Speeding Up, Slowing Down

Do you ever feel like the world is moving too quickly? Like you are on a train, and everything is whizzing by faster and faster. People, faces, meetings, words, journeys, cities, dinners, emails. They blur towards you and away from you. You keep moving – walking faster, sometimes running, to keep up – although your legs are tired. You have no time to sit still. No time to figure out what all of this means.

The world moves by quickly, too quickly for most of us. We move along with it, catching up, so we don’t fall on the wayside.

This is the first time I have had in ages to sit, write, and think, without feeling hurried.

I am in Istanbul, in a gorgeous apartment in Beyoğlu. Rachmaninov is playing in the background. It is a cold, wintry day. The sun is shining over this layered, ancient city which unfolds before me where the shimmering waves of the Golden Horn meet the Bosphorus.

The Süleymaniye Mosque dominates the skyline, its slender minarets encased in scaffolding. To its left stands the Beyazit Tower, marking the location of Istanbul University. Further still are the Blue Mosque and the Haghia Sophia, which stand majestically as sunlight streams through parting clouds.

I am in the bustling city where Europe meets Asia – where Constantine established his seat of power in the 1st century and the Ottoman Empire flourished from the 15th-18th centuries. In modern Turkey, Istanbul throngs with activity. Shop keepers and tourists haggle over delicately painted ceramics and coloured glass lamps. City dwellers buy cheese, olives, spices, bread, socks and underwear at colourful bazaars. Taxis make crazy turns on busy streets, winding down dusty windows to ask for directions. The azan resounds from mosque to mosque in mingling harmonies. Just a few streets away, whirling dervishes spin ceremoniously twice a week.

The juxtaposition between the ancient and modern (the Galata Tower, dating back to the 6th century, is right next door) reinforces questions that have been playing on my mind lately.

What am I doing now that will stand the test of eternity?

Are the emails I send, the reports I review, the meetings I attend, important? Will they lead to anything fruitful?

Will the debates and controversies that dominate our conversations today make history?

Will the worries that play on my mind slip away like coloured mists in the unfolding of time?

We, human beings, are capable of the magnificent and the mundane. We are able to do things that mean nothing at all and that which mean absolutely everything. With our hands and words we can affirm and deny, caress and violate, give and take away. We are lovers and haters, doers and mockers, creators and destroyers. We are spiritual beings in physical bodies.

The world moves by quickly, too quickly for most of us. We move along with it, catching up, so we don’t fall on the wayside.

There was man who sought solitude when the world pressed upon him. As the crowds made its demands, he would go away, praying for hours, watching through the night into the early morning.

He always came back to the crowds. His heart was moved with compassion when he saw them in their need. He didn’t turn away, isolating himself in perpetual retreat. He ministered to the sick, lifted the burdens of the weary, drove out spirits, gave freedom to prisoners.

Jesus’ times of solitude, as he prayed for direction, were marked with communion and intimacy. He sought the will the Father, doing only what the Father wanted, drawing strength from Him. Through these times of prayer, he practiced submission.

Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.

He bade his disciples to continue his work, loving one another as he loved them.

I have come to realise that often, I will not have all the answers I want to the many questions I have about this life, about my life. Yet I already know what I need to know in order to take the the next step.

I know that the value of what we do is marked not by what lasts in the physical world, but whether these were done out of love and in obedience to the Father. Jesus showed us this most excellent way.

If I speak in tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

I know that the most important skill to learn, in the face of unending uncertainty, is how to have faith and trust in God. We will continue in our ‘not-knowing’, there will be a multitude of events we cannot foresee, that we cannot understand. But our protection comes not from our own knowing or doing, it comes from Him, the One Eternal who is our refuge and our strength.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.

The world will continue moving, working, spinning, and changing around us. We will only be able to keep on going if we are able to slow down inside ourselves and stay focused on what is truly constant.

What do we keep our eyes fixed upon? Where do we turn to for meaning and understanding? Who can we rely upon?

This is what we need to consider as we slow ourselves down, in order in order to live a life of meaning.

Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.