Presence and wanderings
In August 2018 my body decided it had had enough rushing for one lifetime and put me very decisively under a blanket. I stayed there for a few months and then slowly my shrunken life grew to the size of a house and then a few miles. My body had slowed right down. However, this does not mean that my mind had slowed down. I was confronted by my own inability to slow down mentally. When my body was still I noticed that my mind was the source of the rushing. It was pounding me like an oncoming train. Constantly living in analysis of the past or trying to control the future, I began to notice that my mind was a power house. It was driving me out of the moment, producing a furious pace in my life. And in that place of facing my crazy internal hurry, God began to speak to me about a different pace. A wandering, walking pace. A sustainable pace. A pace marked by presence.
Lying in the unruly grass in our back garden I am watching the clouds sail slowly past. I am taken by their pace. They are not really going anywhere specific are they? They are playing a different game, unperturbed by the frantic world beneath them, so full of bluster and haste. They are just being clouds. They are just going where they are going. No rush.
Jesus was not a rusher. When he was on earth he walked. And not only that but he refused to be hurried, choosing to disappoint people rather than be forced into missing the moment he was in. I love it when he doesn’t rush to rescue the leader’s child in Luke 8 but gives his time and his attention first to an invisible, desperate woman, hidden in the crowd. Then he goes to the girl. He’s a moment by moment kind of man. He does ONE thing at a time. He is fully present.
I am not like that. I am unable to focus on one thing for very long. We could spend all day talking about how rubbish our attention spans are and how little we engage with what’s right in front of us. I am sucked into tomorrow by my phone, distracted into people’s lives other than my own. I am off chasing dreams for the future by buying stuff to guarantee a nice day tomorrow...but why bother planning a nice holiday if I won’t be able to attend it because I am too anxious or too absent to enjoy it. How can I hope to catch God’s presence if I am not present myself? He might be there - but I am not.
When I come to spend time with Jesus I feel I am so often like Mary when Jesus had just come back from the dead. I am looking for something that is staring me in the face.
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried (Jesus) away, tell me where you have put him and I will get him.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
John 20:15
I keep coming back to this passage because I find the simplicity of it so staggering and so counter to what I often think meeting Jesus is like.
I often come to Jesus ready to rush off to wherever and whatever he needs me to do so I can connect with him. But he just says, “Katy.” Because I’m missing it! I’m missing the moment he’s in, because I’m too busy rushing off to find him.
Perhaps that’s always the reason for my rush. I am desperately chasing after things that will give me the Peace I need to be still. But in doing so I miss that peace - I miss the one who is my peace. I am always busy getting things done so that I can be finished and be present. But in doing so I miss every place that Jesus was along the way.
In the Old Testament, the Israelites are freed dramatically and beautifully from slavery in Egypt only to spend 40 years chasing God’s presence around the desert. He takes the form of a cloud by day and a fire by night.
“In the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from the tabernacle (the tent where God’s presence was) they would set out; but if the cloud did not lift they did not set out until the day it lifted.” Exodus 40:36-37
The Israelites were basically playing a game of follow the cloud. Wherever God’s presence was, they went too. This is a beautiful image of what life can be like for us. We can become children who look for the presence of God everywhere we go. We can look for him in everything. We can chase his cloud. This is not about riding away to a holiday place where we don’t have to deal with normal life. Life is hard. And life is very full of people and worthwhile activity. But we don’t have to rush, letting our minds and feelings race ahead or be busy elsewhere. We want to see Jesus in every moment. We want to be with him where he is.
Avoidance of pain was one of the primary reasons I did not want to slow down for such a long time. I found that if I lived my life on fast forward, doing as many things as possible as quickly as possible, there wasn’t time to be anxious or face myself or my pain. That was how I liked it. When I was at home with two little ones I would do twenty things at a time - making breakfast and a picnic, swigging coffee, washing in and washing up, filling up the slow cooker, all while keeping two under twos as happy as possible, and also texting a couple of people to sort out the activity that we would be starting when I left the house. By the time I left the house I was already ready for the day to end. I thought this was how it had to be! I did not want to see what happened if I left a blank space. I assumed I would collapse. Which basically I did a few years on. But the great thing is that Jesus was in the collapsing! I had to collapse to rebuild. I was avoiding the present because I was avoiding myself. But when I faced myself, I began to find a whole new depth of connection with Jesus. I began to connect to him with my whole self, not just the bit that wasn’t busy analysing the previous thing or planning the next.
I have realised over the last few months how much there is to this pace overhaul. It is a big deal. There are rhythm changes and priority changes: I need to practice spending time unplanned; I need to practice time with Jesus. There is healing to be had in the places that I was avoiding; careful attention that needs to be paid to the things that I was chasing after before. I am unlearning how to multitask and be over-productive. I used to live in numbness to everything I achieved, never feeling the benefit of contributing as joy but always feeling relief that I ticked something off my list. “I just want to get it done” is never a brilliant reason for doing anything - it’s so hard to meet Jesus in the activities where we are just trying to finish them. I am practicing doing one thing before I plan or start another. I am trying to give my full attention to my children and to the thing I am doing. I am more active now, but I am trying not to let it drag me away from the present. You can be very active but still be at Jesus’ pace. Because Jesus was often doing. Pace isn’t about how much we do but about how we do it. But the how much might have to change to make sure we can still participate in our own lives.
At Jesus’ pace, the one thing at a time pace, I am fully present to disappointment and pain and joy and most beautifully of all, his presence. At the wanderers’ pace I am not rushing to achieve, but receiving from his hand. At cloud pace I can breathe, I can be simply and plainly myself and most of all I can connect with his presence. For this is the magical place I’ve been looking for. The place of stillness, fullness and completeness. The place of being loved. The place of belonging. The place where curiosity, play and imagination flourish. The place where we find out who we are and who he is. I don’t just want to visit him on a Sunday. I don’t just want to stop off for a quiet time. I want to live with him, walk with him, sail with him, every moment of my every day.
Cloud Pace
Today I am sailing at cloud pace.
In an unhurried sky.
I’m sitting atop it, unchartered, unseen.
Let the world hasten by.
Don’t rush me please. I am lingering.
At the speed of a dream.
Not chasing on off to a something somewhere.
It’s the pace of the free.
If you are important, go past me.
I hope you make it in time
Whilst you are filling your every last moment,
I’m just holding mine.
I feel things different astride my cloud,
I am noticing more.
Big thoughts take off like unleashed birds
Their shadows graze the floor.
Let the kind wind adventure to where he will.
Let him carry me too.
Let him dance me over and under and through.
I want to fly with you.
Katy x
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