I came to this realization recently as I was trying to grab my favorite coffee mug from the back of the cabinet. It was behind several other glasses, but rather than move them out of the cabinet to grab my mug, I tried to maneuver the mug through them. In my mind, I didn’t have the 45 seconds needed to take a couple of glasses out of the way and then replace them once I retrieved the mug I wanted.
You know the end of this story.
My “Tom Cruise”-esque stunt failed, and one of the glasses came crashing down, shattering on the kitchen floor. Mission: Impossible.
And, in my effort to save 45 seconds, I ended up spending the next ten minutes cleaning up the glass, vacuuming, and scouring the floor for any rogue shards that could potentially harm my two-year-old’s bare feet.
I move too fast.
We all do. We switch lanes in traffic, trying to find the fastest way to work, even though our constant lane changes are risky.
We calculate which line might be fastest at the grocery store, or we bring 38 items into the self-checkout (even when the signs say the limit is 15), convinced it will be faster than using a traditional lane.
We check our watch (or phone clock) anxiously during Mass, wondering when the priest will “land the plane” on his homily and hurriedly make our way out of Mass before the end of the closing hymn because we want to beat parking lot traffic.
Maybe it’s just me. After all, I move too fast.
And along with this realization, I’m finding out that this just isn’t a good way to live. For all of the “time I save” or how productive I feel, I think I’m missing something bigger. Something more important. Something only accessible when I slow down.
Shortly after the broken glass catastrophe, I was traveling on a Holy Day of Obligation. When I arrived at my destination, I needed to attend Mass and located a local parish. I arrived 10 minutes early, but found myself alone with one other woman in the church, along with the priest who was shuffling around. He gave me an odd look and went about his business.
”Wow,” I thought, “I knew this was a small parish, but this is kind of sad.”
I sat down in a pew and prayed, waiting for Mass to start. Ten minutes later, there were no signs of Mass beginning. No lit candles, the priest was still shuffling around without even an alb. What is happening?
Then, it hit me. I had the time wrong—I wasn’t 10 minutes early; I was an hour and ten minutes early. Impulsively, I reached for my phone only to find out I had no service inside this little country church. I could do a holy hour, but I didn’t have any books to read. No way to access evening prayer on my phone.
I looked at the tabernacle and felt the Lord simply say, “Stay with me. Just as you are.”
I move too fast, but at that moment I had a chance to slow down. To be with Jesus.
Our world moves fast and the current pulls us along, but in that movement we lose sight of the many moments that the Lord wishes for us to “stay” with him. We miss simple moments of love with our family or an encounter with Christ through a stranger. We miss the “still, small” voice of God speaking to us while we wait in line or are stuck in traffic. We are too busy scrolling on our phones, skimming the surface of life, that we never dive deep into reflection on where God is leading us.
We drive by our parish Eucharistic Chapel, thinking we should stop in, but we just don’t have time.
But what if we slowed down and stopped in? What if we made the simple practice of daily Eucharistic Adoration just for 15 minutes with no “props”—no books, rosaries, set prayers or routines—just us and Jesus for this next month? It would slow us down. It would give us depth.
It would help us see Jesus in the midst of everywhere else in our life, both in that chapel and outside of it.
And, at least in my case, it would probably save a few glasses.
