Let the glass of muddy water rest

After writing my previous posts about "taking a sabbath", I came across John Pritchard's discussion of our need to build "slowing-down time into our lives." Here is an excerpt from Section I: Watch This Space:

In a culture where speed and the ability to "pack more in" is becoming self-defeating, many people are crying out for space. They long to slow down. A group of porters were once rushing through the jungle at a ridiculous pace set by the Europeans who had hired them. Eventually they got to a clearing and sat down. The Europeans tried to get them moving again but the head porter said, "No, we're not moving. We've come so far and so fast that now we have to wait for our souls to catch up with us." So does our culture.

Individually, therefore, we need to build some slowing-down time into our lives. Then we can listen to the quiet whispers from another country that we're just becoming aware of. We need to look for the moments of calm in our day and stretch them out. We need to create times for stopping, taking everything out of the case and trying a different way of packing altogether. Slowing own is a vital part of the spiritual journey. Then we can stop panicking about when we're going to come off the rails, and start noticing the fascinating countryside we're traveling through.

This reminds me of the Lamplighter in Le Petit Prince. (Remember him? I always loved that little gentleman!) Anyway, while visiting planet #5, the little prince meets the lamplighter who inhabits the tiny planet with one street lamp. The planet used to spin at a slow pace, enabling him to light the lamp at night and put it out in the mornings and still have the rest of the day for himself. Then the planet gradually spun faster and faster until it turned so fast that the unfortunate lamplighter (whose orders to light and then put out the lamp haven't changed) must continually light then snuff the lamp every minute without resting. His entire day is consumed with the mindless, endless work of the lamp. He turns it on, then turns it off.

On, off. On, off. Constantly. No sleep, no rest, no pause. Amazing thing is, the lamplighter doesn't question "the orders" that bind him to this eternal work. It has become a part of who he is. He has become defined by his title: lamplighter. What I take away from this story is too much to write about in one post, but I am most struck by the very creative solution which the little prince offers to the lamplighter: After sunrise, when the lamp is snuffed, the lamplighter need only slowly walk around the tiny planet (in three strides!) to remain in the sunlight, thereby giving him some rest before having to "return to work" to light the lamp again.

"All you have to do is walk more slowly," says the prince, "and you'll always be in the sun."