‘I’m sorry to bother you. I know how busy you are.’ These words make me sad and sorry and so I reply, ‘ You’re not bothering me at all and I am not busy.’ I say this as an act of radical truth and in rebellion against a to-do list of eye-watering length.
There is nothing more important than a person who needs a chat. There is little in life that cannot wait for a few minutes. To be human is to connect, to serve, to be with, to put our agenda on hold for the sake of love. Busyness is a state of mind that reduces us to a task-fulfilling machine and denies our ultimate calling which is to be a creature of love.
To say to another ‘I am not busy’ is to say ‘I love you’.
