Written by Carol Smith

In Japan, the locals have a word, karoshi, that means “death by overwork.” One of its most famous victims was a finance broker who died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 26.

The Germans have coined a term to describe our inability to relax beyond the confines of the office: freizeitstresse, or “free-time stress.”

Larry Dossey, an American physician, uses the term “time sickness” to describe the obsessive belief that “time is getting away, that there isn’t enough of it, and that you must pedal faster and faster to keep up.”

These are three of the many facts gathered by Carl Honoré, author of “In Praise of Slowness” and champion of the Slow Movement. Heard of it? It’s not some Luddite, anti-technology train of thought. But it is a call back to fully experiencing, to savoring, life.

According to Honoré, “being ‘slow’ means living better in the hectic modern world by striking a balance between fast and slow.”

He continues, “The problem is that our love of speed, our obsession with doing more and more in less and less time, has gone too far.”

Honoré claims that “even technophiles are warming to the idea of speed limits on the information superhighway. A senior manager at IBM now appends this rallying cry to every e-mail he sends: ‘Read your mail just twice each day. Recapture your life’s time and relearn to dream. Join the slow e-mail movement!’”

The question, then, becomes, if there’s a global movement to call humanity back to a more reasonable pace, how much more should those of us who center our lives on faith in Christ be concerned with the same issue? Shouldn’t we who have the ancient Scriptures to remind us of the importance of resting in and experiencing God’s presence be leading the effort? Shouldn’t we be reminding those around us to drink deeply of this gracious gift of life?

What’s the Hold Up?
The challenges to slowing down are the same for all of us. We have responsibilities, work, and relationships; and these things determine the pace of our lives. We can’t imagine cutting any of them out, and we scramble to hold on.

Henri Nouwen, a Christian thinker and minister, took serious steps toward slowing his life’s pace. From time to time he took months-long retreats at monasteries, and he even took a one-year sabbatical during what turned out to be the end of his life. He described our culture’s voice as one that says, “Get going! Do something! Show you are able to make a difference!”

Of course that rings true, doesn’t it? It’s even something we see in Scripture. So we find ourselves conflicted, asking, “If we’re supposed to be making a difference in people’s lives, should we even find a reason to slow down?” And that’s the right question to ask because it speaks to a deliberate decision about what life should include.

We do want to make a difference. Particularly as singles in a couples kind of culture, we want to be connected to the world around us in meaningful ways. Yet we also have an inner life to tend to, a relationship with our Maker that can’t be all faith and no action (James 2:17-18); but it shouldn’t be the other way around either (Ephesians 2:8-9).

One of the biggest problems with a fast-paced life is that we don’t have time to actually think about what it is we’re doing. Yet if our life is running like a raft through the rapids, then we had better hope that there aren’t many alternate paths in the river. After all, who has time to look at a map and make decisions when it takes everything we have just to navigate the current?

But life does have alternate routes – plenty of them. We need to pace ourselves in such a way that we can make decisions well. One of Honoré’s blogs references a request from a computer gamer for a control to slow down the action from time to time “so that they can make better decisions and make full use of their characters’ strengths.” Surely we need that same ability to change the momentum of our own lives.

Honoré writes that “the aim is to do everything at the right speed: Sometimes fast. Sometimes slow. Sometimes in between. Being slow means taking time to get the most out of life.” This sounds like a healthy rhythm of life, and it sounds like the way Jesus lived His life – sometimes ministering to crowds numbering in the hundreds, sometimes retreating to pray alone, sometimes spending time with a small group of disciples.

Wait Just a Minute
Putting on the brakes means retreating from the noise from time to time. But it doesn’t have to mean weeks spent at a monastery taking a vow of silence.

Slowing down can be two minutes of silent prayer in the midst of the day. It can be turning off the music or news for one leg of your commute. It can be taking a moment in the middle of work to refocus. It can be clicking the “off” button on the TV remote. It can be marking time on your calendar for an activity-free night to be alone with God.

In his book “Rumors of Another World,” Philip Yancey also suggests the importance of simply paying attention. He highlights a lesson from the saints: “If you can live through a moment, you can live through a day, and how you live a day is eventually how you live your life.”

Jean-Pierre de Caussade included a parallel thought in “The Sacrament of the Present Moment” when he wrote, “To discover God in the smallest and most ordinary things, as well as in the greatest, is to possess a rare and sublime faith.”

We have to slow down in order to pay attention to the moments of our lives, and it’s often in those moments that we will discover God.

If we can’t overhaul our lives completely, then changing pieces of them will make a difference. With a few minutes of reflection, life falls out of warp drive long enough for us to catch a glimpse of what’s passing us by. That quick glance can empower us for more deceleration.

What’s Next?
Slowing down will look different for everyone. Some will alter their schedules. Some will start a new prayer practice or reestablish an old one. Some will read a book. Some will journal for a few minutes each day. Some may take time to spend with a friend. Some will go on a hike or for a run in the park. Once we rescue intentional moments from the rapids to let God direct us, He will guide if we will listen.

If our lives are about spiritual formation – God developing His image within us – then the pace of our lives actually becomes a choice about how deeply we’ll be involved in that process.

There’s a reason the farmer plows his field slowly. The slower he goes, the better the soil is turned and the better it’s prepared to grow the seed and offer the harvest. That applies to our lives as well. Too fast a pace and we bounce off the surface rather than digging into our lives, allowing God to make a way for strong roots to grow and His fruit to be harvested.

Granted, you can’t instantly change your pace of life from a sprint to a stroll. But you can grab several moments and meet God wherever you are. If those moments slow down, then there’s hope for the rest of your life doing the same.

Carol Smith is a freelance writer who’s finding her inner tortoise in Nashville, Tenn.