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Trying to Let the Day Be Enough
I was standing at the kitchen sink, scraping cheese off a plate. I think my youngest made nachos or something. There’s a thought that runs through my head with all the craze of a streaker at a football game: I should be working on something else.
Okay, maybe the thought isn’t quite so dramatic as the way I portrayed it, but it is persistent. It hums there everyday in my already over-busy brain. There were emails in my inbox, projects waiting, bills on the counter, weeds in the yard. Washing dishes didn’t feel like progress. It felt like stalling. It probably is stalling. My mind kept wandering toward tomorrow, and the day after, as if the simple act of getting cheese off a plate wasn’t enough to justify the time.
That’s when a phrase from the Gospel of Matthew came to mind: “Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
I’ve never been entirely sure what that last line means. But when I hear it, I think of endurance but also paying attention to what’s right in front of you. Don’t spend the day trying to outrun tomorrow.
For me, that’s not easy. Maybe it’s not easy for any of us.
The world makes it almost impossible. Notifications don’t stop. News cycles reset every hour. Work asks for just a little more —…
