Most of us have heard it said, “Idleness is the devil’s workshop.” I believe idleness creates a workshop. It can just as easily be God’s as the devil’s.
Today I took my kids to the MN Children’s Museum. It is an amazing place, and so much fun. However, the reality is there is far too much stuff to do, and it reflects the rest of the world nicely in this regard. Inevitably children flit from one activity, one station to another, barely even scratching the service of the potential for play at each spot. Few actually engage their imaginations in any powerful way. There is simply too much stimulation, too many options.
I caught my little Hope wandering around several times today with a slightly bemused look on her face. She was like a bumblebee unable to find a flower with the nectar to necessitate her staying put more than a few seconds. It’s not she doesn’t know how to play or she is ADD. She simply was overwhelmed. I wonder how many of our Ritalin-kids are in this category.
In a world with more options than ever, choices and stimulation everywhere you turn, it is easy to get overwhelmed.
Let’s be honest: most adults are.
In my study of great historical figures I am astounded by how much blank space almost all of them had in their formative years, and even which some of them carved out for themselves in their impact years as well. I do not mean they simply laid around and did nothing, but they took time to sit with one activity for great lengths of time. Many of them have stories of building and rebuilding the same fort over the course of an entire summer, simply spending their days being in those forts.
The world has two directions for exploration – wide and deep. I believe in receiving a wide variety of experience, but in a world ever-widening it seems we are losing the capacity to explore deep. As adults and children we crave entertainment, technology, and stimulation. We bore easily, because we have not had sufficient blank space. We have not learned to be idle, not in the devil’s workshop, but in God’s.
I am ever more convinced one of the chief responsibilities and most courageous battles the 21st century parent must wage is for “idle” time in their home. I do not even mean time at home doing activities together.
I mean time where nothing is provided the members of the family for entertainment but the wonderful manifold world around them, and each one must choose in his/her own unique way how to explore it.
My son asked me the other day how deep the dirt goes. In his mind, it can’t be much farther than a couple feet. He’s never dug farther than that. He has no concept of the many layers of rock and earth beneath his feet, the aquifers of water flowing God only knows where down there, the molten core one might eventually hit. He’s missed all this because he’s just been skimming the surface of the Earth. If his entire life is to avoid the same tragedy, I must fight hard to ensure in our complex, busy world that Eli learns how to be idle.
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