By Patti Radle in San Antonio, Texas.
I am a
pacifist, so I don’t really think of my Guardian Angel as a being who would use
violence.
But lately
I’ve been saying to people, “If I tell you ‘yes, I’ll do it,’ I’m afraid my
guardian angel is going to slap me.
Well, yes, of course, they look at me strangely.
Even so, we’ve
all seen one of those movies where someone is getting hysterical—just losing
it!—and all of a sudden someone slaps them and they come out of their crazy
state and face reality, pulling their psyche together.
Well, I
think the challenge of the Christian, or, in more general terms, the person who
is spiritually determined and karmatically driven to do good in a loving manner,
is to get a balance on the use of the word “yes” before they get into a
psychotic disabling habit of using the word.
I am no one
to model that kind of balanced behavior.
I’m learning. I have only recently
come to a position of conscious change in behavior after years of saying, “I
have to do something! I’ve got to cut back.
I’m too damn busy! I’m constantly
exhausted!”
A statement
that gave me a bit of a slap in the face was when I heard my spiritual director
say, “Being too busy is evil. It affects everything you do and it affects your
relationships.” I’ve certainly gotten to
a point where I see the depth of relationships suffering while the breadth of the
number of relationships increases. I serve
in an elected public office, so it’s a bit hard to get a handle on this. But I
think anyone working in the service of peace, justice, and integrity of
creation is serving in “public office” and faces the same challenge. More strongly, I am better understanding the
importance of deepening the close relationships. These relationships provide for me a fortress
against insanity.
Let’s return
to the “yes problem.” I’ve finally
learned that to not say “yes” doesn’t mean to say “no.” I have found other phrases that put it a
different way: “I’m sorry I won’t be
able to do that, but I have the contact info for someone who would be a
terrific help.” Or, “I’m not free to
take care of that now, but after ________ (blah, blah, blah), I’ll have a
little more time.” Or, “I don’t have the time to do that, but I’d be glad to
sit with you for a while and work on some ideas.”
Anyway, by using creativity in a response
that makes the other person and I feel there has not been a rejection, I’m able
to ease my conscious and conserve my time and energy. I figure it works a lot better than pushing
myself to that hysterical state with a screaming rant that ends with, “Are you
crazy?!!! I’m so friggin’ busy!!! I don’t have time for that!!” because that’s
when I just might start to feel the hand of the winged being come flying at me. I must
remember that even Jesus took the boat out away from the shore, away from all
the demand on His time. And, He went out
to the desert…alone…to the silence!
But we are
so accessible these days whether by email, Facebook, Linked-in, Twitter, Text,
or Phone call, it’s hard to pull the boat out from the shore of communications
and accessibility. Just as God
is not in the earthquake, the wind, or the fire, He is not in the emailing,
facebooking, or the texting. He is in
the silence. “Yes” cuts
down on our time to be silent unless we are saying yes to the silence. I think the hand of my guardian angel is held
back by my now greater commitment of a yes to Silence.
Mrs. Patti Radle serves on Missionary Oblate
Justice and Peace Committee and was recently awarded an Honorary Doctorate in
Theology from the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio. Mrs. Radle also serves
as elected trustee to the San Antonio Independent School District Board of
Trustees.
