Saturday, January 17, 1998

We, the Advil generation, can slow down if we want to

By Lauren R. Stanley / Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The ad comes on the TV, loud and vibrant. The voice-over matches the intensity of the images. Our lives, we are told, are fast-paced and filled. We have no time for ourselves. We are constantly on the go.

We are, the ad says, the Advil generation.

We are what?

The Advil generation?

Our lives are so filled, so fast, so painful that the only way we can get through the day is by taking a drug?

What are we coming to? What kind of lives do we now lead that require us to take a pain-killer in order to do all that we would do?

As they used to say in the movies, "Horrors!"

Every time I see this commercial -- which thankfully is not often, because I don't watch much TV -- I cringe. I don't want to take Advil, or any of its competitors, to make it through the day. I don't want my days to be so filled, so driven, so hurried, that I can't get through them except by damaging my good health.

I'd rather depend on the Lord, and trust in the grace of God to carry me through all my days.

I must admit, I'm not a good viewer of commercials. Madison Avenue probably cringes when it discovers that I am part of its audience, in part because I spent enough time in print advertising to know something about the trade, and in part because I am a minister. I know that I am not the "norm" in today's society.

Even so, I pray I am not the only person reacting with horror to this new commercial.

Michael Podesta, a celebrated calligrapher widely known in Christian church circles, offers a different take on how life should be lived.

"If, as Herod, we fill our lives with things ... if we consider ourselves so unimportant that we must fill every moment of our lives with action, when will we have time to make the long slow journey across the desert as did the Magi? Or sit and watch the stars as did the shepherds? Or brood over the coming of the child as did Mary?" he asks.

He has a point -- a counterpoint, actually -- to the Advil commercial.

Advil says we need an over-the-counter drug because our lives are so full, so fast and so furious that they cause us pain. Podesta points out that if we don't slow down, if we don't get rid of the unnecessary actions and things of our lives, we never will be able to make the journey to God.

I read Podesta's calligraphy, and I hear a call to God. I hear, underlying his work, the work of the psalmist:

"For God alone my soul in silence waits,

"from God comes my salvation.

"God alone is my rock and my salvation,

"my stronghold so that I shall not be greatly shaken." (Psalm 62:1-2)

And I hear God speaking, through another psalmist:

"Be still and know that I am God." (Psalm 46:10)

The psalmists cry a message across the centuries that directly contradicts the Advil commercial.

We don't have to live our lives so furiously that they cause us pain. We can slow down, if we want to.

We now have more leisure time in our lives than any generation that preceded us. We have the option to take the time to listen to that small, still voice and hear God speaking to us. Instead, we fill our lives to the brim and beyond, trying to cram in more and more activities. Eventually, we find, we are swamped with pain.

And what, I wonder, have we accomplished?

There is something in the American psyche, I suppose, that drives us so. We are, it seems, incapable of simply sitting and being. Instead, we are consumed with doing.

Why?

What is it about us -- especially in this country -- that causes us to make fun of those who do sit still and relax? That's what we do, you know -- we make fun of those folks. We call them "couch potatoes" and ask derisively, How can you just sit there and do nothing?

But, I ask again, what's so awful about sitting still? Why must I always be doing something? Why can't I simply be?

The God who created us out of a sheer act of love, who gave creation over to our care, knows that who we are is more important than what we do.

That's why God beckons to us:

Be still ...

I suspect that if we were, we wouldn't be needing the Advil.

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(The Rev. Lauren R. Stanley, a former assistant news editor for the Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, is a deacon at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Burke, Va. Readers may write to Stanley care of Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, 790 National Press Building, Washington, D.C., 20045.)

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(c) 1998, Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Information Services.