“Hurry always empties a soul.” ~ Ann Voskamp
When I read this I sat in silence as if to prove it wrong in my own life. Yes, this hurried life in which we all get trapped….the merry-go-round that keeps going and going and going….sigh…
I’ve been reading a book, “One THousand Gifts” by Ann Voskamp. The title of this last chapter that I read was, “A Sanctuary Of Time”. Time…I’m sitting here listening to the tick-tock of the clock as time loudly announces his moving on…not slowing down or speeding up…just a steady marching onward.
So when I lay my head down to rest tonight will I be able to say that I lived those steady beats of time to the fullest?? I’m challenged to live in the moment. To be aware. To be present…not looking back…not looking forward. But to be engaged in the now…all of me. Unwrapping the gifts before me and being a “hunter of beauty” (as Ann Voskamp puts it).
“Time is a relentless river. It rages on, a respecter of no one. And this, this is the only way to slow time: When I fully enter time’s swift current, enter into the current moment with the weight of all my attention, I slow the torrent weight of all of me here. I can slow the torrent by being all here. I only live the full life when I live fully in the moment. And when I’m always looking for the next glimpse of glory, I slow and enter. And time slows. Weigh down this moment in time with attention full, and the whole of time’s river slows, slows, slows.” ~ Ann Voskamp from One Thousand Gifts
Time doesn’t really slow down. It’s me…I’m the one slowing down. I’m the one halting the racing thoughts in my mind of what I have to do and get done and how am I going to handle what happened yesterday….blah…blah…blah…So I hesitate as I step outside and breathe in the fresh smell of rain. I see the purple sky in the distance as gray clouds wrap their fingers over the mountains and think to myself “how beautiful”. My senses delight in being able to drink in the wonders of the moment. Time “slows down” and I’m present in this moment…all of me…and God is here. And my spirit rests even as I move to the steady beat of time’s drum.