Time

Assuming that the snowstorm, which has pretty much laid low the nation's capital and much of the East Coast and South doesn't prevent it, next week will be my last week at my temporary job assignment.  I've enjoyed my time there enormously.  I've delighted in being part of a team that really pulls together toward one whopping big, positive goal--raising $50 million for charity in three months.  I've loved knowing that I am making such a difference for thousands in need, not just for the year ahead but perhaps for the rest of their lives.  I fully admit to feeling good when two of my agency campaign managers told me on the same day that I'd been the best person in my role that they'd ever worked with and, because of that, their teams had exceeded their goals.

My nature is to reflect on transitions, and this one is no different.  The things that I've just mentioned are the standard fare, and it is also my nature to reflect beneath the standard fare options.  What has been the spiritual consequence of these four months?

Almost since the beginning of my assignment, one individual has impacted me in a deeply personal way. Almost every encounter with her has been a learning experience.  Let's take, for instance, what happens when she is walking in during the morning, racing toward her desk as most of us do, and I ask the common question, "How are you?"  She will almost stop in her tracks, take a deep breath, get a huge smile on her face as she exhales, and say something like, "Thank God I am fine," or "I am really blessed with health."  The responses are rarely the same so as not to have become rote.  She assessed where she is and answers gratefully.

When I stop by her cube to talk with her, she stops everything, looks me in the eye, and stays totally present to our conversation.  We occasionally share a table over our brown-bag lunches, and she has some minusculely small containers.  When I once remarked about them, she says she is usually full when she finishes.  After that, I notice that she really eats very slowly and gives each bite of food the same attention that she give the "How-are-you?" question in the morning. I've noticed something similar during Lent when I give more studied attention to eating; I am almost always full half-way through my meal.

This colleague seems to get the "being present" and "being grateful" qualities of personal spirituality to which I aspire, and I've been privileged to have spent these months in her "classroom."  There is another quality of "being present" that I've learned from her as well. I am not quite sure how to describe it except to say that it has to do with recognizing how important boundary control is to "being present."  Maybe it could be described as being present to the consequences of not being present.

Almost all of us on the campaign are extremely busy and often simultaneously working on several deadline projects for different agencies, each one of which thinks its need should be Priority One.  If a colleague walks up to me at a time like that, I am embarrassed to admit that I forget my "being present" goal.  At times, I try to continue working while talking to the person, which means that I give neither the project or the person the attention each deserves.  Sometimes I will say, "I'm on a deadline, and I really don't have time to talk right now."  Even as the words come out of my mouth they feel rude and piercing. In my heart I hate that I felt like I cut the person off.  The times when I do stop and talk, I know I am not present; I am totally distracted by what I think I "should" be working on.

My colleague, who I am certain was sent to this assignment to be my spiritual teacher, has taught me a lot about that, as well.  In a similar circumstance, she stops, connects with me visually and spiritually, and looks me in my eye as she says something like, "I would really like to talk with you, but I want to give my full attention to the task I need to complete for Agency A by noon.  May we talk later?"  To be sent away by this woman feels like a privilege.  I have never felt slighted in the least.  Just the reverse, I feel like she is saying that our connection is so important that she doesn't want to give it short-shrift while she multi-tasks or is distracted.

Since the first of the year, I've sometimes been physically ill when I thought about going back into the pressure cooker that is my "real" job.  I've feverishly looked for other opportunities, without success. I even bought a lottery ticket toward the $1.2 billion jackpot, something that was so foreign to me that I had to ask someone how to do it.  Now that my return seems inevitable, and I am in my reflective space, I am being completely grateful for the opportunity to have worked with such a fine spiritual teacher.

I am also keenly aware that there is no finer place in the world to practice the spiritual lessons that my colleague has taught me than to go back into the pressure cooker and practice them, where I will really be tested.  I have already written reminders on the white board in my usual office, which I think will keep me on track.  They are at the top and marked as priority items.

I truly believe that life is a series of big spiritual lessons.  We get stuck in them until we learn them, and then almost magically, we are able to move on.  I don't want to get stuck in this one any longer.  I've been to spiritual school for four months.  I know what to do.  That means to remember the job isn't about customer service or earning a paycheck, although both are important.  This job is about proving I can do what I used to do and what I know to be the right thing to do.  Now, all I must do is have the spiritual will to do what I know to be right for me.