Yesterday, I failed to stand still for half an hour. I put it down to my failure to eat properly over a couple of days, a failure which resulted from a combination of factors, chiefly: not having much food in the house and not being in the house to prepare it if there had been any. So it was that after 25 minutes, I had to walk over to a bench and sit on it.
You see, inspired by an article in Adbusters which had confronted us in a couple of different contexts, the participants in ‘sus’ (a small worship collective recently started) decided to go and stand still for half an hour in the centre of Reading on a Saturday morning. Nudging aside any questions of reasoning or purpose, we resolved to do it and we set out to do it. And the others all succeeded.
It’s a strange experience, standing still in a public place for a length of time. I think one of my problems was that I simply launched into it and didn’t find time to make myself comfortable. It doesn’t take long for the muscles to relax, but you have to provide them with the space to relax. It doesn’t take long for the sensations to become distinct, and that’s something to savour.
As the time wore on, my mind wandered. Whether it was the itching at my ankle (one of the others scratched her nose. scratching an ankle can’t be done so subtly) or the gawking faces of passers by, there was plenty to occupy my mind. The latter was more condusive to standing still. The passers-by mostly just stared as they carried on with their shopping, but a few stopped, some tried to get us to move and join them in the pub, and a few special people stopped and stood with us for a few moments. Many wondered about the significance of the clock tower.
We plan to be back next Saturday. I’ll end this week with a better diet.