Slow Down

The din is everywhere.  We're surrounded by noise: honking horns, radios blaring, music broken by announcements in department stores, television.  We seem obsessed with filling the silence with sound of some sort.

Perhaps it's to drown out the clamor of our own thoughts.  Alone, we might face our inner emptiness - isolation - loneliness.  Or worse yet, think about important things like life, mortality, immortality.

Or it could be to distract us from the cruel irony of our own tyrannical self-imposed schedules and demands.  I mean, does it REALLY matter if the dishes get done before 7 pm or if a tea towel is not hung up nicely on the rack? Or if we do three hours of voluntary overtime or just one?  Come on! 

I grew up feeling guilty when I was idle.  Gotta fill that time with activity.  Gotta be productive, gotta have something to show for having lived another hour.  I've seen the stress people in my life have put themselves through - the ulcers for which some have been on medication for years - with this kind of attitude.  And I have to question: is it really worth it?

Sometimes I wonder if we might be better served by carving out some time in our busy schedules to slow down and relax.  To listen.  To spend quality time with the people who matter most to us.  To turn off the radio or the TV, to unplug from this wired world and just enjoy the moment.  No plans.  No agendas.  No expectations.

When I find my stomach in knots, when I'm clenching my teeth in my sleep, I know that my life is more about being a "human doing" rather than a "human being".  

That's when I need to take time away from the tumult and pace of my frenzied surroundings, the demands of the daily mundane but self-important tasks that insist on having my attention - and focus instead on God.  On my relationship with Him.  On His relationship with me. On my relationship with myself (often most forgotten in the hubbub.) I need to connect with the people closest to me.  To concentrate on those people and things which will outlast the hurry and scurry of this hamster-wheel of modern life.  In doing so I will regain that lost sense of peace I didn't even know was missing - until I went looking for it.