Who needs my time when I'd rather rest?
For three days we received, and last night we celebrated. Now come three days of giving, one currency at a time, starting with the one none of us can make more of: time.
Mark tells this one. Jesus had sent his closest followers out in pairs to teach and heal in the villages of Galilee, and now they were back, full of stories. So many people were coming and going around them that, Mark says, "they did not even have a chance to eat." So Jesus said to them, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest." They got into a boat and headed for a remote spot on the lake.
It didn't work. People saw them leave, guessed where they were going, and ran there on foot from the nearby towns. By the time the boat landed, a large crowd was already waiting.
Most of us know what we'd feel in that moment. Mark tells us what Jesus felt: "he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd." So he began teaching them, and the afternoon went with it.
Late in the day, his followers came to him with a sensible idea: send everyone off to the surrounding villages to buy themselves something to eat. Jesus said, "You give them something to eat." They pointed out that it would take more than half a year's wages. He asked how much food they had. They found five loaves of bread and two fish.
Jesus had the people sit down in groups on the green grass. He took the loaves and the fish, looked up to the sky, gave thanks, and broke the bread, and his followers passed it out. "They all ate and were satisfied," Mark says, and the leftovers filled twelve baskets. Five thousand men had eaten.
The bread is the part most of us remember, but the story starts with a choice about time. Jesus and his friends were worn out, and rest was a good plan. Jesus never scolds anyone for wanting it, and Mark says that once the crowd went home, he went up on a mountainside alone to pray. When the crowd got there first, though, he saw people who needed him, and he gave them the afternoon he'd been saving. And notice the order at the end: he gave thanks, then he gave the bread. Give thanks, then give back.
Generosity with time usually shows up the same way, right when you sit down. A kid asks you to play at the end of a long day. A neighbor waves you over from the driveway. A friend calls just as the house finally gets quiet. Rest still matters, and nobody can give time to everyone. But one afternoon, given on purpose when you'd rather have kept it, can go a lot further than you'd expect.
Today, give your time to someone when you'd rather rest.
Pick one person and one block of time, at least 30 minutes, at a point in the day when you'd rather be resting. If your household made a plan on December 4, use the Time line from it.
Put your phone in a drawer or another room.
Give that person your full attention: play their game, take the walk, listen to the long story all the way to the end.
If you can, don't mention what you gave up to be there. Time is hard to give in secret, but you can still leave the cost unspoken.
Kids' story: read "The Best Sledding Day" from The Overflow Adventure in Wanderful Woods together.
Time: whatever the practice needs. Thirty minutes of full attention counts.
With kids: ask, "Have you ever wanted to rest, but someone needed you?" A child can give a brother, sister, or parent 20 minutes of a game the other person picks.
If someone is running on empty: today can be small. Fifteen honest minutes counts.
Hello, my wonderful story friends! Last time, Ricky scratched out every single one of his old Swap rules and wrote just one new rule: thanks first. And Benji told everyone who needed help: the hedgehogs, the old badger, and the hungry birds at Munching Meadow. Today was supposed to be the best sledding day of the whole winter.
Have you ever wanted to play, but somebody needed you? Let’s go see what happens.
Overnight, the snow had frozen hard and smooth, and in the morning, the whole hill below Lookout Ledge shone like glass. When Mr. Monkey stepped on it, his feet went skrrrrritch and slid right out from under him.
“Mr. Moose,” he said, sitting on his bottom. “It’s PERFECT.”
It was the best sledding snow of the year. Everybody knew it. And Daddy Monkey had built a brand-new sled out of an old piece of the bark slide from Fort Friendship, long and curved and smooth, with a vine to hold on to.
“Just one ride,” said Mr. Monkey. “Before we help the birds.”
He jumped on the sled, pushed off, and went ZOOOOOOOM down the hill, faster than anything, past the oaks, past the rocks, and straight into a big soft snowbank at the bottom. FLOOMPF.
The sled stuck out of the snowbank. So did Mr. Monkey’s feet, kicking.
Mr. Moose pulled him out by the feet, and Mr. Monkey came out upside down, with snow in his ears and the biggest grin in the woods. “Hee hee hee! AGAIN!”
“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Mr. Moose.
“Okay,” said Mr. Monkey, shaking the snow off his ears. “We’ll help the birds really fast. And then we’ll sled ALL DAY.”
So they went to Munching Meadow with one basket: Sammy’s good acorns, and a bundle of Mama Moose’s dried berries, and a few seeds from Daddy Moose’s cellar. That was all they had. Ricky came with his list. Bruno came because Mr. Moose was going. And Hazel, Dottie, Shiloh and Sammy came because everybody else was.
When they got to the meadow, they all stopped.
They had thought there would be a few birds. There were not a few birds. There were birds on every branch of every bush. Little brown birds, little gray birds, red ones and blue ones, all puffed up round against the cold.
And under the bushes were rabbits, and mice, and a mama deer with two fawns, all pawing at the snow and finding nothing underneath but more snow.
The whole meadow was hungry.
Everybody turned and looked at the one little basket.
“Uh-oh,” said Bruno.
Mr. Monkey looked at all the puffed-up birds. A tiny chickadee was sitting on a twig right in front of him, so round and fluffy it looked like a ball with a beak. It was looking at the basket.
He felt it in his chest, the way it always came. He wanted to go sledding. He really, really did. It was the best snow of the year. But these birds were cold, and they were hungry, and they had been looking for food under the snow all morning, and there wasn’t any.
“Mr. Moose,” he said quietly. “We can’t feed all of them with one basket.”
Mr. Moose was thinking. He looked at the meadow. Under all that snow were the berry bushes, still full of dried-up berries. The tall grass, still full of seeds. The clover, still green at the bottom. It was all there. It was just buried.
“The food is already here,” said Mr. Moose slowly. “It’s just under the snow. If we clear the snow off the bushes and the grass, everybody can find their own.”
“The whole meadow?” said Ricky.
“The whole meadow.”
Everybody looked at the meadow. It was very big. Then they looked back up at the shiny sledding hill. Nobody said anything for a while.
“It will take all day,” said Mr. Moose.
Mr. Monkey looked at the hill. Then he looked at the little round chickadee. “Okay,” he said. “All day.”
Ricky held up his list. “Rule one!” he said. “Thanks first.”
So before they did anything else, they said it. “Thank you, Sammy, for the acorns.” “Thank you, Mama Moose, for the berries.” “Thank you, Daddy Moose, for the seeds.” Sammy’s tail went all fluffy.
Then they set the basket down in the middle of the meadow, so the littlest birds could eat first.
Bruno shook the snow off the berry bushes, very gently, one bush at a time, fwump, fwump, fwump, until the dried red berries showed through. Hazel swept the snow off the grass with her long tail, back and forth, until the seed heads stuck up. Sammy zipped up every bush to knock the snow off the top branches. Dottie dug.
Dottie dug so fast that snow flew out behind her in a great white fountain, and landed, fllumph, all over Shiloh.
Shiloh stood there, a woolly white lump. “I’m a snowball,” he said.
“Ha! Ha!” barked Dottie. “Sorry, Shiloh!” And she kept digging, in the other direction.
Mr. Moose pushed the snow with his nose, in long, slow lines, like a plow. And Mr. Monkey put the snow on the sled and dragged it away to the edge of the meadow, load after load after load.
The birds didn’t wait. As soon as a bush was clear, they landed on it. As soon as the grass showed, the mice ran out. When Bruno sat down to rest for a minute, three chickadees landed on his head, two on his ears, one on his nose, and four in a row along his arm.
Bruno held very still. “I’m a bird tree,” he whispered.
“Haw haw haw,” he whispered, very quietly, so they wouldn’t fly away.
Sammy zipped by overhead with snow on her tail. “Hey! What do you call a bird in the winter?” And she was gone, up another bush.
A minute later, from the far side of the meadow: “A BRRRRRD!”
“Hee hee hee!” went Mr. Monkey, and the little chickadee on the twig fluffed up even bigger, like it had heard.
They worked all morning. They worked all through lunch, which was a few of Sammy’s acorns and a handful of berries. They worked all afternoon. Mr. Monkey’s arms got tired. Mr. Moose’s nose got cold. And every time they looked up, there was the shiny sledding hill, waiting.
But the meadow was full now. Full of birds, eating. Full of mice, nibbling. The mama deer and her two fawns were munching clover at the edge, where Mr. Moose had cleared a long green path just for them. And when they all finally stopped and looked around, there was so much food showing that the birds couldn’t eat it all.
Ricky filled the empty basket with leftover berries and seeds. “For the old badger,” he said. “For tomorrow night.”
The sun was going down. Its long orange light came sideways across the meadow and turned the snow pink. Everybody was tired, and cold, and very, very happy.
Mr. Monkey looked up at the hill one more time. It was still shiny. There was just a little bit of light left.
“Mr. Moose,” he said. “One ride?”
“One ride,” said Mr. Moose. “All of us.”
So they all climbed onto the sled together. Mr. Monkey in the front. Then Mr. Moose. Then Benji, Sammy, Shiloh, Dottie, Hazel, and Ricky, squeezed in tight. And last of all, right at the back, Bruno.
They pushed off. The sled went… very… slowly… because it had Bruno on it. Then it went a little faster. Then it went a LOT faster. Then it went ZOOOOOOOOOM, all the way down the hill, past the oaks, past the rocks, and straight into the big soft snowbank at the bottom, everybody, all at once. KER-FLOOMPF.
When the snow settled, there was nothing to see but a pile of tails and ears and hooves and paws, all sticking out every which way.
“AGAIN!” said the whole pile.
“What a day!” said Mr. Moose on the long walk home, with snow in his ears. “It was the best sledding snow, and Mr. Monkey went into the snowbank on the very first ride.
Then we found the whole meadow was hungry. Dottie turned Shiloh into a snowball, and Bruno turned into a bird tree. We cleared the whole meadow, all day long. And then we all went down the hill together, even Bruno.”
Mr. Monkey whistled, and Mr. Moose hummed, and together they sang:
We are better together,
Moose and Monkey forever.
And in Munching Meadow, in the last pink light, a little round chickadee sat on a clear branch with a red berry in its beak, full at last.