Slowing Down
Slow Down! Why don’t you slow down … “I’m thinking about slowing down.” We hear these phrases from others, sometimes in a less-than-kind tone, and at others, we say to ourselves, “I need to slow down for a while”. Each of these means something else to us, depending on the context and the time.
In summertime, we often take the opportunity to find some time for a vacation when we can really “slow down”. However, expectations often cause us to still remain connected, to phones, text messages, and email. The very tools that help us do our work in a distributed, spread-out way, cause us to wait for another call, email, or message that lets us know that we can’t truly slow down or disconnect.
As someone working in a demanding job, I know the importance of this “slowing down,” this disconnecting from everyday life, even for a short period of time. This is particularly enhanced by being in the company of companions, friends, or family who are trying to do the same thing.
This summer I had such an experience when my wife set up a surprise trip for our family (surprise for me, not for them) where twenty-two of my immediate family, children (grown), spouses and grandchildren boarded two canal barges and “sailed” them through the canals near where I grew up in England. The barges were 40ft long and 20 tons in weight, and the canals are very narrow there, as designed almost 200 years ago as the primary form of goods transport linking cities, rivers, and industry together.
They ruled the transportation of goods until the railways came to take them over at the time of the Industrial Revolution. These barges have all been long converted to accommodation for tourists and barge owners today, and such was our trip back in time.
Traveling through the countryside without traffic, distractions (aside from the occasional cow and other animals in the fields surrounding) was a sublime experience. The barges are only permitted to travel at 3mph, at best, a moderate walking pace.
The scene as you move through the canal is rather like being drawn into a movie at a very slow and consistent zoom of the camera, for you feel like you are in some meditative movie. Being drawn into the next scene involuntarily and gently, with only the gentle hum of the tiny engine as a background chant.
I can imagine it was probably not so serene for the original barge owners, but you could only be envious of the much slower pace of life, the presence of the horse on the towpath drawing them forward in silence. Truly a throwback to a simpler, slower-paced time.
Perhaps this summer you can find a space, even a few hours, where you can “slow down”. Not because you have been instructed to, which some of us have, but because it is needed.
The Canal
She sits dormant,
Unclear, yet ready for takers;
Be them fish, or boaters,
Or herons.
An industrial relic of massive proportions,
Who shaped lives and livelihoods long past,
Ghosts they are not,
For the locks and toll houses and barges remain,
Announcing a footprint two hundred years old,
As swans and barge owners trade their comments,
of weather, and swing bridges today.
Only the trade has changed.
What was work is now leisure.
As the canal slowly draws them through life at a stately 3mph,
This is a meditative, glacial pace,
Slow enough to swallow all to be seen,
Fast enough to show progress.
Like a good meal full of flavor,
Chewing and tasting linger on the tongue,
Leaving digestion for a later time,
Where reflection will be done.
But not yet.
Let the lingering continue for now.
As I taste this prayer of water and man and boat,
Stoking all my senses only to be punctuated by the shrieking delights of children feeding ducks,
Or looking for a new playmate and game.
Yes, this canal has presence.
Not just of a past gone by,
But of lilies and reeds and laughter,
And most of all quiet.
Only the gentle hum of the motor tells,
We are being drawn forward,
Not by horses or men,
But a small engine.
Quietly humming happiness.
Copyright Image, poem and reflection 2025 Michael J. Cunningham OFS