“To be or not to be?” For Hamlet, this literally was a life or death question. Is life worth living? Why must I prolong the agony? What have I done to deserve this? What alternatives do I have?
For most of us in this ever busy, bustling world we live in, our question could well be “To do or not to do?” Why do I have to do so much? Why do some others get away with doing much less or so little? What’s this rat-race for anyway?
Usually from earliest childhood we’re used to being judged on performance:
– “Oh, you’re such a good baby! You ate all your dinner.”
– “Oh, what a good girl! Look how nice and neat your room is.”
– “Great job! You really cleaned up the yard.”
– “Hey, man, your home run won the game!”
– “Your thesis was outstanding. You’re going to graduate cum laude.”
– “You’re going to get a good raise this year. Your work was super.”
– “Congratulations! For outstanding service, you’re going to be promoted next month.”
In the U.S., usually when you meet a stranger, after a while a common question is, “What do you do?” Meaning, of course, what is your job?
We have become used to identifying ourselves by what we do. Often it’s our label: farmer, waiter, cop, preacher, painter, aid, teacher, doctor, nurse, and the like.
You can even pass the “do” test with a label like poet, so long as you can point to your poetry, preferably published.
Once upon a time college was associated with training in “liberal arts”; now it’s much more likely to be a matter of job training and preparation.
For better or worse, we live in a world that esteems doing and doers.
O Lord, my heart is not proud
Nor haughty my eyes.
I have not gone after things too great
Nor marvels beyond me.
Truly I have set my soul
In silence and peace.
As a child has rest in its mother’s arms
Even so my soul.
These verses from Psalm 131 are a good antidote to an overdose of “doing”.
Resting is not “doing”—it’s an abstention from doing. It’s just “being”.
“Being” allows basking in silence and in peace. It can be accompanied by joy and gladness. It can be far more contagious than any virus. It is the great liberation from the slavery of “doing”.
Thanks be to God for the state or stage of life when the demands of “doing” abate, when we no longer are being judged by achievements and successes, when we are retired or exempted from the requirements of doing and accomplishing.
It is a great time for “being”, especially if we rarely found much time for it before.
Poor Hamlet, so wrapped in the tragedies of his life, in what he had to do to oppose and reveal them, in the requirements of honor and vengeance, and in his relative inability successfully to “do” all that overwhelmed him, that he seemed to see “being” as no more than “not doing”.
Martha complained of Mary because she wasn’t “doing” enough. Jesus rebuked her, saying that “There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”
If you’ve got to “do”, do like her.
28 February 2021