Pursuing Stillness (Bot9 #346)
Spring training has started and we’ve seen the implementation of the new baseball pitch clock rules. We saw Manny Machado become the first player to violate the new rules on Friday. Then a Saturday game between the Red Sox and Braves ended in a tie as Cal Conley of the Braves, facing reliever Robert Kwiatkowski of the Red Sox, wasn't set in the box as the clock wound under eight seconds. The bases were loaded and the count was full, mind you. These new baseball rules are just another symbol of the nonsensical level of hurry we experience on a daily basis.
A consumer-driven society like ours rejects the value of stillness. We’re conditioned to go, consume more, keep going, and consume something else. The pitch clock is an indication of how we’ve allowed consumerism to dictate our attention spans through the endless scroll available on social media feeds. Both the pitch clock and media at our fingertips are examples of how fast we think we need to go and how that next TikTok video might cure our insatiable appetite for more. We’ve lost the understanding that we have the ability to condition ourselves to a set of values that swim upstream from this thinking, and not succumb to parts of life that make us believe more is better.
Consistent with many faith traditions, I’ve been pursuing stillness recently. Stillness is the first element of what we refer to as our Daily Rhythms in our Sport as Worship concept. It’s the first of the 5 S’s (Stillness, Sleep, Sweat, Social, and Structure). I’ve found that scoring highly in these Daily Rhythms each day allow for margin and opportunity to be present. Jesus pursued stillness, along with so many other wise leaders across so many cultures. Dictate the pace of your life, or it will most certainly dictate it for you.
Here are five things to consider doing if you’d like to join me in pursuing stillness:
1. Lower your screen time
This one actually happened more accidentally than it did intentionally, but it’s worthy of note. As I worked on things throughout this list, my need or desire to be engaged with my iPhone lessened. I’ve cut my weekly screen time by 45 minutes to an hour through January and February. But, let me say it again, this was a by-product of the rest of the list.
2. Physically write things you value down
I’m working on physically writing out the book of Luke from the Bible thanks to the Journible series. Once completed, Luke will be the second Gospel I will have written by hand (Matthew was my first a few years ago). There’s something about the physical act of writing that slows down your internal pace and gives more room for reflection on what you are writing down.
3. Spend time with people you enjoy or those who seek you out
It might sound obvious, but spend more time with the people who fill you up as well as those who desire your presence. Be totally present with them and have no agenda other than to be with them. Choose to engage in projects where you have the opportunity to think deeply with them and be curious about something together. When you make yourself available to others as you’ve slowed down the pace of your inner life, some really amazing things happen. Trust me.
4. Monitor the quality of your sleep and get a workout in
These two things will derail your ability to be still. If you’re not sleeping, you’re going to struggle to be still (or is it the other way…feels like a chicken-or-the-egg argument, but you understand). If you’re not working out, your body is idle and doesn’t have some of the great chemical releases a simple movement workout provides. Monitor your sleep and your sweat, and watch your ability to be still increase.
5. Trust your training
I’ve been reading David L. Cook’s new book greatness (yup, I’m one of those people who had to know what was in a book selling for $100…it’s worth more, if you ask me). Here’s what Cook says about this idea: “Trust is a decision made at a moment in time to believe in your training, education, experience, ability, and talent.” If you don’t have the training or education, go get it. If you don’t have the experience, seek it. If you don’t have the ability or talent, develop it. But, once you have those things, revel in the stillness you get to experience as you execute what you do every day. Training and talent are both gifts.
As I mentioned above, I’ve been writing out the book of Luke. I came upon an interesting story in Luke 11:14-28 where Jesus exorcises a demon from a man who was mute. Jesus comments about what happens after these spirits leave the body and mind in verses 24-26:
“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.”
The NIV Study Bible I use to copy down the Gospel called these spirits ‘idols’. Idols come in so many forms, especially in our inner lives, and they represent the insatiable nature of the things trying to take us off track. We clean up one thing and something else will appear. Or, clean the whole room and seven other things will overwhelm you. Keep pursuing stillness so you might be able to conquer those idols in your life. Without stillness, we lose the ability to care for our house. Or, worse yet, we start changing rules to fit a pace we weren’t meant to live our lives.