Slowing Down 7 – Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter!

We arrive again at our Good Friday, when we contemplate Our Lord being tortured and giving up His life for our salvation.

We’ve talked about slowing down in order to live more mindfully, more conscientiously. By doing so, we can live more spiritually. Isn’t that the true goal of our lives, to be in relationship with our God: Father, Son, and Spirit?

I think about the followers of Jesus, and how they must have despaired to see their Hope die on a cross and be entombed. What is left when even Hope is gone? On that Friday, they must have been devastated and in shock, feeling so very confused.

Then Holy Saturday followed. The numbness subsided and the pain ached, both real and unrelenting. No doubt they felt abandoned and maybe even angry. They’d changed their lives for a dream that now seemed destroyed.

Have you been there? Have you received devastating news? Have you heard a frightening diagnosis, or learned of the death of a loved one, or realized your child was lost, either literally or spiritually? You’ve known your own suffering and death of that dark Friday. You’ve awakened the next day, your Holy Saturday, only to realize anew what you’ve lost. And maybe your Holy Saturday goes on and on for days or months or years.

Yet, we have a gift that the disciples didn’t on Holy Saturday. We know about Easter Sunday. We know there is hope ahead, and that evil and death have been conquered. We will all have our Holy Saturdays that feel like waiting in Limbo, but we are an Easter people. We strive to live mindfully and conscientiously and spiritually. We have faith and hope and love. We know our Easter will come. The resurrection will be ours, too.

Easter is coming! Rejoice!

Thank you for reading these Lenten posts. I hope at least one line has touched your soul.

One last bonus section for your consideration, or maybe amusement: 20 Ideas for Slowing Down Your Overall Pace of Life, from The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, by John Mark Comer:

1. Drive the speed limit.
2. Get into the slow lane. Pray while you drive.
3. Come to a full stop at stop signs.
4. Don’t text and drive.
5. Show up 10 minutes early for an appointment and don’t use your phone.
6. Get into the longest checkout line at the grocery store. (Wise to regularly deny ourselves what we want. We don’t have to get our way to be happy.)
7. Turn your smartphone into a dumb phone. Take email off your phone. Take all social media off your phone. Use your computer and only check at scheduled times. Disable your web browser. Delete all notifications, including those for texts. Ditch news apps or alerts. Delete every app you don’t need or doesn’t make your life easier. Set your phone to grayscale mode for less stimulation.
8. Get a flip phone or ditch your cell phone all together.
9. Parent your phone; put it to bed before you and make it sleep in.
10. Keep your phone off until after your morning quiet time.
11. Set times to check and respond to email.
12. Set a time and a limit for social media (or just get off it.)
13. Kill your TV. Every single thing that we let into our minds will have an effect on our souls.
14. Single task. Be fully present to the moment: to God, other people, work in the world, and your own soul. That’s more than enough to consume your attention.
15. Walk slower.
16. Regularly take a day alone for silence and solitude.
17. Take up journaling. (Or vlog or voice note journal.) The point is to slow down enough to observe your life from the outside.
18. Experiment with mindfulness and meditation.
19. If you can, take long vacations. A study shows it takes 8 days for happiness levels to peak. (The Torah had 3 feasts a year, and were 8 days long, including two Sabbaths.)
20. Cook your own food. And eat in. The anchor point for a family’s life can be the table.

Slowing Down 6 – Hurry Sickness

Let’s continue gleaning wisdom from the book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, by John Mark Comer.

Comer writes, “All too often our hurry is a sign of something else. Something deeper. Usually that we’re running away from something—father wounds, childhood trauma, deep insecurity, or deficits of self-worth, fear of failure, pathological inability to accept the limitations of our humanity, or simply boredom with the mundanity of middle life.

“Or we’re running to something—promotions or purchases or experiences or stamps on our passports or the next high—searching in vain for something no earthly experience has to offer: a sense of self-worth and love and acceptance.

“Sometimes our hurry is less dramatic; we’re just overly busy, more victims of the rights and responsibilities of the modern world than perpetrators of escapism. But either way, the effect is the same.”

Too much hurry causes Symptoms of Hurry Sickness (or what Fr. Dave Gutmann calls Low Battery of the Soul):

1. Irritability—You get mad, frustrated, or just annoyed way too easily. Little normal things irk you.
2. Hypersensitivity—All it takes is a minor comment to hurt your feelings, or a little turn of events to ruin your day.
3. Restlessness—When you actually do try to slow down and rest, you can’t rest. Instead, you fill every moment with multi-tasking.
4. Workaholism (or nonstop activity)—You just don’t know when to stop. Drugs of choice are accomplishment and accumulation.
5. Emotional numbness—You don’t have the capacity to feel another’s pain, or even your own.
6. Out-of-order priorities—You feel disconnected from your identity or calling. Your life is reactive, not proactive. You do not have time for what really matters.
7. Lack of care for your body—You don’t have time for the basics: 8 hours of sleep a night; daily exercise; healthy, home-cooked food; minimal stimulants; margin.
8. Escapist behaviors—You turn to distractions of choice: overeating, overdrinking, binge-watching, social media, porn.
9. Slippage of spiritual life—When you get overly busy, the things that are truly life giving for your soul are the “first to go” rather than “your first go to”—such as a quiet time in the morning, scripture, prayer, worship, etc.
10. Isolation—You feel disconnected from God, others, and your own soul.

Here are a few more effects of hurry.

• Hurry kills relationships. Love takes time; hurry doesn’t have time.
• Hurry kills joy, gratitude, appreciation; people in a rush don’t have time to enter the goodness of the moment.
• Hurry kills wisdom; wisdom is born in the quiet, the slow. Wisdom has its own pace. It makes you wait for it—wait for the inner voice to come to the surface of your tempestuous mind, but not until waters of thought settle and calm.
• Hurry kills all that we hold dear: spirituality, health, marriage, family, thoughtful work, creativity, generosity … name our value. Hurry is a sociopathic predator loose in our society.

Reading Matthew Kelly’s, Slowing Down to the Speed of Joy, and John Mark Comer’s, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, makes me want to live in a more contemplative, mindful way. I don’t think I dwell in a constant state of hurry at this stage of my life, but I certainly remember times as a young mother when I was overwhelmed by my responsibilities. However, I certainly could enhance my life by adding more quiet time for prayer, contemplation, and journaling. I’m reminded that Matthew Kelly’s solution to too much hurry begins with a well-lived, peaceful Sabbath.

One last thought for the week. I wonder how many of the symptoms of hurry might also assail us from too much worry? Let’s slow down, but let’s also put our trust in God that, in spite of the existence of evil, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” (Julian of Norwich)

Slowing Down 5 – Simplicity

Simplicity

If, in our attempt to be grateful for and satisfied with what we have, we must realize the value of living simply. Fr. Dave Gutmann recommended a book on the same theme as Slowing Down to the Speed of Joy, called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, by John Mark Comer.

Comer shares some steps toward Simplicity:

1. Before you buy something, ask yourself, “What is the cost of this item?” (upkeep, maintenance, insurance, cleaning, etc.) Will it add value to my life and help me enjoy God and the world even more? Or distract me?
2. Before you buy, ask yourself, by buying this, am I oppressing the poor or harming the earth?
3. Never impulse buy. The larger the item, the longer you should wait.
4. When you do buy, opt for fewer, better things. Instead of buying a lot of cheaply (and often unjustly) made items, live without for a while and then buy a quality item that will last.
5. When you can, share, rather than buy.
6. Get into the habit of giving things away. Want a more blessed life? Give. Generously. Regularly. Less shopping means more money to share, which in turn means a more blessed life.
7. Live by a budget. A budget is to your money what a schedule is to your time. It’s a way to make sure that your “treasure” is going to the right place and not getting squandered.
8. Learn to enjoy things without owning them.
9. Cultivate a deep appreciation for creation. If materialism de-spiritualizes us, nature has the opposite effect; it re-spiritualizes our souls.
10. Cultivate a deep appreciation for the simple pleasures. Every stroll, sunrise, or good conversation with an old friend is a potential portal to the grateful enjoyment of life in God’s world.
11. Recognize advertising for what it is—propaganda. Call out the lie.
12. Lead a cheerful, happy revolt against the spirit of materialism. (Comer recommends we start with our closet.)

I tried his suggestion of going through my closet. I’ve been meaning to do this for quite a while now, and a weight change is making many of my clothes no longer “fitting.” I’m embarrassed to say, I discovered I own 24 sweaters! Now, given that I grew up in Montana, one might be able to explain owning several, but 24? In each category of clothing that I considered, I own an over-abundance.

John the Baptist exhorted, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” ^{(NIV, Luke 3:11)} The King James Version says two coats. Not quite sweaters, but close. And Dorothy Day, the prominent Catholic Worker Movement activist and writer, went a step further and said, “If you have two coats, one of them belongs to the poor.” (How’s that for inducing guilt? Not my intention, but something to ponder.)

I’m just back from delivering a carload of clothing to Goodwill. It feels good, but to be honest, my closet still holds more than I need. I can do better. I can take some of Comer’s other advice and stop impulse buying and not purchasing what I (or my grandchildren) don’t need. (Just one more stuffed animal?) I’m not sure I can go all the way to his current practice of owning two casual outfits and two Sunday outfits. I’ll take baby steps. (One of my grandchildren gave up buying things for Lent. I could learn from him.)

Is there an area of your life where the Spirit is moving you to live more simply? Maybe it’s not in the things you own, but the occupation of your time. Or the demands and expectations that you place on yourself. Or how you want to be perceived by others.

Like the old Shaker song, “Tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be free.” Or, an even better advisor…

Then [Jesus] said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions. ^{(NIV, Luke 12:15)}

Or in the parable of the sower, “Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.” ^{(NIV Mark 4: 18-19)}

Let’s not let the worries of this world, or the desire for more things, choke God’s word and make it unfruitful.

Only a little more than a week until Holy Week! May the time be a blessing to your life!