🎻 Tuning Tuesday

Rushing to Rest

I knew it was time to slow down.

I was rushing between yard work and laundry and the dishwasher, moving too quickly, like a fool. “Whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way” (Proverbs 19:2). I caught myself in the act and felt rather proud:

Trevor, you’re catching yourself. You’re choosing wisdom. You’re downshifting.

Like a victor who had just conquered the unconquerable urge to hurry, I walked slowly toward the hammock. It beckoned me like a warm hug. Welcome, Trevor. I’ve been waiting.

I dipped myself into the hammock like stepping into fresh waters. I stretched out lengthwise, like the weiner in the hotdog bun, exhaled loud, and watched my feet begin to rise.

And rise.

And then, like a canoe tipping backwards, I capsized. The hammock spat me out, and I landed on the metal support that holds it taut. The air punched out of my ribs. Hoof.

Lying there, cursing my overturned vessel of “rest,” a memory surfaced.

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Safety That Betrays

Once, while setting glulam beams, I stood in a cage lifted by a telehandler. The cage hadn’t been secured properly. The forks tilted, the world shifted, and suddenly I was on the ground, sand in my mouth, hard hat tumbling.

What just happened?

My body has asked that question more than once. The times I thought I was safe, only to be dropped, capsized, or thrown.

Even rest, it seems, can betray me.

Or maybe: I rush even to rest.

I hadn’t noticed the hammock stand was perched on a root, unstable from the start. Even my refuge was wobbling.

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Learning the Slowness of the Holy

So I continue to practice. Wisdom, as the ancients say, moves slow. The slug does not hurry. The tree is in no rush to grow. Even our cats linger — stretch, sleep, eat, repeat.

The Holy One who shaped slugs and trees and cats is not in a hurry.

The Architect does not skip the foundation.

The Presence who invites us into rest first asks: Is it safe here?

But folly skips over this. Folly rushes straight into action, as if movement itself will make us secure. Folly throws itself into the hammock without checking the ground beneath.

Wisdom, on the other hand, hears the invitation: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). Stillness is how safety is discerned. Stillness is how the Eternal is known.

And yet my nervous system, overtaxed by years of rushing, doesn’t recognize safety unless I practice. The hammock capsizing incident tells me: walk slower. Notice the ground. Ask: Am I safe? Take time to secure what holds you.

Even sitting down can be an act of wisdom. My wife laughs at how I “launch” myself into the couch. Our poor cushions are permanently disfigured by my haste to chillax. But what if even sitting — lowering my body into a chair or hammock — could be holy? Could be safe? Could be God’s pace?

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The Practice

Here’s how I’m practicing now:

• Slow the approach.

• Notice the foundation (is it wobbling, like the hammock stand on a root?).

• Exhale as I lower down.

• Breathe like a tree settling into earth.

Even my failures teach me.

Even falling on my ribs is a tuning fork.

Even my bumbling is met by the God of hammocks — the Presence who holds.

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A Breath for You

If you, too, find yourself rushing to rest:

• I n h a l e: I belong.

• E x h a l e: I have time.

The hammock mocked me into wisdom.

The God who is never in a hurry is still teaching me to move slow.

Maybe the Eternal is tuning you, too.

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☕ Mercy Offering

If you’ve ever taken a good tumble — from a hammock, from haste, from life itself — and found wisdom in the bruises, consider tossing me a coin of mercy.

Not as payment. Not as tax.

But as laughter in the face of empire’s hunger, and fuel to keep these chronicles flowing.

or

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mercy > judgment. Always.