Let's have tea

What is the difference between “taking time” and “making time”? We briefly talked about this in Tuesday’s class and it really caused me to think. I’m the kind of girl that loves sitting down over tea and coffee and really talking to friends. In the Odyssey, there are many of these moments where people stop what they are doing and everyone settles down to just listen and find out who a person is, his story, and what’s important to his life. I think our culture today has forgotten the value of this “taking time.” We are all about “making time.” Everything is penciled into a calendar and we are rushing from one thing to another, forgetting about the people around us. We have hundreds of friends on Facebook but of those people, how many of them have we spent enough time with to know their story? By story, I do not only mean their name and major and where they are from, but what about their passions and dreams and adventures of life? This is the essence of what makes up a person, and some of the sweetest times I’ve had with friends have been when we were just sitting and talking about life and getting to know each other. So what is the reason for the richness of these times? I think the ancients knew that there was no substitute for sitting down and really talking to each other without time limits and demands, but out of respect and honor for the other person they really listened and understood that one person encompasses so much more than what was seen on the outside. These people understood what it meant to be in ONE place and to be ALL there. Even in the middle of battle they would recognize the person with whom they were fighting, sometimes stopping just to have a conversation about how they ended up there and how they knew each other’s families. We need to re-learn how to create spaces to share these stories. I miss this simplicity. Can we have tea?

P.S. commented on Susan's "Is Homer a woman hater?"