Pacing, Pausing, and Choosing

Walking in downtown Asheville last Thursday, I noticed how often other walkers—certainly the occasional jogger—passed me. Up until a year or so ago, walkers rarely passed me. My pace was quick, whether on the rare stretches of flat sidewalk or going up a hill, like the one that runs beside the Civic Center. These days, because of neuropathy in my feet (an effect of chemotherapy), my balance is less sure than it was, and I have fallen a couple of times. I’ve had to slow down a bit and pay closer attention to where I place my feet.

I’ve lived with Multiple Myeloma for 11½ years, more time than I could have expected when I was diagnosed. I’ve also been in regular treatment for about nine of those years, and, unless a cure is discovered (it’s possible, researchers say), I will continue until I die. I’m grateful still to be alive and, therefore, for the drugs which are part of why I am.

Because of the many cumulative side-effects of treatment and, of course, aging , I’m having to do with my life as a whole what I have had to do with walking: change the pace and accept that I can’t move through my days at the speed I once did or at the pace of some of the people around me. Accepting it is necessary and wise but not easy, and I sometimes live more in protest against the new limits than in practice of them.

I’m also learning and relearning the value of pausing and choosing. Like so many other people, I have learned from Viktor Frankl that a freedom which others cannot take from us is the freedom to choose how we will respond, within the restraints of reality, to what happens to us. Between stimulus and response, we can pause; the longer and more reflective our pause, the more freedom and creativity we will bring to what we will do. Instantaneous and unreflective action is a reaction and an expression of unfreedom.

The stimulus might be a provocation by someone with whom we deeply disagree or the hot light in the window of Krispy Kreme an invitation to do something on an already-jammed day or bad news from the doctor. It might be the good news that a baby has arrived safely in the world or that a friend has gotten a promotion or that an opportunity to help start a ministry to people pushed to the margins is opening-up. We can take in the stimulus and then pause. In the pause, we can breathe purposefully, reflect, and pray. We can ask what a faithful response would be. If we’re clear about our values and if we know what time it is in our lives, a brief pause is time-enough to turn what would have been a reaction into a response. Or, if we need it and the circumstances make it possible, we can ask for more time.

Pacing, pausing, and choosing: simple and hard, challenging and liberating.

For other reflections, visit my website.

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Heard Beneath the Roar of Traffic (Signals, rather than noise, at the intersection)

“What do you want from each moment of life? If this moment were going to last forever, what would you like it to be?” (Eric Kaplan, Does Santa Exist?)

“To the skeptic, all arguments are circular.” (Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger)

“Everything that happens to you happens to you. Often boring, sometimes exhausting, and occasionally thrilling, every moment of life is unskippable.” The church is not asked to invent an identity; it is to live the life of Jesus Christ in the world” (Lemony Snicket, Poison for Breakfast)

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I’m available to speak for your congregation or organization or to join you in conversation through spiritual guidance/direction. Let’s explore the possibilities; contact me at guysayles@gmail.com.