sustain:if:able kiwi

be cool with your space

Back up in Auckland again, for the second week of teaching in the Church and Society, University of Auckland intensive. It’s been my 5th flight in a week and I am starting to tire.

It is listening to the music of Salmonella Dub that keeps me going. The first track of their album, One Drop East, has had the most profound impact on me. It celebrates travelling on
we all you knew you had to go
to spread your wings and let the wind take your flow
and relationships;
its good to see you again my friend (call out to Stephen and Rachel who I get to see today)
its been a long, long time

and has such a great chorus;
dont you fall from grace
be cool with your space
check your pace
it ain’t a race

This is hard to explain and deely personal and I might not make any sense, but I’ll have a go. Often I feel placed in a dualism regarding time – you can either be busy or not be busy. If you have some deadlines, somehow you are bad because you are not taking time to relax, to attend to family and spirituality. It happened yesterday. I was introduced as a busy person and the guest spent the next 5 minutes checking the state of my marriage. A very intimate introduction which I found way too intense. And the dualisms were at work; oh you’re busy, your marriage must be stressed.

Well the Dub song says to me that you can be not busy while busy. It is about one’s internal clock, how you manage the pace in the midst of letting the wind take your flow, how you treasure relationships in the midst of boarding calls. It’s not either or, but God in the midst of. Does that make any sense?