Beep Beep Slow the Train Down

Well, hello again, friends!  I haven't posted here since March 13th, and I appreciate my friends who have gone around the block with me.  Thanks, dear ones.

I was reading Brenda's blog about slowing down and gerbils and smelling flowers and romantic things like that, thinking 'how do I slow this train down?'

Do you remember the children's book "The Little Train that Could?"  How the little train kept saying 'I think I can, I think I can...'

And I'm sitting here thinking (that's dangerous!) about how we have stuffed that mantra down our throats and our children's throats, forcing ourselves to go and think and do faster and faster, and don't stop, push, and keep on, harder, harder, harder...

Now, don't get me wrong.  It's good to teach diligence and persistence and perseverance, but as in many things, we have pushed it to the extreme.  Maybe that's the reason why we have so many extreme TV shows and sports and the like.   Extreme people, extreme lifestyles, extreme behaviors, extreme attitudes...

So, I'm sitting here thinking (again...dangerous!) about what has changed in our culture that's created the extremes.  Extreme sex resulting in deviant behaviors.  Extreme sports resulting in death-defying behaviors.  Extreme food resulting in obese behaviors.  Extreme communication resulting in wacky behaviors - like my young adults at home constantly having a form of communication attached to their ears and at their fingertips and in their pockets, never out of reach, becoming communication addicts. 

I mean, the iPhones and Droids have come to the dinner table.  Actually reading a book is now archaic.  Proper speaking is now outmoded.  The proper English vocabulary is passe'.  Family communication is limited to smart-alack blurbs on Facebook, Twitter, and email. 

I don't know about you, but I tire of 24/7 media, seeing on-going political campaigning, Kate Plus Her Eight, public figures getting slammed, and the if-it-bleeds-it-leads stories.

We parents should call a moratorium once a week and at least a week-long activity suspension once a year from the media and the constant pressure of push.  We are media prunes, washed-wrinkled in technology.  

I love the scene in "The Devil Wears Prada" where Andy throws her cell phone into the fountain and opts for the simpler life.  How many of us would actually do that?!

Moratorium.

What have we lost?

Real friendships.  Real dinners.  Real conversations.  Real reading.  Real letters.  Real emotions.  Authenticity.  Genuineness.  Integrity.  Honesty.  Character.  Our love for each other.  Our love for God.

I need a vacation.