The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to stay emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the modern world
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to stay emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the modern world
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Part 3, Chapter 9-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3, Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis: “Simplicity”
The next practice of Jesus that Comer enjoins is that of simplicity, based both on Jesus’s lifestyle and on his many teachings on how to live regarding wealth and possessions. Before defining what he means by simplicity, Comer offers a historical retrospective on the way that commercialism has reshaped Western life throughout the course of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
As the United States moved out of a predominantly agrarian economy, powerful forces in politics and media pushed the culture in the direction of a consumer-based economy. This has resulted in a way of life that is geared toward the accumulation of possessions, and this in itself, Comer states (quoting Alan Fadling), is “an engine for hurry” (190). The race to have the next new thing drives the momentum of one’s life, and because there is always another new thing coming down the line, that momentum never abates.
This style of living, however, is in direct contrast with how Jesus lived and taught in the gospels. Comer believes that Jesus’s teachings are not only good in an abstract moral sense, but that they faithfully relate the fundamental operating principles on which the universe runs. Thus, if one is living on different principles, one will quickly find oneself out of harmony with everything else in life. Once again, then, Comer advocates that people Avoid the Trap of a Hurried Lifestyle, as this approach would be out of pace with the way life itself works. He also wants his readers to Follow a Daily Apprenticeship to Jesus, in taking Jesus’s radical teachings on money and possessions seriously.
This discussion leads to Comer’s definition of simplicity, for which he accepts the contemporary self-help term “minimalism” as a useful synonym: “The goal here is to live with a high degree of intentionality around what matters most, which, for those of us who apprentice under Jesus, is Jesus himself and his kingdom” (201). Comer suggests 12 specific applications for his readers, which again points to his sermonic style of writing, in which his years of pastoral preaching have geared him toward specificity in making practical applications for his audience. These recommendations include suggestions to make the readers more aware of the human chain of production and environmental costs of an item before purchasing it, to promote generosity in habits of sharing freely and giving items away, to stick to a budget and to cultivate appreciation for things that cannot be bought—the beauty of creation and the joy of simple pleasures. To any readers that might find such suggestions too difficult to undertake, Comer reminds them that the alternative is likely far more difficult in the end:
Yes, it will cost you to follow Jesus and live his way of simplicity. But it will cost you far more not to. It will cost you money and time and a life of justice and the gift of a clean conscience and time for prayer and an unrushed soul and, above all, the ‘life that is truly life.’ (215)
In addition to Comer’s continual championing of an apprenticeship to Jesus, he also expounds on how best to Live in the Present Moment and Focus on the Presence of God. The rampant consumerism of the contemporary world is always trying to draw our attention forward, to the next purchase, the next unfulfilled desire. In contrast, Jesus’s way of simplicity encourages one to focus on living in the present, learning to be content with what one already has, and cultivating a deep appreciation for the richness of natural beauty and relational connection that is available to one’s enjoyment in every moment.
Chapter Lessons:
- Jesus exemplified how best to live with simplicity, a concept that modern-day commercialism utterly rejects.
- The creation of a consumer-based economy has created a society that runs on busyness and “hurry.”
- It is best to reduce one’s fixation on wealth and belongings by freely sharing resources and giving away one’s possessions. Jesus’s version of “simplicity” is synonymous with the modern-day concept of minimalism.
- Living simply and engaging in the present moment is the best way to combat the world’s unhealthy focus on constant action.
Reflection Questions:
- What aspects of your life tend to complicate your day and dampen your mood?
- What three habits (and what three possessions) would you renounce in order to live life with greater simplicity?
Part 3, Chapter 10 Summary & Analysis: “Slowing”
The final chapter of Part 3 brings Comer to the last of the practices of Jesus that he encourages his readers to consider. This practice—slowing—is a set of habits meant to teach one a more restful pace of life, no matter what else might be happening in one’s external circumstances.
Here, Comer returns to his proposal of a rule of life as laid out in Chapter 6, encouraging an assessment of one’s habits such that one can build a schedule that reflects the values one wants to pursue: “Again, the truism: we achieve inner peace when our schedules are aligned with our values” (220). Comer’s pastoral penchant for practical applications can be seen in the variety of possible habits he proposes for gaining a more restful pace of life. These applications include practices like not exceeding the speed limit, driving in the slow lane, choosing longer lines at the stoplight and grocery-store checkout, trading one’s smartphone for a “dumbphone” with fewer distractions, setting limits on social media usage, cooking one’s own food, getting rid of the TV, and practicing habits like journaling and meditation.
For each of these suggestions, Comer explains how one might achieve each practice. Each one is clearly a habit that Comer himself sincerely tries to build into his life, and for which he can testify to the potential for transformation. Their value is presented not simply as a display of how far one might take the pursuit of an unhurried life, but rather to open readers’ eyes to just how far away from that ideal their own lives may currently lie. Comer does not necessarily expect readers to adopt all of these habits, but he suggests trying at least some of them, saying, “These are just ideas. They might not be for you. That’s cool. Come up with your own list. But come up with a list. Then do it” (244).
The dominant themes of the earlier part of the book are more muted here, including Comer’s treatment of the idea that people should Follow a Daily Apprenticeship to Jesus. Having built the foundations of his argument on helping people to find ways to Avoid the Trap of a Hurried Lifestyle, now in the final full chapter he focuses on the practical applications for how to Live in the Present Moment. Rather than letting the pressures of our culture pull us toward the next task or new thing to buy, the “slowing” actions that Comer proposes are meant to help us reclaim the present moment, to live where we are rather than in an imagined future that we never reach. By seeking out activities that Eliminate the Distractions of the Modern World, we might be able to slow down enough to actually live in the present.
Chapter Lessons:
- Adopt the practice of “slowing” in order to gain a more restful life pace.
- Find specific, practical applications for this idea on a daily basis, such as choosing the slower grocery line or finding creative ways to limit one’s distractions.
- Focus less on the lure of the unknown future or the promise of acquiring new possessions.
- Make the conscious, repeated decision to slow down and remain fully aware of the present moment.
Reflection Questions:
- What specific trigger points often cause you to focus on the unknowns of the future rather than on the present moment?
- What individualized steps can you take to cultivate a more restful mindset?
Epilogue Summary & Analysis: “A Quiet Life”
Comer returns to the personal/anecdotal style with which he began the book in the Prologue, relating his current experience of pastoring a single church (though still with multiple services) and of his conversations with his mentor, John Ortberg. His journey of practicing the way of Jesus in his own life after resigning from his previous position—about five years ago at the time of writing The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry—has been richly rewarding, teaching him how to pursue the ideal of abiding in the presence of God.
He writes about the four main practices he outlined in Part 3:
These four practices—silence and solitude, Sabbath, simplicity, and slowing—have helped me tremendously to move toward abiding as my baseline. But to say it yet again, all four of them are a means to an end. The end isn’t silence and solitude; it’s to come back to God and our true selves. (247)
He then ties the ultimate purpose of this endeavor to the idea of “being present […] it’s to be present, to God, to people, to the moment” (248). This idea, Comer notes, is not the sole inheritance of the Christian tradition; mystics and sages from all cultures throughout human history have also argued that the true richness of life is simply to learn how to inhabit the moment in which one finds oneself, and to tame all the desires that would lead us to seek fulfillment elsewhere.
Comer also returns to the core biblical passage on which The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry reflects, Matthew 11:28-30, and the idea of the “easy yoke.” The choice in life is not one between a life of freedom from rules or a life of following Jesus’s morality; it is quite simply a choice between bearing the enormous weight of the yoke of one’s own stress, busyness, and frenetically unfulfilled desires, or taking the “easy yoke” of the way of Jesus, in which one learns the restful art of joy in the presence of God: “What’s hard isn’t following Jesus. What’s hard is following myself, doing life my own way; therein lies the path to exhaustion. With Jesus there’s still a yoke, a weight to life, but it’s an easy yoke, and we never carry it alone” (255).
The dangers of a hurried lifestyle include the perpetual bondage of our own stress and busyness, which will never abate on their own. The solution is to learn from Jesus, as an apprentice to his ministry as rabbi, not only believing his teachings but imitating his lifestyle and applying it to one’s own circumstances. By doing this, we can follow the practices of Jesus into the same unhurried manner of life that he exemplified, in which he was able to be fully present with God in prayer and fully present in love and service to others around him, not merely rushing on to whatever happened to be the next task in his life.
Chapter Lessons:
- All four of the practices that Jesus’s life exemplifies—silence and solitude, Sabbath, simplicity, and slowing—are meant to bring people closer to the presence of God.
- To better appreciate life, exchange your own stress and unfulfilled desires for a more conscious choice to remain fully aware of God’s presence in each moment.
- Following one’s own path leads to exhaustion, while following Jesus’s practices leads to fulfillment.
- Avoid the temptation to rush from one thing to the next, and instead embrace the “unhurried” lifestyle that Jesus demonstrated.
Reflection Questions:
- To what degree do Comer’s teachings apply to your own life? What points do you agree with, and which ones would you refute or qualify?
- To what extent are Comer’s ideas applicable to the lifestyles of readers who hold a non-Christian worldview?
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