“Invisibly, almost without notice, we are losing ourselves,” says the quote at the end of this thoughtful reflection. I think of Kosuke Koyama’s metaphor of the three-mile-an-hour God. Why three-miles-per-hour? Because that’s the natural pace of a human being walking.
Physicist, novelist, and essayist Alan Lightman has added his own manifesto, In Praise of Wasting Time. Of course, the title is ironic, because Lightman argues that by putting down our devices and spending time on quiet reflection, we regain some of our lost humanity, peace of mind, and capacity for creativity—not a waste of time, after all, despite the prevailing mentality that we should spend every moment actually doing something. The problem is not only our devices, the internet, and social media. Lightman argues that the world has become much more noisy, fast-paced, and distracting. Partly, he writes, this is because the advances that have enabled the much greater transfer of data, and therefore productivity, have created an environment in which seemingly inexorable market forces push for more time working and less leisure time.
Lightman starts his book with an anecdote from his recent time in a rural…
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Views from the Edge 
Gordon, we have moved from family, friends and community to strangers and lone(ly) individuals.in competition with one another.
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Precisely, Jim. It’s the fruit of the consumer culture of capitalism.
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Great to read your thoughts and reflections. Thanks for thee call, Pastor Gordon!
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Hey, Don. Great to hear from you! Be well, friend! Grace and Peace.
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Gordon, I wonder why the posts I put up on the original story & then moved, a few times, to your site don’t appear
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Gary, I’ve been wondering that myself. It may be that comments of a re-blogged piece only appear on the re-blogged site.
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Gary, I don’t know how quickly it will go online. But here’s the address that will take you to the sermons with audio: https://www.knox.org/sermons/
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Found this post so interesting, not to mention disturbing….
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A good time to pay close attention to Donna and Diablo. Kosuke Koyama coined the lovely metaphor of God as a three-mile-an-hour God — because three-miles-per-hour is the pace of a human being walking.
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