Day 72: Ruthlessly Eliminating Hurry

Icaria, Greece. Photo by Michail Tsapas on Unsplash

Pastor John Mark Comer tells a story about the best advice he ever got. At the time, Connor was the pastor of a successful and busy church in Portland. Everything was going great - but underneath he felt like he was in constant chaos. Schedules, demands, non-stop go go go … In all the fast-and-furious, knew he wasn’t being the “apprentice to Christ” that he aspired to be.

One day, a friend told him about a conversation he’d once had with Christian philosopher Dallas Willard when he’d been in a similar frame of mind. When he asked Willard what he should do to be the best person he could be, he said, Willard paused. Then he said,

“You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

Okay. What else?

“There is nothing else. Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

Comer went on to write a book inspired by Willard’s advice.

Getting Back to Slowing Down

Fourteen years ago, I realized that hurry was the great enemy in my own spiritual life. I made a commitment to take every Sunday off from work. With rare emergency exceptions, I have.

But lately, I’ve lost sight of the original goal.

It had become easy to fill Sunday with my non-work “to do” list. Cleaning. Grocery shopping. Packing lunches. The hard workout I don’t have time or energy for during the week. I was barely even available to Gary, much less to God.

But the point of a day of rest is not just to cap the number of hours in the work week. The point is to get back to basics.

Get back to taking walks. To spending time with friends and family doing nothing in particular. To cooking a nourishing meal. To enjoying nature. To doing a task for no reason other than the sheer joy of it.

Living Slower, Living Longer

This weekend, Gary and I decided to take a step back starting on Saturday evening through the end of the day today.

We went to Mass. Went for a walk in the forest. Made minestrone.

While relaxing at home on Saturday night, we watched Living to 100: Secrets from the Blue Zones. (Some people turn off all devices during their sabbath, but for us just being home and doing something together felt like the right approach.)

The “Blue Zones” are places where an unusual number of people live very long lives, often to 100 years old or more: Okinawa, Japan. Icaria, Greece. Loma Linda, California. Nuoro Province, Sardinia, Italy. Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica.

Author Dan Buettner travels to these places, talk with centenarians and their families. He identifies factors that contribute to their unusual longevity.

Ultimately, the all boil down to four things: Move naturally. Eat wisely. Connect. Have the right outlook.

Signficantly, none of these things can happen we we are hurried.

Not just that they don’t happen. They can’t happen.

When we hurry, we automate most natural movement out of our day (too time-consuming). We eat “fast” food. We dash off a quick text, gotta go, things to do, try to catch you later. We feel oppressed by demands but disconnected from purpose.

mining for Slowness

Buettner’s Blue Zones project is now working to bring Blue Zone principles to U.S. cities through policies and infrastructure that incentivize healthy choices. Things like making streets walkable again, sponsoring walking clubs, making space for community gardens.

During a turbulent and uncertain period, it becomes easy to feel we have to work harder. Move less, eat faster, spend less time with others.

This weekend has me thinking more deeply about that. In times of turbulence, a sense of purpose is more important than ever. Is it possible that clarity would come not by working harder, but by slowing down?

What would happen if we looked at our lives and made a commitment to “ruthlessly eliminate hurry”?