Whatever Comes Up

Many of us live lives that are way too cluttered — with things, activities, obligations. We tend to fill everything up, including our calendars.

A friend blocks of time on his calendar for "Whatever Comes Up" (WCU). Even at the office, he leaves several hours a week open, knowing he'll need it for unplanned conversations with co-workers, phone calls, or a project that takes longer than he thought it would. Something will always come up, and unless we allow for such contingencies, the time to handle them will be taken out of our family time, our reading time, our exercise time, or our prayer time.

We need openness in our lives, breathing space, unfilled time. These function as reminders of new possibilities, signalling that we have room to grow, and that we can indeed grow.

In religious terms, our daily contemplation, prayers, zikr or seclusions are actually uncluttered time when we can step out of our busy schedules and stop doing what we normally do or trapped into doing. It is a time of rest, certainly, but also a sacred time when we open ourselves anew to the Divine Presence.