I am a list-maker. List making is a wonderful tool for efficiency and productivity. My best days are days when my energy and list coincide and I quickly and efficiently complete one task after another, crossing off each item with a wonderful sense of accomplishment. Self-help guides would praise my habit of list making as an exemplary use of time leading toward a successful life. I wonder about this though. Is list making really a path toward a fulfilling life?
Last weekend I babysat my one-year-old grandson Enzo. I pushed him on his swing, took him for a walk, fed him, bathed him, and put him to bed. When he had finished his bedtime bottle, he just lay in my arms, knowing it was bedtime and yet not quite ready to sleep. It took thirty minutes of rocking for Enzo to finally fall asleep in my arms. As I rocked Enzo in my arms, and acclimated myself to the dark and silent room, I recognized a restlessness within me.
In part, my restlessness was about wanting Enzo to fall asleep peacefully rather than becoming distraught because his mother wasn’t there. Yet, there was something more than this anxiety in my restlessness. There was a desire to be done with the task of putting Enzo to bed so that I might cross it off my list and complete my day.
As I sat there longer, I reflected upon the many times in my life that I have had the obligation and the privilege of sharing that silent space with babies and toddlers as they quieted down trusting themselves to rest, giving into the sleep they so needed and yet resisted. There is something sacred about sharing that silence with a baby or with a child, a bonding takes place in that dark transitional space. If we can let go of our ideas about efficiency, let go of our frustration to move on to tasks we can complete and cross off our lists, we can feel our hearts beating with the child’s heart, and sense the beauty and wonder of our shared lives together. Listening into the silence and darkness, hearing our shared communion in the twilight time of sleep is so much greater, so much more mysterious than anything we might put on our list to finish and accomplish for a day.
When Enzo’s mother Molly was a young girl of seven or eight, I came across a list she had made. I imagine her practice of list-making came from her observation of me, but the contents of her list were quite different from mine. Molly’s list read as follows,
Wake-up
Make hot chocolate
Call Betsy
Make up a story
Play Barbies
Draw a picture
Molly’s List
When I came across this list, I thought, “Well, no wonder Molly is always happy, look at her list! If my list looked like that instead of call doctor, clean kitchen, do laundry, go grocery shopping, I might be happy too!” Her list made an impression on me. Her list was about connection and creativity, about play and spontaneity. It was a list as full of life as Molly herself. I wonder how old we are when we transition from lists celebrating the fullness of life to lists designed to make us models of productivity and efficiency.
I wonder if God had a list before he created the world. Perhaps the list looked like this:
Create light
Separate the waters
Create dry land, vegetation, and fruit
Make lights in the sky to separate day and night
Create birds and sea creatures
Create earth animals and human beings
Rest
Genesis 1-2
Notice that God put a day of rest on the list! God includes in his list of world making, a day to rest and reflect, a day devoted entirely to spaciousness, a day dedicated to receiving the fullness of life.
Life’s most important moments, the moments that lead us toward fulfilling, meaningful lives, are generally not moments that can be captured on a list. In fact, if we rigidly adhere to our lists, we might lose the spaciousness that allows life to fill us with the goodness God intends for us. And the Bible tells us,
God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good.
Genesis 1:31
We can still make lists, but maybe like Molly and like God, we might include an item or two allowing for creativity, spaciousness, play, spontaneity, and joy.
