June, 2010

The slow food movement contrasts with fast food—prepared fast, eaten fast, mass produced. Besides a slow food movement, there’s a whole slow movement.

Slowing down sometimes feeds your body and your spirit. The slow movement invites people to take time for reflection and togetherness.

Take some time for a good read. Have you read Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace, One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin? How about Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri? Small Island by Andrea Levy? My Brother by Jamaica Kincaid? And what about Huston Smith’s autobiography, Tales of Wonder?

Take some time to watch the sun rise, the sunset, to sit quietly in a dark room.

Take some time to listen to birdsong, to a loved one, to someone to whom you just introduced yourself.

Take some time to write. Tell about a time you were happy, a place you love, a book that made you cry, a moment from last week, foods you most love, an ordinary object, what you want to do with your life.

Take some time to do something fun with family and friends. How about talking in gibberish, dancing, painting, playing a card game, hide and seek or tag?

Take some time to pause from your life and come to church on Sundays, look around at the people, listen to the music and your own heart beat, listen for a word that touches your soul.

Find sustenance in the ordinary gifts of your life.

Enjoy some unhurried, leisurely, deliberate, slow moments.

With loving wishes,