It’s strange that the things we don’t have time for are probably the things that matter the most. Yesterday I visited a sick friend who was too weak to communicate or engage me. I sat there in the chair at the hospital and decided that it was really OK not to say or do anything for an hour or so. I would just be there.

I studied his sleeping face. I prayed. I read the Bible some. I meditated. I chided myself for being fidgety and anxious. Like many of you, I had a heap of things TO DO!  And so does he. But now things have a new perspective and tried to place myself, once again, in those shoes.

A pathology of society is not having time. I insulate myself from real relationship in the cocoon of business. I lie to myself that quality time can substitute for quantity time, that awareness is as good as involvement, that the internet is as good as community, that career is identity.

Time to go.

P.S. The friend that I was visiting last weekend has passed away.