Lent Day 25… The Slow Work Of God

The whole culture is telling you to hurry, while the art tells you to take your time. Always listen to the art. —Junot Diaz

Pictured above: that’s John, my father-in-law. He’s the best farmer I know (he grew up on a farm in North Dakota and came to Seattle to work at Boeing). He walks slowly—probably because of a bad hip or a bum knee… but there’s something cool about his slow walk. And even though he’s not super-fast, he grows the biggest onions and the best blueberries of anyone I know. It almost seems as if walking slowly is some kind of requirement for being a great farmer.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are, quite naturally, impatient in everything to reach the end
Without delay.
We should like to skip
The intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on
The way to something unknown,
Something new,
And yet it is the law of all progress
That it is made by passing through
Some stages of instability…
And that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually…
Let them grow,
Let them shape themselves,
Without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
As though you could be today
What time will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
Gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
That his hand is leading you,
And accept the anxiety of
Feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

Yes. And amen. Trust in the slow work…

And walk like John.