Thursday’s being my normal day for a blog post, Friday involves small chunks of work around my little girl. So the nature of working changes when you’re a mum, no big surprises there. But it means you manage your thinking, your handling of ideas, your creating, your breaks with a greater awareness of your limits. You have always had limits, it’s a fallacy to think you didn’t. It’s just that now, they become more closely connected to your available time and energy. It’s another level of self-employment.
I do wonder though, how the mode of efficiency affects a mode that’s more about relating and love. I believe in the second more than I believe in the first – and I don’t mean to suggest that motherhood and work divide solely along those lines. The mode of relating and love is a mode related to spirit, and I believe, is what Jesus modelled throughout his life as not only possible, but somehow truer. This can and should reflect across all dimensions of living, creating a fuller picture than our compartmentalising does. I’m so far from that fuller picture, but next week, when Lent starts, I’m going to try and pay attention (as Aldous Huxley kept saying in ‘Island’) to where that truth can be found in my work life.
I’ll dive into the Bible, looking at the elements of earth, fire, wind and water for my next project. I’ll play and listen to music LOUDLY. I’ll get outside more. You can keep tabs on me if you like…
Header image: Big Sheep, Amelie and Me, 2011, by Sheona Beaumont.
