Help for Facebook Overwhelm: #Sacred Ordinary Days

Ever since I moved to our farm, I have felt overwhelmed, so much so I feel I’ve clunked my head and there is a big blank spot where my focus should be. I had a wonderful rhythm in our old house. I’d wake up, take Bruce to work, walk the dogs in the park, come home, take some quiet time and then settle into my writing. I learned how to waste time to get my work done. I sat in a chair in the corner of our new room watching shadows of leaves dance on the wall. Back then you had to be wired to get on the internet, so my laptop was not connected. The desktop was wired and I had to sit in an uncomfortable chair to read my email. In the evenings, I’d prepare for the next day’s class.

But when we moved to the farm, I tried to do this but added riding Tessie into the mix, which worked for awhile. I’d do chores, ride, then do my writing work in the afternoon. Evenings I’d prepare for class the next day. Weekends I’d edit papers. The whole thing was thrown off by neighbors showing up because we were new to the neighborhood. Then I signed up for Facebook so that my Blackboard account would link to it for students’ ease of use. It wasn’t long before I was hooked on the conversations and messages, feeling compelled to read everyone’s posts, spending hours much to Bruce’s dismay.

When The River Caught Sunlight was accepted for publication I was even more overwhelmed. Marketing and publicity were on my shoulders. There were too many moving parts mixed in with my fear of people’s response to the book. I did publicity professionally and thought I was up to the task. I was not. At any rate, it’s all I can do to publish one blog post a week while I see other authors who have published books the same time I have, who are bringing out their second and third books. Meanwhile I have five manuscripts waiting for my attention. Used to be I felt rich in imagination, but when I have a deadline for a blog post or WNIJ Perspective, I go blank.

The overwhelm and the curiosity I have about what I will learn next on Facebook drove me to that addiction. At times it’s been easier to think everyone else’s thoughts or respond to their agenda than it is to listen to what’s rattling around in my head. Sometimes it has been good to stop the spinning wheel. But I’d feel ashamed at the end of the day for not having accomplished anything in this season that feels like still waters and green pastures, a time of nurture and rest and waiting before my next work appears. Facebook has been more drain than well.

I have felt “time slipping, slipping, slipping’ into the future”, time sped up, my days feeling like a slick of water over ice and I just can’t get enough purchase to walk across it. Time has felt like that horrible moment between stability and smacking the ground.I felt helpless to make the changes I needed to make.

One day while I was browsing on Facebook I saw a sponsored post about the Sacred Ordinary Days planner. A planner built around our spiritual practice sounded interesting, since I couldn’t leave Facebook alone first thing in order to ease into my day through my quiet time, a practice I’ve followed since I could read. Two hours would fly by as I scrolled, clicked on articles, while my horses waited in the barn and the thoughts I woke up with, perhaps to make into a blog post, were squashed. I’d ignore the tasks I’d written down in my planner.

I clicked on the website and read that Jenn Giles Kemper, Hayley Johnson, and Grant Kemper “couldn’t find the right tools to integrate their life and work with their faith” so they developed this planner. “Sacred Ordinary Days exists to create holistic and rich resources for Christian spiritual formation. Our tools are rooted in ancient practices and rhythms, but translated into a clean aesthetic and accessible language. Ultimately we believe that helping people grow in Christ-likeness will build the church and, in turn, the Kingdom. The building blocks are sacred, ordinary days.”

I downloaded the sample pages. I wasn’t sure I understood how they worked, but I liked the idea that the book integrated spiritual practice with every day living. I have used the lectionary from our Sunday bulletin for my week’s mediation for years. (There are three or four scriptures many churches around the world are reading for their Sunday lessons. They rotate on a three year schedule.) Besides the hardcover book was beautiful. A person could choose between pale green or gray. I chose gray because my writing journal is black and to hide the dirt. By the time I had it shipped here quickly it cost about as much as a fancy coffee table book.

The book arrived just in time to start right at the first of August. I’ve followed the rhythm of the school year my whole life, so it made sense to start now instead of at the beginning of Advent.

At first I was intimidated. I have always felt intimidated by hardcover journals and prefer spiral bound Five Star notebooks by Mead. It’s a beautiful hardcover book, but then I thought, it’s my book; it doesn’t matter if I don’t do it right, whatever “right” is. There are sections for reflecting on your year, the season and your week. At first I was wondered how am I ever going to write about my year? I have never made New Year’s resolutions. Ever. I feel like they are a promise and a hope that I don’t keep.

The year section is not called Resolution however. It’s called Reflect. And it’s divided up into Spirit, Body, Mind, Relationships, Home, Work. Then the next page is called Reset which accommodates how life can interrupt our best plans or we can just not get ourselves to our goals or those goals just don’t work out. When the season rolls over into Advent or Lent, I have space to reflect again. Every week there is a chance to reflect and reset. There is something magical and ancient about becoming tuned to ordinary time and extraordinary time, to walking through scriptures that reflect that time, and participating in the same season Christians all over the world are participating in.

At first, I didn’t like how the planner’s planners divided Reflect and Reset into Spirit, Body, Mind, Relationships, Home and Work. After all aren’t we one body, soul and spirit, all one, not divided? But when I slept on it I realized each section could prompt me to think about how I’m doing in that area of my life. If I didn’t do it like a fancy spiritual person, that would be okay. I looked at those blank slots and didn’t know what to say, so I slept on it again. And woke up knowing I’d write about things I’d like to do better like reading more and getting off Facebook and tending my two horses and just plain waking up to my role as helper to Bruce (as he is to me). I have manuscripts that need work and blog posts to write. I have felt the compulsion to clean house.

On the daily page there’s a prayer from Common Prayer for Ordinary Radicals and the listing of The Daily Office, which, are the scripture readings that Christians all over the world are reading. There are slots for three projects because the creators of the planner say that three projects are about all we can accomplish in a day. Under each project there is a space for cue and reward. A cue is what is the signal that gets you working on this project and a reward can be seen as something that nourishes you, so you don’t keep working without letting your well fill up. Next down the page are slots for notes and a schedule. The bottom of the page has a blank space for more notes.

These last few weeks, I’ve started writing down what I’ve done in the time slot section, and have become aware of how I’ve used my time, so I can revise it. For weeks, I’d ignore things like giving Night a bath or calling about an airbag recall even though I’d written them down in my other planner. Since getting this planner, I’ve finally done these things. One morning I got right out to my chores instead of easing into my day with my quiet time and saw how that set up the whole day better. The project is making me more mindful of how my feelings affect what I’m able to accomplish. If I’m feeling so tired all I can do is Facebook perhaps a project might be taking a nap or reading.

At any rate, I’m grateful to have found this tool that is helping me become more mindful of my life and begin making changes that I wasn’t able to make before. It is helping me serve the gifts I’ve been given—Bruce, the horses, my writing, time without a forty hour a week job. Remember how I said I had a rhythm to my days in our old house that allowed me to write, teach, basically accomplish important work? Well, Sacred Ordinary Days offers space to work through a rule of life, which is this very rhythm I lost when I moved to the farm. As the card said that came with the planner, “God comes to you disguised as your life.”

#SacredOrdinaryDays