Simply Simon

Working

After this morning’s service, while everyone was drinking their cups of tea in the vestry, I wandered outside. Bill was already there, leaning against a wire fence surrounding some renovation work on the church property. As Bill smoked his cigarette, we talked.

Bill told me about his week at work. He’s a labourer with a construction company. He spent the week with a jackhammer, removing a floor in a large community sports centre. Eight hours a day for five straight days, hammering relentlessly into solid concrete. He said that at the end of each day his hands and head ached, and as he lay in bed each night his body vibrated. There was no complaint in Bill’s story. He smiled, even laughed as he told me: “It’s good to have work, mate!”

Bill and his wife are expecting twins. His eyes lit up as he talked about the ultra sound the week before, and his delight at finding out he’s about to have two sons. In the conversation that followed, Bill talked of his excitement and anxiety, the buzz and the sleepless nights. He was uncertain as to how he was going to provide for the boys and overwhelmed by all that needed to be done to get ready. But through the whole conversation, Bill never stopped smiling.

As someone interested in the theology of work, and in the connections between faith and daily life, I’ve done lots of thinking about human labour and its meaning. I’ve trawled the Bible looking for stories and texts to do with work. I’ve read widely on the theology of work and vocation. I’ve hunted around in the literature on the sociology and psychology of work. And along the way I’ve gleaned some fascinating insights. But whenever I have a conversation with someone like Bill, my glorious insights seem paltry, even misplaced.

After all of my heavenly talk about vocation and calling—co-creating, co-redeeming, embodying the image of God, investing in God’s world and God’s future—Bill is just trying to work out how to makes ends meet, how to provide for his family, how best to make a home and a livelihood.

Richard Mouw, President of Fuller Theological Seminary, reflected recently on his early work as a Christian philosopher. As a young academic, he was awarded a grant to explore the philosophy of tourism, with the condition that he would be available to speak on the subject if the opportunity arose. At the conclusion of his research, much to his surprise, he was invited by a small-town tourism association to address one of their gatherings. He went armed with his findings, drawing on Plato and others to unearth to greater meanings of tourism. But when he arrived, he was met by an appreciative but weary collection of small business owners, one who owned a petting zoo, others who ran a gas station, a motel, a café and a trailer park.

While Mouw’s audience was receptive to his presentation, the questions that followed betrayed far more basic concerns:

“… they were hurting people. This was the time of a major oil crisis, and tourism was down. The folks at the luncheon were worried about their livelihoods, the well-being of their families, and the economic health of their local communities. In the end, I wish I had given a more pastoral talk, addressing the underlying issues of dealing with the very basic hopes and fears that attend all of our lives.”

For those of us committed to thinking more intentionally about the challenges of daily life, interactions like these provide a good reality check. I have to admit that grand notions of redeeming the everyday, of finding theological meaning in the mundane and the ‘secular’ can be as disconnected from the realities of life as the most remote theological propositions. Mouw concludes his reflection by quoting from the Vatican II document, Gaudiam et Spes: “The joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the people of our times, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way, are the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well. Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo in our hearts.”

My conversation with Bill has reminded me, yet again, that the theology of everyday life is borne as much out of conversation, relationship and experience as it is out of systematic thought or rigorous debate. The echo of the 'genuinely human' needs space to resound within our theology … over and over again.

Surviving the trenches

I recently stumbled across the blog of fellow Baptist Amy Butler, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Washington DC. In a recent post, Amy provides some simple words of advice to those in pastoral ministry. As I read them, it feels as though there's wisdom here for all of us, pastors or not.

Here's what she says ...

Surviving the Trenches: 10 Things I Must Remember

1. Pray and study regularly; it’s part of your job.

2. Be vigilant about your schedule and leave the guilt at the door. Remember, you’ll never finish everything that needs to be done.

3. Visit the old people. They need you and you need them.

4. The church already has one Jesus. It doesn’t need you to be another one.

5. Surround yourself with colleagues who know the truth about you.

6. Remember: you'll never be liked by everyone. Never.

7. Take time off. Do it! The world will keep going without you there.

8. Marry well. Then, take at least as much care of your family as you do of the church.

9. Cultivate activities that bring you joy . . . then do them, intentionally and regularly.

10. Keep remembering, over and over again, what you thought and felt in the moments you knew in the deepest part of who you were that you felt a call from God.

Faith @ Work

Last week my partner and I attended the launch of a new book, Inside Lawyers' Ethics, co-authored by our friend Christine Parker, Associate Professor and Reader in the Faculty of Law at the University of Melbourne. It was held at the Monash University Law Chambers in Bourke Street and, importantly, included a great feed!

Amidst this august gathering, I was struck by just how wonderful it is to have people of faith like Christine burrowing away within very specific contexts. With very little fanfare, they bring the living expression of theology to professional conversations in such practical and influential ways. It's a gift!

As an aside, I was quite chuffed to be warmly congratulated at the event no less than three times by very intelligent looking people who assumed I was Christine's co-author Adrian Evans. My partner, ever the diplomat, says I look MUCH younger, but I'll take the compliment all the same!

Quotidian Mysteries

A few years back, I came across a small, non-descript booklet with a plain cover but a captivating title: The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and ‘Women’s Work’. It turned out to be the text of Kathleen Norris’s 1998 Madeleva Lecture in Spirituality. As I began to read I remember being hooked. The word quotidian simply means daily, ordinary or routine. Norris contemplates the presence of mystery in the ordinariness of the laundry. It’s an inspiring read.

I dug out my scribbled notes on the book this morning for another purpose. Here are some quotes from Norris:

"We want life to have meaning, we want fulfillment, healing and even ecstasy, but the human paradox is that we find these things by starting where we are, not where we wish we were. We must look for blessings to come from unlikely, everyday places—out of Galilee, as it were—and not in spectacular events ..."

"Our culture's ideal self, especially the accomplished, professional self, rises above necessity, the humble, everyday, ordinary tasks that are best left to unskilled labor. The comfortable lies we tell ourselves regarding these 'little things'—that they don't matter, and that daily personal and household chores are of no significance to us spiritually—are exposed as falsehoods when we consider that reluctance to care for the body is one of the first symptoms of extreme melancholia. Shampooing the hair, washing the body, brushing the teeth, drinking enough water, taking a daily vitamin, going for a walk, as simple as they seem, are acts of self-respect. They enhance one's ability to take pleasure in oneself and in the world. At its Greek root the word acedia means 'lack of care,' and indifference to one's welfare can escalate to overt acts of self-destruction and even suicide. Care is not passive--the word derives from an Indo-European word meaning 'to cry out.' as in a lament. Care asserts that as difficult and painful as life can be, it is worth something to be in the present, alive, doing one's daily bit. It addresses and acts on the daily needs that acedia would have us suppress and deny."

"A short-lived fascination with another person may be exciting—I think we've all seen people aglow, in the state of being 'in love with love'—but such an attraction is not sustainable over the long run. Paradoxically, human love is sanctified not in the height of attraction and enthusiasm but in the everyday struggles of living with another person. It is not in romance but in routine that the possibilities for transformation are made manifest. And that requires commitment."

"I have come to believe that the true mystics of the quotidian are not those who contemplate holiness in isolation, reaching godlike illumination in serene silence, but those who manage to find God in a life filled with noise, the demands of other people and relentless daily duties that can consume the self."

"And because we are human, it is in the realm of the daily and the mundane that we must find our way to God. ... In our life of faith, then, as well as in our most intimate relationships with other people, our task is to transform the high romance of conversion, the fervor of religious call, into daily commitment."

Work-life balance

Two reports were released this week that drew significant media attention. Both address issues of work-life balance in Australian households.

The first, An Unexpected Tragedy by Relationships Forum Australia, draws on three decades of research to show that as our standards of living have increased, so our family relationships have deteriorated. According to the report, Australia is now the most intensely work-focussed high-income country in the world. More than 20 per cent of employees work in excess of 50 hours per week, with more than 30 percent working regularly on weekends. Around 2 million Australians now lose at least 6 hours of family time on Sundays to work—hours not compensated for during the week. Dissatisfaction among households has never been higher and the authors of the report call upon the Australian Government to act decisively for more family-friendly conditions in workplaces.

The second, It’s About Time: Women, Men, Work and Family by The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, similarly argues that despite the significant rise in family prosperity over the last decade, “Australians are not living the lives they want.” According to the report, while Australians most commonly identify family relationships as key to wellbeing and happiness, the pursuit of family time is a dispiriting struggle that many households are losing. The wide-ranging report concludes with 45 recommendations for government action.

As a member of one of those households constantly wrestling to find and maintain balance, I am encouraged by both reports and support any initiative that makes our struggle easier. But I also own the fact that finding balance between work and family is as much about personal choice as it is about appropriate government legislation. Hugh Mackay says it well in his column in The Sunday Age today:

“Plenty of people complain about being ‘overworked’ and the very word implies exploitation, victimization and lack of choice. But, in many cases, we do have a choice … We choose the kind of lifestyle we want and the level of affluence needed to sustain it. We choose whether or not to send our children to an expensive private school whose fees will increase the pressure on both parents to work. We choose the extent to which we indulge our children in material ways, where we’ll go for our holidays, the kinds of cars we’ll drive. We even choose debt: no one is forcing us to overspend on our credit cards.”

While it’s true that for many Australians the extent of choice is much less than it is for me, it remains a factor for us all. Mackay reminds me that discerning balance is both personal and political.

The Workaholic's Psalm

There are times when busyness is unavoidable, periods of unrelenting activity and deadlines that wont budge. Now is like that for me.

Still, I’ve learned that in the midst of the rush an occasional self-check is good practice. Where does the legitimate sprint to completion end and a more sinister pathology begin? The following rendition of a familiar psalm illustrates the latter:

Workaholics' 23rd Psalm

The Lord is my Supervisor, I shall not rest.
He makes me cut down the green pastures;
He leads me to jog alongside rapid waters;
He wears out my soul.
He leads me to conferences for my schedule’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of relaxation,
I fear no chance of rest;
for my feelings of guilt, they haunt me;
they whip and they drive me.
You, Lord, prepare a worktable before me
in the presence of my colleagues.
You have filled my mind with worry;
my work load overflows.
Surely busyness and pressure shall follow me
all the days of my life;
and I will run to and fro
in the house of the Lord forever.
_______________________
From the Christian Counsellors Newsletter
Melbourne, October 1992.

Tyrannies and Addictions

My email in-box was overflowing again this morning. As I watched the counter tally up the grand total for the day, I slumped into my seat. It was all I could do to pull myself up and make another cup of tea.

Amidst the numerous offers of drugs to improve my sex life, there was the usual long list of requests, notices, forwards, greetings, demands, reminders—most flagged ‘urgent’. Then there were the agendas for meetings and their endless attachments, and the links to professional associations, journals and booklists begging to be read. It seems like a small mountain to scale each morning before I’m ever allowed to move on with my day.

When I first encountered email, it was captivating, fun, a liberating convenience. I was living overseas at the time; contact with home had never been easier. Today it feels more like a bind. As I stare at the in-box, I feel more imprisoned than liberated, more put upon than captivated.

Oddly, given the chance to do without it I’d probably say no. Of course I would. In a startlingly short period it’s become as necessary as the telephone. I like it. I loathe it. I need it.

Granted, I’m not a technophile. But I’ve never been more conscious of technology’s impact upon my daily life as I have these past few months. Call me a slow learner. Perhaps it’s the now eternal presence of my mobile phone. Or the 24-hour wireless internet connection at home. I’ve never been more in touch or accessible.

In an idiosyncratic but fascinating book The Tyranny of the Moment, Danish Anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen explores the impact of information technology on our lives. He’s no Luddite, no prophet of technological doom. But he does call us to think more about the consequences of our current dependencies and, subsequently, to make more proactive and informed choices about the place of these technologies in our daily routines.

Here’s a few of the impacts he addresses:

It fills the gaps:

According to Eriksen, the presence of mobile phones, lap tops and constant internet access has the capacity to fill every available gap in our time. Our every moment becomes saturated. We talk on the phone as we walk down the street, text friends and contacts while commuting on the train, surf the internet or review work documents while sitting in a café.

None of this is in itself negative, but as a consequence every spare moment is filled. Where is time for space and creativity? those times and places when imagination and reflection are allowed to roam free?

It pickles us in information:

We have never been more information-rich, with almost unfettered access to whatever it is that we want to know, and so much more. In many cases we no longer have to go looking for it. It comes to us. Through multiple forms of media and advertising, we are bombarded relentlessly with bits of information, each bit unrelated to the next, mounting in ever increasing stacks. We are progressively pickled in it.

According to Eriksen, no skill is more necessary than that of protecting yourself from the 99.99 per cent of information you’ll never need and, conversely, responding intelligently and sensitively to what’s really important.

It creates a new form of poverty:

While we may be information rich, Eriksen say, we face a new form of scarcity in the information age. Those elements of life most threatened include:

• Slow time
• Security
• Predictability
• Belonging and stability of identity
• Coherence and understanding
• Cumulative, linear, organic growth
• Real experiences (those that are neither ironic nor mediated by mass media)

It nurtures an addiction to speed:

According to Eriksen, acceleration is omnipresent and speed an addiction. He illustrates his point this way:

" ... it is as if one lives in an old, venerable but slightly dilapidated house and decides to refurbish the bathroom. Having finally done this, a poorer but hopefully happier person following a budget deficit worthy of the United Nations, one discovers for the first time that the kitchen is really quite run down. So one begins to tear out the old kitchen fittings, and soon enters a new frustrating round of phone calls to plumbers and masons. Then one is bound to discover, almost immediately, how old and warn the hall is, and really, wouldn't it be a terrific idea to give the living room a coat of paint and a new floor? Speed is contagious in an analogous way. If one gets used to speed in some areas, the desire for speed will tend to spread to new domains."

Speed is excellent where it belongs, but unless we understand how speed functions—its addictive force, what it adds and what it destroys—we are deprived of the opportunity to retain slowness where it’s most needed.

Eriksen's concludes his book with a list of recommendations. Here are some of them:

1. What can be done quickly, should be done quickly.
2. Dawdling is a virtue and should be honoured in its rightful place.
3. Slowness needs protection. If unprotected, it will be consumed.
4. Delays can be embraced as blessings in disguise.
5. The logic of the wood cabin (places that value slow time) deserves to be globalised.
6. All decisions exclude as much as they include.
7. Most things one will never need to know about. So relax!

International Workers' Day

My colleague Ross Langmead reminded me of this Ghanaian workers’ song in chapel this morning. For me, it’s a good reminder of two things. Firstly, for the vast majority of the world’s people the nature of daily work is so different than my own. By contrast, my burden is light. And secondly, the connection between faith and work is not just possible, it's necessary. For many, it’s an expression of hope when the basic struggle for survival weighs heavily.

As is typcial with such music, composed in the fields, this is a calling song. The caller begins with the first line of each verse and the workers respond with the remainder.

Christ the Worker

Christ the worker,
Christ the worker,
Born in Bethlehem
Born to work and die for everyone.

Blessed man-child,
Blessed man-child,
Boy of Nazareth,
Grew in wisdom as he grew in skill.

Skillful craftsman,
Skillful craftsman,
Blessed carpenter,
Praising God by labour at his bench.

Yoke-maker,
Yoke maker,
Fashioned by his hands,
Easy yokes that made the labour less.

You who labour,
You who labour,
Listen to his call,
He will make that heavy burden light.

Heavy laden,
Heavy laden,
Gladly come to him,
He will ease your load and give you rest.

Christ the worker,
Christ the worker,
Love alive for us,
Teach us how to do all work for God.

(translated by Tom Colvin)

Nap time!

Sleeping on the job has had a bad rap. It’s the epitome of laziness, they say. Indeed, desktop drool is a sure mark of the sloth.

It turns out we’ve got it all wrong. The latest research by the Sleep/Wake Research Centre at Massey University in Wellington has found that a workplace nap is one of the most effective strategies to greater productivity. Up to forty minutes of sleep, they say, can make a world of difference to the well-being of workers, to the health of workplace relationships and, ultimately, to the financial bottom line. Even a ten-minute doze sharpens the fatigued mind far more effectively that copious cups of coffee.

So, grab a pillow and clear the desk. It’ll impress the boss!

Further thoughts on 'slow'

In Death of the Weekend, a recent article in Sunday Life magazine, journalist Janet McCulloch explored the changes to the typical Australian weekend, from a period of genuine rest--an alternative rhythm--to one of ever more frantic activity. McCulloch quoted social commentator Bernard Salt:

"There used to be hard edges to time, distinctions between work and play. Now, thanks to the mobile phone and laptop, these once-separate sections of our days have fused together. The garden-variety weekend has gone and in its place there is a new weekend that almost has a sense of anxiety about it."

"We no longer quarantine separate actions but do everything at once. We've become so good at multi-tasking, we've forgotten how to do just one thing."

"Our pace is now: sprint, run, sprint, run. There's no 'stop' to life."

The question begs: if routine experiences of 'slow' are necessary to the sacredness of life, then how do we nurture them? ... without retiring to a commune, of course.

Any suggestions?