Slowing down ...

Friday, June 29, 2012. There are those humans who fully participate in the rapid speed of our modern time. Subways come and go minute by minute. We have motorways building a dense and busy network.

Taking part in a busy world …

Trains link the big cities and cut the travel time down to a few hours, or even just some minutes. From Paris to London it is a little more than 2, from Frankfurt to Berlin just 3 hours, one hour Frankfurt to Cologne, three from Frankfurt to Hamburg or Munich … we can use the train network to plan interaction and talks. We can take part in a busy world!

Our economy needs busy people, who make it happen. That is not only production, but also marketing, sales. Building links, being in close contact to important customer groups, setting up networks of distributors … being at the pulse of the time, at the pulse of society … that is important, that is crucial.

This morning I wanted to take the subway to my office. Usually, it should come every 15 minutes. But the first train was cancelled, the second came 20 minutes late. Altogether I lost about one hour to reach my office. Suddenly, the speed of my activities was reduced by a large factor. I was moved into a lower range. I was forced to slow down - and it was a good hint!

Balance between speed and rest …

The New Testament shows that we should have a balance between speed and rest. Jesus himself keeps this balance. The stories provide many details about his busy life, in the middle of a group of disciples, but also in the middle of hundreds and thousands of followers, of sick people, of adversaries. He was busy, you can tell. But he took time of, went into the desert and into a quiet place. He took time off!

When things happen like the subway this morning, we can consider it as a loss - as I wrote above. But you can look at it differently. Someone gave me one hour. It was one hour of time to slow down, to get out of a hectic mode to carry out the next steps of a busy schedule. It was one hour given to me to get back into balance.

You can use such little hints to adapt your decisions and plans. I decided that my day should be a day to slow down a little bit. I postponed urgent things even further - I might drop some things and cancel them completely. I see the event as a little hint of the Lord, telling me to keep the ball flat and my mind focused on the right things. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts