Slowing Down
It's funny.I've been looking forward to this morning all week.We are home this summer for the first time [usually we travel 4-8 weeks every summer out of town for our summer assignment while our students are on break between semesters] and we created for ourselves a summer "rhythm" (because schedule just feels too strict) as we accomplish the work we have before us and the opportunity of a different pace. And Friday mornings are now designated for me to get out of the house, become a regular at our local coffee shop - I don't drink coffee but they have delicious food and I'm good with that - and sit down to have space to myself to write. Be creative. Take all that is swirling around in my heart and my head and actually put words to paper. Or type letters on this screen? You know what I mean.But this morning, I woke up later than I was expecting because John-Mark was so gracious to let me sleep in. And it felt so good.And then I realized that my time to get out and get writing was less than I had initially imagined because I have a need to time it perfectly - between the minute after baby girl wakes up & I feed her and she sleeps until her next feeding. It's the only way to truly maximize my time. Otherwise, it's just a brief period out of the house and how can I even start and warm up and write words and leave - even in the middle of a draft of something - in any less time than that small window anyway?So I got to sleep in - again, it felt amazing - and then I felt rushed all the sudden.Rushed to feed her before she needed to already go down for her first nap. Rush to get dressed and get out of the house and rushed to find a parking spot (there were none, by the way, and then as I kept looping people kept cutting me off and then those same people took the closest available spots - twice)... rushed to order, rushed to sit down, rushed to open up my Bible, because I decided definitively that I needed to set a pattern of opening God's Word before processing my own, and then rushed to get through what I was reading. That way I could open up my computer and finally slow down and get to what I wanted to be doing - and the words would spill out.Didn't work.You know, the rushing thing... it kind of cramps the style that I was hoping these Friday mornings would look like.When we were planning out our rhythm and preparing for this summer ahead of us, I imagined Friday mornings to be full of quiet and stillness and soul-pondering and vulnerability. I imagined creative juices flowing and a cozy seat in a familiar place and some much-desired alone time. I imagined moments filled with the Spirit, experiencing palpable nearness to God.I know what atmosphere allows me to calm down and to let the thoughts and the words come.I know that it takes me a while to settle in and still my mind enough to let the thoughts in my heart stop from swirling too fast and actually come out in even incoherent words.I know what causes me to feel blocked.Pressure. Rushing. Expectation.And this morning, I did it. I rushed. I put pressure on my fleeting alone time. I had expectations that were too high for this precious hour or two that I have here in my own world in this corner of the coffee shop.And the words didn't come. The inspiration didn't come.This is a waste of my time, I just kept thinking. I could be doing so many more things at home.Slowing down. It's hard. It doesn't feel right.I take a deep breath.In.Out.The anxiety feels still simmering under the surface - this pressure to achieve and to be and to doallthethings.More deep breaths.And suddenly I'm hit like a ton of bricks. Isn't this so like me? Isn't this so like us?
So many of us - because I know I'm not alone in this - we have this feeling that if we're not busy doing and going and creating and maintaining and achieving, then are we really doing anything at all?If I don't have a purpose for my writing and I don't always write on topic and I don't always communicate exactly what I want my vision to be - that's a waste. Right?If I don't use every minute of the precious alone time I get (which feels increasingly less these days) to the absolute max - that's a waste. Right?If I don't hit the pillow at night with all the boxes of my to-do list checked off - that's a waste. Right?But is it?The art of slowing down. I'm not so sure I'm good at it. But I know that by rushing, rushing, rushing to get to the time where I can slow down... I'm not helping anyone. I'm surely not helping myself.I build up pressure to have to come out of the other side of my slow-down time with something to prove. Like it was worth it. Like it was soul work. Like I didn't just sit and waste my time.But I don't think that's what it should be at all. I want to learn the art of the slow down. I want to come to a place where I can breathe in and out and do what I need to do but also allow myself freedom from time constraints. I don't need to wear my "busy badge" - it doesn't actually add anything to my life.Jesus found it to be worthwhile to slow down.He fell asleep on a boat in the middle of a storm.He withdrew to pray when people were threatening his life.He stopped to address the bleeding woman on the way to healing a man's daughter.He slowed down.He slowed down and he accomplished more. He was so set in his identity and in his heart as to who he was and what his purpose was and he was unaffected by the outside forces. Yes, he had a leg up - he was fully God and fully man and all authority on heaven and on earth was given to him. So, sure, he knew he could slow down.But he also knew exactly what to expect and when and what and how much he could accomplish at any given moment - and he still chose to take his time.And he gave me the Holy Spirit who dwells in me.He's freed me up from the constraint of time on my life because the bottom line is that how much I accomplish isn't the basis for my identity. I have an identity that rests in the One who made a day of rest himself. I have more than my achievements on the line for what accounts for me at the end of the day, the end of my life. I have someone who's already claimed me as His. That's really all that matters.What would it look like for me - for us - to allow ourselves to actually live out the grace that Jesus offers when it comes to our time? What would it look like to actually make the time he gives us count - however mundane or exciting it is - by taking a deep breath and doing what he's called us to do as an overflow of our identity in him rather than with the pressure of making it our identity? What would it look like to learn the art of slowing down, because I am resting in His authority rather than grasping for control that isn't mine to have? What freedom and grace can I know?So I breathe in.I breathe out.I soak it in. I soak him in. He's given me this time as a gift. He's given me this summer as a gift. Rather than putting so much pressure on the time I have, I want to take a moment and allow it to happen. I want to rest in my true identity - which is child of the Most High God. I want to actually take a minute to breathe.
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I'd love to hear how you practice stillness. Slowing down. What are some ways that you experience waiting well?