By Sr. Mary Alma, C.K.
School Sisters of Christ the King
In A. A. Milne’s “The House on Pooh Corner,” Christopher Robin tells Winnie-the-Pooh that what he likes doing best of all is … “doing nothing.” I so agree!
What Christopher Robin means by “doing nothing” is not void haplessness or dull laziness. Rather, he is describing in a 6-year-old boy’s language what adults might call leisure. Leisure, or “doing nothing,” means living, for a while, without agenda or checklist. It is living “off the clock.” Doing nothing is when there is nothing that must be accomplished. It is a time of gazing, of wondering, and of light sweetness. It is a time without pressure to perform. It is a time of non-practicality and free choosing. It is a time of receiving from God.
Christopher Robin’s “doing nothing” can lead to delightful prayer. God shows us who He is when we linger over a wildflower, a maple tree, or anything beautiful we chance to come upon. He shows us who He is as we wade barefoot in a creek, laugh with a close friend, listen to wind chimes, roll down a grassy hill, or reread a book for the fifteenth time simply because we relish the story. I think doing nothing can teach us that God Himself is playful. Have you ever thought of God that way? Just look around outside. His cheerful playfulness is so evident in nature!
I pray that our St. James children will have lots of time for happy play this summer. For play to be play it must have freedom. In other words, play is child-chosen and child-directed. In his book “The Anxious Generation,” Jonathan Haidt shares how the common modern parenting culture has traded in play-based childhoods for phone-based childhoods. He believes this miserable exchange is directly responsible for the tremendous levels of anxiety and depression in today’s children. Haidt writes, “…many parents in Anglo countries began to reduce children’s access to unsupervised outdoor free play out of media-fueled fears for their safety, even though the ‘real world’ was becoming increasingly safe in the 1990s. The loss of free play and the rise of continual adult supervision deprived children of what they needed most to overcome the normal fears and anxieties of childhood: the chance to explore, test and expand their limits, build close friendships through shared adventure, and learn how to judge risks for themselves.”
I believe we need to let our children play and playing outside is the best of the best. We need to let them, like Christopher Robin, “do nothing” and do this often, especially in summer.
In a later conversation (not actually in the book mentioned above but in the 2018 movie “Christopher Robin”) Pooh exhorts Christopher, who is now a depressed and anxious adult, “You need to remember who you are.” “People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day,” “Doing nothing often leads to the very best of something.” Again, I agree. Pooh is so very wise!
In leisure, when we are “doing nothing,” we become more established in the truth of who we are. Whether listening to the sound of crickets on a porch swing in the evening, or running about to catch the fireflies in a jar, or whistling with a blade of grass, leisure helps us stay true to our identity of being God’s children! Happy the child and adult who knows this truth. Happy the summer filled with play and lots of time for “doing nothing” each day.
