The Need Of Time To Grow Anything Good

“The wisdom of the scribe depends on the opportunity of leisure; only the one who has little business can become wise.” –Sirach 38:24 (NRSV).

This proverb makes very clear sense in the first reading of it, but still bears more thought. There are so many of us with passions we don’t engage in fully or that we don’t develop. This is because we have to make decisions based on our time. We have limited expendable time and in our time we need to earn income to live and to give us the life we wish to live.

What also limits our decisions to go with our passions is faith or lack thereof. To work in an undeveloped passion often requires a risk to income.

This work of Ben Sira’s notes plainly in this section how much time, effort, and focus is required in acquiring and attending to a trade or craft. Any one of us who are engaged in professional or trade life knows how demanding this life can be, and this severely limits other ventures that might engage the heart more. We’re left to muse and ponder what might be.

The point is this: to become good, even exceptional, in that thing that we’re passionate about requires a regular time commitment and a time period with which to grow. The vocation needs space to grow. The vocation of passion, your calling we could term it as, also needs time for sufficient reflection and performance review, and planning. All of these things swallow time.

We can’t hope to become good at anything without investing time in it. The quote at top actually refers to the quest of wisdom as a craft; to become wise. If anyone is too busy they can’t be or become too busy. Part of the scribe’s business was wisdom; yet the paradox is he’d grow little in this department if he was too busy.

What does this mean for us? What dreams lay dormant. What potential venture, with time, could be explored? What are really here for?

Copyright © 2008, S. J. Wickham. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.