Consider the humble traffic STOP sign. This I did recently, waiting behind a stop sign, for a long line of vehicles with no stop sign and the right-of-way.
“Stop, look, and listen” is not just for children crossing the street. Traffic stop signs give me time to look and listen to my surroundings, to be mindful of nearby pedestrians, pets, and ambulance sirens.
Just imagine what danger and chaos, injury and death we would have without stop signs. Day and night in my neighborhood, people are walking their dogs and/or pushing a baby stroller, children are on bicycles. Both fast runners and slow strolling elderly folks are about. Even when I am in a big hurry, I must obey the sign that asks me to be more mindful of protecting them than shaving 6 seconds off my travel time. After all, stop signs halt me only briefly, then I am on my way again.
Where do I already see but need to humbly obey life’s stop signs? As some people do, am I slowing down but not coming to a complete stop? Am I willing to yield and truly stop to listen to those around me, to seek what is good for them as well as for me? Am I willing to put my foot on the brake, so to speak, to prayerfully and mindfully consider the consequences of words and actions? In the 25th anniversary edition of Ellen J. Langer’s book, Mindfulness, the first four chapters are about mindlessness!
Traffic stop signs are meant to move us safely forward, not get us stuck in the same place. Is the Holy Spirit calling me toward something new, but am I afraid to risk loss of what is familiar and comfortable? Fatigue, sickness, loss, conflict, or burnout might be asking me how to move forward in a different, creative way. Famous athlete, Michael Jordan, wrote: “Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it. Or work around it.”
Saint Benedict wisely placed little stop signs throughout the monks’ work schedule. Three hundred and sixty-five days of the year, we stop what we are doing for brief periods of communal and private prayer, holy reading and meditation. We need these brief prayerful, mindful pauses so that “in all things, God may be glorified” (I Peter 4:11). It takes humility, St. Benedict said, to obey all those little stop signs in life (RB 5:1-2), preferring nothing whatever to Christ, trusting him to “bring us all together to ever everlasting life.” (RB 72:11-12)
By Sister Sara Aiden Burress, OSB