From the Rector

Slow Worship

For the last 20 years or so there has been a world-wide movement known as the Slow Food movement (www.slowfood.com) which has an interesting philosophy. 

“We are enslaved by speed and have all succumbed to the same insidious virus: Fast Life, which disrupts our habits, pervades the privacy of our homes and forces us to eat Fast Foods.  To be worthy of the name, Homo Sapiens should rid himself of speed before it reduces him to a species in danger of extinction.   A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life.  . . . Our defense should begin at the table with Slow Food.  Let us rediscover the flavors and savors of regional cooking and banish the degrading effects of Fast Food.  In the name of productivity, Fast Life has changed our way of being and threatens our environment and our landscapes. So Slow Food is now the only truly progressive answer.”

It is a little quirky, but as everyone knows, there is a vast difference between pulling into a fast food place and devouring whatever you ordered while you drive and buying individual ingredients and making a savoury dish from scratch and sitting down to the table with family or friends and enjoying each other’s company while you eat.  The latter is a more human and satisfying experience.

Recent research seems to be showing that the fast-paced way that we live our lives, plugged in constantly to digital devices, has a side-effect on our brains: it makes them less retentive and our thoughts less creative.  (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/technology/25brain.html?th&emc=th)

That got me to wondering: is there a timely value to our “Slow Worship” liturgical style in the Episcopal Church in general and at St Thomas in particular in a high speed age such as we live in?  When we come to Mass, we enter into a different kind of time: liturgical, worship time, not clock time.  There are those who say that to attract modern people our worship has to be fast-paced and up-beat like an entertainment show on TV—and there are certainly many successful models of that.  But what is being lost?  If the new research is on the right track, what may be being lost is depth, memory, discernment, awareness, presence.  These things take time and quiet, an unhurried pace.  That is why our worship is not hurried, why we try to have quiet spaces within worship and why we are constantly talking about daily prayer and meditative reading as the best way to prepare for worship and to balance our lives—not to mention actually being in touch with God!

It is worth thinking about: the Slow Worship movement.