Moving at the Speed of Change
Taking Part in Stillness
On a recent weekend getaway to Chicago, settled into our coach seats for the 8+ hour train ride, a relaxing transition between here and there, David and I watch the cars back up at the railroad crossings as we pass through town after town. It is a Friday, and we imagine the impatience that might be building in each car as our train takes its time crossing roads the drivers might have hoped would quickly bring them home at the end of a long week’s work.
This month’s Threshold Times focus is “Taking Part in Stillness,” the fourth thresholding skill named in my book Trusting Change, and perhaps the one skill that actually makes possible all nine of the others listed in the book. Taking part in stillness is entirely necessary on the threshold. And yet, I’m keenly aware of how hard this fourth skill can be. How do we take part in stillness in a time that is driven by urgency, need, suffering, and our desire for long-delayed justice and healing – and in a world that is driven by a rapid-paced culture that distracts us from the very stillness required for meaningful change to take place?
Many a day, when I’ve metaphorically been on the road and in the driver’s seat, I have felt my own impatience building. I have tallied the day’s news stories of suffering and violence as if counting cars on a long, long train that keeps me waiting on my journey toward a more just world. I have anxiously drummed my fingers on the dashboard, car in park, shaking my head in frustration, my expected time of arrival growing later and later.
But the dynamics of threshold living – of truly participating in the great changes occurring in our lives and our world – ask us to let go of the very notion of expected arrival times. By its definition and nature, a threshold is a passage that takes its own time. It lingers between what is no longer and what is not yet. It invites us into time outside of time. Liminal time. Expansive time. Transformative time. Chrysalis time.
The caterpillar that dissolves into goo inside the chrysalis no longer marks its existence by appetite, consumption, or growth. Instead, it wholly gives itself to the protected time and space of the chrysalis and to the transformation that can only occur in that surrender.
We humans, with our capacity for measuring time and our efforts to race against it – with efficiencies and multitasking, with technologies and high-speed travel – we have a uniquely difficult challenge in participating in stillness and taking time for transformation. We might need to understand the different kinds of time and what each one makes possible.
The contemporary theologian Thandeka names the contrast between sacred time and fleeting time. “Fleeting time,” she notes, “is the kind of time in which we are distracted, racing around and trying to catch up as we fall further behind; it's working at the computer while a friend talks to us on the phone. By contrast, sacred time is noticing a shift of tone in a person's voice and asking what's wrong; it's full presence, paying attention in the moment.”
“Sacred time,” she adds, “is biological time, the time our bodies take to act or think or feel. When we pay attention to biological time, we focus on the science and the art of spiritual practice.”[1]
Biological time requires us to slow down long enough to notice what our bodies and our feelings are telling us. This is also sacred time because it connects us not only to our own felt experience but also to the embodied world, embracing us in relationship with others. It opens our awareness to the wider ecology of being in which our lives are always held and supported.
“Taking part in stillness” means letting go of fleeting time (and the ETA that fleeting time pursues) long enough to notice how much time, possibility and relationship is available in the present moment.
It is neither accident nor coincidence that some of the most transformative and liberatory wisdom and theology today emerges from those naming the necessity of slowing down. Tricia Hersey’s Rest is Resistance. Octavia Raheem’s Pause, Rest, Be. And Bayo Akomolafe’s frequent reminder of the Nigerian teaching that says, “The times are urgent; therefore, we must slow down.” Or, taking a different turn of language on a similar idea and noting that we cannot change the world without first taking time to change ourselves, Toni Cade Bambara once said, “Not all speed is movement.”[2]
The threshold skill of “Taking Part in Stillness” is about learning that stillness is not merely cessation from action or movement. It is also defined as lingering and dwelling, in this case, lingering in the unknown. It is an openness to the spacious pause between what is no longer and what is not yet. It is the practice of patience that allows us to notice when something new is possible or emerging. (In this week acknowledged as holy time by several world religions, this might be an empty tomb, a parting sea, or renewed faith that comes from fasting.) It is taking time to truly let go of the familiar so we might develop the presence of heart, mind and body to recognize as yet unknown realities and options arising within us, among us or beyond us.
Back on the train heading home from Chicago, we watch the sun set and the landscape retreat into shadows. The large window becomes a mirror, our faces looking back at us as the train rhythmically travels the shores of the Mississippi, no longer visible. Our arrival time in St. Paul is unknown. Unlike train systems in some parts of the world, Amtrak schedules are notorious for being frequently stalled. We could easily grow impatient when the train stops without explanation. We could fret or work up a fury. But it would do no good. So, we travel with books and podcasts and food on hand. We fill the extra time with conversation or silence. We practice a kind of stillness, knowing that even in the darkness and despite all delays, we are slowly making our way home.
In your experiences of threshold living, how do you understand time’s unfolding? Do you have practices that help you let go of fleeting time and an ETA? Do you have practices that help you dwell in stillness and the transformative pause between what is no longer and what is not yet? How do those practices support you in times of great change? What helps you trust you are making your way home – or to someplace new – when the journey feels more like a standstill?
Wishing you well in these threshold times and looking forward to our future encounters in the the slow lane!
Karen
[1] “Healing Community,” by Thandeka, in UUWorld: https://www.uuworld.org/articles/small-group-ministry-creates-sacred-time.
[2] “The Scattered Sopranos,” essay by Toni Cade Bambara. She emphasizes the importance of taking time for inner change saying, “If your house is not in order, you ain’t in order. It is so much easier to be out there than right here.”