When Yao Ming entered the NBA, commentators noted how the game was too fast for him. But the more he played, the more it would slow down.

I remember my first school game, in 8th grade. I started. But the game was nothing like practice. Everything happened so fast, and I was lost. Probably looked liked an idiot out there.

Table tennis is a fast game, and I try to mentally slow down. Don’t rush shots. Try to get in slo-mo mode. Let the ball come further back before striking.

I’m reading The Revolutionary Communicator, by Jedd Medefind and Erik Lokkesmoe. It looks at seven communication practices of Jesus. The chapter on “Attentiveness” examines how Jesus noticed everything around him. He looked in people’s eyes and perceived hopelessness, fear, anxiety, heartbreak, frustration, and whatever else was going on. He noticed people on the margins, people others ignored.

Things were always happening around Jesus. When a man’s daughter lay dying, he hurried off to help her. But on the way, he stopped to say, “Who touched me?” As others waited impatiently, he talked to a woman and healed her before moving on. I think life moved slowly for Jesus, because he noticed everything.

I thought of this the other day while eating in a restaurant. I, as usual, was buried in a magazine, hardly noticing the waitress, who came by my table several times to make sure things were okay. I grunted replies without looking up. Finally, having just read this chapter, I realized how inattentive I was. Jesus would be paying attention to this waitress, not ignoring her. So the next time she came, I sat back, looked her in the eye, and spoke to her. Baby steps.