Learning to Pause...

"Learn to pause...
...or nothing worthwhile
will catch up to you."
(Doug King, Poet)

Peter Senge in his book The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization makes the comparison between eastern and western ways of thinking. They used the illustration of a person walking down a hall way and looking into another's office or cubical and seeing them sitting there in a chair "doing nothing" no typing, writing, talking on the phone etc, just sitting there with eyes closed.

In our western world we would assume this person to merely be day dreaming, dozing, wasting time, loafing, etc... Yet, in an eastern culture, they would be assumed to be in deep contemplative thought. Thought that would give rise to innovative ideas, strength, energy and creativity...

In this case, the less was considered more. We typically, peer into the office of another...and if there busy at work, typing, phoning, writing, frantically moving about their desk...we assume they are busy, significant and on the move upward.

In eastern cultures, this would be considered more of the "rat race" -- lots of churning in the wheel, lots of noise, but in the end - not much movement - only perceived... interesting.

How often do I equate my "movement" to success and significance? Too much...

Doug King is on to something, "Learn to pause... or nothing worthwhile will catch up to you." Daily, we are bombarded with so much information and external stimuli. More than we could possibly process in a week, much less in a day. And, yet it is imperative that we don't simply exist within the speed of life. God desires that we develop the ability to 'extract the precious' out of it... (See Jeremiah 15:19 - "If you extract the precious from the worthless, You will become My spokesman.")

It is when we develop the Art of Pausing in the midst of the business of life that God is able to break in more readily and that which is valuable begins "to catch up to us..."