The Quiet Gift of Slowing Down: Becoming an Urban Mystic
This past Sunday, three microchurches from the Renaissance Network gathered in Jamaica Plain as the Boston Cluster. The space wasn’t fancy, just honest. People came tired but willing. As we shared food and conversation, the question was simple:
“What is God doing in you?”
Silence. People sat in deep thought, some looking as though they weren’t sure how to process the question. Then one person said honestly, paraphrasing here, “I don’t even know how to answer that. I haven’t had a moment to reflect or notice anything lately.”
It was a deeply authentic moment. People around the room seemed to arrive at the same realization, the simple truth that life has become so full and so fast that few of us have time to slow down long enough to notice what God is doing.
The Myth of Escape
In the fourth century, the desert fathers and mothers left the noise of empire and the chaos of the city for solitude. They fled to the wilderness to find peace, silence, and God. Their stories still inspire us, but they can also mislead us into thinking we have to escape to find God.
Maybe that is why we love sayings like, “Better to step away before you fall apart.”
But is that really true?
Do we have to retreat from the world to experience renewal? Or can we learn to be contemplative right here, in the middle of traffic, deadlines, and family chaos?
Is mysticism only for those who fled the empire, or can it belong to the urbanites too?
The Urban Mystic
When you hear the word mystic, you might picture a monk in a stone cell or a nun in silent prayer. But the mystics of our day look different.
They are parents changing diapers at 3 a.m.
They are students cramming for exams while juggling jobs.
They are professionals answering emails on the train.
The Urban Mystic is not someone who escapes the world, but someone who learns to find God within it, in the grocery line, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and on the commute.
Thomas Merton once wrote, “The spiritual life is first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to be lived.”
Our task is not to carve out a life for God somewhere else, but to realize that God is already here, inhabiting the life we have.
Brother Lawrence’s Kitchen Wisdom
Brother Lawrence, a 17th-century Carmelite who worked in the monastery kitchen, didn’t see his work as separate from prayer. He cooked meals, washed dishes, and cared for his community while practicing continual awareness of God’s presence.
He once wrote,
“The time of business does not differ with me from the time of prayer. In the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were on my knees.”
That is the heartbeat of urban mysticism.
God in the kitchen.
God in the inbox.
God in the subway.
We do not need to leave the noise. We just need to find the stillness that lives underneath it.
When Life Feels Too Full
At the Boston Cluster, it felt as though many were saying the same thing without needing to find the words. There was a shared sense of being stretched thin, of barely catching our breath, of longing for space to slow down and reconnect with our own souls.
What if the slowing we crave is not something that happens when everything else stops, but something we practice right in the middle of the swirl?
As the holidays approach, this is our invitation: to begin practicing the art of slowing down now, before December’s rush pulls us under.
Take one deep breath before you open your laptop.
Pause at a red light and whisper, “God, You are here.”
Let a moment of silence before dinner become your small liturgy of gratitude.
The slowing is not an escape. It is how we return.
Finding God in the Ordinary
You do not need hours of solitude. You need moments of awareness.
While nursing your child in the dark: “You are with me.”
While washing dishes: “This too is love.”
While walking between meetings: “Let me notice Your presence in this breath.”
The mystics called this the practice of presence. It is ordinary holiness, small acts done with great love.
Teresa of Avila called the soul an “interior castle,” a dwelling place of God within us. You do not have to find a monastery to enter it. Just pause, breathe, and remember: the castle is already inside you.
The Invitation
We live in a time when busy is normal and burnout is expected. But the Urban Mystic chooses another way, not by withdrawing, but by awakening.
Right here, in the heart of the city, in the middle of our deadlines and demands, God is waiting to be noticed.
You do not have to be in the desert to find God. You can be in Jamaica Plain, in a crowded kitchen, in traffic on the Pike, or in the noise of a home filled with kids and still find the same Presence the desert saints sought.
And perhaps, without realizing it, the people gathered at the Boston Cluster were already practicing presence. Children from our group played in the background, their laughter and shouts filling the room. It took focus to hear one another’s reflections, yet in that effort we honored each other’s voices. Even in the noise, we were quietly present to God and to one another.
So take one breath.
Notice that you are breathing.
Remember that God is as close as your next inhale.
In every breath, we proclaim the name of God.
The inhale whispers “Yah,” and the exhale answers “Weh.”
With every breath, our bodies speak the truth our hearts forget: that the One who created us is closer than our own breath, sustaining every moment of our being.
That is it. That is the beginning of everything.
Welcome to the way of the Urban Mystic, finding God in the chaos of everyday life, right where you already are.
