To linger is to continue or stay longer.
To linger is to lengthen your attention, focus, or experience.
I love the word linger. Your lingering makes your life.
Think about it.
Where do you linger?
What captures your heart and imagination so much that you want to linger?
What causes you to pause and stay?
Your lingering makes your life.
I learned about lingering as a mother. You linger with your baby or as you walk hand in hand with your young child, their pace slowing you down, their awareness of everything causing you to stop often to look closer at that beetle on the sidewalk or the bird in the tree. Lingering can lead to a pace of life that embraces the breadth of the glory of life each day holds.
It takes time to linger.
You need to notice something and stay with it.
To linger is to savor.
To linger is to reflect.
To linger is to move slowly and intentionally.
With all the demands of life, lingering may be just what you need.
How and what you linger on points to what has captured your focus and attention. We often linger unintentionally. Remember the experience of falling in love? It does something to you. You carried on with your life but your thoughts lingered elsewhere - on that person who had captured your heart.
What we focus our attention on is not always good. I had a day last week when I lingered on my phone for much longer than I wanted. We can stay too long, lingering, on things that distract us. If you think about it, some of your lingering may be a way to avoid or deny something you should focus on. It can be tempting to linger in the constant news feed. It can be tempting to binge watch the show people are talking about. You may be lingering in habits that keep you stuck. These things may cause more worry or anxiety and keep you from living the life you really want. Your lingering makes your life.
Your lingering can also lead to life, renewal, peace, and contentment.
When I linger well, those moments are the highpoint of my day.
It could be a moment of awe that took my breath away.
It could be a moment of connecting in a meaningful way with someone,
I love to linger with God in the quiet of the morning - to stay with him.
Almost every day, I take in the sunset. Its beauty awakens something in me. As I stop and linger with it, I feel my heart settle into goodness and peace. If I am dealing with something difficult, the moment's beauty helps me catch my breath and reorient myself to what one writer calls the Eternal Now.* This moment changes everything because it is alive with God’s presence.
Lingering in a moment of beauty
can slow the world down and allow you to catch your breath.
You can linger in the sunshine or the rain.
You can linger in the darkness and wonder of a starry light.
You can linger under a blue sky or on a tree-lined trail.
You can linger with people who bring life, laughter,
understanding, care, and meaningful connection.
You can linger with a thought or passage of scripture
and allow it to move you to new understandings.
You can linger with God.
You can stay with him.
Listen for him.
Look for him and allow God’s unhurried rhythm to linger with you.
How to live into the word linger:
Become more aware of how you spend your time and where you focus your attention? When you look back on most days, where do you linger? Does it lead to life?
Become a person who notices. Be on the lookout for something good and stay with it - linger.
Build time in your schedule to linger in a way that leads to life. Start small. Take 1 or 5 minutes to linger with God, in beauty, or in thought over a verse from the Bible. Add a mid-morning or mid-afternoon time to linger.
For the rest of this month, note something you are grateful for each day. Linger with it. Please give thanks for it. Allow it to move you to delight or peace.
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*Thomas R. Kelly, A Testament to Devotion