Rested Mules
July 07, 2008
There is more to life than merely
increasing its speed. Gandhi
Our whole business therefore in this life, is
to restore to health the eye of the heart
whereby God may be seen. St.
Augustine
I was learning to trust what I could not
set in language, keep, control or hold. I
would say that I was learning to surrender.
To stop warring with myself, to stop needing
to be right, to come to terms with shifts and
change, to sit on a hill and count my
blessings. Beth Kephart
A young minister returned to his hometown in
north Georgia. He struck up a conversation
with an old farmer. They stood by the
fencerow and watched as a new picking-machine
rolled through a cotton field. Until now,
the farmer had picked cotton using a machine
pulled by a team of mules.
"That's an amazing machine, picking six rows of cotton in minutes," the young man says in admiration.
"Yes it is," says the farmer, "but I've got to tell you, I really do miss my mules."
"Really? Why?"
"Because these machines work day and night, every day. My mules worked only six days a week, and then they needed a rest, so they had enough energy for the next week. When my mules rested, I rested. And I was better off for it."
In Care of the Soul, Thomas Moore writes that living artfully with time might only require something as simple as pausing. In our modern life-with its premium on speed, our internal governors set on RUSH-we have no time for reflection or pondering or for allowing impressions of the day to sink into our hearts.
We know that something is lost when we give up our mules. Our souls resonate with stillness, slowness and renewal. We know that the mules represent something essential, even non-negotiable. Something restorative and grounding.
However, when speed is a priority, how do we "go back?"
Our conflict is made all the more difficult because the enticement of speed and instant information takes its toll unconsciously. Without realizing it, we give up our places of rest. "Flying home from Europe a few months ago," Scott Brundage (New York Times correspondent) writes, "I swiped a credit card through the slot of the in-seat phone, checked my e-mail and robbed myself of one of my two last sanctuaries."
In the documentary, Supersize Me, Morgan Spurlock eats nothing but MacDonald's for 30 days (breakfast, lunch and dinner). After two weeks, his system is not giving him the right messages. He is, literally, numb.
It is the same with speed.
More than ever, we need our "mules."
When I mentioned this at a retreat, one young man nervously said to me, "You're not going to go, like all-Amish on us, are you?"
"Maybe," I answered, "if they make a faster buggy."
"Oh," he said.
As if being numbed is not enough, when we do recognize the necessity of what the mules represent, we try to create the benefit with the very mindset that set the mules packing in the first place. John Dewey called it "compensatory maladjustments" or trying to make something right by overdoing or over exerting. I saw an ad for a Speed Bible, allowing one to read and understand it only minutes. Hmmmm. Which is sort of like saying, we could Stop and smell the roses, or, just hang a rose air freshener from our rear view mirror (with the windows rolled up) racing because we're late for our next appointment.
It all reminds me of the man who visited a zoo and passed by the lion exhibit. He couldn't believe his eyes. Lying next to the King of the Jungle, a gentle lamb. This is unbelievable, he thought. Extraordinary, he said, out loud to no one in particular. He sought the zoo keeper.
"Sir," he said, "I am dumbstruck. This exhibit is beyond belief. It is Biblical in its proportion. I applaud you. And I amazed. How long have you had this exhibit?"
"For almost a year now," the zookeeper responded.
"But how do you do it?"
"It's easy, really," the zookeeper said, "We just put in a new lamb everyday."
I don't have any mules.
But I do have a lot of birds that visit my pond.
They invite me to pause.
I am on the back deck after diner. It has been a full and busy day. And this pause is non-negotiable. It's bird bathing and feeding time. (Or, their equivalent of "Miller Time.") Some birds arrive in groups, others solitaire.
Tonight, a first for me. A Western Red Tanager-exotic in his distinctive red skull cap and yellow and black uniform, like a hockey team jersey-bathes in the stream. Waiting for their turn, a family of Cedar waxwings. Two males pose on the rocks nearby, stately and elegant, their feathers the tint of bone china. Lynyrd Skynyrd's FreeBird washes over me from the house-sound-system. This is close to heaven.
Deep within us there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continuously return. Thomas Kelly
"That's an amazing machine, picking six rows of cotton in minutes," the young man says in admiration.
"Yes it is," says the farmer, "but I've got to tell you, I really do miss my mules."
"Really? Why?"
"Because these machines work day and night, every day. My mules worked only six days a week, and then they needed a rest, so they had enough energy for the next week. When my mules rested, I rested. And I was better off for it."
In Care of the Soul, Thomas Moore writes that living artfully with time might only require something as simple as pausing. In our modern life-with its premium on speed, our internal governors set on RUSH-we have no time for reflection or pondering or for allowing impressions of the day to sink into our hearts.
We know that something is lost when we give up our mules. Our souls resonate with stillness, slowness and renewal. We know that the mules represent something essential, even non-negotiable. Something restorative and grounding.
However, when speed is a priority, how do we "go back?"
Our conflict is made all the more difficult because the enticement of speed and instant information takes its toll unconsciously. Without realizing it, we give up our places of rest. "Flying home from Europe a few months ago," Scott Brundage (New York Times correspondent) writes, "I swiped a credit card through the slot of the in-seat phone, checked my e-mail and robbed myself of one of my two last sanctuaries."
In the documentary, Supersize Me, Morgan Spurlock eats nothing but MacDonald's for 30 days (breakfast, lunch and dinner). After two weeks, his system is not giving him the right messages. He is, literally, numb.
It is the same with speed.
More than ever, we need our "mules."
When I mentioned this at a retreat, one young man nervously said to me, "You're not going to go, like all-Amish on us, are you?"
"Maybe," I answered, "if they make a faster buggy."
"Oh," he said.
As if being numbed is not enough, when we do recognize the necessity of what the mules represent, we try to create the benefit with the very mindset that set the mules packing in the first place. John Dewey called it "compensatory maladjustments" or trying to make something right by overdoing or over exerting. I saw an ad for a Speed Bible, allowing one to read and understand it only minutes. Hmmmm. Which is sort of like saying, we could Stop and smell the roses, or, just hang a rose air freshener from our rear view mirror (with the windows rolled up) racing because we're late for our next appointment.
It all reminds me of the man who visited a zoo and passed by the lion exhibit. He couldn't believe his eyes. Lying next to the King of the Jungle, a gentle lamb. This is unbelievable, he thought. Extraordinary, he said, out loud to no one in particular. He sought the zoo keeper.
"Sir," he said, "I am dumbstruck. This exhibit is beyond belief. It is Biblical in its proportion. I applaud you. And I amazed. How long have you had this exhibit?"
"For almost a year now," the zookeeper responded.
"But how do you do it?"
"It's easy, really," the zookeeper said, "We just put in a new lamb everyday."
I don't have any mules.
But I do have a lot of birds that visit my pond.
They invite me to pause.
I am on the back deck after diner. It has been a full and busy day. And this pause is non-negotiable. It's bird bathing and feeding time. (Or, their equivalent of "Miller Time.") Some birds arrive in groups, others solitaire.
Tonight, a first for me. A Western Red Tanager-exotic in his distinctive red skull cap and yellow and black uniform, like a hockey team jersey-bathes in the stream. Waiting for their turn, a family of Cedar waxwings. Two males pose on the rocks nearby, stately and elegant, their feathers the tint of bone china. Lynyrd Skynyrd's FreeBird washes over me from the house-sound-system. This is close to heaven.
Deep within us there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continuously return. Thomas Kelly
Poems / Prayers
I Go Among Trees and Sit Still
I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
Around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
Where I left them, asleep like cattle,
Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
And the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.
Wendell Berry
all of all
love of all love, peace of all peace, depth of depth
so often, in the midst of all we do, as we are washing dishes, sending email, going to work, and doing all the things we do day in and day out,
we can forget that our time here on this earth is both a gift and a miracle.
do not let us forget.
because sooner than we think, a tomorrow will come
and it will be our last tomorrow and we will have missed the miracle.
we will have emailed, and worked, and complained, and watched tv through the miracle.
we will have let the sunrises, the fresh air, the warmth of a bed, the taste of our orange juice, the first snows, and the cricket chirping slip by as we go about doing all of our so important things.
we will have let our pain and struggles and our tasks and achievements and our accumulation of things obscure the enchantment and richness that can be life.
love of all love, peace of peace, depth of depth -
let us find the holy in all that makes up our life.
let us slow down.
stop doing.
and learn to simply be.
may we find the holy in our coffee, in the spider whose lovely eight legs carry her effortlessly over her web, in the kiss goodnight, in the hot meal, fuzzy blanket, and in the chill of the dark night air.
may we be seekers and makers of the holy.
amen and blessed be.
Elizabeth's little blog
Rest in Rest
Holy leisure
Airtight Time
Sabbath,
Creation slowing
Eyes open
Ears hearing
Sabbath,
Sacred rhythms
Guiltless feasting
Heaven hugging
Sabbath,
Nothing doing
Nowhere going
Work unknowing
Sabbath
John David Walt
Peace,
Terry Hershey
