You don't need an excuse to slow down

Do you ever have trouble slowing down, or flat out stopping and resting when you need to? Do you ever secretly, or not-so-secretly, wish you had a “good” reason to slow down, a “reasonable” excuse to stop running so fast, pushing so hard? As if feeling bone weary, depleted, anxious or depressed, catapulting toward burn out, or sensing we’re missing the most important parts of our lives are not reason enough.

I’ve been thinking (again) about why it can feel so hard to slow down and actually get enough rest and nourishment to feel . . . well, human. Reflecting on my own tired, depleted state of being in December, I realized I had picked up the pace in the fall, and blown right through several water stops.

So I made some changes for the new year--recommitting to a more healthy rhythm of work and rest, discerning what I can give myself to and what I cannot, and prioritizing things that nourish me- in body, mind and spirit. Lo and behold, I find myself more calm, more clear, and paradoxically more generative than I’ve been in months.

Rest and nourishment. So simple. Then why do we feel so worn out much of the time?

Honestly, I’ve been wrestling with these questions for decades, when I first started asking myself why I felt compelled to move so quickly, stay so busy, feeling a near constant pressure to be more efficient and productive.

My first clue came when I visited Kenya on a foreign study trip, and I couldn’t understand why on God’s green earth people there walked “so slowly.” I actually couldn’t handle the ambling, meandering pace, so I would walk ahead of our Kenyan host and group, secretly hoping I might inspire others to speed up already (I know . . . cringe). Simultaneously, I marveled that many of the Kenyans we encountered seemed so much more free, joyful and alive. Go figure.

I also remember a snow day during seminary when all classes and activities were cancelled, and I felt delighted to stay hunkered down at home with my roomies, reading quietly and without rush by our pot-belly stove. Why did it take a “good excuse” to have that kind of day? (Not unlike the feeling I had early in the pandemic, once I got over the initial shock and and gave myself over to the mass slowing.)

Later that year, I found myself unexpectedly without the job that was helping me pay my way through grad school. At first, I freaked out about being without work and income. What would I do with myself? But then I decided the break was a gift, that I really could benefit from some time off to grieve some painful events of the past few years, and to discern what I wanted for my final year at Candler and beyond. I had heard for the first time that line about our being human beings, not human doings. It gave me pause. What might it feel like to have a month or two of just being?

I remember bumping into an acquaintance at Publix, who asked me what I was up to that summer. I told her what I just told you. To which she snipped, “So basically, you’ve become a non-productive member of society,” and hurriedly wheeled her cart past me down the aisle.

There it is. That is at least one of the reasons we do not slow down or stop, even when we desperately need to. That voice in our own head, or in others’ responses that chides: You only have value if you’re busy and productive.

It’s a lie. A big, fat, soul-sucking, life-draining lie. Sure we want to live and work with purpose, to serve the world with the gifts we’ve been given. But let’s face it, much of our busyness and productivity is not about that, not at all. In fact, sometimes we get moving so fast and furiously, doing so much, we lose the meaning altogether. Everything passes in a blur while we race to . . . race to where? We feel like we have to climb some proverbial ladder, but may sadly discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall.

And aren’t the Gospels full of Jesus warning us precisely about this?

Consider the lilies of the field.

Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.

You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?

Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

Convicted that the pressure and rush, the busyness and exhaustion are not the abundant life God intends for us, I’ve been trying to slow down my life, in fits and starts, for twenty-five years. It’s still so hard! How easy it is to get hooked by those cultural messages about what makes for a good life, by concerns about how others will react if we do not do all the things.

There is another way. Sure it may feel like we’re swimming against a tide of very driven, very speedy fish, hell-bent on getting where they’re going. No matter. Slow down, look around, feel life all around you and in you. Otherwise, we might just miss the Ocean.

Warmly,

Kimberly