Continuing our exploration of the "spiritual discipline of slowing down," we move from a slow beginning to each day to the warp and woof, the demands and details of the day itself.
I understand that during certain seasons of life, the pace quickens. It’s hard not to feel as if you are always on the move when you are chasing down toddlers or teenagers. I am not trying to make you feel guilty for being busy. I really do understand. Instead I simply want to encourage you to not be ONLY busy. To add basking to your busyness.
To add basking to our busyness means to look for moments in the middle of each day, when we can just stop and take in the universe, tune into the Creator, to pray without moving. In his, Abandonment to Divine Providence, Jean Pierre de Cassaud called this celebrating “The sacrament of the present moment.”
When we bask, we adore. Taking in the taste and smells, feeling the wind and the sunlight, noticing the smiling faces and sad eyes of others. Taking the time for a lingering hug of a loved one, to hear a good joke, to look at the sunset. We sit and be.
If you are ever down at the San Clemente pier at sunset, you can see people who have come just to bask in the moment. It’s quite amazing to watch how just as the sun touches the horizon, a number of people just fall silent and take it in. Then when the sun is out of site, they resuming walking, talking and getting on with life. But those who bask for just a moment, go back to life a bit more gingerly, a little more tenderly than those who were too distracted to notice the sunset.
Very often we need each other to practice these things. (This is the "communal" part of the disciplines.) We need others to point out the sunset, to invite us to have a cup of coffee in the middle of the day, to pause to sit and pray. At least I do.
In December, I ran my first marathon with two friends. Fortunately for me, one of the guys had run seven of them before so it was like having a personal coach the whole way. His strategy was that we would walk for one minute each mile. Basically every mile there is a water station, and we’d simply slow down, grab some water, walk for one minute and get going again.
I have to tell you that for me that whole walking part was excruciatingly difficult. I had time goals I wanted to accomplish. Runners that I had just passed in the last mile were now racing by me while I walked a minute and frankly, it felt like I was losing time and wimping out.
But when we hit the 20 mile mark, the wisdom of his walk-a-minute-per-mile strategy was so evident. The 20 mile mark is considered by most marathoners as “the wall.” It’s where the body runs out of fuel and has to struggle the last 6 miles on fumes.
But not me, not this time. I sailed right through the so-called wall. (Well as much as a guy my size ever “sails.”) By simply walking one minute a mile all the way through the race, we had so much more left in the tank that I actually ran a way faster time and a way more comfortable race than I imagined possible.
Adding basking to our busyness is learning to walk a minute each mile on a marathon. In the end you go faster without hurrying, by hastening slowly.
If you'd like to read one more post I wrote on "busyness" click here .
Tommorrow, one more suggestion for "slowing down."
