It doesn’t take much to slow down.
A secondhand throw tossed onto a secondhand rocker. [Read more...]
Cause for Celebration
April 24, 2011 By 7 Comments
My Slow-Down Fast didn’t wrap up quite how I expected.
I imagined creating quiet moments of contemplation leading up to Easter, and in a way I did enjoy more moments of interaction with the Lord, but not necessarily in long stretches of quiet solitude. I haven’t had a lot of down time, but I have been able to focus when I am silently interacting with the Lord, communing privately in brief snatches throughout the days. It’s everyday conversation. This dialogue is possible, I think, because, as I am more settled than I was back in March—more rested and less agitated—leaving me more open to listening to the voice of God.
But from a scheduling perspective, my slow-down fast was slow but more full than I anticipated it would be when I launched this concept at the beginning of Lent. This weekend we are enjoying out-of-town guests, and Holy Saturday fell on the birthday of one of my daughters.
Instead of a quiet, reflective, contemplative day leading up to Easter, we went bowling and played indoor Putt-Putt.
Instead of an austere day of fasting, I baked cupcakes and dished out ice cream.
At lunch, however, we paused and pulled out our collection of Resurrection Eggs that highlight moments in the last days of our Lord Jesus Christ’s time on earth, and after a review of each item, we opened the egg that contained the stone that sealed shut the tomb.
We took a minute to remember that at that time, everyone—the disciples, the women who traveled with Him, the soldiers who watched Him die, the chief priests and Pharisees—all surely assumed that “it is finished” just meant “the end.” He was dead, after all. It surely looked like it was over and all was lost.
But all was not lost.
All was won.
Easter morning is the day we open an empty Easter egg—empty because our Lord is not dead.
He has risen, just as He said.
This is cause for celebration.
Joy to the world, He is risen, Alleluia!
Palm Sunday
April 18, 2011 By 3 Comments
This Sunday my nine-year-old son joined the procession of children who waved palms and wove through the sanctuary as the rest of us sang “All Glory, Laud and Honor.”
Holy Week has begun, beginning with sweet hosannas of Palm Sunday and concluding with joyful alleluias of Easter morning.
Now, however, we are going to walk through the sobering in-between days.
Our Lord walked it first, for real.
Now I simply follow along, remembering.
You are the king of Israel
And David’s royal Son,
Now in the Lord’s name coming,
Our King and Blessed One.
All glory, laud, and honor
To you, Redeemer, King
To whom the lips of children
Made sweet hosannas ring.
Slow-Down Fast: The Rooster
April 17, 2011 By 3 Comments
These final days leading up to Easter, we’ve continued to open the Easter Story Eggs and read the related passages from the Gospels.
This week in our reading, we came across another critical moment in the story that’s not represented in the egg collection. So, to enrich the journey, we added a symbol in another egg and inserted it directly after the praying hands. [Read more...]
Vacate
April 11, 2011 By 13 Comments
From Prayer, by Philip Yancey:
“Be still and know that I am God”: the Latin imperative for “be still” is vacate. As Simon Tugwell explains, “God invites us to take a holiday [vacation], to stop being God for a while, and let him be God…God is inviting us to take a break, to play truant. We can stop doing all those important things we have to do in our capacity as God, and leave it to him to be God.”
Work Cited:
Yancey, Philip. Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006. E-book.
Image credit: S. Kroeker
Slow-Down Fast: A Slow-Down Smile
April 9, 2011 By 10 Comments
After attending a bridal shower on Saturday, I drove home and changed into running clothes fully intending to get out and pound the pavement.
Instead, I climbed into bed and fell asleep.
Four hours later, I woke up.
I needed exercise, but I guess I needed to slow down and rest even more. [Read more...]
Curiosity Journal: April 6, 2011
April 6, 2011 By 10 Comments
Curiosity Journal: a weekly recap of what I’ve been reading, playing and learning; what I’m reacting to and writing.
Inspired by Monica of Paper Bridges, I’m occasionally recording a Curiosity Journal. Tag words are: reading, playing, learning, reacting…and writing.
My husband requested time off last week for spring break, but it didn’t look good; the department wanted him on hand to manage potential issues for a project that was nearing completion. We resigned ourselves to staying home; I planned to clean off my desk and sort stacks of paper.
Then, at the last minute, they said he could go! [Read more...]
Slow-Down Fast: Easter Story Eggs
April 2, 2011 By 7 Comments
Years ago we bought a set of “Resurrection Eggs,” twelve plastic eggs filled with small symbols representing moments in the Easter story, including a donkey for Palm Sunday, a tiny metal wine goblet and plastic bread for the Last Supper, and a rock for the stone rolled in front of the tomb. The kids would take turns opening an egg each night at dinner and we would read the correlating story from one of the Gospels. The last egg (empty) is opened on Easter Sunday.
But twelve eggs didn’t seem like enough. [Read more...]
Slow-Down Fast: Music and Silence
March 25, 2011 By 9 Comments
My nine-year-old son spent most of Wednesday curled up on the couch recovering from a stomach virus while I worked on the computer at my desk a few feet away. At some point, he got up to get a book, and when he returned he stuck a Mozart symphony in the CD player and pressed play.
Music filled the room.
I sighed. [Read more...]
Slow-Down Fast: Pondering Pace
March 19, 2011 By 4 Comments
We home educate, which allows considerable flexibility in our schedules throughout the week. But we supplement with once-a-week classes in a cooperative effort involving multiple families. The parents share the teaching, and I offered to teach high school writing.
This means, of course, that I assign, read and evaluate a lot of papers. Last week I finished grading the last of the ten-page research papers my writing students completed. This was the first time they undertook an official research paper assignment, so they needed to learn the process from beginning to end: how to brainstorm for ideas, narrow down the topic, develop a working thesis, do initial research, modify that thesis based on the initial research, find reputable sources, begin in-depth and focused research by digging into online databases, organize note cards (yes, I had them use note cards), fuse outlines, write a rough draft, revise that draft, and turn in a final copy on time with all the requested elements.
They did it all; they turned in their papers.
And then I got to grade them.
Lucky me.
But I paced myself throughout the week. This is unusual for me. My tendency is to put off the tasks that I dread and then spend one panicked day cramming in the work I should have spread out over time.
What a pleasant surprise to finish up the grading and pack my bags for co-op classes by 10:00 p.m.! I know this whole idea of spreading out the work falls into Time Management 101, but I guess I realized that this is a way I can slow down and simplify.
I can look at the week and schedule my to-do list tasks over several days so that my pace is measured and sane. While doing that, I can make time for the really important things. I want to find a pace that allows me to pray and play and ponder things like this:
Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. (1 John 2:6)
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