{"id":3335,"date":"2024-01-25T07:34:10","date_gmt":"2024-01-25T12:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=3335"},"modified":"2024-01-25T07:35:16","modified_gmt":"2024-01-25T12:35:16","slug":"life-in-the-slow-lane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/25\/life-in-the-slow-lane\/","title":{"rendered":"Life in the Slow Lane"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,<\/em> click here<\/a>
 
A few years ago, a newspaper in Tacoma, Washington, noted that a local basset hound named Tattoo had gone for an evening run.
 
That may not sound like front page material until you consider the unusual circumstances.
 
As John Ortberg reports in his book The Life You\u2019ve Always Wanted<\/em>, Tattoo\u2019s master had accidentally closed the car door on his leash, leaving the dog outside and in serious need of keeping up.  A motorcycle cop spotted the car with what looked like a brown and white object trailing behind.  He promptly gave chase.
 
The policeman later said about Tattoo, \u201cHe was picking them up and putting them down as fast he could.\u201d
 
The car had reached about 25 miles per hour, and Tattoo had even executed a couple of U.S. gymnastics-worthy somersaults, before the cop finally got the driver\u2019s attention and signaled him to stop.  Amazingly, the hound emerged from all the excitement unscathed.
 
Not surprisingly, though, Tattoo didn\u2019t ask to go on an evening walk for a very long time.
 
So how about you?  Have you been picking them up and putting them down as fast you can in recent weeks?
 
You\u2019re not alone. 
 
The accelerating pace of life in our culture is unprecedented.  It wasn\u2019t supposed to be this way.
 
Shortly after World War II, experts predicted that Americans were on the verge of entering a brave new world of leisure.  Automated machines and wonderful new appliances promised liberation from drudgery at home and at work.  During the 1950s sociologists even established an institute to prepare for the dangerous excess of \u201cdown time\u201d in our society.  What would people do with all that freedom?
 
We\u2019ve never had the chance to find out.
 
The American workweek has actually grown longer.  Average leisure time has shrunk from 26 to 16 hours per week.  Recent surveys reveal that one-fifth of American workers take no vacation at all.  <\/em>Many confess terror that if they leave their work stations for a few days, someone will have replaced them when they returned.  What happened?<\/em>
 
We can\u2019t blame the time-saving machines.  They showed up ahead of schedule and have overwhelmingly exceeded everyone\u2019s expectations. 
 
For all too many of us, the problem is a deep emotional dependence on doing <\/em>instead of being <\/em>in order to experience the Good Life.
 
Deep inside, we may be up against a raw hunger that says, \u201cDon\u2019t stop.  Feed me with more busyness.  If you slow down, you\u2019ll fall behind and you\u2019ll feel horrible.  If you go faster, you can finish that stack of work, and then you\u2019ll feel great.\u201d
 
But it\u2019s a lie.  Whenever I finish that stack of work, it\u2019s not enough.  I feel empty.  More often than not I try to fill that void with another stack of work.
 
The pace of life that makes me \u201cpick them up and put them down\u201d as fast as I can day after day \u2013 putting all of my relationships at risk \u2013 isn\u2019t just an emotional illness.  It\u2019s a spiritual illness.
 
To the tired, the disillusioned, the frantic, and the spiritually parched, Jesus says, \u201cCome with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest\u201d (Mark 6:31).
 
In planned, restful times in the presence of God, our worlds may not become less busy, but they will become less hurried<\/em>.  And that makes all the difference.
 
Gradually we will discover that everything in the world doesn\u2019t depend on our performance.  It will dawn on us that we can\u2019t do everything we think we have to do, but that we do have the time and the resources to accomplish everything God <\/em>has called us to do.
 
Is it possible to enter into such a healthier work-life balance? 
 
God assures us it is.
 
And Tattoo, for one, would be grateful if we were to choose to slow things down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here A few years ago, a newspaper in Tacoma, Washington, noted that a local basset hound named Tattoo had gone for an evening run. That may not sound like front page material until you consider the unusual circumstances. As John Ortberg reports in his book The Life You\u2019ve Always Wanted, Tattoo\u2019s master had accidentally closed… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3336,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[282,244],"class_list":["post-3335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hurry","tag-pace-of-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3335"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3338,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3335\/revisions\/3338"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}