Scripture: Psalm 131:1-3
Journal: What impact do hurry and busyness have on your life? Why?
Reflection:
“When we are noisy and
when we are hurried, we are incapable of intimacy—deep, personal, complex
relationships. … Like children lost in the woods, the more lost we feel, the
faster we run.” ~Eugene Peterson
“It is a commonplace of
the spiritual masters that the deepest part of the soul likes to go slow, since
it seeks to savor rather than to accomplish; it wants to rest in and
contemplate the good rather than to hurry off to another place.” ~Robert Barron
"Our busyness—whether of
body or of mind—is often a distraction, a way of avoiding others, avoiding
intimacy, avoiding ourselves. We keep busy to push back our fears, our
loneliness, our self-doubt, our questions about purposes and ends. We want to
know we matter, we want to know our lives are worthwhile. And when we’re not
sure, we work that much harder, we worry that much more. In the face of our
uncertainty, we keep busy. …What is it, then, that restores us to a
better version of ourselves, that returns us to our firm sense of goodness—both
our own and the world’s? Perhaps it’s a question of grace: a reflected sunset
flares in the windows of a skyscraper, a sheet of newspaper takes flight down
an empty street, and suddenly we find ourselves in a world made luminous with
wonder. … And so it is: the world itself can call us out of our preoccupations,
our worries, our lists and agendas. In such moments our attention is arrested,
quite literally stopped, and the world seems to say to us: “Don’t just do
something, stand there.” ~Philip Simmons
Prayer
Closing
Prayer: Lord God, help me to not get running so fast
that I forget to pay attention to what you are doing right in front of my
eyes. Do not let hurry and busyness rule
my life, but let me be guided by your voice and your Spirit and your affection. Amen.
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