Hitting the wall

Rod,
Your dad (and mine) didn't spend hours a day on the internet, surfing and blogging. Honestly, you (and I) have full-time jobs in the first place, plus growing families to take care of. And then add on to that your computer time and there you go.

I still waste untold hours of this precious life on-line (as do all of your readers) although less than I used to and continuing to slowly kick the habit, I hope.

We'd hate to see you cut back, although if we were all cutting back as we should maybe we wouldn't notice. Whatever the case, that's the cure for your ills. Less computer=more little league coaching.

There, wisdom dispensed. Now, I'm turning this damn thing off!!

(And yes, I am a hypocrite!)

Rod, as much as I enjoy reading your blog, my best advice is to stop the blog. Just stop it. I had shingles a year ago, and I'm in my late thirties. My doctor caught it very early, before the sores had broken out, and he diagnosed antivirals. So I was luckier than some. Here's the funniest part: I worked through the shingles, with a laptop at home. That was crazy, but that's the job I was in. It was -- as you say -- very painful and hard. It was also, oddly, a spiritual experience. And it's behind me now. I'm in a new job, too. And I have to say, I have spent a lot less time on my computer over the past six months. It's been a slow but sure scaling back, Friday nights at 10:25 notwithstanding. I'll miss reading your blog, but something has got to give. Good night.

Very well put, John E. Very well put. It's hard to turn it off. Julie catches me writing in my head even when I'm just sitting there apparently doing nothing.

They say shingles is "usually" a disease of the elderly, but my husband, brother, and two very close friends have had it, in their 30s or early 40s. (Anyone who suspects they have it [pain/tingling on half the trunk]: get to the doctor IMMEDIATELY.)

Stress . . . job vs career: I'm in a job where frankly I'm underutilized. But I don't have to take work home, and I have 1/20th the stress of my boss. (And at least our family has good health insurance!) I have cut my blog reading down from 40+/day (at a previous job I didn't like) to 5/day now.
Getting off the computer has made a huge difference in my life and my family's life.

Rod,

I'm sorry to hear about your wife's illness ... Shingles sounds excruciating. If you're interested in natural therapies, perhaps Dr. Samuel Verghese can help. He specializes in issues of pain and stress management, and I personally know of patients who are much better because of his care. http://www.natureshospital.com/biofeedback.htm
(Full disclosure: Dr. Verghese is a friend of mine. He's also a devout Christian.)

As for me, I take Nutrilite vitamin supplements and XS energy drinks. They work wonders. (Full disclosure: I sell these items at my website, akuruvilla1.qhealthzone.com)

As much as I enjoy this blog, if maintaining it is proving to be too much work, cut back ... Everyone will understand. Your family and your health comes before this. Perhaps you should post just once per week, if at all.

Regarding the cause of the stress on the American family, our onerous tax burden is a significant part of the problem. http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday/

P.S. Thanks to you, I'm attending Holy Cross Antiochian Orthodox Church in Maryland! I will keep your family in my prayers.

Rod, my sympathies for Julie.

Consider that she is alone at home with three children every day, being not only a nursing mom and homemaker, but their primary teacher. You are at work until 7:30 every night and still writing in your head even when not at the computer, and part of your job seems to be staying on top of every trend in the culture that signals the end of civilization as we know it. You are probably both exhausted. Her illness is a shot across the bow.

My mother's generation sent us off to school at age 5 and our fathers were home by 4:30 or 5:00, in time to have dinner with us. Evenings were indeed spent relaxing either with the family and neighbors.

I just returned from a week long retreat. The teachers said that they have had to teach meditation very differently now because everyone is increasingly stressed, much more so than 20 years ago. We pay a steep price for being tuned in to the world like this, collecting more information in a day than our ancestors did in a lifetime only a couple of generations back.

Robert is right. Give up the surfing and the blog. leave the office at 5. Live the Crunchy Con life you wrote about. This is not part of it.

Satan was talking with Jesus on a high place, and showed Him all of the kingdoms of the world. Satan said that all of these were his and that if Jesus were only to submit to Satan . . . you know the rest I'll bet.

Satan, with the help of his Humanist humans* (liberals, progressives, socialists, marxists, darwinists, yada-yada) have brought the world to a place where the family is altered and destroyed. Where, abominations and perversions are so enjoyed and protected that the stress we are facing is supernatural in its power and scope. The Apostles followed the teachings of Jesus and wrote to us on how to combat the stress we are experiencing.

Be in the world and not of it. The guide book is a compilation of the Gospels and letters written by the followers of Christ Jesus called Christians, and can be found in what is known as The New Testament.

*Read the Humanist Manifesto

For thousands of years, people got up, went to work, worked hard, but at a rather methodical pace, then came in when it got dark, went to bed, and started over the next morning. People did one thing at a time, did not have news, music, radio, computers, televisions, etc, all overloading thier lives. Today, people have to pretend to be a computer server, handing off one operation after another. I blame many things, but one thing i blame, is the inability of people today, to just say no. To tell the boss, I won't work 60 hours this week, I have a life, and I wish he would go get one too. To turn of the constant attention grabbing devices around us. Also, I think many of our fathers had come off the farm, where you put in a good days work, but generally quit by sundown. They carried those habits into thier factory jobs. Their children did not. I heard Wendell Berry make the comment that his Amish friend David Kline's father had a rule that no horse could be harnessed for work, after supper. The idea being if the animal wasn't harnessed, their would be no work done that evening. Evening was for family. We are just not made for Modernities sweaty panting pace. Remember, we have only been living this way for less than 100 years. We just do too much.

Amen to Eric W's post: the unrelenting throb of crappy music EVERYWHERE is the single worst thing about our current culture. I'm sure it's been scientifically proven that intelligence is inversely related to how loud you play your car stereo.

Maybe the generation that grew up in the halcyon days of the 1950s had it better than we do in terms of the simple life. But did people back in the 19th century have it better? Why were there so many social reformers after all? Children worked. Men and women worked. Hours and hours. The better classes perhaps had it better. But there were so few in the better class. The rest were worked 18 hours a day, often in manual labour; they were ignorant of the world around them and had no mass entertainment to amuse them. They had relatively little purchasing power. They came to America in droves, and lived five to a room. They suffered from incurable disease. Was it really better? I don't know. I understand Dreher's concern, but I'm not sure that old people, who are likely to be nostalgic about yesteryear, are altogether a good source about certain aspects of the past. The second half of the twentieth century may come to be regarded as a blissful time -- a time when an older, simpler way of life met new, helpful technologies, and when America was so far ahead of the rest of the world that Americans had it easy. Perhaps those days could never have lasted.

Rod, I'm so sorry to hear about Julie; I've had relatives who've had shingles, all at a young age. We'll keep her in our prayers for a speedy recovery free from any lingering effects.

Your post itself seemed ironic on a night when my husband worked late, and then got paged a while later and spent a couple of hours on the phone fixing a computer problem. I remember when we could always count on Friday nights, or weekend times in general, as being available for family, but in the 24/7 on call world you can't even make plans for recreation any more--or if you do, you know that those plans can be upset at the last minute by a call from work.

The loss of leisure time or even of the concept of leisure isn't a small thing. People so seldom have the ability to devote themselves to a hobby, to be a passionate amateur in some area or another, to expand their horizons and feed their souls on something more than the activities that swirl around the hurricane of global commerce. But it is the tiny passions, the shy admission that one dabbles in painting or sport or music, that one collects quirky books or interesting stamps, that one participates in a community theater's productions or is a devoted member of a charmingly purposeless club, that makes us interesting, alive, and more than the interchangeable cogs in a piece of corporate machinery.

The more what used to be called the work/life balance tips in the direction of more work than life, the more we will see the effects in the form of a dysfunctional, distracted, despairing, disconnected, disenchanted and dismayed populace. There is no poetry in the pursuit of gain for gain's sake, and "...what, we ask, is life/without a touch of Poetry in it?"

Rod, you are not kidding. I am 26, graduate of a pretentiously elite college, and at some point I realized I was swimming in waters I never asked for. I am about to set forth teaching english abroad starting this summer, mostly because I see a busy future in front of me in an office in America, and it all seems undesirable. The punishing commute, the ever-mounting bills, the kids who have less and less space to play freely and develop naturally, the constant expectation to solve every last problem through e-mail and phone calls...it's not just at the job either. Our social lives are similarly full of profiles to update, cultural minutiae to process, outrageous societal excesses that anger liberals and conservatives in different ways...something is off.

I have had this conversation with friends of mine, and some of their responses lean towards the "you ain't starving, what have you got to complain about?" variety, and while they have a point about needless whining, I can't see any path besides dropping out of society to a certain extent that feels like a life I want to live. Even chasing girls feels like a job interview at this point.

I was born into this, and I've never suffered, it's true. But I don't feel any allegiance to this consumerist society, and I have trouble envisioning a scenario in which this changes at any point in the future. At the very least, I hope seeing America from a distance gives me some appreciation for what I may be taking for granted. But I'm still cynical...

I'm closer to your father's age than to yours, and came of age in the 60s (which I DO remember). The Hippies weren't just right about wars (as you hint in a recent posting); they were also on the right track about the vices of the rat race. The bumper sticker "Live simply so that others may simply live" has at least the first part right, though the second part might better read "so you can get a life."
Yet when I lived a bit more lavishly, people saw it as a sign of success and were more desirous of my professional services, so I could (and did) give a bit more to charity "that others might simply live."
I see signs of what you write about all around me. My son pulled yet another all-nighter to finish yet another appellate brief (court-appointed, low hourly rate - gotta work more hours) Thursday-Friday. My wife is constantly running across town to watch our grandson as my daughter-in-law hits her limit, or to run errands for my aging mother.
Many of the young moms I know, even with just one child, are running on empty. Many of the people my age are stressed by caring for both parents and stressed-out kids. But what do my son and daughter-in-law do to relieve stress? Mount their motorcycles, two of their five vehicles (the care and feeding of which contribute to their stress).
I think part of the reason I'm so looking forward to retirement is that I get to set that pace aside - at least in my dreams I get to. Meanwhile, there's a Health Savings Account to fill up and drain each year for my chronic illnesses (the cost of health care is insane, but we it is a necessity, right?); a big annual premium on long-term care insurance so we won't burden our kids inordinately as we go decrepit; a big monthly bill for the health club membership and sessions with the trainer to try to forestall decrepitude; there's just soooo much to do to get ready for the Nirvana of retirement - the finish line in the rat race.
I suspect that the major culprits are (1) a legitimate concern to provide for ourselves and our loved ones, even after the collapse so many of us expect, and (2) an illegitimate denial of limits in a fallen world. We can quibble about where the limits are, and whether my cry of "Enough!" is an excuse for sloth, but when we're not living humanely, when we're living as is material prosperity and personal distinction are the highest goods, we're living out the even deadlier cardinal sins of avarice and pride.

Rjak: It's possible to do manage at least a "partial" drop out. I did it - about 4 years ago. I haven't mentioned it before, but I do have a law degree, and I worked for a fairly large firm in my part of the world for about 4 years (there really are a couple of them in West Texas). I'm also basically a single mom. It was really an unmanageble situation and it didn't seem to me that I was doing right by my kid. While I had the job (and the money and the credit rating), I bought a rental house - actually a single lot with two separate dwellings on it in my neighborhood (my own house also has a rental - in the back). During my last two years at my job, I maxed out my 401k contributions. Then I cashed it out, payed down the mortgage on the rental (17k right now), and quit my job. (Just an aside here - if you're going to do this you need to find a REALLY cheap place to live. I live in an older, mulit-ethnic, downtown area in a somewhat smallish Texas city. When I moved in, in 1998, the area was considered a bit rough, though it's improved somewhat since then. My house is more than 60 years old and just over 1400 square feet with just 1 bathroom. It cost me 53k ten years ago and most people thought I overpaid). Anyway, the rental income off those 3 properties, supplemented with some independent contracting work (only about 10k last year) is enough to make it, but just barely and with no real cushion. I probably won't do this forever, but for the time being, it's the best option for all concerned. Also, I find that I'm able to be more generous with my time. There are other single women in this area and a lot of kids running around without a lot of direction or guidance. Now, they all come to my house because I'm here, I'm awake, I'm (fairly) present and I have good snacks. It's a tremendous help to some of their moms (one in particular) and I'm also able to do some volunteer GED work at my current church. It's defintely not for everyone, but it's doable, if you have a good plan and a bit of luck.

Rod,

Sorry to say but your post is based partially on a factual inaccuracy. People now have more leisure time than they have ever had. That is a fact. The question is why do people then feel like they have less leisure time and are more stressed. The wired world might be part of it. I teach college and my students' unwillingness to turn off the world continually frustrates me. Whether its text messaging, the ipod, or the computer, they are constantly distracting themselves with technology. But most of us do that to some extent. Our connection to the world is constant yet virtual.

Second, as intimated in my previous comment, let's make a distinction between real leisure and distraction. Leisure is an activity separate from work that improves us has human beings. Does television qualify as leisure? It can, but usually not. Video games? Likely not. Another thing I notice about my students: they have no hobbies. Their leisure time is largely spent on video games, listening to music rather than playing it, and "hanging out." This is a poor use of free time and may help explain why many people have more free time but feel more stressed.

Just some thoughts.

Excellent post and discussion. It definately requires out of the box thinking to escape the elaborate box the culture has developed.

Seriously consider reading or listening to Matthew Kelly's "Rhythm of Life". He takes this head on and shares his personal experience to re-wire his life for balance and God centeredness.

Next, for families it starts with Sundays. MK does a great job discussing and developing the importance of Sundays and how to use that time to regain some piece in the "Classroom of silence".

If you're ready to radically address balance and peace in your life then move into the country and spend more time outdoors. Go CrunchyCon yourself. There's a reason the people you met and interviewed took those radical steps. There is not easy way to separate from the cultural chaos without extreme detachment from the culture. Cut the TV, cut the Blackberry, avoid the cell phone, tend the garden before the blogs, go to the Farmer's market with the family, consider radical changes to the job. Explore natural methods and foods to regain strength and immune system. Make your discoveries become first person, instead of third person. Visit a Monastery, preferably Clear Creek, for an extended time period to experience a level of peace that only God can provide. May God Bless you and your family, Mike

Another part of this problem is that, by and large, we don't live near our extended families. In the past, one's network of parents and aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters were nearby and could help out, pick up the slack, act as a pressure-release valve. We don't have that. That and our culture's radical individualism makes everything up to us, and I'd suggest that's where all the stress comes from.

That, and we've lost the practice of leisure (true leisure, in the Josef Pieper sense) and especially the practice of Sabbath-keeping. Not only does keeping the Sabbath create freedom, it also teaches us that our lives are not the product of our work but, rather, a gift from God, reminding us that everything is in fact not up to us.

Here's where we can lay some of the blame at the feet of the free market. The market does a lot of things well, but it only sees things that we can attach prices to. Anything that doesn't have a price -- things like the family, social networks, the practice of leisure, acts of charity, among others -- is invisible to it. And to the extent that we have internalized, have been conformed to, the values of the free market, to that same extent the family, leisure, and charity become invisible to us. In such a situation, stress is inevitable.

You have a career in a profession. Not a job. Ideally, professionals choose their careers primarily because its something they are interested in or enjoy. The itch that needs to be scratched. You arent ever going to have regular 40 hour weeks. Society needs people to fill those roles. It generally works because the work isnt all"work". Some of it is play or hobby for the professional.

Then you hit your 40's. Your profession doesnt seem quite so fresh. Maybe you have some administrative duties. Work politics chip away at you. It starts to become a job. That can really suck. Your two biggest enemies become cynicism and despair. Some people immerse themselves in the "success" track and forgot why they chose their profession to begin with. Its usually around tis point you have to deal with issues of your parents mortality and the kids will always have issues.

Your wife is also on her own career track. Raising kids and teaching them is lots of work. It isnt always that natural either. Some parents are just naturally better at it than others. Not everyone is a good teacher. With some work and love we who are less gifted can become competent and maybe even good.

How do you cope? Mostly you just suck it up and realize its what everyone else goes through. Sure, you pray. You talk it over with friends and your minister. You make extra time when you need it (kids have survived in the past w/o piano lessons and soccer practice). You reassess whether you chose the right job and are living in the right place. Unless you really screwed up or got unlucky you are doing the right stuff, its just really hard. Being a man means persevering for your kids, your wife, your country and your God. So, suck it up. And do it wit love in your heart. No getting bitter. Your Dad did it for you, you do it for yours.

Steve

Raising small children, working long, stressful hours for not enough money, not getting the rest you need, not having support from friends and family who can take up the slack--been there, done that, and it is very tough. I feel for you sincerely.

(Btw, the number of people earnestly going online to say “the internet is the Devil!!” is really funny. Thanks to all for a good, relaxing chuckle.)

This is an amazing garbage-can post. By which I mean no insult--I refer to the “garbage can school of decision-making.” An opportunity for choice is presented, and people begin throwing their favorite problems and solutions at it. I have my own favorites that I could bring out of my garbage can and add to the mix. But I’m restraining myself because I’d like to be helpful instead.

I’d like to express my sympathy for Rod’s plight and suggest some things we used to do under similar circumstances. And things I wish we’d done more of, that would have helped. In no particular order:

The Desperation Picnic--that’s what I called them, anyway. Pack sandwiches, cold chicken, or whatever, and go to the nearest park to eat. Just taking the children outside for awhile can be very relaxing. Try to find a picnic table near a play area, sand pit, or other attractive area. Take a frisbee (they make soft ones that won’t hurt the kids if they get hit in the face) or a foxtail or something. Play freeze tag or Mother May I. If the kids’ friends are hanging around, you can take them too. It doesn’t have to take a long time. Even an hour is good. You can also do this in your back yard if you have one. We sometimes had picnics on a blanket spread on the living room floor, just to do something different. My kids liked this even when they became teenagers and couldn’t actually admit to liking it.

Get outside as much as possible. Take long walks. We used to bring along a small rubber ball and bounce it back and forth as we walked, just to keep the kids interested. Tell stories as you walk, get a simple guide to trees and plants and identify leaves, look for animal tracks. Go where there’s water and you can wade or swim. Admittedly, this is almost impossible in Texas. Go outside in the summer and your brains will boil. But there are times in the evening when it cools down and the sun is less tyrannical. If you can’t get to a swimming place, get a wading pool, a hose and some super soakers and get wet in the back yard. Water makes people feel better, calmer.

There was a period during which I’d make a delicious dessert one day a week, and just serve soup or sandwiches for the main part of dinner. While everybody enjoyed the treat, I would read to them from a book we all liked. At that point, I’d already read “The Lord of the Rings” out loud several times, so we moved on. One of my daughters really loved Peter Jenkins’ books--”Walk Across America,” and its sequels. So we were reading those for awhile.

Learn to meditate. Seriously! It’s not just woo-woo. Scientific studies have shown that regular meditation breathing, a very simple technique to learn, will reduce your stress and lower your blood pressure. I’ll bet you could teach your boys to do it too. Once you get good at it, you can use the technique even at work. Just a few relaxing breaths, plus a little mindfulness of your own emotions will help you see how stress is running away with you, and be able to let it go.

Buy flowers. Then put them where you can look at them often, and remind yourself to enjoy their beauty. If God so clothes the flowers of the field . . . .

Cuddle. Hold your kids on your lap. Put your arms around them. When you and Julie sit in the same room, sit together. That’s one of the worst things about the internet--it encourages people to sit in separate chairs with their backs to each other. Get a laptop if you have to! What’s the point of getting married if you can’t even snuggle up on the couch?

There are lots of little things like these. They do add up. I hope some of this helps, or sparks your own good ideas. Culture change is a bigger issue, of course, but meanwhile we all have to survive in the belly of the beast. ; )

Whoops . . . that long post was me, not my pal metanous who apparently forgot to reset the name when he last used my computer . . . ; )

Hi Rod,Sorry your having a tough week/month. This too shall pass.

Where does it all end? Hopefully in heaven.:)

That's the real goal. It's always a balance of managing and eliminating the minutia and keeping your eyes on the big picture at the same time. There's alot of good advice on this post. Not sure there's much I can add. Except to listen. Listen to what your life is telling you.

I know I've spent years rushing and ignoring the fact that I wasn't enjoying my life because of it. You said yourself sometimes life is about limits right? But I don't necessarily think it means giving up things that you enjoy. I kind of think it's more about getting rid of the negatives. Sometimes you can do it by a change of venue and sometimes by a change of mind.

Since it doesn't look like you can change your job. Then it would tend to be mind/body and time mgmt. This may sound silly but when I was a kid, my parents hung a poem near the bathroom mirror that we all unknowingly drunk in as we brushed our teeth. The only thing that's beautiful about it are the underlying concepts. They do work. It's called Slow me down Lord.I'll see if I can find it.

But any good meditation would probably help. Doesn't Benedict Groeschel(sp?)have some online that you could listen to? I think he does. That'd be a Benedict option. :)

Pax

If you're ready to radically address balance and peace in your life then move into the country and spend more time outdoors. Go CrunchyCon yourself. There's a reason the people you met and interviewed took those radical steps. There is not easy way to separate from the cultural chaos without extreme detachment from the culture. Cut the TV, cut the Blackberry, avoid the cell phone, tend the garden before the blogs, go to the Farmer's market with the family, consider radical changes to the job. Explore natural methods and foods to regain strength and immune system. Make your discoveries become first person, instead of third person. Visit a Monastery, preferably Clear Creek, for an extended time period to experience a level of peace that only God can provide.

All very interesting, and stuff we've been talking about, me and Julie, since all this started.

We've noticed that the one place in the world where our son Matthew is really at peace is down in Louisiana, when we visit my mom and dad. They live out in the country. Matthew can run around all he likes, by himself, and explore. The children's aunt, uncle and cousins live next door, so our kids have someone to play with all the time (versus where we live now, where you can't let your kids go roam the neighborhood on their own, and there aren't many kids in the neighborhood anyway). The boys don't fight, because they don't feel as contained, and because there's just so much they can do on their own in the country that doesn't require mom or dad to act as the cruise director.

It's also true that having extended family right around you relieves a lot of pressure. My sister has been really under the gun this past year because her husband is serving in Iraq. But my mom and dad are literally right there to help with the girls, and my sister's oldest is now a teenager, and capable of babysitting. The idea of having family there primarily to love and to be with *as family* is precious, but as a practical matter, it's also very appealing.

The idea of living out their in the country, where we could have chickens and garden, be with family, and live in peace, quiet and clean air, is a lot more attractive now than it would have been otherwise. We always notice when we go down to St. Francisville that my mom and dad's lifestyle involves a lot of sitting on the front porch drinking coffee or (in the evening) beer, and talking with friends who drop by. My folks both worked hard when I was growing up, but there was always -- always -- time for friends and socializing. I think it might be a country thing, or a Southern thing. Now that they're older, and can't do the kind of physical work they used to do, their life is mostly that. And it's not a bad way to live. We really ache to get together with our friends here in Dallas, but it feels like having to plan the Normandy invasion just to do so.

Julie and I are realistic enough to know that I'm a writer by nature, and I'm going to have to write, period. Julie says it would make her happy if I'd give up this blog, but she knows that the reason I pour so much of myself into it is because I thrive on it, and that creative energy would have to go somewhere. What I think is a realistic thing we could do is to move to a place where our kids could have the freedom to run around, and could have the joy of growing up with their cousins. My dad has land we could build a house on there, right next door, and plenty of land for gardening and raising chickens, etc. The boys could have a dog. We had a dog here in Dallas. We had to take her back to the breeder because she couldn't stand being so confined, and we didn't have time to give her what she needed to express her own nature.

But I have to make a living. Maybe there's a way for me to cobble together a writing income, one that I could do from the country, thanks to the Internet. Most of the work I do for the DMN is stuff that I could do from anywhere. Maybe I could take a big salary cut, and work for them from down there, in a limited way (but in a time of cost-cutting, it would be hard to justify keeping on staff someone whose face you didn't see every day). Maybe something will turn up. Time to be creative! A friend said to me yesterday, "I wonder what God is doing here?" -- speaking of all the stress-related sickness we've had in our house in the past year. You might recall my saying on this blog last year that one of the kids' doctors said he firmly believes the spike in autism is related to compromised immune systems, and he believes the compromise is a function, in some way, of living in modernity.

Maybe the way we're living is making a lot of us sick.

Sounds like you're thinking on the right track there with your 11:43 post, Rod...

Rod, best wishes to your wife for a speedy recovery. A teacher-friend of my wife had shingles and said it was very painful but eventually it passed. Teaching itself has always been a stressful profession but never so much as today.

I agree with those who have suggested cutting back on this blog, although I would miss reading it. It certainly requires a lot of time to do the research and provide the commentary - in looking at the number of posts per day you make, not to mention the time it takes to read and reply to the comments - well, this is certainly one area you could recoup some time. A once or twice a week "column" on the blog might be a happy medium, where you would still have the interaction with readers yet buy yourself some quality time away from the computer and with the family.

I can tell you from personal experience that going freelance is certainly a stress-reducer. I work in a technical field and since giving up the 9-to-5 or actually more like 7-to-7 I am much more relaxed. When my kids were young, I used to come home for the soccer, hockey, baseball, gymnastics, ballet - and often go back later in the evening to work to check on the progress of a job. My immune system didn't seem to be affected but time will tell whether my liver liked all the Italian wine as much as I did.

Put your family first and remember when the kids get older they will be thankful for the time you spent with them. You will be too.

All the best to you and your family.

Here's another way to slow down: BAKE SOME BREAD!

You introduced us to the no-knead bread recipe. The current issue of THE WEEK Magazine has that, plus a new and easier/quicker recipe:

Recipe of the Week: The world’s two easiest breads

There’s now no excuse not to bake your own bread, said Nick Fox in The New York Times. A year ago, a columnist for this newspaper, Mark Bittman, published what we called “the easiest bread recipe possible.” The no-knead recipe was created by Jim Lahey, owner of Sullivan Street Bakery in SoHo. The response from readers “was so fervid you would have thought he’d revealed a foolproof way to pick winning lottery numbers.” People desperately wanted to bake bread at home, and that recipe showed them how.

Recently Dr. Jeff Hertzberg, a physician from Minneapolis, developed an even easier bread-making technique. His recipe makes Lahey’s method
look “like molecular gastronomy.” Both use 30 percent to 50 percent more liquid than most recipes that require kneading. Lahey’s recipe, because it uses only a small amount of yeast, requires at least 18 hours of fermentation and often results in a very loose dough. Dr. Hertzberg’s dough rises more quickly, and easily forms into a loaf that can be baked in a pan or on a hot stone.

Recipes of the week

No-Knead Bread

Time: about 1½ hours, plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising time

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
1-5/8 cups water
1/4 tsp instant yeast
1-1/4 tsp salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed

In large bowl combine flour, yeast, salt. Add 1-5/8 cups water and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours (preferably about 18), at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

Dough is ready when surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour work surface; place dough on it. Sprinkle with a little more flour, and fold dough over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap; let rest about 15 minutes.

Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into ball. Generously coat cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran, or cornmeal; put dough on towel, seam-side down. Dust with more flour, bran, or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel; let rise for about 2 hours. When ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with finger.

At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex, or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up. (It may look like a mess, but that’s okay.) Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid, bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on rack. Yield: One 1-1/2-pound loaf.

Simple Crusty Bread

Adapted from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François (Thomas Dunne Books, 2007)

Time: About 45 minutes, plus about 3 hours’ resting and rising

6-1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour, more for dusting dough
4 cups water
1-1/2 tbsp yeast
1-1/2 tbsp kosher salt
Cornmeal

In large bowl, mix yeast and salt into 3 cups lukewarm water (about 100 degrees). Stir in flour, mixing until there are no dry patches. Dough will be quite loose. Cover, but not with airtight lid. Let dough rise at room temperature at least 2 hours (and up to 5). Bake at this point or refrigerate, covered, for as long as two weeks.

When ready to bake, sprinkle a little flour on dough. Cut off grapefruit-size piece with serrated knife. Turn dough in hands to lightly stretch surface, creating rounded top and lumpy bottom. Put dough on pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal; let rest 40 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it.

Place broiler pan on bottom of oven. Place baking stone on middle rack and turn oven to 450 degrees; heat stone at that temperature for 20 minutes. Dust dough with flour and slash top with serrated knife three times. Slide onto stone. Pour 1 cup hot water into broiler pan and shut oven quickly to trap steam. Bake until well browned, about 30 minutes. Cool completely. Yield: 4 loaves.

Gosh, Rod, very sorry to hear about your wife. Can't offer any suggestions for this sort of thing ... but I will pray for her.

Our society IS out of wrack and stressed-out. It's the number one problem -- and it goes way beyond politics or Red/Blue divide and the usual rhetoric. I think your whole "crunchy con" approach is pointing us towards a "way out", and I admire your steadfastness in pursuing this angle (despite whatever hassles you got from Jonah Goldberg, et. al. when you first advanced it some years ago).

A while back you mentioned, if I'm not mistaken, how some families are organizing lay religious communities where they work together and pray together. That may be one approach. In my own parish, I see how the Neo-Catechumante movement provides such an incredible support group to its members. People work out their problems by praying together and supporting each other -- through, with and in Christ.

I think, too, that the old-fashioned emphasis on Sunday as a day of rest needs to be revised. I can remember growing up in the 70s with the sense that the repeal of the so-called "blue laws" was supposed to be progress. Everything thought the idea of being able to shop at the mall on Sunday was the greatest thing. Or being able to watch football on Sunday was the greatest good. Lately, I've begun to read into the history of the Church's support for the "blue laws." It was intended to help the workers be able to get ONE day a week to themselves. The factory owners in the early 1800s weren't too crazy about the idea, but the Church got its way.

Are we merely economical animals -- prisoners to the paycheck? Or something more?

Sorry, but I just realized that I committed a bunch of typos on the last point (a new problem for me):

(1) Meant to say that "Sunday as a day of rest needs to be revived" (NOT "revised").

(2) Meant to ask, "Are we merely economic animals..?" (NOT "economical" animals)

Also, "Neo-Catechumenate" (NOT "Catechumante).

I think I need a bigger keyboard ... or reading glasses ... or both :-)

Rod,

Wish your wife a speedy and complete recovery.

As for why it's so difficult, supply and demand may be a key component. We've had massive levels of immigration, yet manufacturing and other productive jobs have left. You can keep adding people to do service jobs, but if they weren't here the economy wouldn't suffer much, in my opinion, because the demand for extra workers is generated by having the workers. The other addition to supply is women entering the workforce. Almost all of the bad economic news traces to the 1970's. There's no going back now however, because Chinese and Indians are bidding for the jobs now.

Additionally there is the massive decline in education. Maybe we've been papering over a real decline in American living standards with debt.

Rod, best wishes to your wife, you and your family as you deal with this new challenge.

The only advice I have to give is not usually welcomed by people, but I will give it anyway: You/Julie might want to look into a raw food diet. I used to have MAJOR immune system issues, chronic infections for years (and insomnia) until I switched my way of eating. It's a huge adjustment and a major commitment, but it works. I literally have not had a cold since 2004, when I first started eating this way. I also managed to get off two different steroid medications for my asthma and now only use an inhaler from time to time. I never get headaches anymore, and I used to 2-3 times a week.

When they hear about it, most people dismiss this way of eating as radical or extreme or unhealthy right off the bat, and so for that reason I usually don't mention. I actually don't blame them for having that reaction because eating raw food exclusively goes against everything we've been taught about nutrition, but it really works. It cleans your body out, enabling your organs/systems to function optimally. I'm 43 and not only do I never get sick I also have more energy than I did when I was in my 20s. I just thought I'd throw that out there because it's hard to stay silent when you find out people are suffering from things that can maybe be healed. Email me if you want more information, or you may want to try some of these sites:

thegardendiet.com

rawfoodtalk.com

Hallelujah Acres is a website that features a "high raw" (mostly raw) diet from a Christian standpoint. The website is somewhat cheesy but don't let that put you off: http://www.hacres.com/home/home.asp

Another great stress reducer is meditation, 15 minutes a day.

May God bless and heal Julie and your whole family! The Louisisana option sounds great to me, but would depend on how stressful your family is. The last time I remember being really relaxed was when the power went out in a snowstorm. The depth of the silence and lack of distraction was amazingly healing.

Trainman,

I'm so sorry to hear about your wife. Hang in there. Life may very well become an emotional roller coaster. Remember that your faith exists independent of your emotions, because it is God who iniates faith in you, and not the other way around. That thought has helped me through some hard times.

I am not going to even get on this roller coaster you are all describing. It is not worth it. I will find a way to live a more balanced quiet life. I work about 80 hours a week here in Iraq. There are no days off, and no let up on the pressure. I have gained weight, my blood pressure is rather high, plus the air here is bad and I've developed a sensitivity to it. When I get a moment to reflect I think of the good things about life back home:

A backyard with a patio. A collie dog. Houseplants in the window. Local bought vine-ripened tomatoes. Long walks with family and friends. Tire swings. Sunshine on a tree-lined street. A newspaper delivered to your door. Coffee brewing in the kitchen. Sitting on your porch.

I have no debt. I am going to live within my means and I am going live in peace, if I have anything to say about it. Maybe I am being overly optimistic, but life is too short to live at such a pace it passes you by. None of us knows how long we have, nor how long our loved ones have.

In some respects, a brush with mortality, yours or someone dear to you, is very healthy.

I agree with recovering ex-p. You should not be blogging on weekends. (And I shouldn't be reading on weekends!)

me, mdavid, I'm so glad that I finally broke out of precisely the "you can live on tiny amounts of money" mindset which you are peddling.

First, I'm not "peddling" anything. Enjoy whatever lifestyle you desire, and I wish you the best.

Second, $20k/yr is not "tiny amounts of money." Average world income is $7900/year (World Bank 2005).

The World Bank even breaks it down: High income is $28,480, Middle is $5,800, Low $2,110. A family consuming $20k/yr is near the top of the heap.

LA sounds like the best bet, the stuff you've written about LA had me laughing out loud. But for the time being I can only offer what currently works for me. My career is stressful and I've found it best to put in "buffer zones" between work and home. I get up about an hour earlier than I need to, have a cup of something hot (coffee or tea) and spend some time in meditation or reading something with
contemplative themes.

I arrive a little early at work and spend 5-10 mins in "game plan" mode to tackle the day. 10-12 hours later I leave. I play my favorite music in the car and try to avoid the "rush" attitude by going the speed limit and waving other drivers in.

When I get home I have some cave time. Another beverage this one cold (usually ice tea, but Shiner Bock is nice too). I will read non-work related things or some easy going blogs. After 30 min to hour I am ready to engage again.

All the best to your family

Best of luck for you and your family through these tough times, Rod.

As far as advice about this sort of thing goes, I don't suggest chucking your career and all you've worked for in favor of some idealized vision of an easier life in the country. If your current job is overly stressful, then maybe you should find another job in the same line of work. That way you keep your career, but you change your job. I did that when I moved from big-firm corporate law practice to the pleasant in-house attorney job I now have. While my current job is probably by many people's standards fast-paced and stressful, it usually doesn't feel that way to me, given the pressure-cooker environments that I started my career in. I guess my suggestion is, don't do anything rash and while under the burdens of immediate stress, and perhaps you should look into finding a good writer's job that fits your lifestyle better. Maybe you'd be better off doing some freelancing and teaching writing classes at a local college as a steady paycheck, for example. In any case, all things pass, including both good and bad times. Good luck.

I generally don't read poetry, but this particular piece has always stayed with me, as a reminder that nothing, even the most terrible times, lasts forever, and of the power of the written word. The topic of the poem is a much more serious and horrible thing than what's being discussed here (not to trivialize your problems, Rod, of course), but I thought it was worth posting.

THE GIFT
by John Ciardi

In 1945, when the keepers cried kaput
Josef Stein, poet, came out of Dachau
Like half a resurrection, his other half
eighty pounds still in their invisible grave.
Slowly then the mouth opened at first
a broth, and then a medication, and then
a diet, and all in time and the knitting mercies,
the showing bones were buried back in flesh,
and the miracle was finished. Josef Stein
man and poet, rose, walked, and could even
beget, and did, and later died of other causes
only partly traceable to his first death.
He noted - with some surprise at first -
that strangers could not tell he had died once.
He returned to his post in the library, drank his beer,
published three poems in a French magazine,
and was very kind to the son who at last was his.
In the spent of one night he wrote three propositions:
That Hell is the denial of the ordinary. That nothing lasts.
That clean white paper waiting under a pen
is the gift beyond history and hurt and heaven.

I think the Lord was on to something when he said, "To find your life you have to lose it..." Scary thought.

I wonder, how many of us who self-identify as Christians, trust him enough to take the complete plunge?

Prayers for all of you but especially Julie. I know what it's like to be sick and have to do Mom duty at the same time.

To those who say greed propels stress -- not always true. I am at the most stressful time in my life right now. I'm a single mom (divorced). I work 6 to 7 days a week at a few low-paying jobs because they're all I have been able to find, having education but not much experience. I was a SAHM for quite a while. I'm also going back to school at the same time. My kids have lots of emotional problems which make every day stressful. My body feels about twenty years older than it is. I have insurance, but going to the doctor takes time and money I don't have.

Rod, praise God for your family and the fact that, despite your problems, you have the same goal in mind. Your constant thinking about how to solve those problems (part of your stress) is actually a good sign. You all will get through this, because you take care of each other.

And don't discount the stress of staying home with young children. I found it much more of an emotional stress than the physical stress I'm going through now.

Just my limited personal POV--but from my current observation of freelancers I know via blogs and such, this may not be the best time to drop a salaried job and go freelance. Economic downturns result in tightening up in the freelance market too. I'm seeing freelancers who are really struggling to make ends meet. Their income is variable, but their expenses are fixed. Having a steady job with benefits may seem stressful now, but it's nothing compared to not knowing where your house payment is coming from, and having to invent your own job every day from scratch. Also, one method publishers and the like use to economize is to fail to pay their contract labor. You might think this is impossible, but it's not. The freelancers can't afford to sue them, because they haven't been paid yet. So they have no option but to wait . . . and wait . . . . I would think long and hard about quitting. It might make more sense to sock away some money and make some connections for later. I hope this never happens to you--but if you wait till they downsize you, at least you'll get unemployment and maybe a severance package. : /

Rod, I get the feeling that you let current affairs stress you out way more than most people do. I get pretty worked up about the election and immigration and all that rot too, but fortunately I seem to be able to forget about it when I walk away from the keyboard. (Of course, that lack of focus means I haven't written any pivotal books on anything, either. :-)) That may relate back to another post you had about how big stores wear you down; you seem to be unusually sensitive to stress, and worring about things beyond your control can be awfully stressful.

Eric Brende talks about how, when you get away from modern technology and slow down to a pastoral lifestyle, it seems like you end up with more real leisure time. When work (like weeding a garden) is something you can do with your kids or while chatting with a neighbor, you're getting quality family or social time in while working: real multitasking, at a speed you can handle, not the frenetic task-switching we're afflicted with now, where we jump from blog to email to phone to home to whatever, never spending enough time on one thing to relax.

Maybe you can't just dump your job and "go country," but maybe there are ways to cut back on how constantly engaged you are with all the information that's coming at you. Seems like that'd be tough to do, considering your profession, but it sounds like you really need a break. Take Sunday off, at least!

praying for your wife, I know Shingles can be painful, my best friend got them but thankfully it was over with within a few weeks.

Prayers for your better half(*). Incidentally loved Mark's poem, and if I may be so bold, from my_better_half_and_my experience ministering with Retrouvaille (a Christian peer-to-peer marriage retreat) this line is the most telling...

"Hell is the denial of the ordinary"

"Julie says it would make her happy if I'd give up this blog"

The monastic habit teaches that a human person discovers his best self when he masters first his psyche, then his intellect, and finally his will. Married life is a real boot camp on that first one... as "virtuous souls" we can blaspheme by stoically denying our emotional lives (sins of commission can be injurious, domestic violence being an exaggerated example, but what we may consider the more venial sin of omission, is actually more common and can make your immune system suffer) considering that thinking and discussing will sort out whatever obstacles need navigating in a shared life.

It may be helpful to recall that St. Thomas Aquinas taught that our senses are morally neutral - what your eyes see is neither good nor bad. What you choose to think about what you saw (how you engage your intellect) and what you choose to do about it is how an acting person cooperates with God's will, or not. Our emotions are senses too - they are neither right or wrong. But they inform our appetites in powerful ways, and we must learn to accomodate our own feelings and those of others (i.e. if you are short sighted, you accomodate by wearing spectacles, my husband is deaf in one ear, I had to learn to enjoy being on his hearing side without having to wait for him to ask me). How about spending some time journaling in a "Benedict" way - for every thought, describe a feeling. Discuss with your better half, seek her affirmation. Action requires you to use your free will to act in a kinda trinitarian conjugal harmony with Julie's and with God's will.

(*) Julie, if you're reading, please do not take offense. My intentional choice of pronoun serves to remind Rod that in God's eyes he is a fraction of a union, so long as he's here at the keyboard and not beside you, he's sort of incomplete.

Is everyone missing the obvious? You live the way you do, and face the workload you have, because you as a society have made that collective choice- by being conservatives.

You destroy union protection, allow corporate donors to write the labour laws for politicians to sign, watch mandated vacation time disappear, toss out closing laws in the name of convenience for consumers, allow the megastores etc. to get away with "permanent part-time", no-benefits arbitrary-shift positions, and then complain about those awful secularist/feminist/socialists who are destroying family life.

Ummm...Europe? Normal working hours, health care, minimum four-week vacations....

I think people, especially people like Rod who do know of a place where the family is happier and where life would be easier in so many ways, just have to decide for how long we want to keep slogging at a life that is half sick-making of itself and only offering perhaps half the true fulfillment it could be. I just got sick of spending thousands of dollars a year and all the hours of time on things that were for no other purpose but to compensate for the lacks and miseries of city life, things that wouldn't be necessary or would be available for free in a small town or country setting.

I want to add my opinion as well that for people interested it IS possible to come out of it. We now live in a small town of 1000 people in a rural area with the nearest "city" (population 500,000) being about 3-4 hours away. Our family lives in a house purchased in 2006 for $24k. It is a good, solid house (I'm not saying it's overly perty ;) with a very big yard to have a garden. I think our single biggest monthly expense is the $80 we pay for phone/internet. We lived very, very poor for a couple of years in preparation for relocating and then when we first came, getting out of old debt and paying off our auto loan. It is a workable life. I would say that 50% of the people around here live as simple and cheap as we do, so the fact that it has been quite a lifestyle change for us has not been a hardship for the children.

Most importantly, while my husband (the only wage-earner) does get a little more money now, having become settled in here now we could easily and comfortably live for around $1000 a month or less, all expenses and averages. This is a family of 9 people, 12k a year, and I don't think we have anything so radical that others would find it objectionable and impossible. We do not draw on any cushion from savings or wealth.

My asthma from city air is gone (never even knew it was from city air) along with my "chronic" migraine condition; my husband finds controlling his weight effortless now, mostly because he doesn't have a stressful but sedentary office job and environment; a couple of the children who had food sensitivities and immune reaction rashes don't have these anymore.

The children, who I knew were "sensitive" in social or stimulating environments but didn't think it was anything unusual, have been able to come to life (joy, confidence, contentment) in beautiful ways as they are able to play outside and see nature every day and season, have solitary quiet time for themselves outdoors to think and dream, all these things in ways they weren't able to do in a patch of city yard with neighbors close on every side, trips to public city parks (always with other children present and a parent hovering around) or to the zoo.

We have all grown so much closer to God in ways that I can't really imagine having happened if we had stayed in the city. For those interested to make the connections there are numerous places the Bible refers to cities or large centers of population as not the best way for us. When my daily thoughts and prayers were involved with things like traffic and getting places, the safety of myself and all people from possible crimes (locking doors, watching parking lots, just the usual things), the safety of my husband on long distance business trips, I see now that it just wasn't as close to God as it could have been. It was, in subtle ways, like living from the fiery furnace or from the lion's den - preoccupied if not with acute danger then with keeping at bay all the other stresses of such an artificial, modern city life. This is something the extent of which I would not have predicted such benefits, seeing them now in peaceful retrospect.

I have enjoyed Rod's writing for quite some time. And I would be so happy never hearing from again but for a book release or two, and knowing that his wife and children were living what we have found.

Re-read a bunch of these posts and the thought occurs to me that crunchy cons are eliminating themselves from lots of jobs. Many jobs require lots of hours if you are going to do them well. Some of these jobs are in undesirable places. Do those jobs just get left to the evil secular humanists? Maybe there arent any crunchy con types in top level academia because it was too stressful?

This cocooning away thing still bothers me. Go ye unto all the world and build secluded communities just doesnt sound right.

Steve

But what happens if you do the "great escape"? {which by the way I fled a major metro area, to a small town} and your small town literally dies? Where there is absolutely no jobs, even the handy man who lives in an RV Camper, can't get a odd job to save his life and where things are so down and out they are closing acouple of the popular fast food restaurants of the few the town has? By the way I knew LOTS of very down and out people and hard working folks {not bums whatsoever} who had been searching for work for 1-2 years. Many gave up and JUST LEFT.

My small town was like heaven compared to big city life...no I didnt go back to a huge city, I learned my lesson, but ended up in more populated area.

BUT that is something missing in this whole crunchy con [go back to the rural areas] discussion. Do you all realize how rural areas are being decimated? Unless you can do the whole work at home thing {and well make sure your rural area has a good internet hook-up, where I was, you were stuck with dial-up in most places as late as last year} and/or have your own business, what are most people going to do for jobs in places where professional jobs are few and far between, and the factories/family farms have all closed?

I sometimes have wondered will there be a great exodus to rural areas? Will it revive rural life? I remember reading a book [not Rod's that said this would be happening] but from my experience that fell flat like a pancake.

By the way it is heartbreaking to invest yourself in a community to see it literally die on the vine. To see people you know personally lose businesses, lose farms, struggle to make a living at farming, see your own church shut down, not because the people werent committed but because they simply could not survive on the economic level. And many of these folks WERE living the "crunchy con" lifestyle, with huge gardens, self-sufficiency, woodstoves, and more. But with no job to keep it all going, that is what is missing out of the equation. These economic forces are pretty strong. Can't tell you how many small towns I know of where Wal-mart shut down the entire downtown.

You all realize that rural America is considered as being in a crisis?

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Crisis+in+Rural+America&fr=slv1-adbe&pstart=1&b=11

I think most people would rather live a nice idyllic life in a small town, after all how many TV shows and books harken back to small town life like the series Sweet Potatoe Queens...but economic realities are forcing their hand. These arent all people who want the big MCMansion or fancy car, just people who want to keep the basic bills paid like rent, food, medical.

My mother grew up in a nice small town, I remember going back to the festivals, and I loved the place actually dreamed of living there as a child... I think even of her life, surrounded by cousins, aunts, uncles, great aunts, great uncles, I had relatives going back 150 years in this place and that is where everyone was until the 1970s. My mother moved away for work, but the march of time, and economics basically have wiped this all away. Everyone moved. Only one uncle and his family and one disabled aunt is left.

Maybe eventually Americans will get sick of the whole globalist march to self-destruction and will start thinking about what is really important in life, and there will be an exodus from huge cities to small towns. But then they are going to have to come up with ways for their own economic survival: they will have to disengage from the system somewhat. This is easier said then done.

Rod,

Things indeed have not always been like this. The cause is the increasing sophistication and market power of the corporate world. It's a buyer's market where norms are slowly shifted over time towards the limits of human tolerance.

Not that life wasn't real hard in the 1950's if you worked in a factory, because it was. But the professional classes sure had it easier.

So that's what the market will give you: a downward competitive spiral towards your employer's total ownership of your time. There are no business incentives to let your employees have a life, except the fear of them quitting, and there's no point in quitting when the whole industry has the same habits.

That's why we work more hours - and have less guaranteed holidays - than any other country in the world. We've imposed no limits.

From those of us who love country living, I think it's important to clarify that living in the country does not equal isolationism. People who wish to isolate themselves can accomplish that in the city or the country or even the burbs. We moved into a remote area, yes, but we are far from being isolated. Our social network is as big or bigger than ever, it's just that more of our friends may have skills, knowledge and capabilities that support more self sufficiency and certainly ability to grow and raise our own food. I do not believe an inward orientation exclusively is best for our calling for our faith. The Monks are monastic, but I am not. I doubt Rod would become a hermit either even if he moved to the country. No need to equate living in the country with isolation, it may even be more the reverse. Folks in the country already have the culture to help out their neighbors. Country folks don't expect the government to rescue them in time of emergency. The Ranchers, Farmers and country folk can solve, fix and rebuild when the need arises.

In my book The Lifelong Activist, I wrote this:

Sometimes, it’s not the materialism of the consumerist lifestyle that controls people, but the psychological and spiritual emptiness it engenders. In her book The Time Bind, Arlie Russell Hochschild recalls seeing numerous instances of people working overtime at a company she studied when they had no obvious financial or other need for doing so. Here’s one example:

What worried Joann about her overwork . . . was that she didn’t quite know why she was doing it. None of her explanations satisfied her. “The money’s nice; but it’s not worth it when you live at work,” she concluded. But at the same time, she wasn’t changing her hours. . . .

Examples such as Joann, Hochschild said, caused her to wonder, “ . . . how many other people were driving around their own ‘country roads’ at midnight, asking themselves why their lives are the way they are, never quite grasping the link between their desire for escape and a company’s desire for profit.”

What happened to my post?

Seriously, does anyone think there is such a thing as a "Benedict Option" in the city? What has drifted away over several generations (at least) is: working with your hands, simplicity, tranquility, working together as a family, providing a lot of your own food together as a family, preparing your own food as a family, sitting down together praying and eating dinner together as a family. There is an important trend here. We need to simply work together, eat together and pray together as a family as much as possible to restore our families. It isn't easy to return our lives back to a simple family centered and God centered life from the distractions of our culture but it seems clearly a worthy goal. Each family has to discern their path, however once you become aware that our culture-imposed constraints are not absolute, then the only real absolute, God will open paths towards his plan for you. Be not afraid, God is always with you on the journey.

I also coach and do workshops on time management. Here are the high points:

1) time does not equal money; it is far more valuable than money, both intrinsically and because it can be used to create money and other values, many of which money can't even begin to create.

2) time management is not about stuffing more stuff into your schedule; it's about eliminating as much as possible from your schedule so you can get the most important stuff done to a high quality and with as little as possible stress.

3) if you live what I will call the average american consumerist lifestyle, you will have very little time left, after earning, spending, and maintaining, for rich relationships, civic life, self-care, etc. - the things that make life truly worth living.

4) multitasking is a scam; mindfulness is where it's at.

None of this will be news to most Crunchies. However, even for thoughtful people who have already connected the dots, the quest to use time better and reduce stress never ends. it's not only for your sake but so you can model time management skills for your kids.

I think you are right to treat the shingles as a wake up call. I also got shingles in my mid-thirties. It was my sign that I needed to leave the stressful computer consulting business i had founded.

Hillary

Lucy--scroll to the end of the comments and click the "read all comments" link. Your thoughts are still around.

Sorry about the wife, Rod. They now have a vaccine against shingles, called Zostavex I believe. I don't know the details, but perhaps it might help?

As for the stress, well...

Maybe it would help if you didn't seem constantly preoccupied with the world coming to an end, American being dominated by Islamofacists, modern music, culture, the failure of religion in Europe, and pretty much a whole slew of other things.

Besides our usual differences, it really does appear, at least from the outside, that you (and by extension your family) live in a constant state of anxiety about 75% or so of modern culture. You read event after event as the signs of impending collapse on multiple levels...Economic, social, religious, political. Again, only judging my appearance, you seem to be afraid of darn near everything all the time.

I have no idea what your actual work hours are, and even less about those of your wife, nor your financial circumstances, etc. But it certainly seems that carrying the weight of always being the Cassandra of Global Collapse would stress anyone out.

Contrary to our usual debates, I really don't mean this in an aggressive way, and I hope you don't take it as such. I'm not debating whether you're right about those issues or not at this point. I'm just saying that your seeming endless preoccupation about them must be pretty damn stressful.

Maybe it's sacrilegious to say so, but perhaps it's ok if the world ends. Even if it means the end of me, and my children, and your's, and everyone's. Maybe the Creator should answer for the doom of his creation? Anyway, a little less worry on your part might help.

I hope things go better for you all soon.

Gosh, shingles is awful. My sister-in-law has had them recently. I don't know you well enough to suggest what you ought to do. I think a person can live a calm, peaceful, non-materialistic non-stressful lifel in the city, because it's not necessarily where we are but who we are. However, it can't be denied that it is often easier to live on less money and with less stress in smaller towns. And extended family is good if you get along with them and they're not a bunch of drama queens or something. Family battles can be so tiring.

I find that if I don't watch the news so much I am calmer. I have also quit trying to be the perfect wife and perfect mother and embranced my inner slacker. My family does not seem to mind too much. I do think it is harder to make a living these days. I have to say I am not sure the fathers of the past who had careers and not jobs worked as hard as people do now. My dad was first, a sales rep for a company that made machines that make concrete block, then he did a late vocation thing and became an Episcopal minister, which was a lot of hard work but I don't remember Dad being driven and working night and day. He usually took me to my orthodontist appointments rather than Mom even though Mom didn't work outside the home. Also, when I was a kid, we just goofed off a lot. I was in Girl Scouts, took piano lessons, and was in choir and youth group at church but I wasn't as desperately overscheduled as modern children are. I tried to avoid this trap with my own girls. I told them they could be in one sport a season and one other thing, usually Girl Scouts, plus church stuff. A lot of modern families, even the stay at home moms and kids are frantic running from activity to activity. The attitudes of coaches who act like your kid is some sort of loser because they miss a game because of their First Communion or Confirmation is not to be believed, and I don't remember ever having youth sports on Sundays when I was a kid.

Rod, your blog persona does seem to indicate that you do worry alot about civilization going to hell in a handbasket and following politics as someone in your professional must, is a trial. I try to stay informed on issues but I have stopped watching stuff like Fox News, Countdown, and Hardball. They are always in crisis mode and following the crisis de jour just makes my bloodpressure go up. I try to just read news online or read the paper. I don't get so exercised that way. I don't read as many political blogs as I used to.

Well, best of luck in trying to relieve the stress on your family and get off the stress treadmill. I think we all need to remember that no one lies on their deathbed and says "Gosh, I'm so glad I spent so much time at the office and so little time with my family. Gee, I'm glad I missed little Susie' play debut to get that big account." I don't know if there are any Orthodox churches in Louisiana but it sounds like a pretty cool place. I don't want to offend anyone on here from Texas in general or the Big D in particular, but I have visted Dallas and I thought it rather souless. I was there in the summer and agree with the wag who said if he owned real estate in Hell and Texas, he'd live in Hell and rent out Texas!!!

And, I love your blog but if you cut back a bit or a great deal, we would all survive, no doubt!!

Thanks again for all this. I don't blame y'all one bit for concluding that I'm preoccupied with Everything Going to Hell, based on the frequency with which I post to that effect. I probably am worried more about it than is good for me, but it's also true that -- despite what it seems like -- I don't blog every thought I have. Blogging about fluffy cloud and bunny thoughts don't make for interesting blogs, often. I blog about negative stuff for the same reason that newspapers aren't filled with good news: because *usually* (though not always), "good news" isn't that interesting to talk about, certainly not on a blog devoted to commentary off the news.

Thanks again to everybody for your good wishes. I'm off in a few minutes with Matthew to Children's Hospital for another thing (non-emergency; a diagnostic test). Never seems to end, all of this.

"You've got to work like this just to keep up. And there just seems to be something in the culture, you know?"

Keep up with who, or what? There *is* something in the culture; it's another disease called "consumption."

There's a great book called "Margin" (and this may have been mentioned in this thread, but I can't read all the comments...). Between reading that and seeking Benedictine balance, I've navigated life with 6 kids and numerous "traumas" over the last 8 years or so. I have no margin left right now as I work on a degree to support my family as a single mom (and even that I'm doing half-time so I have afternoons w/my children), but I am determined once the degree is done, I'm will regain the margin I once had. And in the meantime, I take "mini vacations" of slowing my breathing, prayer, and appreciating the moment.

Rod, most people don't "have to" work ridiculous hours; they do it for other reasons. I was a stay-at-home mom for a long time, before divorcing. I learned to cook inexpensively but heathily. I utilized second-hand shops for clothing. Never paid for cable or endless electronics, always drove an older car, and my children have always been limited to one outside activity a school year. Even was asked to do a workshop for homeschoolers on simplifying life. ha! As others have said, it's daily determination not to add to one's load and to consciously realize one does not *have* to be stressed, even if all is crashing down around one. Good luck to your family and to you in regaining peace, and am lifting prayer for your wife.

I know what it has been for me Rod, maybe the insight will be useful to you.
I find we live in a society that is overboard with information. The specialization of people has led to very deep knowledge on very minute subjects. There is a huge over-emphasis on intellecutalization. Most of us do not wish to feel inadequate and in such a state we deep dive into the mass of data so as to appear competitive and intelligent since we all carry that as the supreme value. None of us wants to feel incompetent and most of us think we are really brilliant. When confronted with all this "mind" we work extra hard to keep up and look like we are "right there" It is at base an out growth of personal greed but we rationalize it because it is conceived of as knowledge. Consumer goods are bad, knowledge good but both can be pursued by greed, both can be just an accumulation of "stuff". For me I came to terms with my inabilities and stopped thinking myself a genius. In the end none of it matters anyway. It confuses and leaves us stressed as really none of us can manage all the input nor sort it into useful patterns that assist us. I don't pursue knowledge to have the ability to prove my intelligence anymore. If I want to know something now it is because I need to deal with something personal. Sometimes this is for practial purposes and sometimes for spiritual reasons but it is never to save the world anymore. I am not showing off any longer. I am living. When I accepted this I got over my insomnia and relaxed a bit. I do not have cardiac arthmyias anymore and my bout with shingles cleared up. For me it came down to greed and ego. I suspect this is widely ranging in this culture where the mind is the most respected and advanced competitive tool. And I no longer fear the loss of my job because I was not smart enough.

Rod:

You and yours are in my prayers. I'm in the same boat, stresswise, trying to stay ahead of the newspaper-downsizing curve. The current state of the industry makes it hard to say no to any work demands if one wants to stay employed.

That said, I'd chuck the job in a heartbeat and be a SAHM if we had national health care in this country. Since we don't, I've got to keep punching the clock since my husband is self-employed and without access to health insurance.

Here in Tennessee, I could get insurance for my kids, but they'd have to go without for at least six months. The state Republicans added this provision to the law so that the state plan (which isn't state-paid, it just provides the option of being part of a purchasing pool) doesn't crowd out private insurance. My husband has some fairly mild chronic health problems (high blood pressure, hereditary glaucoma) but is considered uninsurable on the private market. I could buy insurance but it wouldn't cover me if I got pregnant (what good is that, considering that's the only time I'm likely to use it other than for a minor, acute illness).

Anyway, I'm rambling. I'm excrutiatingly stressed and see no way to cut back. My husband travels 80 percent of the year for work, so that just adds to the stress. If it wasn't for my parents pitching in to pick up my kids when my carefully orchestrated schedule goes off the tracks, I'd never make it.

"Right now Americans have chosen long-hours in order to maintain productivity and economic competitiveness"

Actually, once you take into account the 4 week vacation and other restrictions on "billable hours" Europeans come out a little ahead who's more productive. In the USA we have decided that the only measure of economic production is monetary, the europeans feel that having time to enjoy the meal has a place with having food to eat, so to speak. We're no longer working faster, better or smarter, we're working longer and harder, and that just puts us in competition with the developing world. Since this is a website focusing on faith and religion, let me ask a question. What's the point of building a church if we don't have time to enter it and pray? Then, instead of being a focal point to aid contemplation of our place in the universe, is it nothing more than a monument to our misplaced priorities.

Rod,

As an Orthodox Christian, you have some wonderful resources for "mini-vacations" as one poster has already put it. The Orthodox have that wonderful tradition of (and I'm sure I am going to spell this wrong) hesychastic prayer.

I practice a variation of it which was recommended to me by my pastor. I silently pray the name of Jesus. Its as simple as that. Breathing in on the first syllable, breathing out on the second. I have further varied this practice in a way that is better for me at least. I let a few breaths come in between repetions of his name.

However, it is not the breathing that is the important thing here. As Peter Kreeft describes it, your actual focus is not on the breathing but on the Name. Jesus is the perfect sum of all goodness (this includes of course, his sacrificial love, the incarnation of that love, its ultimate destiny in the Cross and the joyful resurrection which followed) It sounds complicated, but you actually know it better than you realize. As you simply focus on the name, it comes to you not as a separate and distinct thoughts but as presence. I swear to you that I have often "smelled" the scent of flowers. Sometimes, I can't help but smile. Always I feel refreshed even if I do it for a few minutes. Its not just about the relaxation that comes through breathing slowly. There is a joyful feeling too. Nothing could be a better stress reducer than that!

This prayer is like a form of the Eucharist that you can take with you whereever you go. It can't of course replace the necessary physicality of the real thing, but spiritual communion is considered to be the next best thing.

I just can't recommend it enough. It has done so much for me since I am subject to the occasional mild anxiety attack. Whenever I feel one coming on, I first say the Lord's Prayer then I pray the name of Jesus as described above. It works every time. My daily practice of it has, I am sure, headed off other attacks before I even got stressed enough to have one.

You guys make me want to run away to Germany or Austria. Pretty sure I could get a posting at UN or a university. I've told you all the perks of those two countries but I feel I must reiterate:

I paid $11 Euros a month for 100% health coverage. There were no copayments, not a lot of paperwork to file either. People there work 40 or 50 hours a week. Then they come home, and cook, and eat, and sit around and visit. They might go out and mingle in the neighborhood or they might just sit at home and watch the sun set. There are four weeks of vacation a year, state-mandated. Maternity leave is anywhere from six months to a year, depending on the country, and the other parent can also take time off (one parent gets paid leave, one gets no financial compensation.) Every incorporated village is within walking distance of a train or bus stop which will link you into the public transit system. Oh, and next to nothing is open on Sundays.

These countries have their own issues, don't get me wrong. And some of those ideas simply can't work here - we have a lot of land with too little population density to be putting light rail systems between all of our towns. But I feel like there is such a built-in knee jerk reaction to "socialism" when as someone else on this forum has pointed out, part of what Europe advocates is some limits. The bottom line is NOT the purpose of life. Who cares if your GDP outpaces every nation on the planet if a chunk of it is divorce fees, prison building, and medical fees for everyone having depression and/or high blood pressure?

There is a balance to life. And as a country we have long since lost touch with it. This doesn't mean we have to socialize everything. We have long had a federalized decentralized system and there's no reason that should change. There are other ways to give people a basic peace of mind and some sense of balance in life.

There was an article the other day about bloggers and stress... Seems like it can be a tough thing to manage...

"I blog about negative stuff for the same reason that newspapers aren't filled with good news: because *usually* (though not always), 'good news' isn't that interesting to talk about, certainly not on a blog devoted to commentary of the news."

Rod, I disagree that pointing out "good news" isn't interesting. One of the things I most enjoyed about your book were the stories of people who are meeting the challenges of our times head on, in inventive ways. It fires my imagination, shows me what can be done, and inspires me to do more. It gives me hope. It wouldn't be so bad to see more of that on this forum.

Sit down. You all need to sit down and think about what is important (I promise you, it isn't the Escalade), and think about what your time is worth. Your time is all you have. It IS your life. What is your life worth?

When I see figures for the gross domestic product (GDP), I wonder how much of that is accounted for by what people are paid to sit in tall buildings creating Powerpoint presentations for each other. Is this work? Is this production? Is the sheer frenetic activity of people in those tall buildings downtown (or the lower ones in "office parks" - what a horrible expression - "park" comes from the same Persian word from which we get Paradise) something of lasting value to anyone other than the tiny elite that benefits from the recent tax cuts? And what is the nature of the benefit to them - imaginary funny money with which they buy things that can be sold for real money when the dust of collapse settles?

Get rid of the MacMansion. Sell the Escalade. Get a real job. Make something of value or provide a service that people actually need. Come home and have the energy to think up different voices for the characters in the stories you will now have the time to read to your children.

Live through a house fire (or better, work really hard to imagine that). That will teach you what matters. The "stuff" in the house is junk. If it's not junk now, it's going to be junk. What matters is time, and you're wasting it.

Eric Dobbs
Richmond, Virginia

Eric, that is absolutely beautiful. Keep it up.

fbc

Dear Rod,
In August of 2007 I collapsed at the age of 29. As in, I couldn't get up, I poured sweat, couldn't eat food, couldn't care for my 2 year old and I am a SAHM. I went to a naturalpathic clinic in town after my own doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. Turns out I am extremely low on almost every vitamin and mineral my body needs to function. As I have spent the last 8 months healing, I have dropped out of many functions, quit coaching, decreased Church activities, and reexamined what I wanted out of life.

Me being sick ironically has been the best thing that has ever happened to me because it forced me to quit being busy. My main job now, is to care for daughter and husband and to care for myself. We got rid of our tv, paid off our vehicle, worked extra hard to get rid of our mortgage. Began inviting people over for dinner on the weekdays and began to live.

I lived in Latin America as a missionary in my early 20s and I had to learn how to chill out there. They don't care what your job title is. They don't care about deadlines. Yet when I came back to the States I started to do what everyone else does; view free time like an empty space that needs to be filled.

Praise God I collapsed. I am learning my family is everything and so is my community.

We are advantage beyond any generation to have gone before us and have so many opportunities available to us that is overwhelming. In and of themselves these opportunites are all wonderful. The problem is that while the opportunities are all good, when we put them all togather they become negative. We have been on this journey and have made some tough choices. For instance, we only allow each of our children one activity at any given time. For my daughter who is in gymnastics year round that is it. She could choose at anytime to do something different but she can not do more than one thing. Our son chose to take guitar lessons. He decided this was where he wanted to spend his time so there are no more sports. In the fall, he stops guitar to play football in a peewee program for 6 weeks. My husband I limited our activities as well. We have chosed a small group where we meet as families. We do not have any commitments outside of work that we do seperatly. We have sacrificed so that I can be at home which eliminates all kinds of stressors. (Except the living on one income stressor!) We also have family dinners, family movie night and family game night. We are the exception. Most people we know have several children, each involved in several activites. Both parents work. They eat fast food in the cars and the entire family is burnt out. Time to make some tough choices. But, in giving up some of good things you will discover the best things!

Mr. D.,

I theorize that the shingles occurrences are not necessarily related to a weakened immune system. I think something has just morphed...maybe due to the chicken pox vaccine which was foisted upon us?

I am just a mama (of 8 children), and yet my blog gets many hits a day because I once blogged on Shingles. It is becoming widespread among children.

http://seekingfaithfulness.wordpress.com/2006/10/26/shingles-in-children/

and also here:

http://seekingfaithfulness.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/shingles-in-children-revisited/

As to hitting the wall, and to stress...

My husband and I "stepped away from it all" 9 months ago. Yes, a cheaper house that is PAID for, older vehicles that are PAID for, a garden to feed ourselves, learning much about natural health so that we don't need doctors (and their concommitant bills) so much, avoiding preservatives and the nauseating JUNK that is added to our food, boosting our immune systems through eating whole foods and herbal remedies...

I know that it sounds dramatic, but it can be done. My husband was a pastor...so, not an engineer or anything...but talk about HIGH STRESS! We are so thankful that the Lord allowed us to step away from the full time ministry, at least for awhile. We needed a BREAK!

We don't have acreage, yet...but we can still grow some things. This life is quieter, MUCH less stressful...we can breathe again! We do without some things...but they are frills. We learn to be satisfied with "less." There isn't anything about our lives that is "show-worthy," but it is good.

We've done away with all outside activities, for a season. No church committees, no teaching of classes, no ballet, no scouts. We play games together, toss a baseball, take walks and picnics. We encourage each of our children in their individuality, and to hone their skills and talents...but don't allow them to be over-involved with organizations that will steal their time.

All in all, looking backward - it is good. Really good. And we do all of this on less than $30,000 a year for a family of 10. God is good, and will provide a way, when we seek Him. We also need to be about the business of giving a hand to others who are seeking a simpler life. Not welfare - but just helping out.

Please don't give in to fear. There's a much better way.

Well some like this way, Buy I think you should consider the another side of the toppic too. Thanks