On the recent trip that our family had taken for our son’s wedding, I realized how frenetic the pace had become for everybody. There used to be a time when one travelled by train. The train gave you a good 24 hours as a buffer time between 2 things that you had to do. But slowly, as air travel increased, that time decreased and all you had really was maybe time to the airport and then the flight. But more and more, that time is getting squeezed. Now with data cards, you can continue to work on your laptop right up to the time you reach the airport, the check-in counters, on your Blackberry’s. Then you get on the flight and again there was a time when you could work as long as your battery held up. But today, most airlines have power sockets where you can plug in your laptop. So you can work on these long haul flights (10-15 hours) uninterrupted. And even that has been enhanced with wireless that is available on flight, so you don’t need to stop any work; you just keep going from one time zone to another without a break.
All of this has led to such a frantic pace. I was landing at one of the domestic airports in the US and as soon as we touched down, one of the flight attendants announced “Just to let you know, we have landed and you can now turn on your cell phones.” Previously you couldn’t turn on your phones till the plane had come to a complete halt. But now even that time is given. All of this makes for so little ‘down’ time. When we were travelling this time, we landed in Chicago at 4 o’clock, were planning to go to Rochester the next day. Trying to get flights but it was so expensive; also thinking about the night halt and having to spend on hotels etc. Suddenly I thought, why don’t we just take the train? Found a train that left at 9 pm and reached Rochester the next morning at 10. It was one of the most beautiful journeys that we had. We were able to relax in the comfortable Amtrak train, read, and listen to music. Then as it got light in the morning, look out at the passing countryside; it was so beautiful. That made me think even more about taking a little more time in travelling. So we did LA to San Francisco by road; seeing the beautiful flowers, something you would never see from an aircraft. Another trip we saw windmills.
I thought to myself – how refreshing that we are able to have these times, to take our minds off some of the things that just call for our attention and drain or stress us out. There are times when we need to maybe slow down the pace a little.
I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal by Nancy Keates entitled ‘Easy Rider’. She says, “Until recently, the word ‘slow travel’ evoked images of clogged highways and airport screens flashing cancellations. In a world where the goal was getting somewhere as fast as possible, the idea of deliberately reducing the pace seemed outlandish. But the stress of modern travel and the economic downturn have made the notion of decelerating, appealing. Now the term ‘slow travel’ is tied to a burgeoning movement to return to a time when life’s pleasures were savored; to a time when people appreciated the going as much as the getting there.”
Carl Honore, a Canadian author who wrote a book, ‘In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed’ says, “There’s a huge hunger for shifting gears. Everyone is stuck in fast-forward, but yearning to put on the brakes.” He says that over the past year he has had dozens of speaking requests from hotels, cruise lines and tourism authorities in cities and regions around the world. Places as far ranging as Nelson, New Zealand and the country of Estonia, are working on branding themselves as ‘slow travel’ destinations.
All around us there’s that sense that maybe we ought to slow things down; maybe this frenetic pace is too much for us; maybe it’s causing untold damage.
Simon and Garfunkel wrote a song almost 20 years ago called ‘59th Street Bridge Song’ and the words go like this:
Slow down, you move too fast
You’ve got to make the morning last
Just kicking down the cobblestones
Looking for fun and feelin’ groovy.
Hello lamp-post what cha knowin’?
I’ve come to watch your flowers growin’
Ain’t cha got no rhymes for me.........?
Just slowing down things, being able to have conversations! What is all of this doing to you, to me, maybe even to our children?
I was most interested when I saw this 6 week course at Stanford University, called ‘Challenge to Success’. It was presented by Challenge Success, an expansion of the highly successful SOS (Stressed Out Students) Projects of Stanford University. The article was entitled ‘Raising Well-Balanced Children in a Fast-Paced World’. “Children today live in a culture characterized by a ‘more is better’ mindset, both in and out of school. This fast-paced existence for kids too often places them under undue performance pressure and stress, often resulting in burn-out, disengagement and unhealthy life patterns. Ironically, today’s hard-charging, highly-structured environment leaves many children lacking the very skills needed to thrive in the 21st century: creativity, adaptability, problem solving and resilience. This course is designed to help parents create a healthy balance between achievement and personal fulfillment for their children.”
All of this made me think:- do we need to slow down a bit? Is life so caught up from minute-to minute, hour-to hour, so jam-packed with things that we don’t have a down time for our minds and bodies?
I was reminded of a line in the Bible (Psalm 46:10) where God says, “Be still and know that I am God.” He calls us to bring down the pace to almost nothing, to stillness, an absence of activity and in the midst of that we get to know that He is in charge. He is the God of our lives.
For me that is heartening. I don’t want to be so busy that I don’t have room for the Almighty, time for conversations with Him. Else I would be bereft of the wisdom that He would bring into the decisions that I have to make in my work place. Maybe it’s time that we increased our conversations with God, maybe then our days may have a little more significance. Maybe our days would be much more productive because we are giving room for the Almighty to mingle amongst us.
Just a thought for us in our fast-paced world today! Can we slow it down enough to let God be an integral part of all that we are doing?
God Bless Us All.
All of this has led to such a frantic pace. I was landing at one of the domestic airports in the US and as soon as we touched down, one of the flight attendants announced “Just to let you know, we have landed and you can now turn on your cell phones.” Previously you couldn’t turn on your phones till the plane had come to a complete halt. But now even that time is given. All of this makes for so little ‘down’ time. When we were travelling this time, we landed in Chicago at 4 o’clock, were planning to go to Rochester the next day. Trying to get flights but it was so expensive; also thinking about the night halt and having to spend on hotels etc. Suddenly I thought, why don’t we just take the train? Found a train that left at 9 pm and reached Rochester the next morning at 10. It was one of the most beautiful journeys that we had. We were able to relax in the comfortable Amtrak train, read, and listen to music. Then as it got light in the morning, look out at the passing countryside; it was so beautiful. That made me think even more about taking a little more time in travelling. So we did LA to San Francisco by road; seeing the beautiful flowers, something you would never see from an aircraft. Another trip we saw windmills.
I thought to myself – how refreshing that we are able to have these times, to take our minds off some of the things that just call for our attention and drain or stress us out. There are times when we need to maybe slow down the pace a little.
I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal by Nancy Keates entitled ‘Easy Rider’. She says, “Until recently, the word ‘slow travel’ evoked images of clogged highways and airport screens flashing cancellations. In a world where the goal was getting somewhere as fast as possible, the idea of deliberately reducing the pace seemed outlandish. But the stress of modern travel and the economic downturn have made the notion of decelerating, appealing. Now the term ‘slow travel’ is tied to a burgeoning movement to return to a time when life’s pleasures were savored; to a time when people appreciated the going as much as the getting there.”
Carl Honore, a Canadian author who wrote a book, ‘In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed’ says, “There’s a huge hunger for shifting gears. Everyone is stuck in fast-forward, but yearning to put on the brakes.” He says that over the past year he has had dozens of speaking requests from hotels, cruise lines and tourism authorities in cities and regions around the world. Places as far ranging as Nelson, New Zealand and the country of Estonia, are working on branding themselves as ‘slow travel’ destinations.
All around us there’s that sense that maybe we ought to slow things down; maybe this frenetic pace is too much for us; maybe it’s causing untold damage.
Simon and Garfunkel wrote a song almost 20 years ago called ‘59th Street Bridge Song’ and the words go like this:
Slow down, you move too fast
You’ve got to make the morning last
Just kicking down the cobblestones
Looking for fun and feelin’ groovy.
Hello lamp-post what cha knowin’?
I’ve come to watch your flowers growin’
Ain’t cha got no rhymes for me.........?
Just slowing down things, being able to have conversations! What is all of this doing to you, to me, maybe even to our children?
I was most interested when I saw this 6 week course at Stanford University, called ‘Challenge to Success’. It was presented by Challenge Success, an expansion of the highly successful SOS (Stressed Out Students) Projects of Stanford University. The article was entitled ‘Raising Well-Balanced Children in a Fast-Paced World’. “Children today live in a culture characterized by a ‘more is better’ mindset, both in and out of school. This fast-paced existence for kids too often places them under undue performance pressure and stress, often resulting in burn-out, disengagement and unhealthy life patterns. Ironically, today’s hard-charging, highly-structured environment leaves many children lacking the very skills needed to thrive in the 21st century: creativity, adaptability, problem solving and resilience. This course is designed to help parents create a healthy balance between achievement and personal fulfillment for their children.”
All of this made me think:- do we need to slow down a bit? Is life so caught up from minute-to minute, hour-to hour, so jam-packed with things that we don’t have a down time for our minds and bodies?
I was reminded of a line in the Bible (Psalm 46:10) where God says, “Be still and know that I am God.” He calls us to bring down the pace to almost nothing, to stillness, an absence of activity and in the midst of that we get to know that He is in charge. He is the God of our lives.
For me that is heartening. I don’t want to be so busy that I don’t have room for the Almighty, time for conversations with Him. Else I would be bereft of the wisdom that He would bring into the decisions that I have to make in my work place. Maybe it’s time that we increased our conversations with God, maybe then our days may have a little more significance. Maybe our days would be much more productive because we are giving room for the Almighty to mingle amongst us.
Just a thought for us in our fast-paced world today! Can we slow it down enough to let God be an integral part of all that we are doing?
God Bless Us All.
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