There comes the strangest moment in your life,
when everything you thought before breaks free—
what you relied upon, as ground-rule and as rite
looks upside down from how it used to be.

Your heart’s in retrograde. You simply have no choice.
Things people told you turn out to be true.
You have to hold that body, hear that voice.
You’d have sworn no one knew you more than you.

How many people thought you’d never change?
But here you have. It’s beautiful. It’s strange.
~Kate Light from “There Comes the Strangest Moment” in Open Slowly

This disease of being “busy” (and let’s call it what it is, the dis-ease of being busy, when we are never at ease) is spiritually destructive to our health and wellbeing.

It saps our ability to be fully present with those we love the most in our families, and keeps us from forming the kind of community that we all so desperately crave.

Tell me you remember you are still a human being,
not just a human doing.
Tell me you’re more than just a machine,
checking off items from your to-do list.
Have that conversation, that glance, that touch.
Be a healing conversation,
one filled with grace and presence.

Put your hand on my arm, look me in the eye,
and connect with me for one second.
Tell me something about your heart, and awaken my heart.
Help me remember that I too am a full and complete human being…
~Omid Safi from The Disease of Being Busy

It has been nearly three years since I hung up my stethoscope. I’m no longer paid to be very busy. It isn’t feeling strange to wake up with no “job” to go to.

I still am vigorously treading water but with no destination in mind other than to stay afloat. It’s enough to just move and breathe in this new and strangely unfamiliar territory.

It was scary at first, backing off from all-consuming clinic responsibilities, yet knowing I was becoming less effective due to my diminishing passion and energy for the work. I’d been working in some capacity for over fifty years, starting in high school.

I could barely remember who I was before I became a physician.

So here I am — changed and changing — volunteering here and there, budding and blooming in new colors and shapes, exercising a different part of my brain, and simply praying I make good use of the time left to me, being something as worthwhile as what I had been doing.

So, once again, my days have become… strangely beautiful… in ways I could never have imagined.