conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

where's your altar?: sabbath 14

"We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.

- Thomas Merton

Wayne is at it again. I imagine that trying to come up with a pithy title and a helpful exercise for each little chapter is difficult. Well, I know it is. I don't title all my sermons because it's difficult. Anyway, I am trying to get the connection between these parts.

Title: Seize the Day
Exercise: Make an altar for yourself (not to yourself).
Read: Megan's thoughts.
Read: Cristopher's thoughts.

Okay. Right. Strangely, I have a bit of an altar in my house.

I guess it is more like an iconostasis...but it's not. As it stands, I don't have a place for all my icons yet. They are still in a box. I swap them out from time to time depending on my mood or a feast day or some spiritual need I perceive in myself.

The chapter is about the great businessman, W.K. Kellogg. He responded to the Great depression by shortening the workday in his factories to six hours from eight thereby adding an extra shift in the week...and more jobs were available. No, not full-time jobs, but something. And people were pretty desperate. Eventually the six-hour work day became the norm. People were payed a full-time wage, but had more time to spend with their families.

Well, according to Muller's account, people enjoyed the schedule, the extra time for other duties at home, the extra time for family. But, as we all know, this did not last. You see, leisure time, time with family, time to spend in sport, charity, church, clubs etc became comodified somewhere. And in the 60's and 70's the workday went back to eight hour days. The national economy demanded the higher production hours...and, says Wayne, TV's cost too much.

Somehow time off became something we have to pay for. Money affords us more enjoyment during our non-working hours. "Passive consumption replaces traditional activities." Now, I want to warn Wayne away from agrandizing the halcyon days of 1930-40's yore. I remember that there was a World War in there somewhere.

But the point he's attempting to make is interesting. We work to have monet to do what we like. We work so much that we don't have time to spend our money on the things we would like to do, but only on the things that pass the time like flat screen TV's. I know some of us like the tube. But I get his point.

So, what about the altar. It seems that Wayne is trying to establish a practice of sitting with family and friends and sharing the day. Sitting around the dining room table, for example...or within a sharing space, before a family altar. Interesting.

This is not what my altar is for. But, and this is where the chapter is somewhat convicting, neither is my diningroom table. I am a pastor married to an actor. Last week was the first time we have had three consecutive nights at home in a week in longer than I can remember. And it happened only because my meetings were cancelled due to the winter storm. Otherwise I would not have seen Trish at all. We seldom have the time to get cought up on our days...to know where one another is in life. It's something that we struggle to make time for. We try, but it's hard.

Wayne is right that there has to be time for this. Wayne may also be right that our culture no longer supports the practice. We consume time. Whether it is the memory of the six-hour day or the hope that computers would free us all up to play more, it seems that culturally we realize our shortfall. But we also don't know how to let go.

Will making an altar help us let go?

Posted by tripp at February 19, 2007 07:38 AM