The Joy of Walking Slowly

"'If I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked,' the little prince said to himself, 'I'd walk very slowly toward a water fountain . . .'" ~Antoine de St.-Exupery, The Little Prince

"Slow down, you're movin' too fast.

Gotta make the morning last."

~Simon and Garfunkel, "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)"

I'm not sure when I started powerwalking. Usually I credit it with my days working at the grocery store, rushing to get unwanted items put back or to catch a customer who accidentally left their milk at my register. Maybe it started before then. Whatever the reason, it became a deeply engrained habit, to the point where I barely noticed how fast I was going.

When walking around my college campus, without fail I will pass every person I encounter who's walking the same direction... and this without feeling like I'm exerting myself at all. But what really rubbed in my excessive haste was when I came upon two friends while I was walking at what I considered a normal speed. My intent was to walk beside them and chat as we went, but before I knew it I had left them in the dust. I had to stop and wait for them to catch up.

The walk from my dormitory to the cafeteria can take me as little as five minutes. I know this from all the times I've rushed there, having just thrown on my uniform, gritting my teeth in anticipation of another stressful shift. This morning, however, I left my dorm thirteen minutes before the caf opened. There was no one around and no point in hurrying. So I challenged myself to see how slowly I could walk there.

Sometimes I took steps forward, then backward, then forward again in a kind of dance. Sometimes I balanced on the curb. I walked for a bit with my toes turned out and my legs bowed, like a Looney Tunes version of a cowboy. I tried walking without bending my knees at all, moving my legs forward by pivoting my hips. And I stopped often to look at the sky, listen to the birds, and think about writing this post.

I don't pretend any of these things are important or even interesting. But what came as a consequence of them was remarkable. I found myself back in the mindset I had when I was a child, before I learned to hurry. When I used to be less concerned with end results, and more concerned with finding a little joy in whatever I happened to be doing at the moment, no matter how mundane.

So what's the point of all of this? Why record it and share it with the world?

I think sometimes in our walk with Christ we can be so obsessive about our end goal that we ignore the process of getting there, perhaps viewing it only as a hindrance. Certainly, I have had my moments of praying, "Lord, can you please make me holy right now?" But now I wonder if Jesus has not called us to powerwalk. Perhaps what He wants from us is a slow walk, a childlike walk that doesn't become impatient and frustrated and long to instantly teleport to its destination, but rather finds a fresh delight in every step.

Maybe we've been given the little prince's wish: the chance to walk very slowly toward a water fountain.