Chris Erdman writes:

Over 31% of college-educated male workers are regularly logging 50 or more hours a week at work, up from 22% in 1980. About 40% of American adults get less than seven hours of sleep on weekdays, up from 34% in 2001. Almost 60% of meals are rushed, and 34% of lunches are choked down on the run. To avoid wasting time, we’re talking on our cell phones while rushing to work, answering e-mails during conference calls, waking up at 4 a.m. to call Europe, and generally multitasking our brains out.
BusinessWeek, October 3, 2005

That’s the bad news, the good news is that there’s a revolt afoot. Leaders are recognizing that their lives, driven by work, are out of control. They’re learning to flip the “off switch”. Says Paul Saffo, a director at the Institute for the Future, a think tank based in Palo Alto, California: “Solitude is the scarce resource in business lives—having that time when you are disconnected and realize that everything will go along fine without you.” One top level executive has given up cell phones and computers saying, “I never had time to think.” Another says, “Now I make sure there’s at least one day when I don’t even touch a keyboard.”

Many Americans are growing suspicious of the modern assumptions that drive us to work harder, produce more, and spend more time at work; Modernity has not freed us but has made us captives of the totalitarian regime of industry. What’s more, we no longer have the reflective space to do the mental and spiritual work necessary to form the kinds of communities whose intellectual and moral life can sustain us through the “new dark ages which are already upon us” (Alastair McIntyre) . . .

. . . Modernity placed an emphasis on the “herculean labor” of intellectual work (Kant) and asserted that every action must have meaning—that being passive is senseless (Rauschning, Gespräch mit Hitler). Today, we see signs of a revolt against the “bankrupt” assumptions of Modernity (Goethe) and the “intellectual sclerosis” (Joseph Pieper) born of Modernity’s vision of perpetual activity.

It saddens me that the church is slow to lead in this revolt and even slower to lead us into a recovery of the kind of life that can save us. Significant to the problem of the Modern church’s malaise is its failure to be reflective, to enter and practice the grace of Sabbath, a holy stillness. It saddens me more that I am a huge part of the problem.

I am thoroughly Modern. In my work ethic I am catechized more by Modernity than by the church’s history. I am coming up against the bankruptcy of this ethic both professionally and personally. Professionally I see the dangers of perpetuating congregational systems built on the sand of “Herculean labor.” Personally, my entrance into middle-age and my recent diagnosis of Crohn’s Disease (incurable and exaggerated by stress) means that I can no longer continue this pace of life and live well. The wear and tear on my physical, intellectual, and spiritual equipment means that I can no longer achieve by sheer effort and act of the will what I once produced. The mind and soul often feel gummed up. Working the equipment harder no longer works. I am beginning to sense the coming breakdown Goethe prophesied. And unless I change, I will not only be unable to lead the congregation into the future God has for us, but will actually hinder our growth in godliness because the congregation will lack a witness that frees it from the gridlock of a way of life that values the excessively active even while it becomes increasingly shallow and under-capitalized.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 20th, 2005 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Guest Speaker, Sermons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.