The Sacred “Pause Button”

Deuteronomy 30:19-20a, CEB -  I call heaven and earth as my witnesses against you right now: I have set life and death, blessing and curse before you. Now choose life—so that you and your descendants will live—by loving the Lord your God, by obeying his voice, and by clinging to him.

 

“Between Stimulus and Response There Is a Space. In That Space Is Our Power To Choose Our Response”                                  Stephen Covey, quoting an unknown author

 

                When I was a teenager, the primary way to listen to audio recordings (music, lectures, etc) was cassette tape.  I actually still have a cassette player and several cassettes.  Over the years, I had several players and one of the common problems I had with them is that eventually, the “pause” button would break.  Sometimes, I think we have the same challenge with our actions.  Our pause button is either broken or we are not even aware that we have the ability to pause before reacting to a situation. 

Stephen Covey, in his many writings, made the above quote popular, though he claimed that he did not author the wisdom.  In any case, it is a fact.  Whatever happens to us, we have a choice as to how we act in response.  I have caught myself using the phrase, “it was just an automatic reaction,” when trying to justify the way I acted.  The reality is that I made a choice to act though it was a unaware choice. 

The remedy for this is (re)discovering our “pause” button.  When we are “triggered,” by something someone does, we can push pause, by taking a long intention breath.  This gives us some space to consider how we will act (or not act as the case may be) as we respond to the stimulus.  This is where the scripture above comes into play.  We can choose blessings or curses.  We can choose in alignment with the values we have learned from our faith and wisdom traditions.  We can take a moment to remember our connection to God’s Spirit and allow ourselves to be guided by divine image placed in us by God. 

This has implications for the forgiveness process.  Hurts that we have experienced in the past tend to replay in our mind every time we remember the offense.  We relive the hurt as we “replay the tape” in our head once again.  The forgiveness process calls for pushing “pause” on these old recordings and thus, creating the space to make a more life-giving choice.  Acting in life-affirming ways towards those who have hurt us begins to erase those old tapes over time.  We most likely will always remember the offense, but the event will lose it’s power to trigger us.  We become more and more free.

 

Question:  Are there some old but familiar recordings that you need to “push pause” on in order to create space for a new response?

 

Prayer:  God, thank you for the gift of choice.  Keep this gift ever before us in the moments/spaces where we choose between blessings and curses.  Help us discern and act in alignment with the divine image You have placed within us.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for school-age children and school personnel who are finishing up another school year in the shadow of yet another mass school shooting.

 

Song:  Choose Life – Big Tent Revival

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX4fC4WFCIU