Living Thoughtfully and Slow

I sat down to slowly unravel the gross nest of nettle fibers, gently shaking and tugging threads from one another. After about 40 minutes of this, I texted a fiber friend of mine: how many times do you think it will take me to never try to use my warping board as a lazy way to wind my yarn? I waited for the running dots to reveal her response, and in true-blue friend honesty, the answer popped up: I bet you do it eight more times.

My curious and creative enthusiasm often runs ahead of my abilities, and when I say I value “thoughtful and slow living” it’s because I rather find it a mysterious and elusive state in which to abide. My default is to rush and check off all of the boxes, rather than to be still and know that everything in time belongs to God. It is a battle to move gracefully and even more so to think thoughtfully, and not allow the minutes of a clock to drive me fastEr fastEr fastEr.

And yet it is one thing to desire intentionality and presence in life; it is another to put activities and routines into practice to cause it to be so. Do you want to dress more thoughtfully and beautifully? Learn to knit or sew your own clothing, or to weave your own cloth. Do you want a healthier body? Learn to cook and bake from scratch, choosing ingredients thoughtfully. Do you want to be more mindful of satiation? Then learn to chew (food AND media) slowly, savoring, undistracted by mindless scrolling or driving (or, God forbid, mindless scrolling AND driving). In other words, wherever you are feeling rushed, pushed, stressed, frantic, or pulled by some uncontrollable circumstance, notice that feeling and pay it some attention and what it is trying to say to you. Just because you push it aside and ignore it doesn’t mean it goes away; it just means it buries itself deeper and causes you more problems in life.

You can stop for a few minutes. You can consider even the one thing you want to be more thoughtful about. You can get out fresh paper and a sharp pencil and write down all the feels of how you want to live your one and precious life. Very few of us are completely without agency and options, even in this time of narrowing choices and opportunities. It’s (still, as always and ever will be until Jesus returns) a mad world, but God still reigns and we are still His illuminaries. So go bake a cake for someone. Spend a few hours reading–or writing–a novel. Take a soaking bath. Learn something hard and new. Clean your house with love instead of conquering it as an enemy. Create something with your hands. Plant something simply for the pleasure it brings. Do something kind for someone in your own household. Write an encouraging and edifying letter and pop it in the mail (as I write this, my son has brought me snail mail from the post office!). Nothing changes until you and I change, even if it takes you–and I–another eight times of screwing it up as we learn.

In other words, put something purposefully unrushed into practice. You may find, as many have, that time expands in such a state of slow living, and that you actually get to do and enjoy everything of value to you after all. If you belong to Jesus, it’s simply day one of eternity, so there’s no rush whatsoever anyhow.

I stopped picking at the nettle fibers, set it all in my lap, and looked out of the window. It was a grey day, fog wisps wrapping around mossy maple limbs and I watched the chickadees taking turns flitting from the lichen-covered twigs to our sunflower seed bird feeder. Maybe next time I’ll use the yarn winder to get this done without knots. But if I don’t, at least I won’t miss the fibers running oh so slowly through my fingers as I listen to the happy chippy birds.

Are you doing anything whatsoever to live more thoughtfully and slow? I’d love to hear about it and how it’s going.

Blessings,