Moving Into the Slow
I didn’t write a blog post last week. For anyone who notices, yep, I skipped. No apologies. I intentionally left off writing last week because - well. Because I was tired, and stressed, and simply needed a break. A respite. Time to breathe.
We (my husband and I) took a short vacation last weekend- four whole days! It’s the first time we’ve spent time away from home since January (not counting visits with family). The pandemic hasn’t been conducive to planning time away; neither have our jobs - which seem to consume more of us than we would care to admit. But we were intentional in getting away, and it was a lovely break from our routine.
Intentionally taking a break; being purposeful in seeking to get away and slow down. Seeking opportunities to release from the stress of the daily, the hurried days, the blurring of time. It’s important, this moving into the “slow”. We need to routinely step out of the fast-moving stream of “hurry” in order to see, to understand, to appreciate the whole of what life offers. When we move fast, we see in a blur; we feel only the harsh rushing wind, the breathlessness of not enough space, not enough time, the “not enough” of the hurried life. But when we move into the “slow”, our hearts expand, our mind reaches out, and we give ourselves a chance to fall in love, all over again, with the very act of living. It’s a precious time, this moving into the slow, and oh! So necessary.
We are a society who, for the most part, enjoys living in the fast-lane of life. We fill our calendars with activities and appointments; we have lots of commitments - to our jobs, our churches, our communities, our kids’ schools; to sports and social activities and all manner of hobbies to keep us moving and occupied. Even in pandemic-times, people continue with fast-paced living with Zoom meetings, TeamMeetings, virtual cocktail parties, filing up with virtual busyness to fill the void. Full calendars for many means a sense of positive commitment, of being involved, useful, productive. In the end, all that busyness brings no relief for most people; it simply means that at the end of the day, we are more tired, more stressed, more anxious - and often - not any happier.
I used to be that way, once upon a time. Some of it was necessary. When my daughters were young, I was a full-time administrator for a large nursing home, attending graduate school two evenings a week, managing our church’s Sunday School program, entertaining family and friends at least weekly, and driving my girls around to the usual cycle of dance and piano lessons, sports practice, school events, and friend activities. My husband was starting up his own business, and was working long hours himself. My days would start at 5:00am, and I would fall into bed at 11:00pm, barely hitting the pillow before I’d fall into a deep sleep - only to start the madness all over again the next day. I felt busy, involved, productive, useful. And I never said “no” to anyone who asked for my help, for my contribution, for my time. I saw myself as generous, giving, and productive. I thought all this busyness was a good thing.
Of course, it all came crashing down, eventually. Through a series of events and circumstances, I came to realize that I was running at top speed, but I couldn’t have told you where I was going, or why. God took pity on me, and broke into my reality, shook me up, and interrupted my frenetic cycle of activity. He showed up, and quietly, lovingly, showed me the value of slowing down. This didn’t happen overnight; it took me several years to really get it - to understand what He was saying to me. He orchestrated a series of events and losses that, over time, showed me that I was running away from myself, filling my life with people and activity in order to avoid having to listen to my inner voice, the soft voice of the “I AM’ within my heart.
In the midst of the madness, I came to learn the value of resting, of breaking away, of moving into the slow of life. In the eddy of life’s swirling tide, I had to learn to stop, dig my toes deep into the sand, and simply “be”. As I slowed down, I began to see the importance of rest, of quiet; the value of simply sitting, with no plan, no agenda, no busyness at hand. It took a few years, and God’s relentless insistence that I slow down, to adopt a pace of living that was more of His choosing, more His way, more reflective of His path for me in this life.
There is wisdom in resting, in understanding that when we rest, we renew our strength, we become better, stronger, wiser. Kinder. A simply sacred life allows for times of moving into the slow of life, into a pace of living that lets us breathe, and that won’t crowd out the voice of The One Who calls us His beloved. There is nothing sweeter than hearing that Voice; it’s simply a matter of removing the excess noise caused by the rushing pace of our running to and fro, and learning to move more slowly, more thoughtfully, more purposefully through each moment of each hour we are given.
Move gently into the slow. Measure time in moments, not days or weeks. Gather time around you as a precious jewel, and not as a gushing river that never ends. Our human-ness flourishes in the slow cadence of the drum, the quiet beating of our hearts. Match that pace? And you will grasp a small bit of heaven, here on earth.