Don and Paul arrive in Flagstaff, Arizona. Don seems impressed with the community there. He sees something that indicates that the people there want to live together in a community. I guess it's a long ways away from the sprawling complexity of Houston, Texas.
He talks about the difference between the people in Flagstaff and the people in Houston. The ones in Flagstaff will have a Georgia O'Keeffe painting on the wall in their house. And they'll look at it. "Houston makes you feel like life is about the panic and the resolution of the panic and nothing more." I can, unfortunately, relate to that. This is very sad. Hustling from one thing to another can sap the energy right out of a person. Maybe the simplicity of that Switchfoot song is trying to scream at us to change: "We were meant to live for so much more." Perhaps it is true that we weren't created for the kind of life that we construct for ourselves.
Perhaps we need to discipline ourselves in this day and age to purposefully slow down. When we slow down, we have a chance to think. When we relax we get our bodies in line with the need for rest. We can force our minds and the rush-panic-rush switch inside that we can choose how we live. We can overthrow the great tyrant -- the tyranny of the urgent.
If we don't do this, he'll kill us.
If we do overthrow him, which we can do, we will put joy in its place.
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at November 13, 2006 08:56 AM