Slow

 I dont know if any of you saw it but the past three days BBC4 has been showing a documentary about Benedictine monks.  The whole programme was filmed in silence.  No soundtrack, no music, no commentary - just the monks doing their everyday thing occasionally interspersed with some text explaining the Rule of St Benedict or who is on the screen doing what.  As the monks rarely speak it is an almost entirely silent programme.  ' A wise man is known by the fewness of his words' St Benedict.  Each evening a different monastery has been shown - and I have to confess to being surprised at how many monks we still have in the UK silently caring for huge and ancient monastic buildings, making honey and mead, painting icons, sewing surplices, making rosaries, attending eight services a day ( some in Latin, some in English depending on the monastery) and only eating meat on Sundays and holidays.   Almost as soon as I started watching it I was speaking silently in tongues- as though something in my spirit was witnessing to the holiness of the life these people are leading.  Which is interesting, because in some ways my head is telling me that the monastic life is....well.... in a funny way perhaps a bit self indulgent? Or maybe selfish?  But then of course it can't be that because these people have given up all worldly things in order to live lives of prayer and contemplation.   Hmmmmmmm.

One thing that really stood out to me as I watched the almost completely silent and utterly uncomplicated lives of the monks is that there is no hurry.  At all.  Ever.   They live their lives slowly. They pray and work and sleep at the same times every day and there is no need to rush.  They walk slowly.  They eat slowly.  They pray slowly. And there is a huge sense of peace in the steady unhurried way they live.

Over this year we have all been forced to slow down.  Many of us are no longer dashing off to work, rushing to visit family and friends, keeping appointments, trying to get all the kids in the car in time for church. It has all been stripped back and we have found life has become slower.  With slowness comes either an appreciation of the small details we often miss, a settling into a more easy rhythm , or frustration and guilt at our lack of productivity and achievement.  I'm pretty sure that we were not designed to live life at the pace we now seem forced to live it.  Or at the volume.  It has taken me the best part of a year to stop feeling guilty at doing not much and to start to enjoy the solitude and silence in my day.  But Im now starting to see the value.  

Are you a human being or a human doing?  

Perhaps this past year God has stepped in to force us all to slow down.  He has given us time to smell the roses, watch the birds, listen to our children, appreciate our parents, take up calligraphy or painting or baking - all those things we have always wanted to do but never had the time.  During the first lockdown the lack of traffic outside my house was so noticeable.  The lack of planes in the sky still is. How much of what we have been forced to cut out of our lives was really necessary?  It won't be long until we are all allowed back to ' normal'.   How much of ' normal' is needed and how much is extraneous distraction which disturbs our inner peace and drowns out the still small voice of God?  How much stress, hurry, noise and 'stuff' are we going to allow back in?  Inevitably it will be some.  So this Lent let's enjoy the slow whilst we still can.