Haste Makes Waste

Thoughts from The Landmark History of the American People... and me =)

Background;
Who: Americans
What: Hastening
Where: West
When: mid 1800's
Why: inner passion to expand, grow, obtain, explore... etc...
How: any way they could

"The democrats here never like to remain behind one another," a traveling German nobleman reported from the West about 1840. "On the contrary, each wants to get ahead of the rest. When two steamboats happen to get alongside each other, the passengers will encourage the captains to run a race. The races are the causes of most of the explosions, and yet they are still contstantly taking place. The life of an American is, indeed, only a constant racing..."

"These Western racers, called "brag" boats, lived a short, fast life. Of all the steamboats built before mid-nineteenth centruy, nearly a third were lost in accidents. The main cause was explosion, which killed scores of passengers with burst of flying wreckage, floods of steam, and scalding water."

"When the railroad came, it was the same story all over again. Cautious European railroad builders, who came over here in the 1840's-60's to see how Americans managed to lay tracks so fast over such vast distances, were horrified. Americans laid single sets of tracks, which saved time and money but of course increased the danger of collisions. Unlike European railroaders, Americans commonly did not trouble to level off hills or to lay tracks into long gentle curves or to cut tunnels. They did not bother to lay solid foundations for embankments. All this increased the chance of speeding trains going off the rails as they tried to maneuver sharp curves, or came rocketing down steep hills. In some places hasty American railroad builders, anxious to keep working all through the winter, laid tracks right on the snow-with disastrous consequences when the spring thaws came. "

This is highly provocative on various levels. The psychology behind the mad rush of western culture. The shallowness of "many" things pursued in haste. I think this mentality lines up so much with what Voddie is saying in Family Driven Faith. Slow down. Remember what your foundation is. Are you pursuing so much so fast that you are laying shallow tracks in the lives of your children that are going to be left ungrounded when the snows of childhood melt and the child chases off into adulthood?

Or to take a different track, even more provocative, even in my inner life... I am racing. I don't just "wait" for a spiritual challenge, I LOOK for one. I'm hastening as much as the next person, just after "spiritual" destinations... really, there is no difference. The premise is the same. Stop chasing. Slow down. Devote yourself wholly to the task at hand. Enjoy one another, milk every moment and every opportunity for all it's worth. Don't be so preoccupied with so many things that you become ineffective in the things that matter, the things that are here now, in front of you.

Don't chase. Don't hurry. Don't get ahead of yourself on this journey of life. Live, breathe, enjoy, experience, make the most of each moment for these days are fleeting. Build a foundation that will last, and plant one solid stone firmly and carefull upon the other. It's about the building process, not the end result. Mind blowing thoughts that put me at peace today.