By Andrea Lingle

One by one also I number all those who make up that other beloved family which has gradually surrounded me its unity fashioned out of the most disparate elements.” (Chardin, The Mass on the World, “The Offering”)
When we rise from sleep let us rise for the joy
of the true Work that we will be about
this day,
And considerately cheer one another on.
(McQuiston, Always We Begin Again, 20)

Take a look around you. Just in your very immediate surroundings (three-foot radius with you at the center), how many things are there to keep you from being bored? Five, ten, fourteen? A radio, smartphone, logic puzzle book, novel, pen and doodle pad, Rubik’s cube, knitting project, coloring book, television, tablet: things we hide behind to avoid the blank ruin of boredom. Shopping sites, music streaming, audiobooks, houseplants: our sandbags against the floodtide of anxiety of not knowing what to do with your time or melancholy of knowing what to do with your time. Either way.

If we are to insist on the beauty of life lived one by one, hour by hour, we have to talk about the truth of such an endeavor. We will, at times, want to unburden ourselves of a few of those hours. The great glorious pile of our hours is overwhelming. After a day spent avoiding the burning eye of existence, we think, as we brush, floss, and rinse at night, that the next morning will bring a new wave of energy, hope, and bravery. As the world tips our unwilling feet out of bed with the dawn, we are hit with the enormity of the task of living each hour. Noticing the moments. Sacralizing the mundane. It is all too much.

What do we do with that? Shall we place that in that two-toned basket labeled, “Guilt and Shame?” Or how about the wastebasket stamped, “Lazy?” Or that ragged, cardboard box in the corner with the tattered flaps with, “I don’t care,” scrawled on the side?

Wait a moment, before you choose one of those dreadful choices.

God took one look at his dust-man and muttered, “No, this isn’t quite right. Not alone. It isn’t good to be alone.” We are not alone because that isn’t good for us. Perhaps this one-by-one life isn’t some prescription for living your best life—one checked box at a time. Maybe it is an invitation to live with one by one. Live with the fractious child. Live with the hurting partner. Live with the broken friend. Live with the boisterous teen.

And how, you ask, is that supposed to help with the discarded hours? Well, it might not with all of them. It is hard to tune into the universe hour after hour, but how about Diane? She is the one who walks her dog about 2:30 in the afternoon. And Doug, he makes your latte. And Toni who is painting the hallway at work. What if participating in the sacredness of one-by-one living is as simple as paying attention to Diane and Doug and Toni.

Mentioned in this essay:

Chardin, The Mass on the World, “The Offering”

McQuiston II, John, Always We Begin Again

With One-by-one