to do, but they're not particularly urgent or interesting, when your motivation to do anything at all is at a low ebb, when you've had all the baths you can usefully have (thank you Douglas Adams) and when you realise with a start that you've spent the last hour messing around on the computer, doing pointless quizzes and looking at other people's lives on Facebook.

It is at times like these - like right now to be honest - that I try to remember Neil Gaiman's Abbot of Black Friars - and realise again that moments are to be experienced, not wasted. And to recall that I am so damn lucky to be me, and to have my life in all its Western luxury - boredom is something that most of the world's population can only dream about - they are far too busy just surviving.

May I be thankful for my blessings and grateful for all the precious moments of now that I should fill with doing what I ought or what I like, but not frittering away.

1 comment:

  1. I am stunned to hear that you ever just fritter away your time Sue.:-) I have just been reading a book about your personal calling(Called or Collared) which talks about the two different calls- one to doing and the other to being and that we in our western society don't pay enough attention to daydreaming, frittering, pottering and sitting- being. This is time when we can allow God in.

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