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Description

The story is simple: a group moving at the speed of its slowest member, stopping for rocks and untied shoes. What emerges is a quiet meditation on pace, noticing, and the dignity of waiting for each other — at home, in church, in the neighbourhood.

Care rarely fits a schedule, and sometimes loving well means adjusting our plans. In this conversation, Johan Heinrichs wonders who might be getting left behind by the pace we keep, and invites us to notice where care is happening at a slower speed.

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Welcome to Summer Speedos from Neighborly, our short in between season

series while Shannon takes a break from her regular interviews. I'm

Johan, the producer of the show. Some episodes are field notes recorded

outside in ordinary places where care actually happens. Others

are story field notes, more cinematic reflections that start with a story

from history or real life. Either way, we're paying attention to the small,

ordinary ways care, faith, courage and community show up around us.

So grab a cold drink or head out on that bike ride, walk or hike.

Enjoy this year's edition of Summer Speedos from Neighborly.

Johan Here I'm sitting out in my backyard, enjoying the

sounds of the birds and with the raindrops falling on my head off the leaves

of my tree. But nonetheless, I wanted to record this episode because

I have something on my mind. When we have guests over at our house,

we always get comments about the view from our front window. Most

houses face, well, more houses across the street.

Our house faces another street perpendicular to ours, which gives us a

much greater view. We just get to see a whole lot more than

most people. And there's a dog park nearby our house, which makes it seem like

every other person in our neighborhood has dogs. And it's a constant

flow of people going for walks up and down our street. There's not even

any sidewalks on our street. It's just people walking down the street.

This one day, I watched a family go for what I think they believed was

going to be a walk. That was optimistic. They had all

the right ingredients. A stroller, water bottle,

snacks, parents with the brave look of people who had recently

said, this will be good for us. But they were

moving at the speed of childhood, which is not a speed

recognized by most fitness apps. One kid stops

for rocks, another picked up a stick. Someone's shoe

came untied, something dropped out of the stroller and they had to

stop to go pick it up. At one point, they had maybe

covered half a block. Emotionally, I'm sure it felt like they

had crossed the prairies. And what struck me was this.

The whole group moved at the pace of whoever was having the hardest time.

It wasn't the fastest person, not the most organized person,

not even the oldest person. The whole group adjusted

around the one who needed the most time. It was a family

acting like a little community that is both beautiful

and deeply inconvenient, which is usually how you know

you've wandered into real care, because care often interrupts the

pace we would prefer. I love efficiency.

I like a plan. I like when people understand the plan

and then this is the key. Follow the plan. But

families are not machines. Churches are not

machines. Neighborhoods and communities are not machines. People

do not become whole on a schedule that is convenient for everyone

else. Sometimes love slows down.

Not forever, not in a way that avoids responsibility or

lets harm continue, but in a way that says you are

not a problem because you need more time. That is deeply

dignifying. Jesus seemed very comfortable being

interrupted. People stopped him on roads, called

to him from crowds, reached for him when he was on his way somewhere else,

and often he stopped. That doesn't mean he had

no boundaries, but it does mean that he wasn't so committed to the

root that he missed the person right in front of him. That

is uncomfortable for those of us who love routes and schedules

and estimated arrival times that don't include one child developing a

meaningful relationship with a worm. But care often

asks us to notice who is falling behind. In a church,

it might be the person who needs more explanation in a family, the child

who can't transition as quickly as everyone else in a neighborhood, the

person who needs more than one conversation before trust is built

and in a friendship, someone healing more slowly than we expected.

The question isn't how do we slow everything down forever.

The question is who is being left behind by the pace I have

decided is normal? That is a harder question

this week. Maybe pay attention to pace.

Notice who goes quiet when things move too quickly. Notice who

needs patience not because they are weak, but because they are worth waiting

for. Sometimes care looks like helping someone move

forward, and sometimes it looks like walking slowly enough that

they are not left behind. That is the field note.

Keep noticing.

Sam.