As I sit here on the back porch at Casa de Copper Creek on the first cool late summer day that hints at the fall temperatures to come, I gaze at the colorful green/yellow leaves from the black walnut trees in my backyard as they flutter to the still emerald green Bermuda grass below. Union art professor Lee Benson uses the descriptor of “thousands of yellow love notes played by God” to describe these leaves, capturing the essence of how I view God sharing his vibrant creation of hues with us here on earth. This contemplation leads me to ponder how many times I’ll actually be required to mow this lush grass before the warm summer season transforms to crisp fall. However, as the breeze ruffles the teal green curtains on the porch’s supporting posts, my mind drifts to other reflections on various notions that involve the weather, such as friends contemplating an adventurous relocation to Alaska.

Having formed relationships with people in the Calgary-area and particularly with friends who transplanted from the South, I’m reminded of transparent conversations regarding the challenges of bitterly cold and long winter seasons, especially when you adore the outdoors. Reflecting on these conversations allows me to recognize how much I treasure living in a climate where there exist distinct changes in the rhythms of the various seasons. Being allowed to celebrate how God made living things, I relish that we are able to experience times of growth along with periods of dormancy. Although I currently consider heaven to be sunny and 70 degrees, I embrace the welcome feel of a cotton sweatshirt on cool fall days or the relief from the sweltering heat that occurs when you jump into the refreshing water of a cold swimming pool.

Just as I welcome the changing seasons of weather, I relish the shifting seasons of the academic life as well, which Christina Lake shares in The Flourishing Teacher. Or consider the celebrations of a life long-lived by a 94-year-old great grandmother. Birth, college, marriage, retirement, encore careers-all these seasons that direct us to God’s concept of Kairos time; and as we age, how much more quickly these seasons seem to ebb and flow. The speed with which the Changing Seasons arrive and depart forces me to desire that we could ease our foot from the accelerator allowing life to pass more slowly, maybe returning our culture to the experience of a lazy, Sunday afternoon drive.

Embracing the concepts of reducing the pace at which we currently live life in higher education, Berg and Seeber ask readers in The Slow Professor to consider easing off the accelerator of productivity, recognizing the “existing tension between the demands of everyday tasks and the conditions that encourage intellectual creativity,” and exhort us “to think harder about what is really valuable in teaching, scholarship, and collegiality.” The authors’ stance is that we might choose to rebel against the “more, rather than less, strenuous ethic” that seems to be “endorsed by conventional career imperatives.” Their research from disciplines such as sociology, medicine, information science, and labor studies instead ask us to become Slow Professors who “advocate deliberation over acceleration. We need time to think, and so do our students. Time for reflection and open-ended inquiry is not a luxury but is crucial to what we do.”

Berg and Seeber’s persuasive writings to “be less harried into a philosophical and political commitment to shift our sense of time,” and instead embrace God’s Kairos perspective of our time here on this earth forces me to consider moments like the one shared above. How often do I need to be reminded that the Changing Seasons quickly pass us by, and I should relish these passing opportunities to see the falling leaves as the “thousands of yellow love notes played from God?” By slowing down, sipping a warm drink on the porch, and listening to the birds chirping from the trees, may I be reminded that today I have fewer Changing Seasons than yesterday and may I embrace the Slow Movement to reflect, to think, to pray, and to meditate on His word. May time with Him take a higher priority than the everlasting to-do list that will still exist tomorrow!

Please feel free to share below how you relish the Changing Seasons or what approaches you take to become a Slower Professor (or whatever vocational title you currently have, including happily retired).

References:

Benson, L. (2020, October 9). A Thousand Yellow Love Notes Played by God. Art and faith. Retrieved from https://aaronleebenson.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-thousand-yellow-love-notes-played-by.html?spref=fb&fbclid=IwAR2rbq2lkvIUAi3wW33InNMWHK9X50YlSylDuaQsHsU8vktzUnfTumoR0Lw

 Berg, M. & Seeber, B.K. (2016). The slow professor: Challenging the culture of speed in the academy.  University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division. 

 Lake, C.B. (2020). The flourishing teacher: Vocational renewal for a sacred profession. IVP Press.