Do Nothing
The spiritual community of Richmond Hill, located in the Church Hill area of Richmond, brings together a diverse group of individuals from the Central Virginia region and beyond. There’s Baptists and Catholics and Episcopalians and Lutherans and Methodists. There’s people of European descent and African descent and Asian descent. There are wealthy Richmond business-people and “residents” who live at Richmond Hill while serving the community and finding their vocation there. There’s pastors and seminary graduates and church laypeople. It is a remarkably diverse place.
One of my closer friends at Richmond Hill is a Richmond Attorney. He is a “super-lawyer,” practicing law for years in Virginia and teaching at the University of Richmond Law School. In the second half of his life he became serious about his spiritual life and was trained as a Spiritual Director. He is active in his local church, a large Episcopal Parish in Richmond. We have several things in common, but we come from very different backgrounds.
I enjoy the time I am able to spend at Richmond Hill with Jack, he prays for me and offers good feedback to my ideas and questions.
Jack has told me that when he consults with clients, often the hardest thing for the client to understand is the importance for them to do nothing. To not reply, react, reach out, move forward, or attempt to help their case. He told me that people most often cannot hear “do nothing,” so he would tell them to “sit tight.” For some reason, Jack said, “sitting tight” seemed like an active image, and people would come closer to hearing that than “do nothing.”
The past seven weeks in our nation is a good example of our struggle to “do nothing.” We find it extremely difficult to stay home, to sit tight, to simply stay in place. We have been living in a world of movement and rushing for so long, to sit tight seems to be the hardest of tasks. In addition to our struggle with “sitting tight” there are the millions of citizens for whom sitting tight also means a financial hardship that they and their families cannot bear.
The Church, and before that God’s Jewish People, have been preaching the importance of waiting, of being still, of patience, for thousands of years. The importance of waiting for God, of being patient with each other. And it is a lesson that we have not carried with us very well.
I would like for this time of “stay at home” to come to an end soon. I would like for businesses to be able to re-open and for people to be able to go back to work. I pray that this virus would end, and that tens of thousands of people would not have their lives taken. But, on a less serious level, I long for us to be physically back together as a church. And yet I believe the most important thing for us to do right now is still “sit tight.”
I also pray that when this is over that we will not return to business as usual. That the things we have recognized as important will continue to be important. The simple, free, slow, nurturing habits that we nearly forgot, may they continue to be our practices long after this virus is controlled.