Sacramentality of Slowing Down

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

To reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages…

And yet it is the law of all progress

That it is made by passing through

Some stages of instability-

And that it may take a very long time…

Give our Lord the benefit of believing

That his hand is leading you,

And accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.

-       Pierre Teilhard De Chardin, Hearts on Fire

Most often we put ourselves “over“ or “out“ of the time not “in” and “inside” the time! Often our ego would not allow to put ourselves under the gaze of the time. We say time is money. But it is not true! Time is life. Our current common predicament says it loudly! It also reminds us of our mortality. “We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing”(Psalm 39:6). A common word for human being used in almost all the Indian languages is “Marthya”- which means one who is having “Mrithyu”(death). If we put it another way, “one who is intentionally aware about life’s finitude, is “Marthya.” The simple awareness about our finitude would make us slow down to the essential things and focus.

Unfortunately the present culture of haste produces restlessness, waste, and hurt both in personal and communal levels. The reality of restlessness in our contemporary society is obvious and epidemic. Walter Brueggemann names the present market driven culture of speed, restlessness, endless desires as the “liturgy of consumerism.”[1] The liturgy of consumerism/commodity should be replaced by the liturgy of rest / sabbath. Jesus’ words are the clear embodiment of rest/sabbath- “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest (Mat 11:28).” Weariness, being heavy-laden, yoke  are the symbols of commodity-society. In the first century context, these symbols refer to the strenuous taxation system of Roman Empire and the endless requirements of an over-coded religious system which demanded stressful attentiveness. But Jesus offers an alternative : “come to me and rest!” In rest we truly celebrate our being. Sabbath/ rest is a radical transition from human-doings to human-beings!         

We really need to reclaim the sacramentality of slowing down today! Milan Kundera asks “ why has the pleasure of slowness disappeared? Ah, where have they gone, the amblers of yesteryear? Where have they gone, those loafing heroes of folk song, those vagabonds who roam from one mill to another and bed down under the stars? Have they vanished along with foot paths, with grasslands and clearings, with nature?[2]

Life is not an emergency, but it is e/merging. We are the emerging selves in-between the last and present moments. Let us be creative liminal beings! There is a Czech proverb that describes being at the liminal by a metaphor: “They are gazing at God’s windows.” A person gazing at God’s windows is not bored; but excited!

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[1] Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance ( Louisville: John Knox Press,2014),13.

[2] Milan Kundera, Slowness (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006), 3.