Cringe

"I just like to stay pretty much connected all the time"--a fellow traveller in an airport waiting room. Cringe. "Why?" I thought, feeling, and imagining the life getting sucked out of me.

"Tour Europe--5 countries in 8 days"--advertisement in a travel agency. Cringe. Who would want to? What would you actually get out of that? What would you enjoy? Wouldn't it be almost arrogant to then feel like you had actually seen the countries? What would be the benefit of rushing by everything? How exhausting!

I feel things differently than I used to. I'm so much more aware of the toll on my mind and heart. I think I'm learning to live different as a result, but I still need to practice.

Leighton Ford's The Attentive Life: Discerning God's Presence in All Things speaks to what I am more trying to emulate now. He says, "I no longer regard it as a compliment if someone says, 'Leighton can do three things at one time.' Instead I take it as a rueful reminder: do one thing at a time, slow down, take time to breathe, to pray, to remember what has just happened with gratitude (or regret), to prepare my heart and mind for what comes next instead of rushing ahead with an overstuffed mind."

Cost: Feeling like I am disappointing people, feeling guilty that I am not giving all I can or helping as much as I should.

Benefit: Presence--being able to be really present with people when I am there, and more present to God and what He is doing in and around me, more clear that I am responding to His voice rather than just my own compulsions.