From the book ‘The Power of Stillness:’
Welcome to a new Counterculture
Given these broader trends, it’s perhaps unsurprising that a new revolution is afoot in America and the Western world as a whole. Rather than opposing technology or efficiency or work or stress (all of which can be welcome parts of life), this is unsurprising against the depletion of our inner world when any of these come to dominate our attention.
This revolution invites people to slow down, stop more, and cultivate more stillness and silence in their lives. “While the rest of the world roars on,” Carl Honore writes, ” a large and growing minority is choosing not to do everything at full throttle. In every human endeavor you can think of . . . these rebels are doing the unthinkable—they are making room for slowness.”11
This hunger for more space is evident in popular books such as Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, & Time Reserves to Overloaded lives; Crazy Busy: A (Mercifully) Short Book About a (Really) Big Problem: Practical ways to Put an End to Constant Busyness and design a Time-Rich Lifestyle.12
While these books grapple with life in an accelerating society, other important questions remain: How is this hyperstimulated, rushed culture influencing how we experience the quiet message of Jesus? In what ways could it be changing our experiences of gospel practices? And what happens when a certain spiritual practice doesn’t “stimulate” us or “meet our needs” or “make us happy” in the ways we’ve come to expect so many other things in our culture?
Exploring these questions may shed light on why some people are “not feeling it” when it comes to faith, while at the same time many others are feeling more enriched and restored as they approach these “same” faith practices.
Our experience has been that infusing any or these spiritual practices with more stillness, space, and silence changes them profoundly. Sabbath becomes more of a restorative retreat, temple worship a deep immersion into non-doing, and prayer a contemplative practice of quiet communion.
That depends, of course, on our being willing to approach these practices with fresh eyes—and perhaps even breaking from ingrained habits of efficiency.
Are you willing to become even more countercultural in this regard?
Mindfulness Defined
Central to this rebellion is something called “mindfulness” in the United States—reflecting an East-Meets-West love story in full bloom. Mindfulness has been defined as “paying attention, in the present moment, on purpose, and non-judgmentally.”13
In its basic form, mindfulness is simply awareness—the skill of being aware of what’s actually happening inside and around you: thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, and what the traditional five senses notice about the tangible world. This is an awareness of what’s unfolding around you in the present moment, without overanalyzing the past or predicting the future”14
As you can see, this is not cold, robotic observing—it’s noticing with compassion. Compared to the death or loss of heart evoked by the Chinese character of busy, the character for mindfulness is a combination, of two separate characters for now and heart which, when combined, suggest bringing the heart into the present, the act of experiencing the present moment with your heart.
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Jacob Z. Hess, Carrie L Skarda, Kyle D. Anderson, Ty R. Mansfield, The Power of Stillness (Salt Lake City, Deseret Book, 2019), 5
(Posts with a preamble asterisk * are for a more general audience, and not specific to teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)
