I'm bad with interruptions, but I'm trying to do better. I'm trying to be ... less annoyed.
I'm convinced it gets easier once one has grandchildren.
My grandchildren don't live near me so when they video-call, I drop everything to see their sweet faces, to read them a book, or to chat about the new bandaid on their eyebrow.
There is little else I will accept as an interruption, but I'm working on that.
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A few people have quoted C.S. Lewis this month on the blog. However, I keep thinking about an interview I saw with Lewis's stepson, Douglas Gresham. In the interview Gresham describes what it was like to live with C.S. Lewis. About nine and a half minutes in, interviewer Derick Bingham asks, "Was he hard to live with while he was writing?"
Douglas Gresham doesn't hesitate even slightly when he answers, "Not at all. He was the opposite. Jack was someone who would accept interruption, every ten minutes, if necessary, while he was working very hard at a book or something, without the slightest degree of irritation. He was able to believe, and to behave as if he believed, which he did, that our own personal work is nowhere near as important as the interruptions to it. The interruptions are the real substance of God's job for us."
I find this remarkable. It's one thing to write a memorable comment that people quote decades later in a writing blog, and something else entirely to have lived it. Extraordinary.
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This week I haven't been interrupted by any grandchild video calls at all, because I've been hanging out with them in person! In fact, the only interruption to our fun was the deadline for this blog post, which I almost completely forgot about until the last minute. Real life can be annoying sometimes. 😄
~ Find the full interview with Douglas Gresham here. ~
Joy is writing from a lovely home in Saskatchewan, where she's been painting princesses, filling small dump trucks with sticks & leaves, and building forts out of throw pillows. Find more of her joy-infused view of the world at Scraps of Joy.
