Priest Sergius Nezhbort
Movement is life. We are always in a hurry, racing somewhere. This ongoing race forms a habit that won't let us stop and see, hear and perceive what is happening now, at this moment.
One man told me during confession: "It was so hard for me to stand in this line and wait for my turn to confess!" I asked him: Are you in a hurry? No, he answered, I don't have to be anywhere else. Yet I could hardly wait for another person to finish their confession... Or say, I'm driving at 100 km per hour, there's a car driving in front of me. Why would I want to overtake that car? The road signs do not allow driving faster, there's nowhere to hurry, but I want to overtake it. Why? What's the rush, right?"
So what's the whole point of rushing, really? Where are we all hurrying to? We cannot tell as very often there is no real need for us to rush anywhere. With this haste, life is passing us by, time is flying away. We need to learn to stop once in a while and calm ourselves down. We might be late for something. But at least for a few minutes or seconds, everything will calm down inside us and we will try to really live those minutes or seconds. If someone is around, then we should try to see them and hear them. Try not to rush somewhere else, but to perceive what is here and now.
I think that our Orthodox services, being very long, should involve our participation, not our running. We need to participate in church services and try to stop this time, which is really vital for us. But instead, we are always rushing; It happens automatically.
It is quite obvious that we cannot slow down all the time, we do need to have some pace. But we also need to try and be living human beings. Whatever time we have, let us not waste it racing somewhere. Let us feel this time with our heart, with our mind, with our inner selves. How important it is to just look around and see a flower growing, a bird flying, a cloud floating, the sun setting. It is so important for us to take our time to notice all that.
Priest Sergius Nezhbort
