麻豆社

Is 鈥楾wenty Plenty鈥�? There鈥檝e been competing arguments ahead of the urban speed limit shifting down from 30 to 20 in Wales tomorrow. It鈥檚 a balance, it seems, between lives saved and productivity lost.

But in terms of spiritual practice, at least, I can鈥檛 help feeling it鈥檚 an invitation.

Recently I found myself, in a rush, stuck behind the dustbin lorry. No way past. My racing mind automatically berated them - Come on!

But with time to pause, I recalled how we鈥檇 made cards for these same people during Covid - and with a wry smile, I felt that toxic urgency start to dissipate, and I began to savour this going nowhere fast.

Perhaps you feel the frustration when you have to slow down in a 20 mph zone. So many of us, if we鈥檙e honest, want to get from A to B without passing 鈥楪o'. And it often takes being held up to notice that compulsive inner rush; as well as to find what can happen if we practice, in the moment, slowing well - taking a breath, relaxing the body, noticing all that鈥檚 鈥榟ere鈥� which so often flashes past us in a blur.

Life doesn鈥檛 have to be an endless charge of getting through this, just to get through that.

When the great Christian philosopher Dallas Willard was asked by a young man how to become spiritually healthy, he paused for some time, before replying: 鈥淵ou must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.鈥�

鈥淲hat else?鈥� the man said.
鈥淭here is nothing else,鈥� replied Willard.

Other simple practices can help. News may have come, this week, of an even faster acting tea-bag, designed to make a fully brewed cuppa in less than a minute - but it reminds me that what makes a soulful, unhurried tea-break restorative lies, in part, in the process of its very making.

In the end, the end-point of our life鈥檚 journey itself is shaped by the way we choose to make it. Imagine the difference to those you鈥檙e meeting, today, if you arrive un-hurried, with loving attention.

鈥楲ove has its speed,鈥� says the theologian Kosuke Koyama, who notes that Jesus himself was pedestrian, as he drew alongside others. 鈥業t is an inner speed,鈥� he says. 鈥楾he speed the love of God walks.鈥�

Well, if the way to catch up with God, or just ourself today, is to slow down, then maybe that new Welsh speed limit might be a prompt. It would only add one minute to an average journey, after all, but what a precious minute that could be, when we pause to take it in.

Show less