Slowing Down

Last night, as I drove home, the sun and clouds in the sky were beautiful. I was following my drivevangelization routine, driving in a way conducive to Catholicism's call to be obedient to the laws of men, so only going 65mph. As I admired the beautiful sky, a car flew past me, and I thought, what a shame they will miss out on the beauty because they are rushing about like Lazarus’ sister Martha. I was reminded of my own personal call to slow down from when I was not working for months at the beginning of the pandemic. And why this call? So much is missed through rushing.

The call to slow down aligns with the book Leisure: The Basis of Culture, in which the author Josef Pieper writes about the passive aspect of knowing. “The great medieval thinkers as well, all held that there was an element of purely receptive “looking,” not only in sense perception but also in intellectual knowing or, as Heraclitus said, “listening in to the being of things. “

“...ratio is the power of discursive thought... whereas intellectus refers to the ability of 'simply looking', to which the truth presents itself, it’s as a landscape presents itself to the eye...”

To appreciate a landscape, I cannot rush past it. Or, I should say, to more fully appreciate a landscape and allow it to impact me and teach me something I can not rush by. I must slow down. Slow down in reading. Slow down in praying. Slow down in my daily work, cutting hair. Knowledge can not present itself to me if I am moving too fast to receive it. Mary sat at Jesus feet. He calls me to do the same.

Mary wasn’t old and unable to move; she chose to sit at His feet and learn. Growth in wisdom, which comes through His words, and also the learning that comes from being in His presence. I have to choose to be present with Jesus.

LBoC “... although human knowing really takes place in the mode of ratio, nevertheless it is a kind of participation in that simple knowing which takes place in higher nature‘s, and we can thus conclude that human beings possess a power of intellectual vision.”... this statement means that human knowing is a partaking in the non-discursive power of vision enjoyed by the angels, to whom it has been granted to “take in“ the immaterial as easily as our eyes take in light or our ears sound. Human knowing has an element of the non-active, purely receptive seeing, which is not there in virtue of our humanity as such, but in virtue of a transcendence over what is human, but which is really the highest fulfillment of what it is to be human, and is thus “truly human“ after all (in the same way, again according to Thomas Aquinas, the vita contemplativa as the highest form of human living is not, properly human, but superhuman”.

To slow down and know through “simply looking” is the way of the angels that I am being invited to participate in if I cooperate and move more slowly. A contemplative life, moving slowly, is the highest form of human living, according to St. Thomas Aquinas. To think that God is calling me to this. Offering this to me. What a gift. Help me to accept it.

Human-Written, AI Spell Checked 5/5/21

Image from Garrett D Johnson