The most productive thing I have done with my two "cold days" off from teaching (The cynics among my readership will at this point cry "Well, it certainly hasn't been posting on your blog like you promised" -- feedback duly noted) has been to start a book my father gave me for Christmas called Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies. I plan on posting a full review when I finish, but I wanted to offer some reflections it has provoked in me so far.
We live in a culture which worships speed and efficiency. If I don't get my hamburger 30 seconds after ordering, I sigh and tap my foot and wonder what the world's come to. Sadder still, I rage, rage (and sometimes even curse) when the Internet -- the Internet! -- fails to load at a speed commensurate with my oh so important and hectic schedule. Hello, my name is Asher, and I am addicted to speed. (My lawyer counsels that at this point I pause to clarify with utter certitude that I mean speed as in alacrity, not speed as in the harmful drug -- especially since some of my students apparently have started to read this.)
(Not the author of this post)
The truth is, I live for instant gratification. Anything short of immediacy burdens me with its inconvenience. The past few years I have consistently chosen ease over the more rewarding path. My immediate reaction on sitting down on my couch is, I am sad to say, not to reach for a book but to grab the computer or remote.
My main resolution (much as I disdain the term) then is to simply slow down my life. Thankfully the process has already begun. Since getting married, I have become preoccupied with cooking as a leisure activity. I have always enjoyed cooking, but what I have discovered is the joy present in slow deliberation in the kitchen, in taking the time to do things well. Eschew short cuts in the kitchen -- they rarely pay off. The long simmering sauce is (in general) the most flavorful and rewarding. My guru in this has been Robert Farrar Capon, author of the strange yet wonderful cookbook/food memoir/spiritual meditation Supper of the Lamb (a book I am hoping to review alongside Andrew in our first real collaborative effort for this blog). In the book Capon warns against "tin fiddles", contraptions which promise to take the work out of cooking. But remove the labor and you lose not only taste but the very essence of cooking. Good cooking is a process which takes time; not only takes but gives, gives time for reflection, meditation, that simmering of the mind and hands which gives off a heavenly aroma.
So I am slowing down the way I produce food (and also, hopefully, the rate at which I eat it. I am a notorious, self confessed scarfer. Some primordial urge prods me to wolf down food at an alarming rate. This year I pledge to slow down the process, to truly savor each bite I take in to my body). But food is far from the only area which merits the cultivation of better habits. Caring for Words has confronted me with the need to treasure and savor the words I use. Too often I take the path of least resistance, fall back on lazy usage, pick an adequate word instead of the perfect word. My thought, speech, and writing are dwarfed versions of what they could be if I took the time to be contemplative.
Lectio Divina is the monastic practice of reading through Scripture contemplatively, of pausing in places to really suck the meaning from the verses as a dog worries a bone. I love to read Scripture, even to study it, but I rarely take the time to let it sink deeply into my life. Therefore lectio divina is an important part of my resolution for the year. Hand in hand with this is the need to create areas of silence in my life. Confession: silence makes me uncomfortable. When I encounter silence I feel like I have slammed into a wall: I emerge with my nose out of joint and feeling altogether put out. But silence, pure deep silence, is a precious gift. One of my favorite quotes comes from Kierkegaard's Journal, where he says:
The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and were asked for my advice, I should reply: Create silence! Bring men to silence. The Word of God cannot be heard in the noisy world of today. And even if it were blazoned forth with all the panoply of noise so that it could be heard in the midst of all the other noise, then it would no longer be the Word of God. Therefore create silence.
Silence creates the space we need for grace to act. Create silence. But, having created silence, speak. Conversation is another part of my resolution. Conversation which moves and breathes deeply, conversation which blows the dust off of our lives and dives in deep to the inner places. I desire to take the time to really know people, not rush through my interactions with them at a hurried pace. Extended face time tends to make me twitchy or unsettled, but this year I resolve to take the time to listen, really listen, and to speak when the time is right. To invite people into my life in ways that matter. To appreciate the slow winding of a conversation that takes a few hours to find its real center. People and relationships matter so much more than whatever small, self-centered agenda I have set for the day.
These then are my resolutions. Really they united in one purpose: helping me slow down my world, which spins so fast that I am constantly thrown off balance. Will you, my readers, help as I stubbornly devote myself to this task?
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