The Arts of Slowing and Paying Attention
Amy Julia Becker
5 min read ⭑
A few weeks ago, my husband and I visited Mass MoCA, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. One wing of the museum is devoted to the creations of James Turrell, an American artist who has been exploring light, space and color for the past six decades. As we approached one room within the exhibit, a museum guide surprised me when she called out, “You will need to stay for 15 minutes to see the art.”
We stumbled through a carpeted hallway until Peter realized there was a railing to guide us into the space. One wall contained a dimly lit rectangle, but other than that, we saw nothing. We stood, disoriented, in the dark. I had no sense of the size of the room, or whether I might trip over objects. I couldn’t tell if other people were there. So I stopped. I stood still. I waited.
Soon enough — five minutes later? Three? — I noticed a wooden bench along the back wall. I made my way to it and sat down. My pupils slowly expanded to allow more and more light. The artwork came into view — glowing pink and white and shimmering before my eyes. The room itself grew lighter and lighter. I could make out the dimensions — a simple, flat, square floor. We sat together, in silence. And I realized we could only see this beauty, we could only comprehend this space, we could only receive the light, if we waited, and if we paid attention.
Most of my life requires very little waiting and very little attention. Just this week, I ordered holiday tissue paper, a board game, a heating pad and hair conditioner with the click of a few buttons on Amazon. I traveled the aisles of Target with my three teenagers and filled a shopping cart with Christmas decorations, snacks and an assortment of toys to give to our younger cousins. I ordered a book on my Kindle so I could start reading immediately. We used an app on my phone to order drinks from Starbucks, without any need to stand in line. I wait for little, which also means I pay little attention to the sources of our food, our games, our household goods. I interact with fewer individuals, which means I pay less attention to the neediness and beauty that arise in unexpected encounters with humanity. I move quickly, which means I get a lot done and miss a lot that matters. And I often feel disconnected and disoriented, like I can’t quite keep up with my own life.
A few years ago, our daughter Penny, who has Down syndrome, attended a conference where she was prompted to write down her goals for the future. She wrote things like “go to college” and “live with friends” and “work as an events planner.” She also wrote, “not rushing.” It took me a minute to understand her words.
Penny has always moved at a slower pace than the rest of our family. She is usually the last one to finish eating at a family meal. In conversation, she does best if we pause and wait for her to formulate her answer to a question. She still chides me for the time I forced her to try out for the track team at school, because running has never been of any interest to her. She is comfortable with waiting. Still, until she wrote “not rushing” as a goal for her life, I had often seen Penny’s slower pace as an unfortunate aspect of her disability. I thought I needed to accommodate her by slowing down, making concessions to her way of being. I began to wonder whether she instead was accommodating me by moving more quickly through the world.
I saw moving and thinking slowly as a disadvantage. Penny saw it as a virtue.
In the Northern Hemisphere, in both religious and secular traditions, December signals a time of waiting for the light. There’s the church season of Advent, when Christians acknowledge their longing for the return of the Christ child, their hope that the world will indeed be made right, their lament that injustice and oppression still reign. Even though Advent has been largely coopted by commercial forces that push our attention toward sparkles and twinkles and joy, the original intention of the season was to wait, with a sense of longing. To sit in these days when the shadows increase and darkness lingers and wait, with hope, for the coming of the light.
“The rhythms of both the natural world and the church calendar invite us all – distracted, busy, jolly, caffeinated, sugar-rushed, entertained, harried Americans – to slow down ... To experience a sense of longing for connection and peace. And then, to wait for the light.”
And then there is the winter solstice, the day when the hours of darkness far surpass the hours of daylight. This literal day on the calendar welcomes the winter, this barren time with its gray landscape, the branches of the trees stripped down to their elongated essence. Winter is a season where nothing appears to happen. It is also a season in which the earth and everything in it gets ready for spring, for growth, for new life.
As we now approach the winter solstice, the moment that marks both the apex of darkness and the beginning of a daily movement toward light, I keep returning to that experience of watching and waiting in the museum. Now, I sit in the darkness of the early morning with an eye out the window where the sun rises into view, and I remember that waiting for the light is like winter, like Advent, like pregnancy, like prayer, like love. And just as trees only burst into bloom after a season of waiting, just like Mary only gave birth to Jesus after those months of gestation, there are some things I can only learn if I learn to wait, and if I look for the light.
Having a child with a disability has not only meant slowing down. It has also meant encountering vulnerability, need and dependence, in her and in myself. It has meant bearing witness to the darkness of being overlooked and rejected in a fast-paced world of productivity and entertainment. And it has meant receiving the gift of the presence of someone who lives with gentleness, with an ability to laugh at herself, who assumes the best about everyone, who rarely wants material things but always desires friendship.
Right now, the rhythms of both the natural world and the church calendar invite us all – distracted, busy, jolly, caffeinated, sugar-rushed, entertained, harried Americans — to slow down. To admit how disorienting the darkness is. To experience a sense of longing for connection and peace. And then, to wait for the light.
Amy Julia Becker is an award-winning writer and speaker on personal, spiritual and social healing. She is the author of four books, including To Be Made Well: An Invitation to Wholeness, Healing, and Hope. She hosts the Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast. She lives with her husband and their three children in western Connecticut.
