Remember, remember

What’s your favorite memory aid?

Do you have a paper calendar on the kitchen wall, maybe one from your parish with a funeral home ad on the bottom?

Or have you joined the 21st century and have a shared family online calendar with everyone’s activities, appointments and commitments on it?

Because what I’m doing — blank paper calendar and multiple online calendars, with some items in common and some items appearing only one place — isn’t really working.

Neither do my lists. Lots and lots of lists.

Really, it mostly functions. I rarely miss something completely, or don’t figure it out until the thing I was supposed to be at is over. But rarely is not never.

Not when the youngest’s doctor appointment conflicts with high school orientation, when my husband’s dentist appointment conflicts with the play I committed to see with my oldest, when a friend invites me to do something and I say, “Sure, I can do that,” only to check my email and see a reminder that no, I really can’t.

Part of the problem is a modern world in which we are all just busy, with more and more small things to do all the time, dividing our focus so it’s harder to get the big things done. And while there are more appointments to make, online forms to fill out, lists to check off, there are more and more ways for the information to be delivered.

I love having a computer in my pocket — really, I do — but sometimes I miss the days when we had a home phone, and maybe a work phone, and snail mail was the only mail. Now things that arrive in the mailbox outside our front door fall into two categories: very important or not important at all. Everything else is emailed (to one or more of multiple accounts), texted, sent on one of several social media platforms, conveyed during a video call, or mentioned during a phone call.

No wonder things get lost sometimes.

It’s important, though, to not lose sight of the big things. Things like faith, family and friendship, and taking time to renew and refresh yourself. The things that all those thousands of little things eat away at.

It can be hard, because those little things — orientations and doctor and dentist appointments and filling out all the school forms — those are important, too, and they have to get done. Just like making dinner, washing dishes and cleaning the bathroom.

That’s the dichotomy of Mary and Martha in Luke’s Gospel. All the things Martha does have to be done. She wasn’t wasting her time. And every time I read or hear that Gospel, when I get to the line about Mary having chosen the better part, my heart and my head both hurt a little. Because the big thing, sitting and listening to and basking in the love of Jesus, that was the better part. But the guests had to be fed. I guess it’s up to Martha to remember to do both.

I don’t think I really need a calendar app to help me remember that.