This winter I fell in love with tea. My love affair with coffee runs long and deep, but my love for tea is new and exciting.
It sounds a little crazy, but part of what I love about both coffee and tea is the ritual and the required delayed gratification. You make a pot of coffee, and you hear it and smell it and see it before it’s ready to drink. With tea, you put the water on to boil and then let the tea bag steep. It’s a process and there’s waiting involved.
It’s a tiny thing, but I’ve realized it’s good for my heart.
Everything in our world moves so fast, and we’ve learned to expect things immediately. I’ve noticed an anxiousness and agitation in my heart when I have to wait for something. When an email takes an extra two seconds to load. When the Starbucks line is moving too slowly. When someone doesn’t text back right away. There is a sense of entitlement in my heart, like I shouldn’t have to wait, like all things should happen quickly and on my schedule.
And because we expect the small things to happen fast, it seems we are starting to expect the big things to happen quickly too. We don’t have time for a cold to last more than three days. We want our relational tensions resolved quickly, if they must come up at all. We look at spiritual and emotional growth in our lives and wonder why it is taking so stinking long.
It makes sense; none of these things are fun. Sickness, struggle, tension, and growth are all painful and uncomfortable and unpleasant. Of course we want them done with as soon as possible.
But that’s not the way things work. There are some things, some of the best things, that must happen slowly. A field doesn’t yield a harvest the day after planting. A wound doesn’t heal in an hour. So many of the rich, meaningful, deep things in life transpire over time.
Sometimes, if I am honest, I loathe the process of it all. I hate that the deep work in my heart and mind and body must unfold slowly. I hate that it takes so long. And I don’t just hate it for myself. I hate it for my family and friends, for the people I work with. I wish that a few sessions of therapy could resolve issues that have been at work in peoples’ lives for years, decades even.
But that’s just not how it works. Even though everything in the world around me tells me I have a right to expect things quickly, that everything should be available at fast and faster speeds. Fast is not the speed at which hearts and minds and relationships change and grow.
I have to remind myself of the truth that the best and more important things in life take time. Love, growth, healing, forgiveness, intimacy. They all unfold slowly, happen in process, and take time. It isn’t any easy truth, but it’s a good one.
When I find myself getting irritated with the waiting and with the process, it’s helpful to remind myself that slow is sometimes how the world works. That it’s not moving slowly because I’m doing it wrong, but because time is an essential ingredient in the recipes for healing, growth, and change.
I remind myself of that truth, and I intentionally submerge myself in external processes that take time. If I have a few minutes, I boil water and make a mug of tea. If I have longer, I make a loaf of bread. I write a note instead of a text or an email. I go on a long walk. I look for external activities that remind me of the inner reality.
Slow is not bad. Slow can be a necessary and important rhythm. There is a depth and beauty and wisdom that we can get from slow that can never be found in fast. Some things, like a steaming mug of tea, a loaf of bread, and relational and personal growth, take time.