Paddle Boarding and the Slow Work of God

One of the rooms at the Hermitage Retreat Center in Three Rivers has this quote hanging near the doorway, from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something

Unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through

some stages of instability –

and that it may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you.

Your ideas mature gradually – let them grow,

let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on,

as though you could be today what time

(that is to say, grace and circumstances

acting on your own good will)

will make of you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.

 

I mentioned this quote to a friend this week and we both wondered aloud about Chardin’s context. (i.e. Did he have children? a spouse? household chores to do or persuade others to do? Was there a global pandemic going on?) I have yet to research this . . .

 

It’s really hard to trust the slow work of God – in terms of the pandemic (What is God doing? How long?), in terms of racial injustice (What is God doing? How long?), in terms of so much suffering and deep division (What is God doing? How long?). It’s hard to trust in the slow work of God when so much seems unknown. And it’s hard to trust in the slow work of God when we long to be transformed – to be more the people God created us to be.

 

I spent Monday morning paddle boarding on Spring Lake. We have an inflatable paddle board, and this was my second time using it. The first time, my brother’s girlfriend, watching me from the relative comfort of a kayak asked, “Is it fun or just nerve-wracking?” I’m guessing she could read on my face both my intense concentration on balancing and my fear of falling . . .

 

She didn’t ask the question again on Monday, but I thought about it, as I paddled carefully through the calm water, willing my knees to stay slightly bent, trying to look around, but mostly focused on moving slowly forward. I kept thinking about her question and I also kept thinking, there’s some analogy for faith here. Walking on water? Not looking at the waves? Trusting it won’t be awful if you do fall in? Maybe the connection is going slow, and trying to balance, trying to hold the grief and longing of these days with the gratitude for sunlight and water and paddling and the love that holds us all.

 

I wonder about Chardin and his context, but I think the call to trust the slow work of God is right on, especially the last line, Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.