My old friend Adam wrote this week’s post. Adam worked for me during one of the most difficult seasons of my professional life, and yet still treats me like I’m a normal person and not like he saw me at my very very very very very worst on a regular basis. Adam regularly teaches me about grace and truth and what is most important in life.
If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say most people perceive me as a pretty slow person.
Wow…that didn’t sound right.
Let me clarify. By slow I’m referring to my lifestyle. I’m not a person who packs my schedule full. I generally have time for spontaneous events or conversations and don’t usually have plans farther out than a couple of hours.
It may appear that my life is serene and uncluttered, but that’s only because you can’t see inside my head.
I’m one of those whose mind zips from one thing to the next and as I’ve allowed more and more stimulus into my life I find that the zipping gets faster and more frequent. I don’t think this is an inherently bad thing, it’s just a regular thing. A true thing. I imagine a lot of other people feel the same way.
Sometimes, the thoughts zipping back and forth in my mind stay up there. More often than not, though, they come out in words. I get easily fired up during conversations and in these moments there is a direct fire hose-like link from brain to mouth. It flows fast and full. At my worst it flows without restraint or filter. And God knows some serious BS has come out from time to time.
It was in college when I first started meeting people who didn’t seem to have this fire hose-like link from brain to mouth. I’d run into people who had more of a trickling stream – slow and steady progress with plenty of time for thorough examination.
Somewhere in those encounters, a seed was planted in me.
I began to wonder about and explore the idea of slowing down, letting my thoughts percolate for a while, measuring the quantity so as to increase the quality of what was expressed.
It’s amazing what you notice on a walk when you don’t have the last six hours of work bouncing around in your head. I’ve found that things like purposefully reading slowly or planning time to do nothing, even if it’s just a few minutes, helps me to process my life and recognize what is going on around me.
But it’s more than just being increasingly observant.
Through proximity to those who live this slower life and a very little of my own practice, I’m finding that there are some things in life, some states of mind and soul, that are not accessible or achieved with any sort of speed.
They can only be encountered over time and with repetition.
That is hard for me.
Like I said before, I’m more of a microwave personality than the slow cooker type, but so far I am intrigued and like what I’m finding.
For me, this slowing down looks a lot like a discipline. I’m a person of faith so I thought the older disciplines of the faith might help me in this effort. Lately I’ve tried Lectio Divina, where you read a short passage or phrase and then sit and think about it in four different ways.
I know…..doesn’t sound too exciting, but stick with me.
Regardless of the content, there is something about being quiet, following a little bit of structure and thinking about a phrase without entertaining any distractions. When I’m done (usually on the shorter end of 10 minutes) I take a few minutes to process my thoughts and maybe talk about them with my wife. And this works for me. It helps me not get all worked up about things. Helps me not be so anxious or worried.
Doing this seems to redirect my focus from the quick, attention grabbing, mildly relevant things of life (picture the surface of a rapid in a stream) to the more deliberate, long present, and significant things (picture the bottom of a deep pool of water). I like that. It feels a lot less hectic and a lot more manageable.
I have hopes of becoming one of those people who are like deep water, and I’ve slowly started angling my life that way. I’m fumbling towards making some habits out of this. To be honest, it will probably be some time before I am familiar with the practice of the slow life. I’ll look forward to that day and welcome the extra peace of mind and soul that come with it.
Until then, lead your life……more slowly.
Adam Bailon grew up a pastors’ kid in northwestern Montana until he left the mountains to study Spanish at Westmont College in California. Adam is recently married and now lives, works and aspires to greatness in Boulder, Colorado. He enjoys fly-fishing, coffee and a nice fire in the backyard. Adam writes about faith and life at lamusicavive.blogspot.com.