“We now have access to infinity through our new cyborgesque selves, which is great, but we’ve also lost something crucial. All those little moments of boredom were potential portals to prayer. Little moments throughout our days to wake up to the reality of God all around us. To wake up to our own souls. To draw our minds’ attention (and, with it, devotion) back to God; to come off the hurry drug and come home to awareness.” JMC
You know you’ve read a good book when it 1) challenges you and 2) changes you.
During our Komae Christmas 2019, I was talking to my cousin Bryce about good books he has recently read. he immediately told me “John Mark Comer - The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry”. Whoa, that title is a mouthful. A few months later, when I was in San Diego visiting my college besties… Natijane said to me, “have you read John Mark Comers book? It’s insane.”
I knew I had to buy it.
Thank you Amazon.
The book came and with it’s flashy red cover and hip graphics…I read it in a day. It reads more like a conversation than a textbook, and I realize John Mark Comer’s podcast on the mater serves the same purpose as the book itself - but it is always beneficial to tangibly digest something.
So the book talks about hurry. How we live in a hurry culture and with our smart phones and technological devices we are absolutely consumed with a life that is in constant motion. This hurried state of existence being the antithesis of a spiritual life. This book challenged me and changed me and caused me to take a few really really necessary action steps.
Ways I changed after reading this:
I turned off text notifications - not text messages themselves, but just the tiny “ping” that would alert me at every text. I turned them all off, so that my phone isnt some buzzer going off sporadically but rather a tool I can use when I need to connect.
I deleted email off my phone- this is a point JMC is adamant about because he would reply to hundreds of emails a day…so he decided to dedicate time to his computer to do email work and take them entirely off his phone. So simple. So revolutionary. The internet never sleeps, and one super non-sleepy member being email.. that bad boy really never closes his eyes. Deleting it has helped me detach from my phone more. Hallelujah.
AAAANd…in a more recent turn of events - I deleted social media. This is a new step I took for the month of June, to detox from the world of SNS and to pour my time and energy into what is right in front of me. Kids, books, cleaning, prayer, writing and connecting to friends more authentically. Now granted, I am only 3 days into this detox but BOY LET ME TELL YOU it is invigorating and so healing. How silly we are to think we need social media to connect us- when really it does quite the opposite by feeding us a false sense of nearness in our relationships. Very unhealthy. So, I have vowed to give my mind and heart a rest from all that chaos and free myself from the trap that is social media and to get off the rollercoaster of hurry.
AMEN AMEN AMEN.