If life were a novel...I'd skip ahead to the good parts.

I'm a chronic last-page reader. An admission I'm pretty sure would exclude me from most respectable readers' circles. Usually my main concern is if the guy gets the girl. And usually I just need to go to bed instead of reading... So, I cheat.

I wish life were like a novel, so I could skim ahead to find out what happens next.

I cringe at the process of life.

This winter I read a great novel by Paulo Coelho, "The Witch of Portebello." There's one scene in the story that stood out to me. In it the main character, Athena, travels to India to learn the art of calligraphy. Once Athena masters the curves and strokes, her teacher leaves her with this conversation:

If all the words were joined together, they wouldn't make sense, or, at the very least, they'd be extremely hard to decipher. The spaces are crucial."

She nodded.

"And although you have mastered the words, you haven't yet mastered the blank spaces. When you're concentrating, your hand is perfect, but when it jumps from one word to the next, it gets lost."

"How do you know that?"

"Am I right?"

"Absolutely. Before I focus on the next word, for a fraction of a second I lose myself. Things I don't want to think about take over."

"And you know exactly what those things are."

Athena knew, but she said nothing until we went back to the tent and she could cradle her sleeping son in her arms. Her eyes were full of tears, although she was trying hard to control herself...

I've heard it said Americans struggle with mental illness more than people of any other culture, because of our fast pace.

I wonder if we're hiding from the spaces..

..if we're avoiding life's process.

...if we're skipping ahead to the parts of life with action.

Coehlo makes a sharp observation of humanity that when we do slow down, our minds go to things that we most likely need to resolve. We become most healthy when we muster the courage to rest amidst the pain and look for healing.

The author of Hebrews also talks about this when they invite us to practice Sabbath:

"Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account (4:11-13)."