my season of slowing

Dumbbells gripped in hand, lifted over me like the weight that knots my neck, I remember thinking only of what will be next, after this. I used to plot it out by the hour, how I’d manage to do my way through the morning and into the afternoon. And then, and then, and then. How much, I often wondered, could I fit into the hours ahead? How quickly could I finish this and get on to that?

I confess, I had a dual diagnosis: Hurry sickness. Stress disease.

1 and 2 and 3 and 4. I hear myself rushing now—counting these overhead presses like I once counted the things on my list.

Slow down, I correct myself. Hurrying through doesn’t make you stronger. [bctt tweet=”Hurrying through doesn’t make you stronger.”]

Ours is a rampant rush. Quickness is our culture’s quotient. It divides, rather than multiplies, our productivity. It’s true: I could do ten more at this pace and not get the benefit of three lifted slow. I smile. This is universal: Nothing lasting builds quickly—not worlds, not communities, not homes, not relationships. The things that matter most take time. Meanwhile, even our language unconsciously hurries: I’ll get right to it. I can’t wait. I’m on it! Computers lag, and we tap our fingers impatiently against the desk. [bctt tweet=”Quickness is our culture’s quotient. It divides, rather than multiplies, our productivity.”]

1.

I stop at the top of the press and wait, feeling the heaviness. The muscles in my arms twitch. My heart beats. Sweat drips. I read somewhere that Henri Nouwen called waiting an action against hurry, and now I understand: strength grows in that still, present pause. Stop for a moment now and let it sink.

Mid-life and I only just discover it: the power of slowing down. I remember a recent day when I sat empty and grieving, as flat gray as the sky, my heart desperately hungry. From the porch, I looked out across our lawn, all that fine-bladed grass swaying in time with the leaves on my favorite tree. I inhaled, trying just to breathe, but coming up short. I couldn’t put my finger on the reason for my discontentment, but my full life felt urgently starved. Pervasively, a sullen phrase clouded my thinking: I don’t want to. I wasn’t even sure of a specific thing I didn’t want to do, but the phrase seemed globally relevant.

“Are you okay?” Kevin asked, lightly resting his fingers between my shoulder blades. He could see and feel my pain; the heavy ache in my heart had made me sick.

Slowly now, I release the press, looking at the weights in my hand.

I had begun to try to explain that day; my chin dripped tears. “It’s just that every day is too much. There’s not enough time just to be, and I get to the weekend feeling so emotionally starved, and it just isn’t enough. Could this really just be what life is?” I asked sincerely, the question jagged. The words tumbled out, rolling with my grief, shuddering with my shoulders.

The truth is, I have lived most of my life as an over doer. I expect too much out of the hours I have. But that day, sorting aloud, I tried in vain to blame anyone or anything besides me for my pain. I knew that Jesus said he came that we might have life and have it to the full, that only the enemy leaves us feeling robbed and destroyed (John 10:10). So why, in trying to follow Jesus, did I feel so violated? Where was Paul’s great discovery of contentment (Philippians 4:12-13)? Drying my tears and struggling for answers, I took solid action: I prayed.

2.

I press the dumbbells up again–slowly–pressing the weight away and heavenward, as though passing the burden into hands strong enough to carry it. Uncomfortably, this pace forces me to acknowledge my limitations. I know already that I will not sustain as many slow repetitions as I could at a faster clip. The irony I also know is that I will accomplish far more in taking my time.

Just past that raw, honest, grieving Saturday, God gave me a book. I had discovered it by way of a friend’s casual reference the week before, a book by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun called The Spiritual Disciplines Handbook. In this, as in so many other situations, I found God once again faithful in going before me. The book, which by way of introduction points out that Jesus not only “never attempts to shut down people’s longings” nor asks “people to transcend their longings,” but rather “keeps company with people who want something” (18), organizes spiritual disciplines by desire. I held the book in my hands and allowed myself to consider what I truly wanted, what it was that I craved so desperately. The word savor melted on my tongue like a forbidden sweet. I wanted to savor life. I longed to stop pushing myself broken. Hungry for richness, I longed to feel full. I ran my finger down the table of contents, and there it was, a word I realized the Holy Spirit had gently spoken to me for some time: Slow. Adele Calhoun had added an -ing and made it a spiritual practice, pointing out that our desires open doors to a more intimate relationship with God. How many times had I read this truth? “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4)”; “taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8)”; I am your very great reward (Genesis 15:1).” Moses told the promise-holding Israelites that God caused them to hunger and then fed them himself (Deuteronomy 8:3).

I flipped the page that day and began my season of slowing.

Slowly now, I bring the weights back down to my shoulders, where I had, for months and years on end, consistently carried everything.

In those first quiet hours of slowing, I began to hold the weight of my life up to God for His scrutiny. I meditated on scripture:

Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.

Mark 6:31

Inspired by suggestions in Calhoun’s book, I began to practice actual, functional slowing. I stopped working through lunch and chose instead to sit at the table, noticing for the first time the view of the sky and the trees through that window in front of me. I began to pray more often, emptying my hands and turning them palms up. I began to choose longer lines and resisted the urge to change lanes in slower traffic. And, recognizing that I had overworked my days to the margins, I set a daily hour to end my work day. I made appointments with my husband and my kids–commitments that resisted rescheduling, just for listening and being. I began to restructure my afternoons in favor of wholeness, learning, as I read books from Calhoun’s resource list, that stress makes me sick because I don’t balance it with rest. I began to see that I had nearly always, except on the vacations that I so desperately craved, lived looking toward the next thing. In my season of slowing, I decided to practice being present right now. [bctt tweet=”I had nearly always, except on the vacations that I so desperately craved, lived looking toward the next thing.”]

In his excellent book, Addicted to Hurry, Kirk Byron Jones describes hurry as a violence we inflict upon ourselves (28,64). He writes—and I underlined, twice, “There is a major foe that you must face and defy if you are to live at a savoring pace. This major foe is you….We have been living this way so long that it’s hard to admit its negative effects, even when we’re hurting all over (69).” I had, in fact, hurt all over, with pain no doctor could diagnose, battered by my own exhausting drive to over do and under be.

3.

Again, I grip the dumbbells, pressing them up, allowing myself to feel the contraction of the muscles in my arms, noticing their tenderness and perseverance. I am getting stronger. And this I know, after all this time: Wholeness includes both the press and the release. In my season of slowing, I discovered that my pain had less to do with the weights in my hands than with my own expectation and determination to hold them aloft forever. For me, healing required a two-fold plan, slowing and letting go. [bctt tweet=”For me, healing required a two-fold plan, slowing and letting go.”]

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Here are some of the books I have come to love during this season, some of which I mentioned in this post. As a participant in the Amazon Associates program, I earn from qualifying purchases.

I am currently working on a book about our holy hunger and finding the way to God’s feast. If you’re feeling emptied or just longing to feel more full, subscribe with your email address so that we can keep in touch. ~E.