Article February 20, 1954 Issue

ARE WE TOO BUSY?

ROBERT DOLLING WELLS

Some busy people are like the hard-working and tired wood-chopper who was urged by a sympathetic passer-by to stop and sharpen his tool. "It's tough enough getting this job done," he replied, "without taking time out to grind an ax." No one is too busy to live, and for living to be a really successful and happy experience for us we need to sharpen our concept of the rules we live by. These rules are shown by Christian Science to be of God, not of matter, and hence to be wholly spiritual. Jesus, the most successful of men, said (John 6:63), "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing."

A very frank appraisal will often show overwork to be more of a habit than a necessity. And the best way to break a bad habit is to drop it. But even if we can argue convincingly to ourselves that we are too busy because of the pressure of circumstances, a better understanding of the spiritual rules we live by will bring the opportunity to drop habitual overwork from our experience. The kind of living that is successful in fulfilling its duty to God finds its satisfaction and strength in a quiet productiveness that evidences Mind's unfoldment of ideas in peaceful ways of spiritual growth, not through material accretion. "In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength" (Isa. 30:15).

Martin Luther is reported to have said at one time, "I am so busy now that if I did not spend two or three hours each day in prayer, I could not get through the day." The history of human failure, of will-o'-the-wisp planning and hoping, would not repeat itself so often if we would return to the spiritual restfulness of prayer, if we would take time out, especially when we are busy, to renew our understanding of the basic laws of spiritual being. Spirit is expressed in inviolable harmony. Man, as the image and likeness of God, reflects this uninterruptible harmony. Man's potential is perfection. These are the spiritual conditions that prayer unfolds to human thought as ever present.

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