Fast-paced and stillness

LIFE is speeding up, getting faster and faster. I don’t want to become one of those elderly vicars saying how much better things were in the olden days just yet – but I am beginning to wonder how much faster and busier life can get for all of us before we decide that enough is enough and go back to writing letters or ringing each other instead of firing off another ineffective email.

I worry a bit about how present we really are to the people we share life with.

And I worry about how much time there is for ourselves in this busy world.

When do we make time to just think about how the day has gone?

When do we consider our actions and behaviour during the day and ask whether we have been the person we would like to be?

When we do we just sit and breathe in silence and look at the world and think?

When we do we talk to God?

What I’m really saying is that I don’t think my answer to any of those questions is good enough. I hope that yours are better.

And if your answers don’t satisfy you any more than mine satisfy me then perhaps we should make the effort to improve our answers.

There may well be an app or a website for it – but it might be better to just put the paper down, make a cup of tea and sit in the garden and enjoy the silence, or the birdsong, or the hum of traffic and give thanks.