For the last six years or so, I have carried around a small blue notebook. It isn’t my journal. But every now and then, I’ll be at some seminar or watching a YouTube video, and I’ll hear a phrase or an insight that I think really is worth noting down. Out comes the notebook, and the (usually) spiritual gem is captured. Of course, I always intend to reopen the notebook when there is more time and reflect on its gathered wisdom. The trouble is, the notebook only ever comes out when there’s something new to write in! I can’t remember a single time I pored over its pages and gleaned its treasures. Until last week.
I was attending a training course with Rev Dr Stephen Robinson – the well-known lecturer in Disaster and Recoveries Ministries. I’d heard him speak before at previous chaplaincy training events – and I keep a copy of his Lessons from the Edge textbook on my shelf. And it wasn’t long before he said something that I wanted to write down, to review later. He mentioned the importance of Philippians 4:14, and how it doesn’t take anything at all from Philippians 4:13, yet says a great deal about the practice of chaplaincy. I pulled out the little blue notebook – “I want to meditate on this some more,” I thought…
But then, as I flicked through to find a blank page, I spotted a wonderful quote from Leunig that I’d jotted down at some point: “Nothing can be loved at speed. God lead us to the slow path…” Nothing can be loved at speed. If we’re in the business of loving, we simply can’t rush it. Love needs nurturing and steady growth. Relationships take their time. Broken things don’t get fixed in an instant. Bruised people don’t heal overnight. But we’re so used to rushing about, doing a million things at breakneck speed with barely time to stop and to really connect with the task at hand. Our whole lives, our working week, our society seems, to be moving faster and faster.
I myself get so caught up in activity, I have such little time simply to be. I think it was Stephen Furtick who said, “God can only fill up what we bring to Him empty.” My list of activities never seems to shrink. I arrive at prayer dragging my huge sack of Things To Remember & Do. And God says, Olly, where is there room amidst all that for Me? I’m familiar with Merton’s warnings about the overworking, the rush, and the pressures of modern life. We’re all affected by it. I’m guilty of it.
But in Scripture we read, “Be still and know that I Am God.” Be still and know. The knowing follows the stillness. It’s not the other way around. Elsewhere in Scripture we read: “Desire without knowledge is not good, and one who moves too hurriedly misses the way.” Let your love flow from knowledge, and gain your knowledge slowly. Take time. Don’t rush. Be still and know… Brother Lawrence says, “we must know before we love, and to know God we must often think of Him. And when we love Him, we shall think of Him all the more, for our heart is where our treasure is.” Treasure comes from loving, loving comes from knowing, and knowing comes from the slow path.
Henri Nouwen’s prayer speaks into this: “You, O Lord, will give me all the attention I need if I would simply stop [rushing about] and start listening to you. I know that in the silence of my heart you will speak to me and show me your love. Give me, O Lord, that silence. Let me be patient and grow slowly into this silence in which I can be with you. Amen.” To grow slowly – I love that. Just like Leunig’s “slow path.”
And the slow path by its very nature cannot be rushed or grasped in a single sitting. Scripture tells us the whole world cannot contain all that could be written about God. Jesus said to His disciples: “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them [all] now.” So much to know. We’ve barely scratched the surface along our slow pilgrimage. Like Dickinson says, “The Truth must dazzle gradually or every man be blind.” We need a daily, hourly, moment-by-moment journey of revelation along the slow path.
Jesus urged His disciples to retreat, saying, “Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” And Jesus has been saying this to us for two thousand years: come as you are – hungry, thirsty, heavy-laden with burdens – and find rest in My presence; “learn from me;” find comfort in My words – meditate on them – “write them on your hearts.” And Jesus has been saying this to me: “come with Me by yourself to a quiet place and get some rest.” But I have this list of 14 things to do by teatime… “Come with Me by yourself to a quiet place and get some rest.” But the list of things isn’t going to manage itself… “Come with Me by yourself to a quiet place and get some rest… Be still and know…”
I can’t help but think that I’ve written all of this before. There’s a lesson for me here. One that isn’t to be learned at speed, but in the slow steps of faithful following and reminding. Yesterday afternoon I took in a bushwalk in the nearby hills. It meant a second consecutive night of working well after midnight, but I wanted to see how the Large Duck Orchids were doing in their secret spot. They’re well on their way now, and will be flowering by the end of the month. But they’re not rushing, apparently content with their own slow growing. They are teaching their own lesson. Just as the wise people and their words that have filled up my small blue notebook. I love the hymn In the Garden. We used to sing it as a family on car journeys. I occasionally picked it for Eldercare church services when I was a chaplain there.
I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear, falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses
And He walks with me
And He talks with me
And He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known
The joy we share as we tarry there. My dictionary says that to tarry is to linger in expectation. Growing slowly. Loving slowly. Lingering in expectation. Like Leunig says, “nothing can be loved at speed. God lead us to the slow path…”
Scripture refs. Ps 46:10, Prov 19:2, Jn 21:25, Jn 16:12, Mk 6:31, Rev 22:17, Mt 11:28-29, Jer 31:33.
“Ministry in Disaster Settings: Lessons from the Edge” is by Rev Dr Stephen Robinson
The Leunig quote can be found here: https://www.leunig.com.au/8-works
Stephen Furtick can be followed on Facebook and YouTube
“Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander” is by Thomas Merton
“Practicing the Presence of God” is by Brother Lawrence
“A cry for Mercy” is by Henri J M Nouwen.
Poem “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant” is by Emily Dickinson
The hymn “In the Garden” is by C. Austin Miles