Interruptions, Delays, Intrusions & Disruptions — Mostly Self-Made

Yesterday my telephone rang only once and no one visited at all.

Thus, without interruptions, I formatted 49 whole pages of those 16^th Century Puritan diaries I’m editing.

That the sort of Super Hero writer I can be when not distracted by life.

Yesterday also, I read the blog of Pete, my e-friend in Great Britain. He had his whole evening planned when a pressing chore disrupted his intentions.

Boy! Can I identify with that!

My interruptions get interrupted.

But, how about this: my sneaky mind often seeks out those interruptions.

As a freelance writer for 25+ years, I subscribe to the axiom that the chief business of a writer is to avoid writing.

One of my favorite cartoons shows two sophisticated women in a coffee shop where one is telling the other, “I once got married to avoid writing”.

For 25+ years, first thing every morning, I write the previous day’s activities or thoughts and such in my journal (recently this blog). That practice serves as a springboard into the writing of the day. At least in recording my pervious day, I’m writing about something I know rather than something I have to think about and organize.

This practice tricks my brain into continuing to write the day’s work.

Unless I’m interrupted.

These interruptions can be internal or external.

For instance, yesterday I delayed my own writing by reading other people’s blogs. I followed a link to State Of Grace and browsed through 35 happy pages of her photo gallery looking at pictures of her super-cute dog, Malcolm.

Now, I do not know this lady nor her dog, but I welcomed the chance to view her site (really neat stuff, worth a visit) and I relished avoiding my own work.

I’m to blame for my own internal interruptions.

But other times, other people interrupt my planned work schedule.

My family, friends and neighbors know that I work at home and since I am only a writer and obviously at home doing nothing, I’m always available for a phone call or a visit. John can always pull his nose out of that book or get away from that computer to look for a run-away dog, or listen to a lover’s spat, or engage in idle gossip, answer a question, or pontificate about a problem.

These people who call or come by are external interruptions to my plans.

And, of course, I believe that the External Source of these interruptions is God.

Once I attended a business seminar and heard a successful pastor explain how to avoid “Time-Wasters”, i.e. people who interrupted the more important things on his desk.

He advised tactics such as using a phone answering machine to screen out the riffraff:

Thus my phone message ought to say:

“You have reached John’s Answering Machine designed to screen out riffraff. If you are riff, please press one. If you are raff, press two. All others, please hang up now”.

Another thing the efficient pastor suggested was to stand when an uninvited visitor arrives and to keep standing and moving toward the door to subliminally suggest to them that they should leave. —Now!

How discourteous!

And, of course, you should teach your secretary to flub off time-wasters by referring them to somebody less important than you are so they can waste that guy’s time instead of yours.

I found this preacher’s suggestions appalling.

An abomination.

Something a yankee might suggest.

Now I must admit that the techniques the pastor promoted worked for him; he had built one of the largest congregations in the Southeast. Thousands of people benefited from his sermons each week.

And a Scriptural precedent for such focus as he advocated does exist:

When Nehemiah was rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem for the Jews, Sanballat, leader of the local pre-Arab militia, called for him to come down off the wall for a ceasefire truce and an important Mideast peace conference.

But Nehemiah replied, “I am doing a great work, so I can not come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it and come down to you”?

The preacher got his mega-church built. Nehemiah got his wall built. Neither brooked interruptions to their great work.

But I am neither priest nor prophet.

On a shallow level, in theory at least, I want my time and life to be 100 percent at the disposal of Jesus Christ — does He deserve anything less?.

Notice that I say, “On a shallow level in theory” because in actuality I’m as greedy, grasping, cruel, self-centered, lustful, depraved and willful as Attila the Hun or any other sinner you’d care to name.

But, even being the hybrid half and half sort of Christian that I am, I believe the Time-Wasters God allows to cross my path deserve my attention.

Maybe that’s why I get so little of substance done (Blaming it on Jesus sounds like a good excuse to me).

I attempt to avoid Time-Wasters by getting out of bed and getting to work early; I normally rise at 4 a.m. But even that does not always work; I’ve had visitors call that early hour. “We saw your light on and knew you were up so…”

So I attempt to be accessible —— within strict limits.

For instance, once when my youngest daughter was in crisis, a neighbor with tears streaming down his face knocked at my door saying, “Mr. Cowart, can you tell me how to be saved”?

For a rabid fundamentalist Christian like me such a question sparks!

Nevertheless I replied, “Yes I can, but not today. Come back tomorrow and I’ll help you”.

You mean my daughter’s well-being outranked this man’s eternal soul salvation?

Yes.

I may well be wrong but I think my response was covered by St. Paul when he said, “If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel”.

Another limit that our children, friends and neighbors all know is that Ginny comes first with me. I may or may not be able to help others but God has appointed me the honor of being her husband she comes first. To me, that’s part of being at the disposal of my God.

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church,” the Scripture says.

She entertains that same mindset and holds me in that same regard.

I suspect the reason she treats me like a king is that I try to treat her like a queen.

Makes for an interesting marriage.

We’ve noticed that good things can unbalance, disrupt and throw us off track as easily as bad things or even indifferent things.

Maybe that’s why God ignores my prayers about winning Lotto.

Maybe He thinks that having $19,000,000 to spend would interrupt my work.

I disagree.

But this posting is getting way too long and those 16^th Century diaries await my attention… unless I can think of something else to do this morning.

I’m looking for an out to avoid writing.