CREEDE HINSHAW: Fast-forwarding through life

Being a retired guy, I have the luxury, rarely exercised, of watching daytime television. But last Monday, I decided to watch the Atlanta Braves play their first 2017 game against the New York Mets at sold-out Citi Field in New York.

It doesn’t take me long to get itchy, so I’d watch a half inning and hit the pause button, returning later to skip the ads. After a few innings, I concluded I didn’t have the inclination to watch every pitch. So I watched the game in fast forward, players batting, pitching and fielding at warp speed. It was only the first game of the year, but I couldn’t listen to those sportscasters spout their inanities between pitches.

The need for us to speed things up is quite common these days. Few people have patience to watch nine slow innings of baseball. The subtleties are usually lost, the managers’ chess-like moves often overlooked, the nine-player choreography rarely appreciated. Get to the action. Hit a home run. Have an argument at first base. Kick some dirt. Speed it up.

This week’s Wall Street Journal carried an article describing a class somewhere designed to help people spend more time admiring great art in museums. Patrons only spend, they say, 17 seconds looking at each painting on display. That’s almost criminal! These artists have spent months — years — on some of their paintings, and we take more time to choose a burger at the drive through than we do studying a rich masterpiece.

The course is trying to teach people to slow down, to study, admire and reflect on the great works. (Of course, I skimmed the article. Guilty as charged. I should be under no illusions; those few readers who have gotten this far in my column are probably skimming, too.)

What’s wrong with racing through newspapers or books, multi-tasking, or using the fast-forward button to escalate a movie or sports event? Why not wolf down our food like we’re in a hot dog eating contest? In speeding up, can’t we accomplish more?

Except on the highway, there are few speed limits in life. But this insatiable need for speed extracts a huge price.

We increasingly dwell more on the surface and less in the depths, happier with silly slogans than carefully considered arguments, fawning over a president’s tweets rather than searching the complexity of an issue, more comfortable texting while walking, driving or carrying on a conversation than contemplating the clues to life all around us.

Jesus asked his followers to consider the lilies. Paul asked the early church to think hard about things that are excellent. The Psalms and Proverbs repeatedly call followers to sink roots deep in meditation on God. These things can’t be attained through fast forward.

P.S. I have a rare privilege this coming week. I have been invited to preach the noontime Holy Week services at Albany’s Porterfield United Methodist Church on Dawson Road. These 30-minute services (Monday–Wednesday) are followed by lunch. It will be a joy to spend a few days in Albany!

Contact columnist Creede Hinshaw, a retired Methodist minister, at [email protected].