Do you remember how most of us learned to cross streets by ourselves? Before letting us go on our own or even just let go of their hand, most mothers taught us the mantra STOP, LOOK and GO.
They knew from first-hand observation that we needed to be taught to stop and look. The fear in their hearts and the nightmare of an unwitting driver would be the child running after a ball without looking first.
So they drilled into us to take time to stop so we could become aware of our surroundings and go safely. If you don’t remember perhaps reading “Teaching Kids to Navigate Streets” trigger memories of some lessons.
Crossing the streets of our lives
Crossing the streets of our lives is shorthand for living an unexamined life. We simply keep moving ahead, often chasing this or that shiny object that we think will make us happy.
We often rush across the streets of our lives without looking. It is not a new phenomenon. Socrates put it this way “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
It’s time to remember what we were told as children when we learned to cross the street.
Stop, Look and Go
Stop... Look... Go That’s all.
But how often do we stop?
We have to stop. We have to get quiet. And we have to build stop signs into our lives.
One of the more powerful techniques for stopping is prayer.
I am not thinking of our penchant for “gimme” prayers. I am thinking of prayerful listening to how the ”still small voice” of God is trying to open our ears to hear and our eyes to see.
And when you stop, then the next thing is to look.
We need to look… open your eyes and ears.
We open our hearts, our hearts discover the opportunities in our streets.
We see opportunities to grow even in the most difficult and painful streets of our lives.
And when we open our hearts to the opportunities, the opportunities invite us to do something, and that is the third.
Stop, look, and then go, and really do something.
We can follow whatever opportunity to grow in the present moment. Whatever it is, if we take this opportunity, we can learn something from even the most difficult experiences of life. Just remember how people have found deeper meaning for their lives in the midst a great suffering.
See how the great ones cross the streets of their lives
We all have our heroes and teachers. Among my heroes, St. Vincent DePaul stands out for how he learned to cross the streets of his life.
Vincent de Paul thought he knew what he wanted from life. In 1617 as he crossed the streets of Chatillon and then Follevile he woke up to the reality of the spiritual abandonment and physical misery of those on the margins. These insights took him a lifetime to unpack. And look at how he changed the face of church and society in France.
Questions we need to ask
- When do we stop to listen to the events of our lives?
- Are we open to the opportunities for growth even in the difficult streets we must cross?
- Do we go forward with “strength of our arms and the sweat of our brows.”
[Watch Br. David Steindl-Rast’s two minute video “Stop, Look and Listen”]
Click below for an audio version of this Vincentian Mindwalk.
I suppose that growing up in a rural area, the catch phrase was “stop, look and listen.” “Go” was always implied. Similar message, just needed that extra element of awareness and preparedness. In the country, “crossing the street” was not as common as walking to the country store or from one area of the farm to another or even to another farm.
Often, potential dangers were not visible but were within earshot – an approaching truck would make a great ruckus but would not be seen until it was too close to get out of its way – a tractor heading to another area or farm would roar down the country road and often with a distracted driver thinking about the chores yet to be done. Their “noise” signaled their potential danger.
Listening remained such a key component of our lives, especially before taking any actions. But listening also served as the calming element of country life – mostly the quiet, still sounds associated with rustling trees and winnowed meadows. Those natural “quiet sounds” still resonate with me, as they seem to do with countless others.
The “small, still voice” could easily be heard if one could just listen.
I think as I have aged over the years and moved into retirement there is more time to stop and look at both my own life and what is going on around me. While getting older often keeps us even more “set in our ways and views” I have found myself open to change, new concepts and the need to think in a more global, holistic way. I still have the opportunity to help others be more open and accepting of change. While we all have more things we wish we could have done with our lives, I believe as we age, we can still change old habits and opinions and we still have time to do something positive. The most important component is to stop and listen, reflect, pray and then act.
Helpful, wholesome, healing focus for start of day!