ABCs of Spiritual Formation: S is for Slow
For the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said:
“You will be delivered by returning and resting;
your strength will lie in quiet confidence.
But you are not willing.”-- Isaiah 30:15
Travel & Saving the World
I spent the first few days of this past week in Orlando at a conference for churches. In the past I traveled around the world but have lately become quite the home body. Jesus traveled only a few miles from home his entire life (except for a trip to Egypt as an infant and that wasn't by choice). He had a clear mission and saving the world meant staying in one small, out of the way place. Yet another example of the upside-down, counter-intuitive kingdom principles in action. And with that thought for the day swirling in our heads, let's dive into our next post.
S is for Slow
S is definitely a letter with many excellent words from which to choose. I would have been happy to go with Silence & Solitude, Spiritual, Stop, Social, Savior, or Supernatural, but after giving it much thought I landed on Slow.
THE NEED FOR SPEED - A MECHANISTIC WORLD
We live in a world obsessed with speed. Faster is better (except when it is not). Below is a graphic for an update I recently received.
We hate to wait. We get upset if Amazon doesn't deliver the same day. Sitting in traffic, waiting at red lights, standing in line, cooking, eating, reading, meeting, sleeping, making money, healing, friending, transforming... Instant this and that. Everything needs to go/be faster.
I don't think this is a difficult point to make. You get it. You feel it.
But is this bad? What's the problem?
I'm not sure it is a problem, but it is a challenge because of what it does to our souls. The difficult aspect to speed is its addictive nature. The rise of our mechanistic age has ushered in mechanistic metaphors which define our narratives, our worldviews. We then move to seeing people and life with mechanical expectations. We unknowingly see other people as robots with computer brains and expect a mechanistic-like perfection. In nature, some things are fast, and some are slow, and some are in between and that is how it is supposed to be. With machines, faster is always the goal, and that goes against nature. We want that, but we weren’t made for it. We are mostly blind to this dynamic, and our blindness grows as speed becomes normal, a right, and we get righteously upset when anything in life goes slowly.
I assume this is obvious now that I am removing the curtain if it wasn't already. Yet again we are stuck feeling the challenge. We tell ourselves that if we can finish everything faster, then we will have more time for those we love. Is that how it works for you? For most of us, we are not able to slow down once we finish our speedy tasks. We go on vacation and take the first few days, if we are intentional, just to slow down and be present.
SWIMMING UPSTREAM
However, facing reality means recognizing that we are not changing the way the world works. The powers that be and systems that rule the world, which have a demonic spiritual element make no mistake, have a vested interest in the progressive speeding up of life. But we can battle it on a personal level and some of us can wield the kind of power that ripples out more broadly. Here, I will focus on our personal spheres which include local communities.
Our example in this is Jesus, of course. He was never in a hurry and never moved with speed. Even when a little girl was near death, he took his time and attended to those in his path (Luke 8:40-56). The anxieties and worries and dysfunctions and agendas of those around him had no bearing on his pace. Our call is to be like him which means moving in this direction by his grace.
God in his word gives us numerous warnings, stories, commands, and exhortations about this issue.
· Genesis 1. God took 7 days to create the world. Whether you hold to a literal reading of the creation story or not, we can all agree that God's priority is not speed.
· The Sabbath is one of God's foundational commands and gifts for humans. Taking a day to do nothing is all about slowness. (Genesis 1-2, Exodus 20:8-11, Deuteronomy 5:12-15, 2 Chronicles 36:20-21).
· Isaiah 30:15. We are saved in quietness and rest. If that isn't a call to slow down...
· The psalms continually call us to slow down even though we clearly don't like the idea. Often the psalmist is crying out for God to hurry up and act (Psalm 70, 77, 79…). God is teaching us to wait. Psalm 23 is a vision of slowness.
· Proverbs tells us to be patient (16:32) and to live a life of listening and reflecting (2:1-5).
· The consistent call in the Bible is to be patient or long-suffering. It is a fruit of God's Spirit (Galatians 5:22).
· The time between the Testaments was 400 years. God is not in a hurry. Galatians backs this up. "When the time reached its fulfillment God sent his Son..." (Galatians 4:4) God has his timing, and it is perfect. Usually, in human terms it is quite slow.
I could give many more examples. Dallas Willard sums it up with his wonderful summation, "Ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life." The spiritual life is impossible when we are in a hurry. (Note that this is not about being busy or having a full schedule. Jesus was often going from sunup to after sundown.) In addition, every great spiritual writer and mystic calls us to a life of reflection and slowing down.
BUT, HOW?
Great, we get it. We need to slow down, but we are on a highway going 75 mph and can't find any off-ramps. See what I just did? I used a mechanistic metaphor, and it allows me to stay locked in an imprisoned narrative. I need to recognize that and deal with it. Here are a few things we can do to bring change and slow down:
1. Change our METAPHORS: One vital step to freedom from the dominating idol of speed is to change our metaphors. We need to transition from mechanistic to organic metaphors. What happens when I change the above-mentioned highway to a river. The whole scene changes; the story changes. I'm not looking for off-ramps but eddies and shallow water and slower currents. I'm in a raft or I'm swimming. I can see others in the river and communicate with them without putting myself in danger (as opposed to on a highway). A river is inconsistent with slow, deep sections and raging rapids. Some parts will have banks where I can go ashore, and other parts will see cliff walls come down to the water. Thinking of my life in this narrative changes the way I picture my life and the agency I have each day. It also changes the way I see God working in it. This is no small thing, nor is it easy to do. Most of us are blind to this way of thinking. It is a way that the spiritual powers and systems of the world entrap us.
2. Observe a SABBATH: John Mark Comer has written much on this and has produced excellent, free resources at PractingtheWay.org. Use them and find a way to stop for a day each week. Our family does this (Saturday evening to Sunday evening is best for us), and it is our favorite time of each week.
3. Make SPACE to encounter God within your daily routine: This isn't less than a daily quiet time, but it is more. Whether you do the Daily Office and/or the Examen, and/or taking a walk, and/or journaling, and/or whatever works for you, we must put our phones down and make space each day. The health of our souls is at stake. This is one of those building blocks we only recognize when we do it. We don't miss it when we don't do it because we don't know what we missed. Do you understand what I'm saying here? If I go through my day and don't make space for God, I get to bedtime and I had the day I had and whatever happened has made its mark. However, if I did stop and made space and encountered God, then I am a different person. This is so subtle and so invisible and so easy to miss. We just go down the river oblivious to all the beauty we are passing. Note here that taking the offramp on the freeway just puts me among gas stations and fast-food restaurants and who cares about missing those except for vital necessities. Do you see the power of our mental pictures!?
4. Engage with a COMMUNITY. Who encourages you to slow down. We can't do this alone. Slowing down our lives requires a community. We must connect with others who can paddle the raft with us. It's even better if we can tie a bunch of rafts together. Everybody knows that camping is better with a big group. Who enjoys eating s'mores alone?
Of course, more can be said but this is enough to get us going in the right direction. The steps after these will become apparent as we seek God's guidance with others on the journey with us.
Make no mistake, this is a bumpy path or a swelling ocean or a mountain river or a ... you get the idea. Navigating it requires intentionality but no need to be in a hurry to make it happen. Take a step and let God lead. You can trust he will not run ahead of you. If anything, our challenge is to slow down to his pace.
P.S. This is what we are trying to do in Focustsoul.
Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.
-- Aristotle