"Slow Life Fast World"

READING

From Turning to One Another, by Margaret J. Wheatley

As a species, we humans possess some unique capacities. We can stand apart from what’s going on, think about it, question it, imagine it being different. We are also curious. We want to know “why?” We figure out “how?” We think about what’s past, we dream forward to the future. We create what we want rather than just accept what is. So far, we’re the only species we know that does this.

As the world speeds up, we’re giving away these wonderful human capacities. Do you have as much time to think as you did a year ago? When was the last time you spent time reflecting on something important to you? At work, do you have more or less time now to think about what you’re doing? Are you encouraged to spend time thinking with colleagues and co-workers, or reflecting on what you’re learning?
If we can pause for a moment and see what we’re losing as we speed up, I can’t imagine that we would continue with this bargain. We’re forfeiting the very things that make us human. Our road to hell is being paved with hasty intentions. I hope we can notice what we’re losing – in our day-to-day life, in our community, in our world. I hope we’ll be brave enough to slow things down.

Margaret J. Wheatley. “Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future.” San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2002. p. 96.

SERMON

Telling you to slow down won’t help you very much if you know very well you can’t. Spiritual teachers exhort the time-honored virtues of the Sabbath, and we agree, at least in theory. A day off is a good thing. We need it. To run errands.

Very few people can observe a strict Sabbath, except those who organize the rhythms of their lives in keeping with it. Enforcing such practices is an invitation to maneuvering around them anyway. Consider the elevators at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. On Saturdays the elevators stop at every floor so that Orthodox Jews can ride them on Saturday without operating the buttons. No one just stays home for a day anymore.

The world does move too fast for our own good, however. Take this week’s story about toxic tomatoes. Our insatiable need for anything we want, such as out of season fruits and vegetables, is making us sick. I read in the Los Angeles Times that one reason why our food supply is contaminated is because it travels so far to reach us, spreading germs everywhere. [i] Even worse is the energy we spend moving it and the toxins around. It’s healthier to slow down and wait for the tomato season to arrive; better yet, to grow them ourselves and see how long that takes.

But I’m not going to tell you to do that either. I have a hard time getting to the Farmer’s Market, and it’s just down the street. And besides, we all know what we are supposed to do. We can’t do it. We are so accustomed to being rushed, to multi-tasking and expecting ourselves to be even more productive, that taking time off is a luxury many of us cannot afford. Slowing down is very, very difficult. Just to offer another humble illustration of how hard this is, my cable internet connection went down Thursday. After going through the usual routine of jump-starting it on my own, I had no choice but to call customer service, only to learn that they could not solve my problem either. I would have to wait until next Tuesday for a service person to come out and see what was wrong.

Five days without internet – that’s an eternity. I nearly cried as I tried to imagine how I would cope. As it turns out, the cable company solved the problem the next day. Saved.

I love all the conveniences that simplify life. Email, frozen food, dog walkers, TiVo. But I also note my increasing dependence on them. I’m not sure life is really simpler because of them. Rather they help me create the illusion that I am managing everything when in fact I am not.

I have nothing against technology. It may save us from ourselves someday. I’m not going to rant about slow food or living off the grid. Rather I keep thinking about how to slow down in my daily life, the small changes that could make a difference.

Here’s one thing I have learned: Pay attention. I always find this out the hard way. I’m not a fast driver, but I tend to get lost in my thoughts sometimes. I have a bad habit of hitting the right front bumper of my car while I’m driving very slowly, like in my own garage, or in the little parking space out back. I’ve been to the man who fixes these dents so many times that he usually sends me off saying, “You’ve got to be more careful.” I do.

I am consciously trying to slow down the chatter in my head, the color commentary on everything that happens, the inner parental voices scolding and praising, the little judgments I can’t stop myself from making. I turn off the radio. I breathe in, knowing that I am breathing in; I breathe out, knowing that I am breathing out. Then I park the car. It’s a small gesture at a very big problem. But just slowing the mind to concentrate is where I begin.

Here in Los Angeles, it’s probably a good idea to connect our spiritual health with our driving anyway. Most of us spend unavoidable long periods of time in the car. Hours on the freeway, even when profitably spent talking on the phone, are a tremendous drain on our spirits. But we have to work and we have to cope; paying attention and breathing consciously can help.

Still, I yearn for a different way of life. Much of what we do, such as driving, as necessary as it seems to be, harms our bodies and our souls and even the earth. In her book Turning to One Another, Margaret J. Wheatley quotes biologist E.O. Wilson: “If all humanity disappeared, the rest of life (except for pets and house plants) would benefit enormously.”[ii] Wheatley explains, “Forests would restore themselves, endangered species would slowly recover, and, in general, all life might breathe a sigh of relief that we’re gone. However, were any other major species to disappear, for example, ants, the results would be ‘major extinctions of other species and probably partial collapse of some ecosystems.’ The whole earth would suffer if it lost any other species except humans.”[iii]

We are the lethal element, running amok, failing to live compatibly with nature. This sobering reality should affect us spiritually. Even when we think we are struggling to keep up we may in fact be doing exactly the opposite, bringing ourselves and everything else down with us. Slowing down could help, but only if we do it together. One of the problems facing those of us who yearn for a different way of life is that we can’t do it on our own. We can pay attention to small things, breathe in and out, try to manage what is already spinning out of control. But these are only mental tricks that do little to change the big picture.

If we really want to slow down, we have to look not just at our own lives but at the way of life we lead together. There is a spiritual element to this eco-disaster in which we find ourselves, an inability to do anything about what is happening, even as conditions worsen. It is what Pablo Neruda called “this huge sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death.” Anything would be better than that. Neruda says, “if we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt” this tragic course we travel. A huge silence. A great big breathing in and breathing out. Sitting still until we could see and feel who we really are and what we have to do – or be – next.

When I think about my own life, I have to wonder now what I have missed by being so busy. I don’t regret my work or the challenges I’ve faced. I would do it all again. Just a little more slowly. Perhaps allowing more time for silence. I would like to learn how to “interrupt this sadness” Neruda identified at the heart of the human condition, an inability to understand ourselves, and thus to threaten ourselves with death.

When people ask me what I am going to do with my retirement, I never know what to say. I don’t want to “do” life; I want to be alive. Is that some sort of new retirement hobby? I don’t know. Maybe I won’t be able to endure the silence, the slowing down of every day. But I want to pay attention. I seek knowledge of a different kind, the experience of living when there is nothing that needs to be done. (Apart from the home improvement projects, the cooking lessons, maybe growing a few tomatoes.) I’ll be busy enough.

But this slowing down, this huge silence to interrupt the sadness, is the great mystery I seek now to explore. Where it will take me I do not know. Surely nowhere fast, but somewhere good.

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[i] http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rutten11-2008jun11,0,865799.column

[ii] Margaret J. Wheatley. "Turning to One Another." San Francisco: Berrertt-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2002. p. 106

[iii] Ibid., p. 106.