Time and again

What is it that virtually every one of us wishes to have more of?

Time.

We citizens of Western civilization, and likely Eastern civilization, find ourselves living in internet time – when information increases exponentially at warp speed, and our lives often seemed frenzied collections of non-stop activities.

Our mobile phones, our tablets, and our apps allow us to maintain schedules unthinkable even one generation ago.

And if we were asked what we would like to do with extra time, more than few of us would likely say “rest.”

In the concluding chapter of The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time, Judith Shulevitz calls this “mobile time,” as opposed to what for thousands of years has been “mechanical time.” And, she asks, “Mobile time is the time we’re in charge of, and who would want to lose that?”

I read that statement, and I thought about raising my hand.

Mobile time – internet time – has erased the boundaries between work and the rest of our lives, to the point where work is becoming the rest of our lives. My cell phone was off on Saturday (the battery had died and I had to recharge the new one for 24 hours). When I turned it on, I had 24 new email messages from work, including one unexpected email with instructions for work that had to be ready Monday morning.

Two months ago, I would have spent part of Saturday or Sunday frantically getting the work done for Monday. But now I’m drawing boundaries. The work will have to wait until Monday, replacing work or meetings already scheduled. Or perhaps not happening at all.

Reading The Sabbath World has helped in this drawing of boundaries, but it’s only been a contributing factor. The most important thing has been my stubborn insistence that work is no longer invading every other part of my life. If the work is not important enough to resource properly, then it’s not important enough for me to blow my weekend doing it.

Will there be consequences? Likely not. Internet time forces everything at work to be classified as urgent, and everything to be considered a crisis. I know the work well enough to tell the difference between the urgent and the important.

Internet time also erases any notion of the Sabbath, of taking a day of rest whether we spend that day at church, napping, or getting away from the cell phone.

Why is this important? Why did God rest on the seventh day of creation? Shulevitz has an answer, and it’s a good one: “God stopped to show us what we create becomes meaningful only once we stop creating it and start remembering why it was created in the first place. Or…why it wasn’t worth creating, why it isn’t up to snuff and should be created anew.”

We can’t live for long in a world of first drafts and “good enough to get by for now.”

We’re reading The Sabbath World over at The HighCalling. To see the discussion about this week’s chapter, please visitthe site.

Photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Martin Luther Did What?

I was raised a Missouri Synod Lutheran. Some of my earliest memories involve a Sunday School class at church, a small room (it was a small, new church) with jalousied windows. Our teacher was Miss Gail. Whether accurate or not, the memory that stands out is coloring scenes from Bible stories.

In seventh and eighth grades, it was catechism class, every Tuesday and Thursday after school. We were taught from Martin Luther’s small catechism. The worship service included communion, a reading from a Gospel and an epistle, hymns and a sermon. To this day there are certain hymns that I always think of as “Lutheran hymns,” because I sang them many, many times over the years at our church. Luther wrote a lot of them.

One might say that by the time I enrolled in college, I had been thoroughly “Lutheranized.” But it was during my freshman year that I discovered another Luther, one I had never heard about.

I should say up front that this was not the typical “Christian goes to college and falls under the influence of evil, pagan professors” story. I was in a small colloquium, mostly about history, literature and culture, and the professor assigned us a paper on the Reformation – specific topic of our choice. I decided to do some reading about Luther, and tripped over the Peasants Revolt of the 1524-1525. Peasants all over the German states and beyond, influenced by the overthrow of the Catholic Church in their areas, decided to attack another source of tyranny – the landowners and the nobles. At first, the revolt has been relatively mild, and Martin Luther openly supported it. Then it spread and turned more violent.

And Martin Luther, the Martin Luther who wrote the hymns I sang and the catechism I had studied, turned against the revolt and began preaching sermons with themes like “destroy the peasant vermin.” (The nobles obliged.) I also discovered he could use rather earthy language, something else we never heard in catechism class. I wrote a paper filled with youthful indignation. My professor told me I was being too hard on Luther.

One thing I didn’t understand was what Luther’s nailing of the 95 theses on the Wittenburg church door had triggered. It wasn’t only what would be decades of religious wars and turmoil. Whether cause or catalyst, Luther helped blow up how people understood the world. And it didn’t take long for Luther himself to challenged and “broken away from.” Groups and sects appeared all over Europe. Some of them, as Judith Shulevitz points out in The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time, had very different notions about what constituted the Sabbath, what day it should be observed, and how it should be observed. (Luther got involved in this, too. Luther seems to have gotten himself involved in everything.)

In two chapters, “People of the Book” and “Scenes of Instruction,” Shulevitz recounts how the understanding of the Sabbath began to change and reshape itself in the 16^th century, the Puritans in the 17^th century (and it’s not what you might expect it to be), Rousseau and the Romantic poets in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, the contribution made by Charles Dickens (who urged everyone to get physical exercise on Sundays), and on to writers like George Eliot and D.H. Lawrence. The 19^th century saw something of a counter-reaction to the Rousseaus and the poets, largely under the influence of the evangelical movement, and the explosion of Sunday Schools (and how some of those evolved to non-religious activities).

It’s a fascinating account, but its importance is more than just satisfying intellectual curiosity. How we understand the Sabbath also relates to how we understand God. Seeing how the Sabbath has been influenced by culture also points to understanding our beliefs about faith and god have been influenced by culture.

I’m a Presbyterian today, and no longer casting aspersions on Luther’s character for urging the extermination of rebellious peasants. I believe I understand what was actually happening, and have set my youthful outrage to the side.

But then Shulevitz says John Calvin, the patron saint of Presbyterianism, had people burned at the stake in Geneva. Wait! Stop! Only the Catholics did that, and in Spain. You know, Cervantes and Don Quixote and the Inquisition and auto da fe and all that. Certainly the Presbyterians didn’t do that. Not John Calvin! Arrgghhhh!

We’re reading The Sabbath World over at The High Calling. To see the discussion about this week’s chapters, please visit the site (and don’t tell them about Calvin).

The mind wanders down a rabbit hole: Apocalypse!

We’re reading Judith Shulevitz’s The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time over at The High Calling, and I find myself thinking, not about the Sabbath, but about eschatology, or “last things,” end times or the Apocalypse (take your pick).

Blame it on Shulevitz. In Part 4, “The Flight from Time,” she’s discussing the Gospel of Mark, how urgent and immediate he is in his account, and she says it’s because he’s being influenced by the idea of the Apocalypse and the second coming of Christ. (Tradition says he was aiming his account at a Roman audience, who tended to the skip-the-long-introduction-and-cut-to-the-chase kind of people.) She quotes Harold Bloom in an essay he wrote on the gospel of Mark: “Apocalypse hovers.”

Then she says this: “We live as Mark wrote, in a state of apocalyptic urgency. Relatively few of us believe that Jesus is about to return, but just over the horizon of waking life, in nightmares and disaster movies and science-fiction novels, visions of the end play themselves out…”

She lost me with the “relatively few of us believe” and my mind wandered, as it is wont to do, down the proverbial rabbit hole. She’s largely correct in what she says, but she seems to attribute our preoccupation with the end of time with our changed understanding of what time actually is. And she blames clocks.

It isn’t only that, of course. I’m not going to blame it all on clocks. Don’t forget journalists (I was once, once), who thrive on disaster and tend to frame stories in apocalyptic terms. And politicians, who tell us apocalypse is imminent if they and their party aren’t elected.  (Where I think apocalypse really hovers is in the current extremes occupied by the two major political parties in Washington, not to mention the smaller parties who truly believe Apocalypse is upon us because of the two major parties.)

But where my mind finally goes is to a question. Why in this “post-Christian” era, when the Christian underpinnings of society and culture are being rather gleefully kicked out one by one, do we seem to increasingly embrace religious language and concepts to express and explain ourselves and what’s happening around us?

The environmental movement, for example, was born preaching about the destruction of the planet and the life it contains.

Corporations are “evil.” Big government is “evil.” Virtually anything big is “evil.” Virtually anything we think we can’t control is “evil.”

We flock to movies about alien invasions and end-times, and obsess over vampires and magic. We may not believe in God but we certainly believe in angels, and we devour accounts of near-death experiences and glimpses into “the other side.”

We erect science as our god and then dethrone it when it doesn’t answer questions the “right way.” We frame issues in terms of good and evil – and we’re good and our opponents are evil. Or we use the David and Goliath analogy even if we don’t know the background or context.

I don’t quite fathom why all this happening, but it strikes me as rather odd that we are increasingly using religious concepts and terminology at the very same time we’re rejecting religion.

Unless, of course, we’re created as inherently religious creatures, it’s in our genes, and we can’t escape our DNA.

Or our hearts.

To see the discussion about Part 3 (“The Scandal of the Holy”) and Part 4 (“The Flight From Time”) of The Sabbath World, please visit The High Calling.

Photograph by Josee Holland Eclipse via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

More than the Sabbath

You can’t consider the idea of the Sabbath for very long before you realize you’re dealing not only with the Sabbath but with the rest of the week as well. The Sabbath sits in a kind of juxtaposition to the other six days. That that takes you, as it does Judith Shulevitz in The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a DifferentOrder of Time, to a consideration of time itself.

It seems such an old-fashioned notion, this idea of the Sabbath – setting aside a day of the week for rest – and for at least three reasons.

The Sabbath was a communal event, in addition to an individual observance. The community as a whole participated in this day of rest.

The idea of the Sabbath is also associated with faith. The Hebrews practiced it first, following the fourth commandment. What it eventually became in Jewish practice can be seen in the numerous references in the New Testament to Jesus challenging the common Jewish understanding. “The Sabbath was made for man,” he said, “not man for the Sabbath.” In other words, the Sabbath was designed from the beginning for our benefit. Christians generally followed the Jewish practice of a day of rest, but chose Sunday over the Jewish Saturday.

Third, the Sabbath seems old-fashioned because of what Sunday has become in contemporary Western culture. We don’t distinguish between rest and relaxation and enjoyment and entertainment. And we believe that time has become such a precious commodity that we cram what we can and what doesn’t fit the other six days – going to the mall and the grocery story, sports events, theater. Movies – and we call it relaxation, if not rest.

Sundays do seem slower, of course, because we are still experiencing the remnants of centuries of cultural practice. But the trend is clear. Just as commerce has invaded Thanksgiving Day and has its eyes set on Christmas Day, so, too, is Sunday disappearing as a distinct day of rest. (We’ve come a very long way from when Eric Liddell refused to race on a Sunday at the Olympic Games in Paris.)

“The old-time Sabbath does not fit comfortably into our lives, writes Shulevitz. “It scowls at our dewy dreams of total relaxation and freedom from obligation. The goal of the Sabbath may be rest, but it isn’t personal liberty or unfettered leisure. The Sabbath seems designed to make life as inconvenient as possible. Our schedules are not the only thing the Sabbath would disrupt if it could. It would also rip a hole in all the shimmering webs that give modern life its pleasing aura of weightlessness – the networks that zap digitized voices and money and date from server to iPhone to GPS.”

If the Sabbath was designed as a day of rest, it was likely meant for all of mankind, not only the Hebrews. And it would difficult to find anyone other than Ebenezer Scrooge who would argue today that Sunday should be a work day.

While we have atomized ourselves into fiercely individual entities with our individual rights and our individual truths, we would still find it hard to argue against a day of rest.

No, we shouldn’t be “required” to observe the Sabbath. For Christians, that leads to the blind alley of legalism. For others, it smacks of theocracy. But neither should we completely ignore it. The Sabbath day of rest has much to teach us about the rest of the week – about priorities, about work, about the transience of a world build upon data and pixels.

And it has much to teach us about time. Our notions of time have changed from what they were centuries ago, even short decades ago. If you think they haven’t changed, watch how impatient you get when a web page loads slowly, and takes a minute or more instead of being instantly available. That impatience says much about our notions of time.

But should we slow down on Sundays? Can we?

I have my doubts.

Led by Laura Boggess, we’re discussing The Sabbath World over at The High Calling this month. Check the site to see the discussion today on Part 1, “Time Sickness,” and Part 2, “Group Dynamics.”

Related:

Enjoying an Abnormal Normal, by Chaplain Mike at Internet Monk.

Sunday, Sunday

Almost 30 years ago, voters in Missouri had an initiative on the ballot to end Sunday “blue laws” – state laws that required most commercial establishments (shopping malls, grocery stores and other retail stores) to be closed on Sunday. There was little doubt it would pass.

A colleague and work and I were talking about the initiative. She was articulating all the key points in favor of the initiative. I shook my head. “I don’t support it, “ I said. “But it will pass, if not for the arguments in favor of it.”

“And why will it pass then?” she asked.

“Because so many women are in the 9-to-5 work force now,” I said. “And Saturday isn’t sufficient to get everything done. They need Sunday, too.”

Now you may think I was speaking as an anti-feminist Neanderthal. But what I was acknowledging was what had clearly become a reality – the women’s movement had brought women into the workplace, and especially the professional and managerial workplace,  to a degree previously unknown; but it had not liberated them from shouldering the bulk of family (i.e., childrearing) responsibilities. Many, many women had two jobs – two full-time jobs.

The initiative passed. Retail stories could now open on Sundays, and they did. Sunday joined the other six days of the week as a day of commerce.

But it was, and still is, different. A change in the law is never sufficient to shake off decades if no centuries of cultural practice. It helps, of course, but hearts and minds have to change as well.

Sunday remains, for most of us, the quietest day of the week, the slowest, the day when even time seems to slow down. (I noticed this in Europe as well, when we were in London last September and some years before that in France and the Netherlands.)

So what is it about Sunday? It’s the question that Judith Shulevitz explores in The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time. Led by Laura Boggess, we’re starting a discussion of the book at The High Calling today.

Raised in the Lutheran church, Sunday was much the same for me growing up as it is today. We didn’t stop all activity on the Sabbath, but it was a quieter day, a slower day, often a day of more reflection  than others. Certainly it was, as it still is, a day more devoted to rest (my wife can tell you about my Sunday naps).

This may sound off, if not absurd, to people who do not share faith in God, although they would likely acknowledge the cultural influence of Christianity. And, truth be told, it is odd.

“To become religious is to brave a leap into the absurd,” Shulevitz writes. “(Soren) Kierkegaard understood that to be a terrible leap. You have to bow to that which is commanded. You have to give up your ability to control your world. It’s a form of self-sacrifice. Kierkegaard compares it to Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac.”

The only thing I would change in that statement is that to become religious means you have to give up your belief in your ability to control your world.

But ask yourself, if Sunday seems different than other days of the week, then why is that? Is it only a remnant of post-Christian America? A cultural thing? Or is it – perhaps – something deeper, something built in to the way we and the world are created?

If you know your American history, you’ll know that the settling of the Massachusetts Bay Colony by the Puritans was partially inspired by what they believed Sundays in Anglican Britain had become. Beliefs about what this day means have had powerful effects.

And ask yourself another question Shulevitz asks – is there a “social morality” to time? We think of time as chronological and as a commodity (of which we never have enough). But is there a moral aspect to time we haven’t truly considered?

The book and the discussion at The High Calling promise to be provocative.

Photograph courtesy Wikimedia Commons: Baptist Church, Harland County, Kentucky.