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I have recently joined a small group -- in fact the small group meets at my house. One of the many benefits, in addition to the awesome Bible study, prayer and fellowship, is that it motivates me to get out the vacuum. And it makes my cat Dallas very happy as he is sure everyone has come to see him. A win-win-win situation.

At one of our initial meetings, we were each asked to describe ourselves in a word. As it worked out, I was the last one around the circle. A word had come to me almost immediately. As I listened to each person say their word, I began thinking mine was more an indictment than a description. It described me but it made me sound rather pathetic.

My word was “available.” Forty years ago that word was really pathetic...it meant I couldn’t get a date. But now, it made me feel that perhaps I was responding to more requests than I could successfully accomplish. After the meeting was over and I was lying in bed that evening, I thought more about my word.

Being available to the pull of many obligations and trying to fulfill them all had left me tired, frustrated and not feeling the least bit connected to God. In the sixties a popular slogan was if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem. And I didn’t want to be part of anyone’s problems. Consequently saying no wasn’t something that came easily, if at all.

The next morning by chance I took a book off my shelf that I hadn’t read in years. I started re-reading the Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster. I didn’t really pick the book; I think it picked me.

One of the parts talked directly to my soul. It was about being so busy that I had allowed myself to live on the periphery of God’s life. Sure I’ve asked God to come into my life, especially when I was in trouble, but when was the last time that I was fully, consciously, joyfully “in Christ?” The place from where “all blessings flow.” Instead of asking God to come into my chaos perhaps I should enter into his divine center of love and peacefulness. This whole concept made my brain hurt.

But the more I read, the more I realized that the journey to this divine center is not just one more thing to do, but an adventure filled with joy. It’s a privilege, even more than that….its the offer of a gift of such great value that I don’t know how I failed to see it, even if I don’t quite understand it.

As I prepare for the great celebration of Easter, I am finding a sense of peace and contentment. The 20th century Quaker mystic Thomas Kelly once wrote, “Life from the Center is a life of unhurried peace and power. It is simple. It is serene. It is amazing. It is triumphant. It is radiant. It takes no time, but it occupies all our time. And it makes our life programs new and overcoming.”

For that I am available.