Dean’s Notes, September 2023
This week, as I was preparing a sermon on patience (as part of a series on the apostle Paul’s list of the Holy Spirit’s fruit found in Galatians 5:22-23), I was reminded of an aspect of patience that had alluded me for many years. Patience involves waiting, of course. It also includes forbearance (i.e., longsuffering—putting up with uncomfortable and unpleasurable people and things for a time). But patience also invites savoring. Savoring is slowing down in order to feel, taste, and otherwise engage our senses to take in positive experiences. The practice of savoring will help us when we are dealing with stressful situations.
It took therapy and spiritual counsel to show me how some of the ways that I had been taught and conditioned over the years emphasized productivity and not appreciation. There was a time when I served as a pastor, labored as a PhD student, and tried to be an engaged husband and co-parent of four children. It was stressful. I am sorry to say that I powered my way through much of my life without making enough time to savor good things. I had depleted a reservoir of good feelings and experiences so there was little to draw from during some of my most difficult times.
Let me encourage you to savor the good. Here are a few practical things:
- The next time you take communion, do not rush through eating the bread and drinking the cup. Take your time. Let the wafer and juice (or wine?) linger in your mouth. Use that time to taste and see that the Lord is good! A therapist encouraged me once to savor communion and I try to every time I participate in that sacrament.
- Savor your meals and other pleasurable experiences. Eat slowly. Note how your body feels when you listen to music you like, or play that game, or hang out with your special people. You can recall and draw upon those uplifting sensations when you need to.
- Do like the apostle Paul says in Philippians 4:8-9 and let your mind linger on noble and wholesome things, letting the good sink into your psyche and your body.
I am confident that you will continue to give your best as students, faculty, and staff. I have seen it and I am grateful for it. But there will always be more work to get done, and we will seldom feel that we have finished all that we want or need to do. So please, take some time to savor the good.
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. As for the things that you have learned and received and heard and noticed in me, do them, and the God of peace will be with you (Philippians 4:8-9).