The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to stay emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the modern world

The Intermission is a brief excursus in the middle of The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, a pivot-point for the transition from theory to practice in between Parts 2 and 3. Though with considerably less text than the book’s chapters, it presents the reader with necessary information for understanding the advisements to come in Part 3.

Comer begins by observing that when we read biographies of great people whom we might wish to emulate, we often go looking for clues to their manner of life—their habits and choices that provided structure and direction to their exemplary lives—in order to then see if we can apply those patterns to anything in our own lives. Unfortunately, Comer notes, many people don’t read the biblical gospels that way, although they are also biographies. Readers of the gospels should pay attention to the details related there about how Jesus went about his daily life: “I would argue that these stories about the details of Jesus’ life have just as much to teach us about life in the kingdom as his teachings or miracles” (104).

Comer presents the patterns and habits of Jesus’s life as being the set of actions which Christians traditionally refer to as “spiritual disciplines” (See: Index of Terms).