蜜芽传媒

I write a daily thought for Lent, in which I鈥檝e been encouraging my readers very simply to take a little more time to pause, and breathe, during their busy schedules.

The other day, though, I received an exasperated note from one of them, a senior teacher in a successful school, who didn鈥檛 feel she had a spare moment to call her own during an exhausting day. It did me think: it鈥檚 all very well talking about the spirituality of pausing, but out in the real world it can feel very different.

Her experience seems to resonate with a report published this week from Policy Exchange, a think-tank which argues that schools need to embrace more flexible working to stop, in its words, the 鈥渟hocking waste of talent鈥� that sees women, in particular, leaving teaching.

It鈥檚 especially hard, I think, for people serving any great cause - as teachers do - to give or receive permission even to take a break. But it does make me wonder what kind of 鈥榳orld of work鈥� we are modeling to the next generation of leaders, to our school-children, if we can鈥檛 find ways ourselves to flourish as we go.

It seems to be a problem right across the board, too; I was working with young leaders last week who鈥檒l be the future of a global consultancy, which helps other organisations to flourish, and one person confessed they'd been getting 3-5 hours of sleep a night for the last six weeks and wondered when - and if - this breathless pace was ever going to end.

If someone like them doesn鈥檛 dare to pause, then I wonder who will? Where are the captains of industry who don鈥檛 expect to burn themselves out anymore in this self-fulfilling prophecy of a world we are all too busy creating?

And where are the spiritual leaders, for that matter, who aren鈥檛 working every hour God sends them either? I know of too many who are modeling in their organisations or churches an unsustainable way of working that puts pressure on everyone to follow suit - to look busy or else. I鈥檓 afraid I speak from personal experience, having been away from home for six weekends running. Physician, heal thyself.
Halfway through Lent, then, my mind returns to Jesus, out there for 40 painfully slow days in the desert, before he began his public work. It鈥檚 a courageous leader who dares to stop as well as go-go-go. 鈥淟earn from me,鈥� he said, 鈥渢he unforced rhythms of grace.鈥�

It was all very well for him, of course. He didn鈥檛 have a smart-phone, for a start. Or the boss from hell. But whoever and wherever we are, today - isn鈥檛 there time, if we look with care, to permit each other just the shortest space to pause ... and ... breathe?

Show less