Savoring — a modern fast from speed

Pace

An ongoing struggle in my adult life is what I refer to as “pace”. I have a slow walking pace. Whenever I am walking with another person I almost inevitably walk slower of the two of us. I learned after college that, although I can run the so-called 5 minute mile in life, more commonly known as the “rat race”, there is something in me that only opens up when I purposefully slow the pace of my life down. I am designed for a slower pace. I derive great benefit from long, slow walks near the Sacramento River; of seeing the birds, of listening to the gentle rippling of the water, of enjoying nature. My best times of unpacking my entire person and receiving God’s love, of hearing from Him and gaining wisdom and insight, seem to come in these contexts. Like a flower that opens to face the sun and closes at night, my spirit opens and is able to give and receive when I am able to live life at the right pace. Once the pace quickens, like a flower at night something in my spirit closes up to shelter the inner man, and I shift to survival mode.

Slow TV

Instead of drowning out its viewers’ inner lives, it seems to want to be a backdrop that can give rise to their own reflection…

There is a movement popular in Norway called Slow TV, where television footage of seemingly mundane events is filmed and shown in its entirety, at a 1:1 time scale to real life. Slow TV runs counter to the Hollywood focus of “moving the plot forward” diligently, oftentimes ruthlessly. The absurdity of this genre when juxtaposed with movies like Marvel’s Avengers, reveals on the one hand the extent of our American culture’s preoccupation with explosions and lasers, and on the other hand the resistance of part of our humanity (at least Norwegian humanity) to the full-court press of post-modern ideologies foisted on us in the mad rush of the western world.

Slow television reminds me to hearken to the invitation to live with appropriate time and space; to create a context for these. In order to read and understand a book, there must be appropriate spaces between the lines and spaces for the margins on the ends of the pages. Otherwise we lose the forest of the story through the trees of a jumbled mishmash of words and letters.

Sabbath rest.

Selah moments.

Pauses.

Planned outages.

Disruptions in service.

When we choose to synchronize our lives to the gate of a fast-paced and production oriented culture, something precious can be lost. There is a meandering in thought and relationships that creates a richness in texture that in turn provides a springboard, a launchpad into the higher plain, feeding the outer-focused production portion of our lives. Without this slower, inner world, we can find we bring almost nothing but stress to our outer world.

Savoring

How are we designed by God to live? One way to answer this question is: at what pace do we come alive? Conversely, at what pace do we cease thriving and begin to just survive? At what point does increasing the pace reduce the productivity? When do we see the law of diminishing returns begin to occur?

From Sapphire Leadership’s Noble Subjects blog:

By contrast, the Mercy gift craves a season of savoring, of talking through the process, after something that big was “finalized.” There is often not room for such savoring in the frantic environment of the marketplace , so the Mercy gift will go home and do the blow-by-blow of the day with his or her spouse, as a form of reliving and savoring the most salient points of the process.

To savor a victory, a win, is a key part of productivity. As a software developer, I observe that the current in the workplace generally flows toward continual, unrelenting, inexorable activity. When a piece of software is completed or a big problem is solved we jump right into the next item on the list. What is needed is to pause and savor, to recount, to remember, to celebrate (or grieve). Like a fine wine paired with a meal, celebration takes the cheapness away from living off the basic protein diet of productivity.

How to savor?

In a teaching on PTSD I recently listened to there was a three step mental process articulated that can help sufferers from past trauma (and I daresay the rest of us als0) build and rebuild positive thought pathways:

1. Anticipate

First, anticipate the pending experience. As a software developer, I orbit, I circle the problem I am trying to solve. I anticipate potential solutions. As Emily Dickinson said “my business is circumference” as I ruminate and search for opportunities and insight.

2. Experience

Second, experience it. Solve the problem. Close the deal. Press through until there is breakthrough. Don’t settle for a 90% solution. Do the hard work to see the details wrapped up. This is something many of us in the workplace already do somewhat well and often.

3. Savor

Finally, savor the experience. Celebrate the win. Party. Enjoy. Remember. Laugh.

We work so hard. It can be bad for our long term health and motivation if we do not create positive feedback loops that reinvest and re-establish the emotional and physical nutrients we lost during the experience step. This savoring gives us pause, gives us joy, and provides us with resources to repeat the cycle without losing heart.

A declaration and a prayer

I choose to purposefully operate in self-control and slow the pace of my life.

God, help me to to choose the pace at which I will live my life rather than having life choose the pace for me. Show me the spaces, places, and times that will help me to adjust the pace of my life so that, instead of grinding it out or white knuckling my way through or just surviving life, I am thriving in the midst of it.