The Speed of Soul
Tommy Brown
5 min read ⭑
“Pastor Tommy, you need to find your center.”
The elderly gentleman across the table from me was what I imagine when I think about a mature Christian: love, joy, peace, patience and all the rest inside his cable-knit sweater vest.
I had asked him to lunch because I was floundering in my career and because he embodied the confidence, calm and clarity that I desired. As he spoke about finding center, I wanted to nod and say that yes, yes, he was so right — but it was as obvious to him as to me that I, in my twenties at the time, had no clue what he meant.
“Listen,” he went on, “the whole time we’ve been at lunch, you’ve been telling me how stressed you are. You’re worried about what your coworkers think. You’re running around your church trying to stamp down every problem that pops up like you’re playing whack-a-mole. Your to-do list is longer than my arm. It’s like you’re standing in a field and there’s a storm blowing through and you’re just taking it square on the chin. You need to lower your center of gravity. You seem harried to me.”
Harried — there’s an odd word. You don’t hear it much anymore, except from the old timers. But it’s a good word because when you say it, you feel it. And you know harried when you see it. I saw it three times this past week.
A teenager holds her head in her hands and sobs, telling me how lonely and yet overwhelmed she feels. Meanwhile, her cell phone buzzes like a shock collar.
A middle-aged woman receives a terminal diagnosis. Her husband stresses over how he’s going to keep his job and hold together his family of four children.
My wife and I compare calendars and realize that on Friday night, our kids have three events at the same time. And we only have two children. And that’s just Friday.
Harried is having more month than money, more commitments than calendar space, more stress than peace, more work than sleep, more and more and more. Always more. Harried makes you feel as if one more thing gets added to your plate, you’re going to lose your mind and break the plate. Harried makes you snippy and snappy and otherwise crabby about little things that don’t make a big difference.
And maybe the worst thing about harried is . . . it just happens.
Harried is the path of least resistance in a frenetic world. You know what doesn’t just happen?
Calm. Content. Clear. Focused. Grounded. Strong.
Spacious. Present.
In a word: centered.
Over the years, I’ve thought a lot about the old man’s words. Harried seemed inevitable — but centered? One doesn’t just drift effortlessly into a centered life, one of internal stability and fortitude. An unharried life, I think, requires cultivating an unhurried soul.
One thing was clear: I couldn’t find whatever my center was if I was taking the wind on the chin. It felt like that man knew something I didn’t; something he’d learned in the school of hard knocks that everyone attends but few learn the lessons of.
As I remember his warm demeanor, I know he spoke from experience about finding his center — his presence wasn’t feigned or forced; he had become something, had been forged into something good and beautiful and true. Like a river cutting through a canyon, wisdom coursed through this man’s life, carving character into his core. And when I reflect on his graciousness and patience with me, I can’t help but think that he was inviting me to yield the mountain of my hardened, resistant, striving will to the eternal flow of wisdom that had shaped his life.
I wish I’d asked him more questions during that meal. Instead, I just prattled on about another problem. I didn’t know it then, but that would be our final lunch. Time passed; we lost touch. But even though I didn’t have ears to hear at the time, his words weren’t lost on me. At the right moment, when the student was ready, the wisdom to find my center found me.
“Love deeply. Live quietly. Mind your own affairs. Work with your hands.”
My son walked into my study as I read the Bible. He was curious and shocked to see that I had written in it, underlined sentences, colored passages — some in red, some in blue — drawn lines connecting one section to another, and doodled art in the margins. I think he was uneasy because he knows the Bible is a sacred book and marking it up must have seemed sacrilegious. I assured him that not only was this okay but also encouraged. This is a book that, yes, we read, but it is also one that we wrestle with, argue with, ask questions of. It’s a book that, by its very design, offers myriad perspectives on God’s mysterious ways.
The Bible is more than words on a page; it’s also a canvas that invites us to color it with our experiences, to find ourselves within, between, and beyond the lines. I mark up my Bible because my Bible leaves its marks on my mind. I need space to work out what I think about it, and rather than keeping a journal handy to record notes, I imprint my impressions right there on the pages of Scripture. God’s words, my words — a conversation.
Having used the same Bible for nearly twenty years, on occasion, I’ll encounter a note I have no memory of writing. Sometimes I’ll read insights I’ve written that I no longer agree with. And sometimes I stumble upon a thought I long ago jotted down that arrests my heart. This was the case one morning when I read:
Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one (1 Thessalonians 4:9-12, ESV).
1. Love deeply.
2. Live quietly.
3. Mind your own affairs.
4. Work with your hands.
It’s a simple list I forgot I’d written in the margin beside Paul’s words. But more than that, it’s a list that reminded me of that moment at the table with the old man.
Although he was a Christian, the old man never quoted anything from the Bible during our conversation. But this is what he was saying, or more accurately, what he embodied. It took me a decade to find language to describe what it means, as he put it, to find your center and escape the harried life.
Tommy Brown is the Pastor for Spiritual & Community Formations at Generations United Church in Niceville, Florida. As a contemplative teacher, he seeks to connect the dots between Scripture, God’s deep work in the human soul, and the patterns of our ordinary lives. He is the author of The Seven Money Types and The Ache for Meaning.
Taken from “The Speed of Soul: Four Rhythms for a Quiet Life in a World of Noise” by Tommy Brown. Copyright © 2025. Used by permission of NavPress.
