I was given a ‘Krist-kindel’ last
year, which occasioned a great laugh from all present when I
unwrapped it. It was a mug, colourfully and funnily decorated,
for ‘the World’s Greatest Living Workaholic”!
Initially it made me laugh. Subsequently it has made me think.
First of all I noticed inside me a subtle
feeling, akin to gratification, that I had been labelled “workaholic”. And that worried
me. To be addicted to work is a weakness, not a virtue, certainly
nothing to be proud of. Addiction to work can distort one’s
life. It arises, I think, from a culture that effectively canonised
work and industry, and dubbed as indolence everything that savoured
of inactivity, even much needed rest and healthy and recreative
pursuits. (Philosophical jargon might describe it as according
primacy to “doing” over “being”; a tenet
few respectable philosophers would subscribe to!)
I was aware, too, through years of pastoral involvement, many
examples of the evils of excessive activity. Fathers, with their
family lives in shreds, pleading continual late hours of work
as evidence of a love that, in fact, acutely needed their time
and involvement for family survival; deaf to persistent pleas
for more presence. Mothers, utterly devoted and physically present
to their children, but, through an endless frenetic round of
multiple activities, bereft of time to listen and share with
them. In contrast, one also heard, perhaps on radio or else in
casual conversation, adults recalling with affection and appreciation
a parent who had given them quality time in childhood to play
and have fun together, to listen, comfort and encourage.
Self-scrutiny readily teaches me that the quality of what I
do suffers whenever I take on too much. And I run the risk of
emulating the proverbial headless chicken!
Still, there is a counter consideration
in all this. The Master - so the Gospel tells us - fell asleep
on a boat in a storm,
through exhaustion from work. Jesus allowed the demands of the
people for his attention to leave him without time to eat. So
much so, that his family thought him “out of his mind” and
wanted to “take him in hand”.
So there are demands, arising from the
needs of others that rightly take precedence even over prudence.
And many of the Saints
were canonised for “heroic virtue” which precisely
led them to spend themselves for others, even to the point of
laying down their lives.
Only a true and honest discernment can enable us to know whether
extensive work is vice or virtue; an escape from ordered living
and relating, or a stretching of ourselves for the sake of our
neighbours.
Speaking for myself, I haven’t managed to resolve the
matter. But, thanks to “Krist-kindel”, I’ve
started to address it. And, who knows, conversion may follow
in time!
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