hurry

Caring about what you are doing is considered either unimportant or taken for granted. On this trip I think we should notice it, explore it a little, to see if in that strange separation of what man is from what man does we may have some clues as to what the hell has gone wrong in this twentieth century. I don’t want to hurry it. That itself is a poisonous twentieth century attitude. When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things. I just want to get at it slowly, but carefully and thoroughly…” (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pirsig)

Whatever (or whomever) is present and with us can often be far away. We can’t seem to get our leg up and over this one. It’s too high–this fence of distraction and hurry that stands between us and those we are with or what we may be trying to do at any given moment.

I have watched others. I have watched myself. I’ve dug below the first layers of dirt only to find the fossils of those ancient beasts that once roamed the earth. I’ve come to the conclusion that an uninterrupted conversation–an unhurried conversation–an undistracted conversation; well, they are all but extinct. Fragments remain. You can put them together and faintly make out what once was.

Can you remember the last time you were talking to someone and they gave you their full, undivided attention? They weren’t in a hurry, they didn’t interrupt, they weren’t looking around, or checking their phone?

I wonder if we lack the awareness of the value of the holy ground—those holy gifts that lay at our feet (people…friendships) At most we trip over them, much less see them or stop to pick them up. I’m talking about people. God gives us each other for the journey…to laugh, cry, fight, love, help each other along-carrying one another’s burdens. One another is what God has given us but if you’re like me, I don’t always understand, grasp it, or recognize it. I’m usually in a hurry…too many things to do.

It isn’t until something is gone that we notice it is missing. Then we realize how rich, precious, beautiful, and uniquely common it truly was. We live alongside of others all this time and then one day they are gone or moved away …or we are gone. And we would do anything to have the time back. What do we need to do to live fully in the moment with others around us?

Do you find it difficult to simply be in the place that God has you? Do you always wish to be somewhere else, even if you are not so sure where that “somewhere else” is? Do you find yourself hurrying even when there is absolutely no need to hurry?

Do you have a tendency to take the friendships and people around you right now for granted or neglect them for other things, probably not as important?