An Unhurried Life

In leadership and management books and in coaching, much is made of the “tyranny of the urgent.” That is when you put off doing the most important things because you are too busy taking care of the details around you. Companies spend millions of dollars investing in training their leaders how to keep from being busy, at the expense of being productive. Why are we surprised at that? Look at the way we live! Is an unhurried life possible? Or, to put it another way, is it possible to live a productive life in an unhurried manner?I think what most people hear when I speak of an “unhurried life” is one that is laid back and almost lazy. In America, to be successful is to always have the appearance  of being “busy,”  especially when you live in the suburbs. There are so many good things to be involved in that what we do, as suburbanites, is try to be involved in all of them. Then, at the end of the day or at the end of some period of time, we sit and reflect on what we are doing; and we feel like we are on a treadmill. The more I think about it, the more I have come to realize that busyness, living in a hurry, is the easiest thing we do. The fact is, it takes more diligence to live an unhurried life than to live at seventy miles per hour, day in and day out. So, let’s check in on this: our community is, after all, engaged in a discussion on suburban gods; and this is one of them.  The first place I looked was to Jesus. Jesus got a lot done, but he never seemed to be in a hurry. He had time to work and time for people. When he was with people and in relationship, he was “in the moment,” fully present. He didn’t seem to be with them so that he could get on to the “next big ministry.” He was there, in mind and body. He had fire in his mouth. He had three years to do his life’s work, and he seemed to get through it with integrity. Put the list away for a minute and just look at Jesus. He is the one who lived life the way we are to live. His was an “unhurried life.” He lived in our humanity, with all the limitations of time and space. He had twenty-four hours in a day and his pace seemed to be, well, human. Jesus reminds me that I will never be happy and holy unless I am willing to look to him as the model for my life and not the latest book of how productive I can be.The second place I check when my navigation is off and I am feeling rushed by the cares of the world is Eugene Peterson. In Subversive Spirituality, he is brutal when it comes to busyness. When asked the question “How does busyness affect our spiritual lives?” he says this: “Busyness is the enemy of spirituality. It is essentially laziness. It is doing the easy thing instead of the hard thing. It is filling our time with our own action instead of paying attention to God’s actions. It is taking charge.” Ouch! Busyness is basically an unreflective life. A life lived at break-neck speed is a life that is not asking the important questions like, “Why am I here?” “What is my purpose?” “Who are the people that need me the most?” Life that is lived in a hurry, always running from one thing to the next, is the surest way to never progress in the gospel!Development of the soul—a well-lived life with God, people, and work—is the hardest thing we ever do. It is a pilgrimage that demands constant attention and constant questioning. The models of success we see flaunted in the culture and the ones we see written across Scripture are simply not the same. When we get busy, whether at work, church, or with anything for that matter, the thing that always suffers is the relationships of the people closest to us, both by blood and geographic location—our family and those people around us. Having Addison, as well as the blood clot in my leg, have caused me to reflect on this a lot. I struggle with margins. My very wise bride gently points this out to me when she sees me packing in so much that I am not really present when I am at our home. I too am afraid I might miss something. Where did that fear come from? Certainly not Jesus. I don’t much think that an unhurried life is even much of an ideal any more. If not, who will model a life well-lived in a culture that is moving so fast it has to have a nervous breakdown if something doesn’t change? What would happen, I wonder, if there was a whole community of folk who decided to examine their lives and decided, with God’s help, to live at a human pace. I don’t know, would they be thought weird? Maybe. Would they be thought lazy? Possibly. Would people begin to wonder how this was possible and begin to ask questions? Absolutely! It would be the most radical thing to ever hit suburban America.An unhurried life will only come out of reflection and diligence. It will only come when we, as smaller communities, question each other about our pace and priorities. Peterson is right, if we choose to stay busy we are indeed lazy. So the hard question to ask of our very demanding idols is, “Do we have enough space to love God, love people, and really love life?” Is our busyness giving us more love, more peace, and more joy? Is our busyness making us a real blessing to the people around us? When we start asking those questions, God is so good, he will give us life—the abundant life he promised!