Hurry Up and….

I’ve been thinking a bit about hurrying the last few days. Things have seemed so busy, the days so full. And I am far from alone… seems like everyone I talk to feels as if they are rushing from one thing to the next.

I came across a blog entry that referenced a Time Magazine article from 1989 titled “How America Has Run Out of Time”. Here’s a snippet:

“So how did America become so timeless? Those who can remember washing diapers or dialing phones may recall the silvery vision of a postindustrial age. Computers, satellites, robotics and other wizardries promised to make the American worker so much more efficient that income and GNP would rise while the workweek shrank. In 1967 testimony before a Senate subcommittee indicated that by 1985 people could be working just 22 hours a week or 27 weeks a year or could retire at 38. That would leave only the great challenge of finding a way to enjoy all that leisure.” 

Wow…. 22 hour work-week, 27 weeks a year, and retiring at 38… How far off could they possibly have been? (Makes you wonder what ideas we have about the future that are going to be totally wrong, too!) What happened??

Here are some quotes for you to ponder along with me tonight about time and hurriedness:

“All my possessions for a moment of time.” -- Queen Elizabeth I, with her dying breath, 1603

"Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil." -- Carl Jung

"Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that." --  The Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland

Hurry Sickness is… “above all, a continuous struggle and unremitting attempt to accomplish or achieve more and more things or participate in more and more events in less and less time, frequently in the face of opposition, real or imagined, from other persons.” --  Dr. Meyer Friedman, Cardiologist

“The clock ticks slow. I hear it for what it is: good and holy. Time, what God first deemed holy above all else (Genesis 2:3).” – Ann Voskamp in One Thousand Gifts

“Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” – Jesus Christ, Son of God

“Be still, and know that I am God.” --  Jehovah Jireh, Creator of the Universe

May you have a syrupy slow evening that saunters sweetly under a magnificently spacious star-studded night sky ~