It’s Advent! That means that Christmas is just around the corner! And that means that it’s time for another post from me in which I try to figure out how I’m going to avoid getting completely overwhelmed this time around.
As I’ve mentioned before, this is one of my favorite times of the year, but it’s also the liturgical season that I find it most difficult to observe. It’s hard to prayerfully, calmly prepare for the birth of the Lord when there are Christmas parties to attend, presents to buy, gingerbread houses to make, lights to string around the house, and a whole host of other seasonal activities that could easily keep me twice as busy as I normally am.
As I work to keep my priorities in the right place, I keep thinking of a talk I once heard by a professor named Steven Tomlinson on the subject of balance. He gave an excellent mini-seminar about how to how to keep your to-do list from crowding out the things that are really important in life; and of all the great points he made, one line jumped out at me the most, and has stuck with me ever since:
To say no is to protect what you’ve already said yes to.
He referred to the act of saying no to new commitments as “the essential gesture of stewardship”—i.e., if you’re going to be a good steward of the responsibilities you’ve already been given, you must learn to set limits on how many other responsibilities you can realistically take on. You must learn to say no.
I thought this was a refreshing way to look at it. I used to think of turning down requests to get involved in some new activity as a bad thing; I’d always have the lingering sense that if I were a good friend / mother / daughter / parishioner, I would always say yes to whatever was asked of me. When I turned down potential projects or activities, it felt like I was doing something wrong. But thinking of it in light of my existing responsibilities changed my perspective: When I say no to hosting a neighborhood cookie exchange at my house, I’m really saying yes to the commitment I made to have our family spend more quiet time together this season. When I say no to writing an article about praying more during Advent, I’m saying yes to my goal of actually praying more during Advent. And so on.
So the questions I’m asking myself right now, this first week of Advent, are:
“What are the essential things that I should be saying yes to this season?” And, therefore, “To what do I need to start saying no?”
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This post completely changed the way I think about stewardship. I, too, felt guilty any time I had to say “no” to a request. I even felt guilty that I hadn’t volunteered for things no one had even asked me to do. Very timely!
Saying “no” also opens the way for another person to say “yes.”
AWESOME. I wish I had a more astutecomment but AWESOME is all I’ve got. I’ve been trying to learn the word “no” for years, it seems!
One year, for the other Purple Season, I said no to any requests outside the family for me to do things. At the time, I was a busy professional involved in a lot—medical politics, teaching, service to the hospital and so on. For six whole weeks, whenever someone had a request for me to do something additional, I told them, “Sorry, I have given up “yes” for Lent.” They thought it odd, but it had two wonderful effects: It focused my time then and for the next six months, all the things I would have said “yes :” to were not on the calendar so my time to be with family was protected even beyond the bounds of Lent. I heartily endorse learning to say “no” but it sometimes a hard, hard lesson!
I’d like say “no” to buying gifts for everyone except my children. But I can’t because 95% of the people I have to buy gifts for are in-laws. Yeah, sure, I could have my husband do it. But his idea of Christmas shopping is wondering around the mall for 8 hours on December 23rd and buying whatever he thinks looks “cool” regardless of the price. It is waste of his time (I’d rather he was home helping me with the kids) and money. I’d also like to say “no” to anyone other than my husband and me buying presents for my kids. I struggle to come up with good gift ideas for my kids as it is and then I end up having to farm out my list to family. So, not only do I spend Advent worrying about what gifts to give people who don’t really need gifts from me, I then have to find MORE ideas for my kids, who frankly, already have way too much stuff the way it is.
Jennifer,
Though you have a brilliant perspective on this, I must say that it gets very confused with what is right, good and just.
My life is spent with volunteers; our organization would not do any good works if it were not for parents finishing their yes.
Over this Christmas season, we have had parents choose a number of protestant activities over Catholic activities saying “these are friends we have had for years” and dropping the ball or bomb on other families at the last minute.
As we are running a Christmas Program folks are choosing protestant activities to assist with instead.
As I heard you on Relevant Radio, I knew instantly all the families that would say yes throwing away a solid good Catholic work was my “no” to protect the “Yes” I already made to the latter.
As writers, speakers and Catholic representatives one thing we must always discern is that - logic, seems so obvious to “us” but when you put this out there and not identify what might be the urgent and good “choice” vs. the urgent bad choice a whole lot of beautiful volunteer organizations are crashing to the opposition. And yes this is a matter of the soul, isn’t that the purpose?
The inspiration was good saying no means protecting the yes, but if you have folks saying no to protect a bizarre yes (and its out there in droves) it’s a responsibility to speak to true cultural issue we have. The largest Church outside the Catholic Church is fallen away Catholics who said “no.” That’s a lot of volunteers we lost.
This is an excellent, thought provoking, short article. We must learn from our past experiences and we must learn from the harried rushing that comes upon us without realizing we’re overcommitted. It’s a sneaky temptation to distract us from the true purpose of the season. This article illustrates Christ’s parable of “let my yes mean yes, and my no mean no.” Very fitting in this world of confusion. Thank you, Jennifer!
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