Slow Down and Savor the Moment
Mark A. Taylor reflects on reading magazines, collecting insights, and noticing how small moments can reshape the way we live and serve. Drawing from Michael Pollan and Gordon MacDonald, he urges readers to relax, slow down, and treat interruptions as places where God may be at work.
- Reading widely can stockpile wisdom—even when you forget where you found it.
- Hurry and anxiety can damage more than we realize, in life as well as at the table.
- Delays and interruptions may be invitations to notice God’s presence in the wait.
By Mark A. Taylor
Maybe this is what you’d like to hear about your magazine editor: I love to read magazines!
Seldom do I watch television without a magazine open to skim during the commercials. More than once, propped in bed beside my wife (the light sleeper and early riser) I’ve negotiated just a few more minutes to finish one more article. Whenever I take a trip, I pack my briefcase full of magazines and newspapers.
But too often I forget where I read something. Little bits of trivia about everything from tuna fish to taxes float around in my mind, but I can’t tell you where I saw them. If I were preaching every Sunday or writing a book, I’d have to copy these quotes so I could document them.
Not that I don’t keep some of it. I have a file drawer bulging with photocopies of magazine articles. Sometimes I even go back and read them again! And sometimes these are in the backup material we keep for each week’s issue of Christian Standard. I try to share only the best quotes and facts and insights with our readers.
Finding God in the Wait
Occasionally, in the wash of words and layouts, I pluck a couple of gems that don’t seem at first to go together. But I see them there, sparkling amid all the other paragraphs and headlines, and I think the combination says something more than each author’s original point alone.
For example, the June 12 Time featured a whole center section labeled “Eating Smart,” ending with a delightful essay, “Six Rules for Eating Wisely,” by Michael Pollan. He says eating in a hurry and under stress is far more damaging to our bodies than the fat or calorie content of the foods we consume. “Eat with pleasure,” he concludes, “because eating with anxiety leads to poor digestion and bingeing. . . . So, relax. Eat food. And savor it.”
I had just seen an entry in Gordon MacDonald’s Web journal, posted at LeadershipJournal.net. He spoke of his frustration driving to an appointment through construction sites whose workers, he was sure, were conspiring to make him late.
The experience made him think about ministry we do in the lives of people who delay us from duties we first thought were more important. “People under construction seem to force everyone else to slow down, even stop on occasion and lurch forward a car length at a time.”
And there I saw the connection: Relax. Slow down. Eat (or drive, or talk to coworkers) with pleasure. Seek to see God in each moment and each person. When the day’s to do list is only half finished, it may not matter. If progress toward the goal is taking too long, maybe God is in the wait. When someone ruins your momentum with an inconvenient request, treat her the way you want God to hear your hasty cries for help.
And never, never, never feel bad about taking 20 minutes more to read a good magazine!
Author: Mark A. Taylor
Mark A. Taylor, who served as Christian Standard editor from 2003 to 2017, retired in June 2017 after almost 41 years with Standard Publishing (Christian Standard Media).
