Unitarian Universalist
Meeting of
“Take Back Our Time”
Rev. Kathy Duhon
I
once heard a story about Carl Jung, supposedly true, but I have forgotten the
exact details. A friend of his happens
to be in town for the day and calls him to arrange a meeting, hoping that it
will be possible in the two hours he has free – they haven’t seen each other in
a while. Carl Jung answers that he is
sorry, but he has an appointment at that time.
The man is disappointed, but realizes that Jung is a busy man. Instead, he takes a walk in the park during
his free time. There he sees his friend
Carl sitting idly on a bench, by himself.
“I
thought you had an appointment,” he said.
“I
did have an appointment – with myself.
This is the time I set aside to sit quietly.”
Taking
time for ourselves is not something we tend to schedule carefully. And in the beginning of December, we’re lucky
if we take the time to go to church, or to have any other quiet time just for
ourselves.
Robert
Jones has written a book of ordinary, daily life prayers, called Prayers for
Puppies, Aging Autos, & Sleepless Nights. I am combining his “Prayer in Traffic” with
UU minister Richard Gilbert’s “Prayer for the Hurried, the Undisciplined and
the Disorganized” and Ann Weems’ “In Search of Our
Kneeling Places” and “This Year Will Be Different”. It makes a whopper of a prayer for a whopper
of a season.
God
of movement, beauty and grace,
this is downright disgusting.
I
watch the flashing taillights for a sign,
But
when I change lanes,
the lane I left goes faster.
Why
is everyone on this road moving except me?
Why
does it seem like I’ve wasted my life
Sitting
alone in an idling car?
Who
among us intends to get caught up in tearing around
and wearing down?
O
Spirit that hears prayer, attend to these words:
I
would say a prayer for the hurried ones,
Those
who are spiritually undisciplined,
Those whose lives are disorganized.
Help
us understand that the still, small voice comes to us,
Not
only in the solemn setting of the sanctuary,
But in the hustle and bustle of our lives.
But,
God of hurry and repose, Lord of discipline and impulse,
Spirit
of the organized and disorganized,
Accept
those of us who will never stop running.
Who
among us does not long for:
gifts that give
love?
In
the midst of shopping sprees
let’s ponder in our
hearts the Gift of Gifts.
‘Tis the season for harried hurrying, . .
. and for gentle giving. We are
the ones who choose to make time the enemy, or else a special grace.
We
have inherited several holiday traditions for this time of year – Pagan,
Jewish, Christian, and more recently, Kwanzaa – and all have elements of
slowing down, waiting, taking time for prayer and reflection, taking time for
family, making room in our hearts and lives for miracles and peace and the
return of the Light of the World.
So
what do we do? We scurry. This is the most difficult time of the year,
in terms of time, for folks. Our
calendars and daily lists fill up and we experience time as crunched instead of
expansive and sacred. Not all the time,
but now is the time to prepare for the season, and an important consideration
is that we “take back our time”, that we decide how we will spend our time.
I
want to tell you about a program that was recently sponsored by the
Massachusetts Council of Churches, of which the UUA is a part, called “Take
Back Your Time”. The three goals of the
program are:
*
Resist a relentless pace of life for yourself and your family.
*
Reclaim time from long hours at work, school or extra curricular activities.
*
Choose a few windows of time to rest and recreate balance.
The
windows of time are meant to be for simple, restorative activities. This time to restore your soul is time you
set aside to be with yourself, God, family, community, nature. The windows of time are about rest,
reflection, reconnection, revival, renewal, and re-creation.
A few
guidelines about these windows of time include:
* no scheduled activities
* no buying or selling * no
stress
* no
intrusive technology * no
obligations * no work * no guilt
The program was designed for
this Fall, and the idea was to find four windows of
time between Labor Day and October 24th – a period of seven weeks. I saved it for now, when we have four weeks in
this month of timeliness and time problems, and maybe you think that’s not fair
– you could have found four windows in the Fall, but in December?! How about one window of time? Try for at least one and maybe you can find
two, three, or even four – that’s once a week.
A consistent time each week is good, but anything would be better than
only a headlong rush through the month.
What are your ideas for what
a window of time might look like this month?
{pause}
Here are some more suggestions: walk in the woods, read a book, make
music, go dancing, spend time playing with a child, listen to the stories of an
older person, write in a journal, cuddle with pets, cook slow food, talk
meaningfully with a friend.
This concept of taking back
your time is bigger than the Massachusetts Council of Churches. It’s rooted in other movements – simplicity,
slow food, take back the night, book groups, labor unions, PTOs,
women’s groups, men’s groups, nature organizations. Plenty of folks have noticed that we are out
of balance in the way we use our time.
One group is called “Take Back Your Time Day” and they partnered with
the Mass. Council of Churches on this program.
They have justice ideas as well as spiritual ones.
Americans work an average of
nine full weeks more per year than do European workers, and have the shortest
paid vacations in the industrial world.
The situation has changed toward more work and less vacation time gradually
since the 1970s. Over one-fourth of American
workers take no vacation time at all, while 80 % of men and 62 % of women work
more than 40 hours a week on the job. Do
you remember learning about the big labor reforms in this country, about 100
years ago, to guarantee an 8 hour day, 40 hour week, and restrict child
labor? Most of that social contract has
effectively been eroded, and Americans now work more than medieval peasants
did.
Work enlivens the spirit;
too much work deadens the spirit. Our
fast pace of life hurts us physically, mentally, emotionally, and
spiritually. Our cranked up
materialistic economy does damage to the environment and creates an unjust
society of haves and have-nots. Whether
or not we are personally affected by overwork, out of balance time, everyone in
our society is affected.
The Take Back Your Time Day group
is about restoring balance in our lives personally, but also working to affect
public policies and social practices so that everyone has the possibility of
restoring balance in their lives. Their
national agenda includes: 1) Making Election Day a national holiday; 2)
Enacting paid family and medical leave as part of the Family and Medical Leave
Act; 3) Enacting three weeks minimum paid leave for all workers, increasing to
four weeks after 5 years in the workforce, and making it portable; 4) Limiting
employer-mandated overtime, such that after 48 hours on the job in a single
week, an employee shall be given the choice of accepting or refusing further
overtime during that week. These issues
and others are being considered in legislation in
Meanwhile, I can
congratulate you on doing one of the justice advocacy items suggested by the
Massachusetts Council of Churches – granting me a sabbatical next Spring. And I hope it
has an affect on other congregations and other types of employers. Being able to take a renewing sabbath from one’s ministry,
whatever that ministry is, has a wonderful effect, and we could all use such a
time. And so I thank you and I praise
you for this great effort to honor my time and need for renewal.
And now, just a quick note
for those of you who may be feeling left out by all this talk of overwork and
crunched, stressed time, who suffer from too much time on your hands. Seriously, the other side of the time issue
is boredom, ennui, lethargy, sloth – considered to be one of the deadly sins –
not knowing what to do with oneself, not being able to
find purpose in the way you spend your time. The two sides of the time issue are related of
course. If some let go
of doing too much, others may be able to catch that enlivening experience and
feel needed in their use of time.
And as Will Rogers cautioned, “Half our life is spent trying to find something
to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.”
But for those who are
experiencing time on their hands, the congregation has many, many ideas for
you. Volunteer opportunities and social
activities abound, as well as educational and sacred time – time here is
precious and meaningful. If you are
having trouble filling your time, truly, make an effort to do something with
us, for as Unitarian Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden, “As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.” We want you to use time in a fulfilling
way. The idea of the windows of time is
good for everyone, for you are encouraged to find meaning in those
windows.
Taking
back our time – a simple concept and one that we can all find useful in some
way, especially this month. We need to
choose time to cherish and honor the past; live openly and wholeheartedly in
the present; and hope in and work for the future. And in and through and beyond these
experiences of time, may we know holy time, time out of time, the essence of Being. May time be
for us a special grace. Amen.