Decelerating

“take more time, cover less ground.”— Thomas Merton

I’ve been writing the Slow Lane since 2005, and I made a vow to myself, somewhere in that first year, that I was going to write about “slowing down,” at least once each year thereafter. So, this is the current iteration of that plea/awareness.

I’ve taken the time to look at the other Slow Lane pieces I’ve written on slowing down, and there isn’t much new to say. Speed kills! Not only literally, but also figuratively, as many of the important things about life go whizzing by. Thomas Merton talks about the speed of our lives being an important part of “the violence of our times.” Reality suffers many abuses and distortions; the pace of life is one of the big culprits.

I’ve come to the place where age has wised me up. I’m pretty sure nobody is going to alter the pace of their lives because of something I’ve written.  It isn’t even clear to most people that they have any choice in the matter. It seems like we are being driven at greater and greater rates by the maddening culture we live in.

Thus, there is a kind of powerlessness that surrounds this issue. This generates grief in me. So much passes quickly when it is unnoticed. I mourn this kind of passing. The ephemeral beauty of this life gets missed. That is tragic to me.

Part of the blessing/curse of my stroke, and its aftermath, is that I have been slowed down, almost to a stop, so I can see what I, and others miss, in our day-to-day rush.  Glorious awareness brought me to my knees, and it filled me with horror and sadness. The world is so miraculous and so unseen! My heart is perpetually broken by the complexity of what I experience passing.

With time, a form of grace has descended upon me. It makes my grief about speed even more poignant. Aging, amongst many other things, is slowing us all down. It is reducing the tendency many of us have, to go through life

invulnerable, to the eternal moment, when Life moves at the speed of love.

It seems that Life, or the Universe, enjoys an internal slow dance that brings things together in just the right timing. I’m growing more enamored, as I’m being pushed along my own life trajectory, of the concert-like collaboration of Life, with my own sensitization. Life is killing me softly. It is easing/aging me into a slow motion awareness of my own spiritual unfoldment. Life, like a faithful stream, is carrying me towards, the fulfillment of the destiny created for me.

There is no particular speed in this inexorable process. I dawdle to my own heart’s delight. It makes no difference. Life is going to make of my life what it will.

Whether I smell the roses, or pause before the majesty of it all, doesn’t change the outcome. It only cues me in to the miracle, I’m getting to participate in. I think my life is richer because of it. I know my regard for everything, especially other walking stars (an Angie Arrien term, by which she meant people), goes somewhere beyond the charts. Decelerating has added a whole lot of dimension to life. To me, slowing down has only been a preface (a very important preface) to a long steady knowing crawl home.

I am enjoying the crawl now, like never before.