The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to stay emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the modern world

The final chapter of Part 3 brings Comer to the last one of the practices of Jesus which he encourages his readers to consider. This practice—slowing—is a set of habits meant to teach one a more restful pace of life no matter what else might be going on in one’s external circumstances.

Here Comer returns to his proposal of a rule of life as laid out in Chapter 6, encouraging an assessment of one’s schedule and habits such that one can build a schedule that reflects the values one wants to pursue: “Again, the truism: we achieve inner peace when our schedules are aligned with our values” (220). Comer’s pastoral penchant for specificity in the practical applications he suggests comes out in the grab-bag of possible habits he proposes for growing toward a more restful pace of life. These applications include practices like not exceeding the speed limit, driving in the slow lane, choosing longer lines at the stoplight and grocery-store checkout, trading one’s smartphone for a “dumbphone” with fewer distractions, setting limits on social media usage, cooking one’s own food, getting rid of the TV, and practicing habits like journaling and meditation.

For each of these suggestions, Comer explains how one might achieve each practice. Each one is clearly a habit which Comer himself sincerely tries to build into his life, and for which he can testify to their potential for transformation. Their value is presented not simply as a display of how far one might take the pursuit of an unhurried life, but rather to open readers’ eyes to just how far away from that ideal their own lives may currently lie. Comer does not necessarily expect readers to employ all of the habits he presents, but he suggests that they at least try some of them: “These are just ideas. They might not be for you. That’s cool. Come up with your own list. But come up with a list. Then do it” (244).

The dominant themes of the earlier part of the book are more muted here, including Comer’s treatment of the idea of Apprenticeship to Jesus. Having built the foundations of his argument on the theme of The Dangers of a Hurried Lifestyle in Part 1 and of apprenticeship to Jesus in Parts 2 and 3, now in the final full chapter he focuses on the practical applications for how to achieve the third theme: The Importance of Living in the Present Moment. Rather than letting the pressures of our culture pull us toward the next task or new thing to buy, the “slowing” actions Comer proposes are meant to help us reclaim the present moment, to live where we are rather than in an imagined future that we never reach. By seeking out activities that intentionally work against the forward pull of our culture’s obsession with hurry, we might be able to slow down enough to actually live in the present.