No Great Busyness – an essay by Susan Brice

‘Attend to what love requires of you which may not be great busyness’

(Quaker Faith & Practice: Advices & Queries No 28).

A reflection by Susan Brice (June 2023)

When you are child, life is filled with potential. You can daydream through the hours imagining your world, creating castles in the air; you can knock them down and build others. You can be anything, the possibilities are endless and you know that time is infinite. A kindly aunt or a silly uncle might ask ‘And what do you want to be when you grow up?’ The reply doesn’t matter because at this stage you really can be anything from an astronaut to a ballerina, an engine driver to a hairdresser. 

For all but a fortunate few, aspirations take a tumble when ‘grown-up’ arrives. You have to put away all of those childish dreams, you are obliged to look reality in the face. Work is what you are now that you are an adult, it is the thing that will keep you afloat in life. You will be busy, sometimes life will be hum-drum, sometimes exciting, exacting, annoying but you will be busy. You will be of use to others and to yourself. But there is something else which comes alongside the wage packet and the busyness: it is identity. 

The childhood question changes: ‘What are you, what do you do?’ To which you may respond in many different ways depending on your chosen path but being able to give an answer enables the questioner to place you, simply because you are ‘Something’. 

Kipling writes of ‘the unforgiving minute’ in his poem ‘If’. As I grew up I learned that to be and to do are much the same thing, a salutary admonishment for idlers ‘You’re neither use nor ornament’ was drilled into me. I could never be busy doing nothing. Filling minutes, being of value to someone or something in a tangible way was proof that I was worth the air I breathed.  So in one way or another, I have spent my life being busy. But now, there is a change.

I have been officially ‘old’ for quite a while now, I have a state pension and a bus pass to prove this. Retirement meant a random attack of busyness, unplanned, unfocussed. Because I have had plenty of minutes to give away, I have been profligate with them, over-filling them with things that prove to me that I am needed and that because I am needed I am valued. This has been my privilege, to have time to spend for and with others. For some years now I have taken an active role in the management of a child centre. This has taken up a great deal of my time and has become what I am – ‘What are you, what do you do?’ ‘I work at the child centre… as a volunteer that is.’ I am a Volunteer, I am useful. Then, last October, I fell downstairs and broke my foot. I had no option but to stop and wait for it to heal.

The time of waiting, with the excuse of a broken foot, gave me much pause for thought. In the midst of my great busyness with the centre, I was certain that I could never give up, I was essential to its running. The truth dawned pretty quickly as the younger volunteers rallied round. Without me they were free to progress plans I might have blocked, they were free to talk about their ideas without deferring to me. They were free of me and, although they didn’t say so, it was clear to me that I was no longer needed. Further more, the centre grew in ways I could not foresee. As I waited and reflected on all of this, I knew that my time at the Centre was over and I planned my departure accordingly.

A few weeks ago, I went in for my final day. It was an ordinary day, no fireworks, but it was the end of being on the front line. I said my goodbyes and came home. It felt right. But now that I am home I wonder who I am now? I have been looking for clues, what shall I say now when asked ‘What are you, what do you do?’The space is a gift, it scares me. The space is a gift, dare I enter it? Perhaps it will be safer to look for the next thing to do so that I can be Something? 

When I look back over my life, it feels to me that the Creator has led me to the places I have needed to be. Sometimes this has made no sense, sometimes the reasons have been clear, this time I’m not sure. I have recenlty finished reading I Julian by Claire Gilbert. It is the fictional autobiography of the life of Mother Julian of Norwich. Gilbert’s novel is convincing, founded in facts about the life of an anchorite. Julian was called to a life of contemplation, a stark, startling calling – walled up in a cell for the rest of her life. She was called at one and the same time to wait on the Creator and to be busy in her prayer life. Julian was anchored to one place. I see the parallel with my own life, I have never remained long in one place but now, I believe that I am anchored here, almost certainly, for the rest of my life. Julian believed she was called for a specific purpose, if as I believe I am now anchored too, what is my purpose? What am I called to be now?

I don’t have an answer but the idea that Love may not require of me great busyness is beginning to feel like liberation. Already, I am beginning to appreciate unfilled minutes, I take long rambling walks with my dog. I can breathe the empty air and not wonder what there is to hurry back for, I don’t have to worry about what I ought to be doing. Julian discerned that ‘The light is love, which God in his wisdom measures out to us in the best way for us.’ I am beginning to understand that we are called to wait then, my dog and I: to listen and to learn what we are and what Love requires of us.

Quaker Faith & practice (5th Edition 2010-2013) Advices and Queries No:28. 

Published by The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain.

Rudyard Kipling, The Complete Verse. Published by Kyle Cathie Ltd 1990

Claire Gilbert, I Julian. Published by Hodder & Stoughton 2023

Mother Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love (1997 impression). 

Published by Hodder & Stoughton

Susan Brice lives in Belper, Derbyshire with her husband and small dog, Sunny. She has meandered through life and has learned to be glad for Light and Joy. She also understands the blessings of Darkness and Sorrow. In 2022, Susan collaborated with two friends to produce an anthology of their poems, Daughters of Thyme (dotipress.com). They are currently working on a second anthology.