The Geographer of Twigs
Could there be something in common between the snail in "In praise of slow" by Carl Honoré and the heart of Jesus' message to balance our lives amid the modern commotion?
It feeds off the path itself, wrote Jacques Lacarrière in a very beautiful text on "taking it slowly" in the spring of 2002 when speaking about... the snail! And since then I haven't stopped referring to this apparently poor, deprived and defenceless little creature to meditate on daily life, because we have better things to do in life Chan to go faster, as Gandhi reminded us. Traveling up to four or five metres per hour, the snail absorbs the wet earth along the way and discards it while moving ahead, which gives it TIME to admire the landscape, to enjoy it, to learn from it and to feed itself. A "geographer of twigs", it takes the TIME to appreciate the intimacy of beings and things that it meets ON ITS WAY without ever getting all worked up; it is alert and contemplative in a world of giants that bustle around it, protected by a reassuring shell. Unable to hurry, it finds the things it needs to grow ON THE WAY.
The snail fascinates me, challenges me, unsettles me more and more: what is LIFE, and particularly my own life, when I am rushing, hurrying and racing to gain... what? A few dollars? What has become of those people whom I brushed along the way while I was actively awaiting retirement so I could have time to do what I really wanted to do? I, whose conscience was at peace because I did not waste any time today and had a full agenda, what did I savour that fed my soul? I, who am concerned with justice, fraternity and commitment to a better world, how do I reconcile this vision with the pace of the snail? Martha, Martha, you worry and you are concerned about many things, but only one is necessary... said the Nazarene. What Lord, which one? Two hundred years before the Nazarene's arrival, the Roman playwright Plato wrote about his dissatisfaction: The gods curse the man who first learned how to tell time, and they likewise curse those who built a sundial here to cut up and carve my days into miserable little pieces. Since then, I cannot even sit myself down to eat without the sun's permission. The city is so full of these cursed sundials...
Taking Time by the Hand
I'm not the only one who is fascinated by the snail and who is bothered by the "speed" demon, others also are attracted to the slow life and are upset by the multiple "slips" caused by the fact of being pulled in all directions by this culture of speed. One trend in public opinion disputes this madness for productivity of which speed is the essential tool: Carl Honoré has written a brilliant analysis in his book entitled "In praise of slow"(English edition published by Vintage Canada) and which inspires me every day to adapt my spirituality to the challenges of our time.
Did he not nourish himself along the way, this extraordinary Jesus of Nazareth who traversed the roads of Palestine? Was he not attentive to the "twigs" he encountered (a fisherman, a soldier, a child, a synagogue chief, a woman who had haemorrhage for twelve years, a fig tree, a vine, birds...), calm and patient, favouring real connections, taking the TIME to appreciate the depth of people, accompanying them in their hour of need, drawing nourishment from them to speak about his Father's business in an understandable way, and acting so that his Word would be realized before eternity passes away? Was there not in this Prophet a balance, a pace which he could step up when it was logical to do so and slow down when it was necessary? And could it be that this pace comes from the Spirit who made him go about his Father's business, a spirit of liberty that enabled him to take time by the hand and lead it wherever he decided to go?
Taking Time Without Rushing
Production, production, production to stay in first place... acquiring, consuming and consuming in excess for pleasure, imposes an unavoidable pace on us because we have limited time to get there and to enjoy it. This unsustainable pace ends up unbalancing the body, the heart, the spirit, relationships, our appetite, sleep, and imposes its will: system first, human after.
Such a race against time is a spirit and a lifestyle that come with significant losses and deep wounds: that's the way of speed. And if we slow down? We are what we eat... and this "fast food" is indigestible. If only we would take the slow way! Slow does not mean indifferent, lazy, not fast, isolated, disconnected, dysfunctional, or obsolete. The praise of slow is another lifestyle, another philosophy inspired by the recent dissatisfaction of thousands of agitated people eager to live calmly, even in the city, to nourish themselves and to grow. In 1999, Carlo Petrini stated the three great principles of this philosophy: pleasure before profit, people before business, slow before speed. Not against but ahead of. The snail's pace demonstrates this philosophy beautifully, and I consider that this has something wonderfully in common with the Spirit of the Man of Nazareth.
What did Jesus want to say to Martha? Perhaps that the quiet Mary was correct at that moment to take time to connect more deeply with the guest on her path: isn't this the essence of Life? What did he want to emphasize by declaring that the Sabbath was instituted for man? Probably that people come before any institution! And what about his parable where the man whose hard work earned him a hundred sheep takes the time required to find the one that is lost! The slow way is that of the hiker who takes his time to draw sustenance from whatever crosses his path and who constantly adjusts his pace so that he won't hastily overlook another person who is considered to be too slow.
Text André Gadbois