Slow Time in a Fast World

A Spirituality of Rest
Simon Carey Holt
Revised edition 2010
Originally published in
Ministry, Society and Theology, 16:2, 2002, 10-21

In

Michael

Leunigs

delightful series of
correspondence,
The
Curly Pyjama Letters,
the
itinerant
and
restless Vasco asks Mr
Curly
a
pressing
question,
What
is
worth doing and what
is worth having? Mr
Curlys reply is simple:
It is worth doing nothing and having a rest.1
The simplicity of Curlys wisdom is compelling.
The more I ponder it the more I suspect theres a
theology here worth exploring: that doing nothing
could be a worthy pursuit, that rest could be
virtuous. Im intrigued.

A Personal Struggle
My life is full, often overwhelming and sometimes
frantic.
The pace is routinely tiring and the
constant weariness discouraging. Daily life is the
demanding division of works insistent need for
multi-tasking and parenthood offered on the run.
The demands and disconnections of urban life
threaten to fracture my own sense of balance.
The expectations of others are only surpassed by
the multiple expectations I have of myself. Yet
in all of this, when given opportunity to be still,
to do nothing and rest, I discover an unnerving
addiction to my own adrenalin.
Im a product of my culture. I live, love and
work in a society that thrives on schedules,
calendars and the compulsion of the clock. To be
alive is to be busy. According to one social
commentator, busyness has become the new
paradigm, the new ideal, the new badge of
honour.2 Here my worth is measured by the
fullness of my diary. The busier I am the more
important I appear to be. Busyness is now a
virtue.
In this context weariness must be overcome.
Indeed, according to Mr Curly, it is the most
suppressed feeling in the world. Exhaustion is
denied.
Soldier on! is our mantra.
My
conservative Christian heritage has only turned
up the volume. The words of an enthusiastic
preacher from my youth ring in my ears: Id
rather burn out for Jesus than rust out for the

devil! In the name of discipleship, busyness

is a war wound Ive learned to display with
humble pride.
Its worth doing nothing, Mr Curly claims.
Surely not! Im conditioned to reply. Yet
there is something here that resonates deeply,
if only I can find time to feel it.

The Call to Rest

I once heard rest described as a profoundly
Christian act. Its true. Consider the defining
movements in the Christian story of creation
and salvation. Rest features prominently in
both. In fact, rest is of the essence.
At the conclusion of each day in the
creation story God declares the creative work
as good and very good (Genesis
1:5,8,10,12-13,18-19,23,31).
Its a daily
assessment of completion and wholeness:
There was evening and there was morning.
As surely as night follows day, rest follows
work. We are told even more explicitly that
on the seventh day God rested from all the
work that he had done (Genesis 2:2-3). Here
in the genesis of the Sabbath tradition God
establishes a sacred rhythm of life that
honours the image of the Creator and nurtures
the creation.
Salvation, too, is most fundamentally a call
to rest, a call to return to life as God intended
and created it. Come to me all you who are
weary and burdened, Jesus says, and I will
give you rest (Matthew 11:28). Or, as an early
Aramaic version has it, Come to me and I will
rest you. I will Sabbath you and you will find
Sabbath for your souls. Jesus role resonates
with that of the great shepherd: He makes
me lie down in green pastures; he leads me
beside still waters; he restores my soul
(Psalm 23:2-3). Broadly understood, salvation
is being at rest with God, with ourselves and
with the world. On a personal level it has to
do with being at rest with our past, present
and future. It speaks of a deep contentment,
a peace that passes understanding, an end to
striving and craving: Be still and know that I
am God (Psalm 46:10). Come to me and I

will rest you.

When I contrast the daily unrest of my own
experience with the invitation to stillness that
marks the intentions of the Creator and the call
of Jesus, I sense an uncomfortable and
dissatisfying distance.

The Violence of Busyness

In my early years of pastoral ministry, I attended
irregular meetings of church leaders from the
local area. Routinely our talk moved to the
unique pressures of Christian ministry. On
more than one occasion we shared our
testimonies of busyness. In the spirit of
unspoken competitiveness that underlay our
conversation, one story topped them all. This
middle-aged pastor told us that he had not been
at home with his family for 41 consecutive
nights, all in the name of ministry. A muffled
gasp went around the room. It was a response of
both shock and quiet admiration. Now theres a
real disciple, we silently agreed; a person in
demand; one prepared to count the cost. In
retrospect, I am appalled.
Prolonged busyness is a state of violence.
According to the Macquarie Dictionary, violence
is an unjust and unwarranted exertion of force
or power. Such is unchecked busyness, for it is
an unwarranted, unjust state destructive to the
human soul, to the community, and even to the
earth itself.
That unrelenting busyness does violence to
the human condition is increasingly obvious.
Most evident is the impact upon personal health.
Ongoing fatigue and exhaustion pressure the
human body in ways it is not designed to
withstand. Evident, too, is its impact upon the
wellbeing of the family unit or household.
Prolonged time together is an endangered
species. Its impact, however, is more complex
and its implications go beyond the individual or
immediate family.
To simplistically lay the
blame for this state of violence at the feet of the
individual is to misunderstand the powerful
impacts of society and technology upon the
shape of daily life. In this violent state, the
individual both acts and is acted upon.
The title of Stephen Bertmans recent book,
Hyperculture, sums up the state of our cultural

Unchecked busyness is
an unwarranted, unjust
state destructive to the
human soul, to the
community, and even to
the earth itself.
milieu.3 Individual and collective life in the
information
age
is
experienced
at
a
breathtaking pace. The extraordinary flow of
information at ever increasing speeds via the
Internet, emails, television satellites, palmtops,
desktops and laptops leaves few of us
unaffected. As our society embraces this new
immediacy
and
its
benefits,
delayed
gratification is anathema.
Thanks to the
proliferation of mobile phones, voice mail,
email and SMS messages, delayed responses are
tolerated impatiently. And change is par for the
course; no longer a reactive state of
emergency, its now a fact of daily life. Change
management is now a standard part of any
decent managers tool kit.
Over a decade ago, the psychologist Kenneth
J. Gergen identified a new kind of human
personality emerging from the constant and
unrelenting bombardment of the senses, the
speed of daily life, and the rapidity of change.
He called it the saturated self.4 The human
psyche simply cannot absorb or filter the
constant saturation of information, encounters
and change.
More recently, Bertman has described the
human psyche as held captive by the power of
nowthat is, the velocity of everyday
existence is at such speed that we can no longer
engage meaningfully with the past or anticipate
thoughtfully the future. All we have time for is
whats immediately in front of us. The tyranny
of now is simply overwhelming. Time to
cultivate the soul is in short supply, for the soul
speaks of a totality, drawing together in one
place the past, present and future. The lack of
meaningful perspective that only time can bring
results in a cultural, relational and spiritual
3

shallowness for both the individual and the

society of which she is a part. In Bertmans
words, the power of now replaces the long
term with the short term, duration with
immediacy, permanence with transience,
memory with sensation, insight with impulse.5
As human beings function in such a state for a
prolonged period, it becomes habit, instinctive,
the most comfortable and preferred state.
Addicted to our own adrenalin, we favour news
bites to thoughtful analysis, newspapers to
journals, powernaps to prolonged sleep,
microwaves to cooking pots, now to later.
Weve become impatient with those who want
to dwell on the past, dismissive of those who
critique the status quo, and exhausted by those
who challenge us to think proactively about the
future. We simply dont have time.
In his commentary on the contemporary
distress of time, theologian Jrgen Moltmann
describes the modern person as homo
accelerandus:
He has a great many encounters, but does
not really experience anything, since
although he wants to see everything, he
internalizes nothing and reflects upon
nothing. He has a great many contacts
but no relationships, since he is unable to
linger because he is always in a hurry.
He devours fast food, preferably while
standing, because he is no longer able to
enjoy anything; after all, a person needs
time for enjoyment, and time is precisely
what he does not have.6

Time is not a commodity

to be owned, managed,
traded or saved. Time is
bigger than we are; it
envelops and contains us;
it precedes and outlasts
us.

The degree to which we see ourselves in

Moltmanns caricature may vary, but most of us
will agree the pace of life today has indeed
accelerated and we are different people for it.
Busyness is a force to be reckoned with. And
reckon with it we must if we are to resist its
debilitating grip.
In describing busyness as a force, I am not
suggesting that time is something over which
we must wrestle control. This is not a proposal
for better time management. No, time is not a
commodity to be owned, managed, traded or
saved. Time is bigger than we are; it envelops
and contains us; it precedes and outlasts us.
Further, I am not suggesting that technological
change is bad. The benefits are innumerable.
I, for one, am not considering relocating to a
desert commune, as though I must choose
between a life of speed, change and
hyperactivity, and one of serenity and
simplicity.
What I am suggesting is that living in a
prolonged and unchecked state of busyness is to
live in a violent state destructive to all that is
sacred; that we must therefore reckon with its
force and find a way to reconnect with the
rhythm of time given to us by God; to
rediscover a holy slowliness7 as an expression
of
Sabbath,
a
fundamentally
different
experience of time set apart from the routine
pace of daily life.

Rediscovering Slow Time

Weve already noted the origins of the Sabbath
tradition in the creation story. As this tradition
develops, the seventh day is set apart from
those that precede and follow it. Its a holy
day.
As such it requires intentionality, a
conscious choice to step outside the stream of
work into a different space.
This Sabbath space is sanctified space, a
space that restores and renews; one that
reintegrates what has become fragmented and
strained. In a sense, its about moving from
one experience of time to another; from time
that is linear and sequential, purposeful and
progressive, directed toward a goal, to a time
that is not directional in shape, but a spherical
whole that draws the pieces of yesterday, today
4

and tomorrow together.8 As such, Sabbath is

about much more than ceasing work. Its about
reconnecting with our origins, living fully the
present moment, and anticipating the freedom
for which we are ultimately destined. It is time
given to being and stillness over production
and movement. It is time for the soul.
In his book Tyranny of the Moment, the
Swedish social anthropologist Thomas Hylland
Eriksen argues for a revaluing of slow timean
experience in which the values of speed and
efficiency take a back seat.9
According to
Eriksen, slow time is essential to our survival.
Dawdling is a virtue, he claims, when dawdling is
an intentional slowness nurturing the gaps
necessary to human re-creation.10
Slow time is time given to re-group, re-think,
assess, feel, grieve, imagine, daydream,
remember and anticipate. Without it, the soul is
poorer. Of course, we cannot and should not live
all of life in slow time. God worked for six days
and rested on the seventh. Slow time is by
nature periodic, yet routine. It follows fast time;
it concludes or begins. However, the fact that
its not the majority of our time does not detract
from its sanctity. Too often, fast time is so
insistent and loud that slow time slips away
unheard and unheeded. When fast time and slow
time meet, fast time wins. To revalue slow time
does not mean we give it more space than it
warrants, but that we give it the space and
respect it deserves.
In light of my own struggle with busyness, Im
committed to the reclamation of slow time in my
daily life. In what follows, I outline my own
small efforts in this direction.

1. Scheduling verandah time

Because my family and I live on site in an
educational institution in the city, we decided to
purchase a small house in the country, a place to
which we could escape periodically. Our old
weatherboard is more than 100 years old and
fronted by a verandah. Its a place that needs
lots of attention and in time well get around to
it. More than anything, though, its our place to
be.
Very quickly the front verandah became my
favourite place in the house. I have an old

Slow time is time given

to re-group, re-think,
assess, feel, grieve,
imagine, daydream,
remember and
anticipate. Without it,
the soul is poorer.
wooden chair where I sit. There I look out over
the elm trees that line the street and the
parkland just beyond; I listen to the morning
song of the magpies; I nod hello to those who
stroll by. Its a place where fast time seems
alien and out of place.
To be honest, as much as I love this place,
finding time to be there is a constant
challenge.
Fast time is insistent and
demanding. Unless I plan verandah time well
ahead in my schedule, it gets crowded out.
Not everyone owns a country house with a
verandah. However, in a scheduled world, slow
timewhatever
form
it
takesneeds
intentionality. Scheduling time to do nothing
may sound like an odd pursuit, yet for me its
vital. Sabbath time for the Hebrew people had
numerous and detailed laws governing its
sanctity. While I may want to dismiss the
legalism that coloured my boyhood experience
of Sabbath, these laws remind me that my
unmonitored bent for busyness will constantly
win without the routine discipline of slow time
in my life.

2. Filtering
I am routinely overwhelmed with the flow of
information that infiltrates my days.
Its
sources and speed are increasing all the time.
I am an avid reader of newspapers, yet as I
move quickly from one story to another I
struggle to recall the detail of what Ive read. I
love books, yet I feel swamped by the plethora
of material being published in the fields of my
interest, professional or otherwise; the act of
5

reading moves from pleasure to pressure. I am

struck by the poignancy of a particular report on
the evening news, yet as the newsreader moves
on with the next story I have little time or space
to feel any lasting response. So it is with my
encounters with students, friends and colleagues.
Numerous people move across my horizon every
day. I am constantly apologizing for my lack of
time.
The art of filtering is a necessary one to
propagate. Only information genuinely digested
becomes knowledge; and digestion takes time.
Growing in wisdom has more to do with the
internalising and living knowledge than with the
unfettered accumulation of information. With
this in mind, I am becoming a more pro-active
filterer.
I still read the newspaper but give less time
to the whole and more time to just a few key
articles. Further, I pursue a conversation with
someone in the course of the day about the
content of the article Ive chosen.

I still read books but Im more selective in

what I read and give each one more time and
space to feel and respond to. I do this through
journaling. This means the number of books I
read decreases, but with greater impact.

I still watch the evening news when I can,

yet I now choose to avoid the current affairs
programs that follow and do little but fill
space in my already crowded head. A evening
walk around the neighbourhood does much to
bring to the fore issues and stories that are
important.

Growing in wisdom has

more to do with the
internalising and living
knowledge than with
unfettered accumulation
of information.

Ive committed myself to scheduling two

prolonged encounters each week that take
me beyond the task-oriented relationships
of work or student-teacher transactions.
Setting time aside for more in-depth
encounters may sound contrived, yet if I do
not ensure such encounters are happening
routinely, chances are they dont.

3. Giving sleep its rightful place

While Ive never had much trouble sleeping, I
have often chosen to economize on sleep. I
am unsettled by those need a minimum of
sleep yet maintain an inordinately high level of
productivity. I admiringly wonder if I can do
the same. Ive come to equate sleeping-in
with laziness and afternoon naps as a waste of
time.
I have two small children. Though they
resist bedtime with the greatest of drama and
deception, I see nightly just how deeply and
peacefully they sleep; and I see the
consequences daily of both adequate and
inadequate sleep. As adults we learn to cover
and compensate for our weariness. Children
are not so gifted. Their honesty teaches me
much about the importance of sleep.
Indeed, sleep is Gods gift. In vain you rise
early and stay up late, the Psalmist says;
toiling for food to eatfor he grants sleep to
those he loves (Psalm 127:1-2). I am learning
to heed Mr Curlys wisdom when he urges
Vasco to feel his noble tiredness and make a
generous place for it in his life. I am learning
to listen more carefully to the rhythms of my
own body and to acknowledge sleep as Gods
daily gift of slow time.

4. Choosing slow time in daily life

Through sheer necessity, much of my daily
schedule is lived in the fast time. I have
resources at my fingertips that help me to
work
efficiently,
productively
and
responsively: telephones, email and Internet
access, administrative assistance, transport,
appointment diaries, photocopiers, etc.
I
dont want to be without these things, yet Ive
learned that such tools are there to enable and
empower me, not enslave me.
6

that we chose to give slow time its rightful

place in the ordinary rhythms of our days.

Conclusion

Mr Curly loves teapots too (Leunig)

Life is full of choice. The fact is, even when

Im feeling frantic and overwhelmed I still have
choices, no matter how out of control my
situation may feel. Slow time is essential to my
every day wellbeing, but slow time is always a
choice. Choosing to do certain things slowly has a
cost, for doing things slowly is slow.

I began with Mr Curlys words, It is worth

doing nothing and having a rest.
This
fascinating proposition that doing nothing is a
worthy pursuit and that rest is virtuous is one
that sits increasingly well with me.
The
rediscovery of slow time is a way to embrace
both of these intentionally and restfully.
We live in a fast world. By necessity, fast
and slow time coexist. Finding ways to
embrace both and to move routinely between
them is essential. My argument is that if we
choose an either/or approach, slow time will
always lose. To live exclusively in fast time is
ultimately destructive to the human soul and
society.
Rediscovering slow time as an
expression of Sabbath is to rediscover the
image of God.

I choose to walk my children to school

rather than drive them.

I choose to read journal articles rather than

newspapers one day each week.

I choose to answer emails only twice a day.

I choose to let voice mail take telephone

calls at meal times and when we have guests.

I choose to set one hour aside each day for

reading and reflecting.

I choose to sit in a local caf one morning a

week, away from the phone and the office, for
writing.

I choose not to use a microwave oven.

I choose not to wear a watch.

I choose to travel by public transport as

much and as often as I can.

By listing such choices I risk sounding selfindulgent and simplistic, but these are not acts of
virtue. They are only small, personal choices
ones that enable me to find space each day for
some holy slowliness. The choices you make
will be particular to your life and circumstances.
The important thing is that we make choices,

Leunig, Michael. The Curly Pyjama

Letters. Ringwood: Viking, 2001, pp 26-28.
2
Mackay, Hugh. "Busyness, Our Latest
Harmful Drug of Addiction." The Age, July
14 2001, Opinion.
3
Bertman, Stephen. Hyperculture: The
Human Cost of Speed. Westport: Praeger,
1998.
4
Gergen, Kenneth J. The Saturated Self:
Dilemas of Identity in Contemporary
Society. New York: Basic Books, 1992.
5
Bertman, op.cit., p 3.
6
Moltmann, Jrgen, Nicholas Wolterstorff,
and Ellen T. Charry. A Passion for God's
Reign: Theology, Christian Learning and the
Christian Self. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1998, p 39.
7
A phrase used by Jrgen Moltmann in a
public lecture in Pasadena, California,
1998.
8
A distinction made by Bertman, op.cit., p
195.
9
Erikson, Thomas Hylland. Tyranny of the
Moment: Fast and Slow Time in the
Information Age. London: Pluto Press, 2001.
10
Ibid., p 155.
7