It’s not easy to slow down life. I’m as guilty as anyone. The normal ‘North American Sprint’ often becomes just the way we move in and out of everyday life. The hustle and bustle of family life, business, ‘to do’ lists, instant information in a myriad of media formats, and a fast-food culture can keep us racing from one thing to the next. In our racing from Point A to Point B, we can find ourselves moving into autopilot mode and losing small slivers of our true selves along the way.

I was first introduced to this poem through Parker Palmer’s book A Hidden Wholeness. Palmer shares these words as part of a slowing down process to connect back to “the seed of true self”. The poem is “Love After Love” by Derek Wolcott:

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Today, in the midst of a racing world and plenty of bags that we think we ought to claim, I hope to give myself a few minutes to slow down and feast on my life. Somehow I know this will deliver more wholeness to the journey between Point A and Point B.

“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” – Luke 5:16

Travel Gracefully.

Jason Barger, 11-time Amor leader and author of the book, Step Back from the Baggage Claim:  Change the World, Start at the Airport