Slow Down

“I lied and said I was busy. I was busy but not in a way most people understand. I was busy taking deeper breaths. I was busy silencing irrational thoughts. I was busy calming a racing heart. I was busy telling myself I’m okay. Sometimes this is my busy.”

B. Oakman

A friend and I were zooming about her anxiety and grief. She told me that she was struggling to find meaning in her life. Recently retired, she speculated that perhaps after decades of being mind numbingly busy, maybe this new season of rest was waking up all the skeletons in her closet.

Disruptions in our routines can do that. Many of our routines are actually created to keep us perpetually distracted, numb and out-of-touch with ourselves. This short term solution is attractive but over the long haul? Not great.

Productivity addiction is like those weird diets we fall in love with - attractive for the immediacy of the relief but inevitably we return to our pre-carrots-only diet weight. Too hard to think of slowing down? I know. I feel you. But let’s try.

Masterpieces of Inherent Value

You are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress. Simultaneously.

I’m told by people who study such things that each of us has a tendency to either focus on the past, the present or the future. I suppose that the ideal scenario is when we can manage to juggle all three. We remember the past to inspire us to change, remind us of God’s gifts, guide our decisions. We live in the present because that is all we have and we should work hard to show up for it without distraction. We look to the future, we see the horizon, we march toward it with dreams and determination.

When we get stuck in only one of the three relationships to time, we miss perspective.

We are masterpieces because of our inherent value - created by God to work with God on bringing his kingdom to earth - fully human in the best possible sense of the word. We are works in progress because we are simultaneously ONLY human. We are fragile, we make mistakes.

Today, consider your orientation to time. Are you distracted by the past? Perhaps it is holding you back from both your present and future. Are you too focused on the present? Do you lose sight of the lessons the past has to offer or the call to the future that inspires hope for change? Do you waste precious moments in the here and how because you eagerly stand on tip toe looking into the future? The future is not real - today is real.

May we all find a way to expand our time continuum, so that we do the work we need to do without losing sight of the masterpiece we already are!