“Return Slowly” sign at The Hermitage Community
Last week, I heard a story. There was once a group of Western scientists that wanted to observe a solar eclipse from a remote place in Africa. They hired local guides to take them there, and for the first day or two the guides stopped every few hours. The scientists were getting very concerned about making it to their destination on time to see the eclipse. The more they stopped, the more their agitation grew. They decided to take matters into their own hands to ensure they got there on time. They made a deal with the guides that they would pay them more if they would quit stopping.
The next day they kept going throughout the day. But finally 4pm came and the guides stopped. The scientists were upset. “We paid you more money to keep going,” they said, “we have to keep going!” The guides responded “we’ve gone all day, but now we need to stop and let our spirits catch up with our bodies.”
I know this feeling. Last Monday morning, I got up and went to the airport in Beijing. After winding my way through check-in, a train to the terminal, immigration, security, and a bus to the plane out on the tarmac, I boarded a plane. 13ish hours later, that plane touched down in Chicago. 6ish hours after that–after immigration, baggage claim, customs, rechecking my baggage, a surprise trip to friends in Chicago because my next flight was delayed, another security check, and a quick flight on a tiny plane–I arrived in Grand Rapids. As far as travel goes, it is a pretty long trip. 13 hours on a plane is no joke. And yet, the plane is hurtling across the ocean somewhere around 500 miles an hour. That is really fast. Much faster than my spirit can travel.
The first few days I was in Michigan, I felt like my soul had not caught up with my body. My body was here, but my spirit was caught somewhere in between Beijing and Michigan. My head was spinning, and I just couldn’t keep up.
Thankfully I’ve learned a few things from my prior trips to the U.S. This time, I scheduled a few days last week to take a short retreat at a place called The Hermitage. I didn’t have a huge agenda for myself. As I settled into the first day, I ended up centering my thoughts around a sign they have on the property. As you turn down their driveway, there is a sign that says “begin to slow down.” This sets the tone for a time of retreat and rest. But then as you head back down the driveway to leave there is another sign. It says, “return slowly.” It isn’t always easy to leave a time of peaceful retreat back into busy everyday life. It also goes better if you can ease in and return slowly.
For me, I thought about that phrase as the way I need to return to being in this country. I can’t (and most people can’t) actually make transitions as fast as an airplane can fly. In crossing the ocean, I need to flip a lot of switches from “how to act in China” to “how to act in the USA”. Those switches take longer to flip than the plane ride. I am returning slowly. The days to rest and be and take photos of flowers and read and journal and pray helped a lot. They helped my spirit to catch up to body.
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