So much of life yells, “Move Faster!” at me. Mostly, it is just me who is doing the yelling at me. I’m pretty sure the world is perfectly satisfied to leave me behind. Perhaps it is only my sense of self-importance that makes me want to keep up.

Lately, it’s been more of a “Move this way and this and this!” While I can on many occasions move faster in the direction I’m already going, I can’t, under any circumstances, move multiple directions at the same time. This requires a decision at the intersection.

So, as a trying-to-be-a-good Christian, I start my day with time for reading and reflection. It gives me time to get settled and centered and started. This blog is an outflow of that time. My problem is, body still or not, my mind still whirs.

I am feeling grateful today for a writer in the Upper Room (I am sorry I haven’t made note of her name) who suggested singing a hymn or song of praise before devotions. By her suggestion I have marked some songs in my, ahem, borrowed hymnal and I regularly begin there. Yep. Out loud. On my porch.

Have you ever noticed that songs are meant to be sung at a certain pace? Especially hymns. Many days I am in a rush to just get started and get through my “devotional reading,” but once I begin singing the song (for the last several weeks “my” song has been “I want to Walk as a Child of the Light” (Kathleen Thomerson, 1966)) I fall into its pace. Its rhythm. It won’t let you rush.

And once I fall into the rhythm, I am slowed to its pace.

Who can sing, “I want to walk as a child of the light. I want to follow Je-sus. God set the stars to give light to the world. The star of my life is Je–sus” quickly? For me, the images come and I am happy to bask, even momentarily, in “In Him there is no darkness at all. The night and the d-ay are both alike. The lamb is the light of the ci-ty of God. Shine in my heart Lord Je–sus.”

Not only does it slow me, but I find myself humming it on the way out to pick up the morning newspaper. Now THAT is something you need to be prepared to read.