Unhurrying

Small groups in 2HC connect monthly via live online video discussions, as well as throughout each month (or station) via a group chat on a messaging app. Listen in to the conversation on a recent chat thread from one of this year’s small groups. Connecting from five different countries, they were sharing from the month’s learning on “unhurrying.” We’ve added “section” titles in bold as well as the last two photos. Let them beckon you now — even as you read and view — to pause and take time to imagine the scenes being depicted through word and image. What are you hearing … seeing … sensing?

E: My “unhurry” photo. I love my journal cover, a wonderful reminder to slow my pace. This picture was from a retreat day; of course the cappuccino helped me to enjoy the moment.

Three Mile an Hour God

T: I was really taken by the words of Kosuke Koyama about the speed of love. Has anyone read his book Three Mile an Hour God?

E: I read Three Mile an Hour God. One of my favorites from the book was [at] the beginning on the pace of love, a wonderful epiphany for me. He tied the pace of love to noticing the depth by which we live, something I need every day.

F: Koyama notes that people walk at the speed of 3 miles an hour: “God walks slowly because he is love. If he is not love, he would have gone much faster. Love has its speed. It is an inner speed. It is a spiritual speed …. It is the speed we walk and therefore it is the speed the love of God walks.”[1]

Take a deep breath. Let God take care of the world

JR: The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry[2] has been on my list for a few years and I am excited about what I am learning from it. “I cannot live in the Kingdom of God with a hurried soul.”

The book is a challenge to our normal way of doing life. It’s a wakeup call that the very core of who Christ is and what we are called to be as his followers - expressing love, joy, and peace - are totally incompatible with hurry.

I love the way John Ortberg introduces the book, “Take a deep breath. Put your cell phone away. Let your heart slow down. Let God take care of the world.” I’ll be doing much more of that.

Turning off phone notifications and walking by the river

R: I turned off all notifications of all apps on my phone in 2020 after I read this [book by John Mark Comer]. I’ve missed a few things since, but nothing irredeemable, and I feel much more present with those I’m with. The thing that struck me reading this again was “a world with just enough distraction to avoid the wound that could lead us to healing and life.” I’ve been making an effort to spend the start of every day by the [river] Thames, which I live close to now, and doing my best not to think of anything. Yesterday was very serene with just rowers disturbing the water.

Photo on Unsplash by Mitchell Luo

Doing one thing at a time, well, and with reflection

JS: Like R, I started playing with notifications about 1-2 years ago. The author Cal Newport[3] has influenced me a lot about what he calls the “hive mindset.” Hive mindset is acting like bees where things are constantly coming and going, information mainly. He argues that we aren’t supposed to live like this as humans. We’re designed to do one thing at a time, well, and with reflection.

But I’ve found it hard this past year because of the frenetic issues I faced with the [country] crisis last fall from which I’ve still yet to recover. My aim is to get 2-3 hour blocks of time where I just do one thing well (writing, reflection, even logistic tasks). That’s part of not being hurried for me.

One other picture I have in my mind — I had to sit in a dentist’s chair for over an hour yesterday while the hygienist cleaned my teeth. All I could do was stare up and think. It was relaxing and I valued the slow time.

A Digital Free Sabbath

JR: Like JS I also am a fan of Cal Newport. Deep Work[4] and Digital Minimalism[5] were both great books. I have been trying to incorporate some of those thoughts for years. … Last week we had a digital free sabbath as a family and it was refreshing.

My cognitive updating is a hidden form of hurrying and it’s costing me

E: I felt like living overseas as a woman in [country name] taught me a lot about not hurrying from one event to the next. Women didn’t leave their homes much where I lived. I slowed down, had few time-based commitments, and have kept that as part of my life for a long time now, especially as we moved out to the countryside.

I don’t have much outside of my home that I rush around to do, but I can still feel quite overwhelmed by responsibilities — not hurried but overcommitted. But when one of the biggest of those is a veggie garden, how do you pull out of that?

 So I noticed last week that there were times I would have grabbed the opportunity to read or watch the news or a YouTube educational video.… I would have added that to what I was doing while soaking my feet or soaking in an Epsom salt bath.

Instead, I did not read or watch anything. I just sat, and mostly I didn’t even think. This is a different way of unhurrying, and it is what I need right now. It was very lovely to indulge in this time and not feel I should or could be making it better.

Our 2HC article made me aware that this still and silent time has value, perhaps more value than learning something new!  My drive to learn something new and fill my days with cognitive updating is a hidden and unrecognized form of hurrying that I didn’t realize might be costing me another gift.

Interruptions will harry our days, but we can guard our unhurrying

T: For three days, interruption came into my life. A new heating system had to be installed in my house. The heating engineer and the electricians were regulating my life patterns. I rose early to shower, breakfast, and do the laundry before they arrived. I had to undertake my office work remotely.

I thought perhaps having some extra time, I could read books relating to this station’s 2HC topic… A blissful situation you may say, but it was difficult. As I sat down to read, the noise of drilling, loud talking, and the heating engineer walking in and out of the room made it difficult for me to concentrate.

I missed my steady paced work routines. I missed the silence of my home where I could sit before the Lord and know his comforting and loving presence. 

Today I am in a healthier place, in an unhurried lifestyle once more, my spirit is calm and joyful as I look out on the fields and watch the farmers plough. There are rows upon rows of cabbages in the adjoining field ready to be harvested. God is good in his provision and my heart is thankful.

Photo on Unsplash by Soo Ann Woon.

Reflecting on the interruption, I want to continue guarding an unhurried lifestyle. It has been said by others before, if an individual is in a busy, hurried lifestyle for any length of time, they become ill. It takes them longer to arrive at a place of calm and to be able to connect with God.

An unhurried lifestyle is healthier spiritually, mentally, and physically.

[1] Kosuke Koyama, Three Mile An Hour God (London: SCM Press, 1979), 7.

[2] John Mark Comer, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry (Colorado Springs: WaterBrook, 2019).

[3] See https://www.calnewport.com/books/

[4] Cal Newport, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2016).

[5] Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World (New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2019).