Death by suburb

No matter if you live in the country or a city or a suburb, David L. Goetz, in his book Death By Suburb—How to Keep the Suburbs from Killing Your Soul, offers some interesting comments about surviving in our hectic world:

“Busyness and efficiency stalk the deeper, spiritual life….The practice of solitude may be the most important spiritual discipline for the suburbs.”

“A friend with a special needs child (and five other kids as well) recently said to me that he thought one spiritual issue of our community (which has a median income of $75,000) is how hard we work at appearing not to have any issues.”

“The perfect suburban life is bogus….The imperfect life is the only life worth living. It is, in fact, the only life that anyone really lives.”

One solution, Goetz suggests, is mending—“making small adjustments to our life, constantly paring back that which gloms on to our life in the natural ebb and flow of making life work….Mending must be an ongoing continual activity.”