Slow Down You Move Too Fast

I'm reading a book about a woman who suffers a horrible head injury in a car accident.  I'm not done with the book so I don't know if it's a tragic ending or a happy one.  But at the point in the story where I'm reading, she is in the hospital: watching tv, hours of therapy and basically doing nothing.

She's miserable.  I feel for her.  Not a fun way to spend four weeks of your life.
But now it's time for "True Confessions":
An itty-bit of me is actually envious of her.  
Not the realistic bit of me that knows the hell she is living through; the itty-bit that hears "do nothing" and likes the sound of it.

Seriously, I recognize that this is messed up.
It makes me pause when I realize what I'm thinking.
I say a quick "hi" to that crazy itty-bit that thinks laying in a hospital bed doing nothing sounds good.  I listen to that itty-bit.  I hear myself say that I want to slow down.

Doesn't the bible have verse upon verse that validate the other scriptural truth:
"Be still and know that I am God."?

Be still.
I'm not sure I know how.
Even on vacation we fill each moment with adventure.  And I like it.

On a recent trip to the beach I read Donald Millar's A Million Miles in a Thousand Pages.  It rocked me. Basically he talked about living a good story.  Not boring.  Not lame.  Not selfish.

 "And once you live a good story, you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life, and you can't go back to being normal; you can't go back to meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time." 

I resonate with that.  It fits with my "lots-of-adventure, fill-each-moment, love-your-life" world view.
No meaningless scenes.  No wasted time.

I guess there are two sides to this coin, two sides to me.
One longs for adventure and pines away at creating beauty around me.
The other secretly desires to be forced to do nothing.  To just be still.

And the wrestling match between those two sides continues.  It's a daily wrestle.

So here I sit at 11pm.
Painting clothes on.  Grey paint still staining my fingers as I type.
A full day.  A full life.  No regrets.

But right now, in the midst of the fullness I need tell myself, be still.
I choose to Be Still.
It's a conscious choice.  Be still.
Actually it's a command:  Be still.
So I choose to obey.  I choose to be still.

And with that choice the wrestling match ends.
Still in the storm.
Still in a full life.
Still in a full day.
It is possible.

At the end of today, with a new exciting day on the horizon, I am going to give the final words to Simon and Garfunkel.
Maybe I'll put it on my playlist tomorrow.
A constant reminder.
Slow down, you move too fast, now.  
You gotta make the moment last.