Finding your rhythm

Do you ever feel like the busyness of this world, schedules, deadlines, commitments, expectations, and pressures are all waging war against your soul and sucking the life right of you? Maybe you feel a bit like Garth Algar from Wayne’s World, crying out, “It’s sucking my will to live!” I think we probably all experience moments like this, living in a westernized society focused on production, success, and excess. And perhaps, this is more than just a societal problem and is a result of our humanity being constantly at odds with our souls. Maybe this will be a struggle we wrestle with until we breathe our last tired breath on this planet, but I don’t think it needs to be. You see, I’ve witnessed another way. I’ve seen that there is a rhythm of life that our souls can settle into, where we have space to breathe in deep and find rest. Sound nice? Let me tell you about it.

In August, my wife and I celebrated our 30th anniversary. We married when I was 17 and she was 18. It hasn’t always been pretty, and certainly not easy, but here we are by the grace of God. For most of our marriage, we weren’t able to really travel much. At 23 years old, I was a father of 3 barely making ends meet, working in a job that paid the bills but didn’t feed my soul, and trying to keep everything together in a nice, tidy life. My wife (God bless her), put up with years of me struggling from one job to the next, buying new homes only to have to sell it a couple years later when we could no longer afford it. Our kids are all grown now, and after three decades we were finally able to take the anniversary vacation that she had always dreamed of. We celebrated our thirty years of struggle in the beautiful and romantic City of Love. (That’s Paris in case you didn’t know)

I had never really been too keen on going to Paris. I’m not exactly a big city kind of guy. I love a quiet beach, a secluded mountain lake, and the slow pace of an island life. That’s what has always seemed to call to my heart. The traffic, trains, and crowded streets of a big city could give me mild anxiety just thinking about it. But, Tammy had dreamed of going to Paris for many years and she deserved to have that dream come true, so we booked a flight and off we went.

I’m not going to lie. Our first day in the city of Paris was rough. We were both absolutely exhausted and feeling a bit on edge just trying to figure out how to navigate the transportation to get to our apartment, which was just a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower. We rode around the city on a double-decker, open-top tour bus to get a “lay of the land”, and both could barely keep our eyes open. Actually, I think Tammy slept through most of the tour. We settled in to our tiny apartment, which had no A/C to offset the unseasonably warm temperatures, and tried to get some rest to begin our vacation fresh the next day. The next morning, as we walked across the bridge just after sunrise and made our way through town to Le Marais, something began to shift. In the midst of a bustling city, our souls began to breathe. We were finding our rhythm.

We didn’t see people with “to-go” cups of coffee. They sit at outdoor cafes, talking, laughing, and enjoying their espresso and a freshly baked croissant. Thousands of people stroll daily along the path that lines the banks of the Seine River, snaking it’s way through the heart of the city. Stores close in the middle of the day so employees can take time for a proper meal, go home to be with family, and enjoy life outside the confines being “productive”. The first coffee I ordered was so tiny, at first I thought it was a joke. The teacups my granddaughters use for tea parties with their dolls would hold more coffee than the tiny little cup I was served. And yet, it was absolutely wonderful. I was used to a 16 ounce, mediocre, watered down coffee, but there I was served a 1 ounce bold, pure espresso full of flavor like I’d never had before. And this was the theme we experienced throughout France, from busy streets of Paris, the narrow cobblestone alleyways in the villages of Provence, to the beachside cafes of Cassis…..quality over quantity.

This is the rhythm I’m setting out to define the flow of my daily life. Slow down and experience the deep quality of living. Be present in conversation with the people in my life. Enjoy a delicious meal, a fine glass of wine, or an afternoon espresso. Be love to my family, friends, and neighbors. As humans, we were not created just to “do”, but to “be”. Be present, be real, be vulnerable, be loving, be kind, be humble, be prayerful, and be in the presence of a God who loves us. It’s so easy to get caught up in all the things we need to do, that we forget who we were created to be. Settling back into our daily life here, we’re finding such peace in developing a new rhythm of life, one day at a time, one finely crafted espresso at a time. We’ve found some breathing room to enjoy life in a pace that prioritizes quality over quantity, and at least for us, we are finding a rhythm of life that keeps our hearts and our humanity in tune with each other and brings joy to our souls. Have you found your rhythm?