The Unhurried One

It is not always easy to make room for the unexpected someone who shows up in the midst of our hurrying and wants a few minutes that we just do not figure we have to give.  What is easier is to make some dismissive comment which implicitly says, "I am in  hurry," and then move on to wherever it is we are hurrying without even looking over our shoulder.  It is an art that many of us have mastered over the years of living our lives in a hurry.  If degrees were given for making the master getaway, I would have a wall full of certificates by now.    

In these later years life has slowed down a bit.  Or, maybe I have slowed down a bit, too, as I intentionally work at paying attention.  Retirement has a way of bringing to the surface the things of the past which could have been done differently and better and then gracing us with a few moments of extra time to see if we really learned anything.  In the midst of our continued struggle it is good to read the gospel narratives of the way Jesus stopped from whatever it was that He was doing to respond to someone in need who called out for a few minutes of His time.  Again and again we see Him taking time for others even when His disciples pressed Him to press on to wherever.    

We all have our role models for living.  There is, of course, none any better than Jesus.  The thing about this life with Jesus is that we are not called to live as one who is constantly straining and stretching to make our lives like His life, but as those who are called to a life that speaks of Him abiding in us and us abiding in Him.  As we enter into such a life and submit ourselves to all it means, the things we want to do and should do that we do only because we force ourselves to do them are the things we do naturally and spontaneously because of His unhurried and caring presence within us.