Grace-Filled Rhythms for Life

 

Following the World Methodist Conference in Gothenburg, Sweden, Robin and I have been traveling around Scandinavia—a part of the world we have never been before. We have been taking trains and boats as we have traveled. One train trip—from north of the Arctic Circle to the city of Trondheim—was 10 hours long. The boat trip was 30 hours!

The gears in my busy life suddenly turned slowly. You can’t rush a train or speed up a boat! Instead, I felt myself—mind, body, and soul—learn new rhythms as I felt myself rocked by our conveyances

This is such a contrast to how many of us live. The lazy, hazy days of summer are giving way to Fall’s busy schedule. Many of our young people are back in school (which I consider so cruel—call me old school, but school shouldn’t start until after Labor Day). Pastors are looking at Advent themes already, The pause button has been all too brief as we rush back into calendars that are already booked solid.

I once read an insight by Angeles Arrien: nature’s rhythm is medium to slow. The seeds we planted months ago are just now being sown. It takes nine months for a fetus to come to term, and many years before that human is truly ready to be launched into the world. Few creatures, Arrien notes, move rapidly unless they are in danger.

We are a people who live hyper-speed lives.  We can’t help but press on the gas when the light turns yellow (or honk if someone takes too long to move forward when the light turns green). We get impatient when fast food is slow or our internet takes too long to download. Give us instant anything and don’t take more than a second than is necessary. We run from appointment to appointment, arriving out of breath because we scarcely take time to breathe.

Arriens’ words haunt me: Few creatures move rapidly unless they are in danger. What are you afraid of that keeps you so busy? What is it we are running from?

What would happen if we slowed down our pace: had fewer church meetings, didn’t sign our kids up for every activity, didn’t schedule every minute of our day. What might happen if we learned how to linger more and race around less? What differences might it make in the conversations we have with one another? How might our relationships deepen? How might our souls be fed in surprising ways?

Jesus says to us:  “Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11: 28-30) My prayer for you is that you stop running and be still with God and others. Let God’s grace wash over you. Good things take time. Give yourself the expanse of fertile space that gives birth to creativity and new ideas and ways of seeing the world. Live freely and lightly once again.

Stop keeping your body in flight mode and sink into an awareness that you are held by God who loves you, blesses you, and keeps you, whose face shines upon you, whose grace is offered to you, who will give you peace.

The Olympian In All of Us

 

It seems that everywhere you go, people have tuned into the Olympics (I love that there are members of the Mountain Sky witnessing the games in person!). There is something so inspiring watching people who have trained for years push themselves even further to be even better.

I recently learned about the worst performance in Olympic history. Eric Moussambani was a swimmer from Equatorial Guinea who had never even seen an Olympic-sized swimming pool until he got to the Sydney games! He learned to swim less than a year before the Olympics, training in a hotel swimming pool. Moussambani gained a place at the Olympics through a wild card entry system aimed at providing greater participation and access to the games.

As the 100 meter race began, the other two swimmers had false starts, so Moussambani was the lone

swimmer in that heat. The crowd was confused at first, watching a swimmer with such poor form race. But then they began to cheer him on. His race time was 1:52:72. The gold metalist that year finished in 48:30 seconds!

I’ve been thinking a lot about him these days. He was never going to be a great swimmer—there were so many obstacles preventing him from true greatness. But speed and winning the race isn’t the only path to greatness.

First, he didn’t give up. Even though he had an embarrassment-worthy performance, the fact is he did race, something not many can claim. Secondly, it wasn’t the end of his story. His Olympic time was his new personal best and set an Equatorial Guinean national record. And, later, he became the coach of his country’s national swimming squad, helping young people be even better swimmers than he was.

Each of us has been created to run our unique race. We might never receive a gold metal from the world, or an Oscar, or make a million dollars. There are times when we will misstep, fall, and even embarrass ourselves. But we are still called to run the race as best as we can and not give up. Because the story doesn’t end at the race’s finish line. Others will be impacted by our legacy. Our story will inform other stories. We will learn something that will be passed on to those in the future.

Because we don’t know how God will use our efforts. My favorite, go-to scripture when life gets rough and I feel as if I can’t go on is Romans 8: 28:

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love God, who have been called according to God’s purpose.”

God is working something good out in you. Your task—the task for each of us—is to do the best we can in every circumstance, and let God take care of the rest.