Practicing the Art of Pausing

Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of comments along the lines of “I can’t believe it’s Friday already!” and “Where did the week go?” To keep the months from flying by, we need to learn “the art of pausing,” which was the topic of a retreat offered by Judy Valente at Sophia Center this past weekend.

One method of pausing that Judy recommended was to take time daily to write a haiku or any type of three-line poem to get a better sense of how we’ve lived our day. This practice requires slowing down and reflecting, so that in our busyness we don’t miss what is most important to us.

I remember reading that the reason childhood seems so timeless is that everything is new to a child, whereas to adults, it seems like we’ve seen it all before. Judy mentioned that she once heard that writing haiku or other types of poetry allows us to flip the sense of “déjà vu” to “vujà de”: seeing something new in what we have seen many times.

I plan to use haiku in my practice of lectio divina to see if it helps me perceive Scripture with new eyes. I’ll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with three haiku poems I wrote on the retreat on Saturday:

Amidst rusty leaves

bean blossoms nod serenely.

Fall is not spent yet. 

∞     

Clouds cannot hide light

spilling out from the edges

of God’s universe 

∞

Dessicated stalks

hold the surprise of popcorn

that will cheer our nights