Slow Process

It’s slow, this process. This growth. This change. This progress of maturation.

Slow chipping.

Slow lapping.

Slow eroding.

Slow dripping.

Step by step, bit by bit, the transformation takes place.

I don’t like it. 

I’d rather, I think, have it done in one fell swoop. One radical disruption, then – goal achieved! Destination reached. Creation completed. Process finished. Transformation accomplished. 

But that would be painful. More painful. But it would be over sooner.

Why, I wonder, did He choose this slow process? 

The sculptor releases the figure in the stone one chip at a time, removing extraneous bits, taking away those parts that don’t belong in the finished piece. 

The water, oh-so-slowly rubs away the sharp edges of the stones on the beach, the pebbles on the stream-bed.

The difficulties, opposition, obstacles, re-route the nerve pathways confrontation by confrontation. It is the renewing of the mind – new thought by new thought – that transforms. 

One cannot just exchange this brain, this way of thinking, formed over years, etched in by reactions, defences, beliefs, trauma, fears, shame … for a new brain all at once. More’s the pity. 

The new one must be also formed by carving in new patterns, new responses, new beliefs, new trusts, new experiences, new interpretations of data.

I don’t like it. 

I want to see progress. I want to measure distance travelled, observe clearly the shape being revealed, feel the smoothness forming where hard edges cut and bruised. I want to look back and mark height gained, know there has been growth. Yet the slow process makes this hard. For me, progress is so glacial it seems only measurable in years, maybe half-decades. 

And yet … there is some.

In this I take hope. 

Perhaps if I cooperated with the slow process instead of trying to rush it or resist it or direct it or defend it or prove it or …. Perhaps it would move faster, then. 

Or perhaps if I focused on Him and the step immediately in front one day I will look back and be pleasantly surprised by the distance travelled.

I can hope. One step at a time. One chip at a time. One day at a time. One challenge at a time. 

And on it goes. A slow process is still progress.