Dear Friends,
Each day, I receive a daily reflection from Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation. This past Monday’s post by CAC staff member Barbara Holmes, invited us to slow down. You can read the post post here.
In a time when we seem to sprint from one crisis, one fire to the next, Holmes quotes philosopher and scholar, Bayo Akomolafe, who wrote,
“To ‘slow down’… seems like the wrong thing to do when there’s fire on the mountain. But here’s the point: in ‘hurrying up’ all the time, we often lose sight of the abundance of resources that might help us meet today’s most challenging crises. We rush through the same patterns we are used to. Of course, there isn’t a single way to respond to a crisis; there is no universally correct way. However, the call to slow down works to bring us face to face with the invisible, the hidden, the unremarked, the yet-to-be-resolved….”
As someone who can struggle to slow down, I read this call as an invitation to a new spiritual discipline – a chance to pause, to breathe, to think, to pray.
Slowing down allows us to linger over a meaningful conversation, to re-read a chapter in a favorite book, to enjoy watching our child at the playground, to more deeply explore where we are called by God, and to bask in knowing ourselves to be fully seen and heard by God. What a gift.
As we approach the start of a long weekend, which for many may mean a few days off from work, barbecues, and time with family and friends, may we remember that slowing down is a practice, a sacred practice, a gift we can bring to our dearest relationships.
While the office will be closed for the holiday on Monday and Tuesday, we are looking forward to a full Sunday of wonderful music, more wrestling with challenging passages in Genesis, and time to gather as God’s beloved people.
Hope to see you Sunday.
All my best,
Courtney+