I've read the story of Mary and Martha more times than I could count, always slightly annoyed at how neatly it seems to resolve, Martha distracted with much serving, Mary sitting at the Lord's feet, and Jesus telling Martha she is anxious and troubled about many things when only one thing is necessary. For years I heard that as a story about two personality types, the doer and the contemplative, and assumed I was simply built as a Martha and would have to make my peace with it. What I didn't notice until that kitchen, laminating machine humming, was that Jesus never rebukes the serving itself. He names the anxiety underneath it, the many things standing in for the one thing, and I recognized that anxiety immediately because it was mine, dressed up as diligence, running on a machine at nine at night for a task that could have waited until morning or been handed to someone else entirely.

I don't know how to fully separate my actual love for these people from the compulsion that keeps me moving toward the next task before the current one has even finished mattering to me. Some weeks I still can't tell the difference from the inside. I only know that Martha wasn't wrong to serve, and I don't think I'm wrong to either. I think we were both just moving too fast to ask why.

I turned off the laminator and left the rest for morning. Nobody noticed. I noticed.