Many of us plan to take the time to learn to pray or lose the weight or write that book, but it never happens because the pace of our lives is not conducive to it. This is where the Holy Spirit may be making suggestions.
Can we get a job with less of a commute, allowing for more time to recreate (re-create)? Do our kids need to be involved in something every night of the week? Even good things like chairing a board or heading up a fundraiser may actually be robbing us. Not always, but sometimes. The world needs people who pray. People who are peaceful. People who raise their children thoughtfully and not with the leftovers from their overwhelming days.
If we are stressed and overworked, are we completely powerless to make a change? Sometimes, we really are. But sometimes, we like to hide behind complaining or statements like “This is how everyone lives” – it’s not – because we are terrified of silence and actual opportunity to do something brave with our lives and families.
In a world obsessed with speed and productivity, Makoto Fujimura, a leading Christian contemporary artist, chooses to prepare his materials by hand: gold, malachite, silk, and ink from slate and sticks. He prepares it all, painstakingly, by hand. This adds hours to his process. His “slow art” insists that being an artist is about more than producing a finished work, it is about restoring humanity through the dignity of a job well done. The New York Times calls the art of Fujimura “a small rebellion against the quickening of time.”
The joy that comes from preparing something delicious or beautiful from scratch is irreplaceable. This feeling is associated with a very particular shot of dopamine that is especially powerful because it is connected to a prolonged creative process ending with a concrete achievement.
Mako is to the world of art what homesteading is becoming to secular culture. Slowness is becoming “trendy” – and thank God for that. Staying home to raise children is not outlandish or “a waste of an education” as we’ve been led to believe. Many women were “out there” for a time but have made the decision to “come back home again” as well-educated, informed members of society who are armed with ideas on how to live in a way that is survivable, beautiful, and peaceful for family life.
“It must be nice,” people will say when they see someone taking the time to relish beauty or pursue a life of peace intentionally. It’s a strange phenomenon that once we make a break from the rat race, people will suddenly look upon us as a threat. In a sense, we are claiming the freedom that is extended to everyone but accepted by so few. There are financial sacrifices that come with a more peaceful life, but peace has always come at a high cost.
Simple joy must be our constant companion. The only antidote to the world’s morose obsession with cynicism is unapologetic “unembarrassed joy,” as Pope Emeritus Benedict would call it. We’ve been given this one complicated but also beautiful life. May we honour it and give it room to unfold its bounty.
