Jams, Jams, and JAMS
Typewriters, toast, and traffic.
The Beauty of a Jammed Typewriter
I’m not old enough to have needed a typewriter, but I’ve used one – and that was enough to realise how honest those machines are. There’s no pretending on a typewriter. No silent keys or forgiving delete buttons. Every letter requires intent. Every mistake leaves a mark.
You can’t go too fast, otherwise the keys jam. They tangle together in a messy clatter that brings everything to a halt. It doesn’t matter how many words you have lined up in your mind – if your hands move faster than the machine, it simply refuses to keep up.
My grandma would probably disagree. She could type with astonishing speed, the rhythmic clatter of her fingers like music. But even she knew the trick: it’s not really about going fast, it’s about finding flow. Too quick, and the keys collide. Too slow, and the ink dries mid-sentence making it look like an unfinished thought - not great for professional settings. There’s a sweet spot in the middle – steady, consistent, patient.
That’s what I find strangely beautiful about the typewriter: it has boundaries built in. It’s not made for haste. It teaches you the rhythm of thought. You start to listen for the sound of each key, the pause at the end of a line, the satisfying ding before you slide the carriage back and begin again.
In a world obsessed with speed, no longer restrained with physical technology boundaries, the typewriter insists on something slower, truer, more deliberate. It invites you into attentiveness – to your words, your body, your breath.
It’s inefficient, yes. Inconsiderate, even. But maybe that’s the point. Because I think there’s something special about a pace that refuses to rush.
Maybe that’s what following Jesus sometimes feels like too – learning to live at a rhythm that won’t be hurried. To resist the temptation to sprint through every season.
To trust that the work of God, like the rhythm of a typewriter, can’t be forced without things jamming.
The Slow Sweetness of Jam
Then there’s another kind of jam – the one that smells like summer fruit and sugar.
I am man enough to own the fact that I love making jams. If you’ve ever made jam, you’ll know it’s not a quick job. The fruit needs time to soften. The sugar needs time to melt. You can’t turn the heat up and expect the same result – it just burns. The transformation only happens when it’s given time.
There’s something worth noticing about that. Perhaps something spiritual?
The fruit breaks down before it becomes whole again. The sweetness deepens through surrender. It’s the slow mix of patience and heat. Maybe that’s what grace feels like.
It rarely comes instantly. It arrives through process – the gradual thickening of things once fragile, the slow turning of bruised places into beauty.
You can’t rush that kind of work. You can only wait – stirring occasionally, trusting the heat, trusting that something is happening even when you can’t see it. I think we forget that God can work like that. We want microwave miracles – instant outcomes, immediate clarity. But the Spirit often works like jam – slow, consistent, transformative in the waiting.
When the time finally comes to pour the jam into jars, it’s sticky and messy and full of texture. You can taste the process in every spoonful. It’s not perfect, but it’s real.
And maybe that’s what grace tastes like too – not flawless, but faithful. Sweet, but not shallow. A reminder that the best things in life are rarely efficient, and the holiest moments often come after the slow simmer of surrender.
The Frustration of Traffic
And then there are the JAMS – in all caps. The kind that test your patience and your humanity.
I’ll be honest – even as a curious follower, I still find it hard not to get mad in a traffic jam. You sit there, inching forward at a crawl, often at a standstill, the same songs looping, the glow of brake lights stretching endlessly ahead. You tell yourself it’s fine – that you can’t control it, that it’ll clear soon – but your body tightens, your thoughts race, and before long you’re muttering to yourself as if that’ll help.
Traffic jams might be the modern version of wilderness waiting. You can’t move, can’t fix it, can’t reason your way out. You just sit – suspended in the in-between. It’s the kind of slowness you didn’t choose. The kind that exposes what’s really going on inside you. You start to notice the tension between what you say you believe – that God is present everywhere – and what you actually feel – that He’s definitely not here, in this queue, on this road, right now.
But maybe that’s exactly where the invitation lies.
Not in the chosen moments of rest, but in the unchosen ones. The jams we can’t plan for. The interruptions that stretch us. The detours that feel like delays but might, in some strange way, be direction. Because the truth is, the spiritual life isn’t just about finding peace in the quiet – it’s about finding grace in the grit. In the traffic jam. In the tension. In the red lights that refuse to change.
Maybe the frustration itself becomes the teacher. Because to wait, really wait, is to relinquish control. And that’s where God so often begins His work.
Living as a Curious Follower
Three kinds of jams.
The typewriter that slows us down on purpose.
The toast that reminds us sweetness takes time.
The traffic that exposes what’s underneath.
Each one carries its own kind of grace.
The first invites attentiveness – to pace, to rhythm, to the art of not hurrying.
The second invites patience – to trust that what’s being transformed will take time.
The third invites honesty – to admit our frustration and maybe, just maybe, discover that God meets us there too.
That’s what A Curious Follower is really about.
Learning to see the special in what slows us down. To pay attention when life jams. To ask what might be forming in us – not despite the slowness, but because of it. Because curiosity doesn’t only live in wonder – it lives in waiting. It looks at what’s inconvenient, inefficient, even irritating, and asks: What might God be saying here?
I’m learning that faith isn’t about avoiding the jams, but living well within them. To trust that the stuckness might be a space for grace. To believe that even here – in the pauses, the processes, and the places we’d rather skip – God is quietly at work.
Because maybe the jam isn’t the problem. Maybe it’s the point. The pause that brings us back to a rhythm we forgot. A slower, truer way of being that doesn’t just get us somewhere, but forms us as we go.
Josh | A Curious Follower
This is rhythm I’ve been exploring more deeply in my upcoming book, The Radical Recall to Rest – a reflection on slowing down, listening again, and remembering the God who invites us to breathe.
Pre-orders are open now until Monday 3rd November, with each signed copy helping me bring this project – and its rhythm of rest – into the world.
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