There’s a booklet out there called Slow Down To The Speed of Joy. We might modify that to be: Slow Down To the Speed of God. What better velocity could there be?

It’s the speed of joy but also the speed of satisfaction, peace, holiness, worship, and completeness.

It is the speed of God’s timing.

There’s the expression, “Godspeed.” And indeed we like a little bit of a hurry, when we need or want something now.

The lord doesn’t always see it that way. God’s speed infinitely exceeds that of light. He can be all places in less than an instant.

In Heaven there is no time and therefore no speed limit.

But surely you have noticed (perhaps at times with great frustration) how gradual the Lord can be. Look at that way he unfolds nature. Look at how slowly many the growth of many plants can be.

But also look at how wondrously they “evolve.”

Branches grow, the petals unfold. The imperceptible becomes magificent. Trees can take centuries to reach full maturity, but what heights and strength! (Witness the redwoods.)

The oldest known living individual tree is Methuselah, a Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) located in the White Mountains of California and estimated to be over 4,850 years old. It resides in the Inyo National Forest, with its exact location kept secret to protect it.

That’s older than the pyramids—and in many ways, more wondrous. See how well-rooted it is?

The same is true in our lives.

One way of doing this is to simply meditate on God and His Creation. Spring and summer are optimal. But really any season. Take note of nature. Somehow, materialism has related it to irrelevance. Nothing God made and makes is anything but critical.

And reaching peace often means setting aside “religiosity.” That’s worshiping a religion more than God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit themselves.

One has to “rise” (with the risen Christ) above worldliness.

Our worship wanes when we make it too mundane, rote, and routine, losing spontaneity (best express as love).

We lose it when mysticism is set aside.

Traditional religion–Christianity in the West–wasn’t widely considered as a solution to the problem, mainly because it seemed to have made compromises with rationalism.  The soullessness and lack of mystery that the young hated about modernity was replicated in the church…this was partly why those disenchanted by materialism tended to be attracted to the religions of the East that showed more respect for nature and were less interested in war and the pursuit of wealth…

As one commentator noted, “Traditional religion–Christianity in the West–wasn’t widely considered as a solution to the problem, mainly because it seemed to have made compromises with rationalism.  The soullessness and lack of mystery that the young hated about modernity was replicated in the Church.”

Bring back mystery into the Church. Rise with the Risen One. Go in the flow of the Holy Spirit.

Godspeed!