Today I finished reading “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” by John Mark Comer, which can be viewed as a entrypoint to approaching the commentaries of one of the more prominent theologians of the late 20th century, Dallas Willard. In particular, there is a quote attributed to a conversation between a mentor of John (also, confusingly, called John), and Dallas Willard that provides the title of this book.
John: “What do I need to do to become the me I want to be?”
Dallas: “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”
John: “Okay, what else?”
Dallas: “There is nothing else. Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”
In a nutshell, the book has the following format:
- What the issue is, and why it is an issue,
- How one goes about solving this problem (the theory)
- How one goes about solving this problem (the practice)
Basically, to condense down part one of the book, the problem is – you guessed it – the frenetic pace of modern life. Living life in a hurry to get from moment to moment, or to achieve one thing after another, seems to not be a satisfactory way to go about doing things – or living.
For a rough and ready definition, hurry can be defined as trying to fit too many things into one’s day, necessitating the need to rush to get all of them done.
Byproducts of hurry include fallout with one’s physical, mental, and spiritual health, as well as one’s relationships with other people – amongst other things.
So how do we solve this problem? In a nutshell, it boils down to this:
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30, NIV
Essentially the solution is not to escape work or burden – this is unrealistic. Life will always be difficult and challenging. Rather, the solution Jesus offers is equipment, and to be yoked as a younger ox to the stronger ox, Jesus, who will help us to steer the plow.
In particular, the solution to hurry is not to stop working. Indeed the Proverbs of Solomon counsel strongly against it:
6 Go to the ant, you sluggard;
consider its ways and be wise!
7 It has no commander,
no overseer or ruler,
8 yet it stores its provisions in summer
and gathers its food at harvest.
9 How long will you lie there, you sluggard?
When will you get up from your sleep?
10 A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest—
11 and poverty will come on you like a thief
and scarcity like an armed man.
Proverbs 6:6-11
On a slightly different tangent regarding approaching work:
15 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the gardener. 2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He trims so that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in Me, and I will abide in you. The branch cannot itself produce fruit, unless it abides on the vine. Likewise, you cannot produce fruit unless you abide in Me. 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for apart from Me, you can do nothing.
John 15:1-5, NIV
A useful image that is provided in the book is that of the trellis that bears the vine; without this, it is not possible for a vine to grow and produce fruit. So it is with various practices associated to Christianity. The author of the book also speaks about abiding – in scripture, in prayer, and other spiritual disciplines. That forms the third part of the book.
In the third part, broadly four main disciplines for relinquishing hurry are provided:
Silence and Solitude. This is the seeking out of lonely places (“eremos”) for seeking God and resetting. In more secular approaches, this is what is known as “mindfulness”. But in the Christian practice, there is more to this than merely emptying one’s mind of clutter and noise – one does that, yes, but one doesn’t fill it with void. Instead, the idea is to fill it with scripture and meditation on what God might be speaking into one’s life.
Another key idea introduced here is the concept of working from a place of rest, rather than working in order to obtain rest.
Sabbath. Sabbath is about setting aside a day each week not as a holiday, but a day to focus on rest and worship of God. Interestingly, apparently in ancient Israel there were three harvest festivals of 8 days, making for several longer sabbaths to punctuate the year – which is in keeping with contemporary findings that 8 days is about the right amount of time to slough off the stress of working. Another interesting observation is that 30% of the wording of the ten commandments was actually given to asking the Israelites to honour this day and “keep it holy”. The focus there is on rest and worship.
The Sabbath is also mentioned in Deuteronomy, where Moses alters the emphasis, focusing on a different aspect to it – of resistance against the system of the world. In particular he reminds the Israelites just before they are about to enter the promised land that their parents and grandparents had been slaves, oppressed under the Egyptians. In particular, slaves don’t get breaks, they don’t get holidays. They are chattel, assets to be used to build up the coffers of their oppressors, to be ultimately broken and ground into dust under the weight of their toil. In particular, Moses implores the Israelites to observe the Sabbath so that they will not fall back into slavery. An intriguing observation is that the author observes that “Egypt is all around us today” [in the form of the drive to hurry, to accumulate, and to seek to either serve as slave or slave driver in pursuit of a nebulous more]. And maybe it is true! So keeping the Sabbath is a serious business!
Simplicity. Simplicity is about seeking not to accumulate more, but being content with enough. “Life does not consist of an abundance of possessions” (Luke 12:15).
Slowing. Slowing is not a traditional discipline but is rather a contemporary response of “followers of the way” to the great acceleration that we are seeing around us, as our Techne continues to progress at a manic rate. Things such as “parenting your phone”, i.e. putting your mobile phone to bed early (8:30pm) and waking it up late (not checking it until 7:30 or 8 in the morning), not constantly checking your email (by eg scheduling certain times to check it), and even taking it off your phone entirely, deliberately choosing the slow lane on the road or the longer queue at the supermarket, turning your smartphone into a dumbphone by removing internet, notifications etc.
Another suggestion regarding slowing that resonated but nonetheless seemed challenging was the idea of having a periodic retreat (once a month – that seems way too frequent!) to take stock of where one is at and meditate and reflect.
Others such as little or no social media and little to no TV seem also quite sensible (I agree with the author that there is very little on Netflix that is worth watching anyway!). Single-tasking rather than multi-tasking also seems like a great suggestion – I’ve always railed against being told that I need to “multi-task”, since I prefer to focus carefully on one thing at a time. It is good to learn that this at least forms part of the author’s philosophy regarding slowing.
Regardless, after reading this book and paddling in the shallow end, perhaps I might be ready to read some theological commentaries and/or philosophy by Dallas Willard – I should try to seek out his work at some point.
Where's my hat?! 