Grant Wiley – The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry (outside reading)


            Another book that I just finished is called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. This relates to my last blog about Holiness and the effects of industrialization on our spiritual lives and our relationship to Creation. John Mark Comer talks about the life of hustle and hurry that we live in which we all live in and how it changes the way that we interact with the world and with God. This blog is more tangentially connected to the class, but still, it is greatly interesting in the context of Holiness and From Nature to Creation. I personally believe that the idea that these books are getting at is extremely important especially in a conversation about Creation and created. 

            What Comer gets at in his book that is especially important in this conversation is the disconnection that this hurry creates. One of the biggest causes of hurry is the rise of smartphones and technological devices. A great example of this disconnect is the navigation system included. While something like Google Maps can be greatly helpful in getting places quicker, it causes us to lose our connection to Creation. In high school, I often found myself unable to get to places without looking at maps even though I had lived in the same area my entire life. I was so used to simply putting the address in and following the map that I couldn’t function without it. Further, we forget to look out our windows and instead glue our eyes to the phone that is telling us where to go.  While I don’t recommend looking around while driving, certainly you can appreciate the things around you on a drive better when you don’t have to look down at your phone for directions every few seconds. 

            What does Comer call for to fix this disconnection that we have due to the hustle and hurry of modern culture? He recommends turning your phone into a “dumb phone” by making the screen black and white and getting rid of any apps that are distracting. He also recommends turning off all notifications and simply checking your texts and emails a few times throughout the day. Finally, he recommends trying to print out maps before driving places and studying the roadways to have a deeper and more intimate connection with the road and Creation itself. I believe these ideas can be greatly helpful for both believers and nonbelievers and fear the consequences if we continue in the direction that we are headed as a society. 

- February 15, 2021

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