Rhythm & Rules

Signs like the one above indicate to us whether or not an establishment is "open."  Unlike the 24-hour merchants popular today (brick and mortar, online, and others), there has always been a rhythm to the way businesses operated.  It's because our lives are rhythmic in nature.  As you see these letters, you are breathing in and out, your heart is pulling and pushing blood to keep you functioning, etc.  We thrive within the context of rhythm. 

Creativity and spontaneity are also aspects of a life well ordered, and they offer spice to the mundane.  Most music is rhythmic, but the songs I am listening to outside my window as the wind plays the wind-chimes is wild and free - and it's still a form of music.  Part of Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 was set to music in the last century, and the songwriter's tempo reminds me of swinging back and forth on a porch swing or in a rocking chair. 

Moon phases, sunrise/sunset, birth/death, gathering/purging, collect/spend, work/rest, celebration/grief...our eternal souls in earthen vessels take on the pattern - the rhythm of this linear life we know.  Our bodies need strengthening and stretching, fasts and feasts, sleep and wakefulness.  We measure time in weeks and months and years...and the Creator knew it would be best for us to have the concept of time, the constancy of orbit and rotation, the assurance that the beat to which we march through this life would continue to behave.

A hurried pace makes many of us harried people.

That tempo wears out our gears in all facets of our inner and outer worlds...

Could you put some "speed bumps" in place to ensure a more humane pace?

When we are "open," we may have scheduled duties or a variety of tasks that present themselves at seemingly random intervals.  To be "open" is to be ready to conduct the business of life.  To be "closed" is a time of readying, perhaps.

Jotting with Johnna

• Whatever season of life you find yourself in today, are you open to interruption?  

• to adaptation?

• to detours?

• Do you prefer more routine rhythm, or are you stimulated by unpredictable flow?
• How might rhythm, and revising the beat to which you step, amend your journey?

Remember:  you are so very worthy of working out a pace and pattern that serves your greatest good.

Stay tuned.  Stay focused.  Stay well.