Times are changing. Quickly. But if you're reading this blog, I think you already know this simple fact that is changing our world moment by moment. As a geek, I live in a culture that expects you to know a little bit about everything. We're expected to be a jack (or jill) of all trades; yet master of none. We live in a culture that often doesn't look favorably upon "specialists" because, in some peoples opinion, they've become too narrowly focused.
While this has some truth in it, I've recently found that our busy lives require us to turn to a specialist. Life just has so much going on that we have an ever increasing need for specialists in this fast paced culture. When I was growing up, my dad prided himself on being able to change the oil in his car and do a wide variety of other types of maintenance. He taught these skills to me and while I didn't enjoy doing it I knew how to perform quite a few of these tasks. However, after I began to work full-time and got married I realized that I just didn't have the time to go buy the oil, set the car up on blocks, get under it and do all the nitty, gritty work that comes with changing my own oil. It was just much easier to drive it down to the local oil change service, wait 20 minutes and then be on my way.
Well, this whole truth has hit me home once again. I've had trouble maintaining my website over the past few years. It was, at one time, a good source of information and looked fairly nice. However, the "busyness" of life has once again caught up with me. I just don't have the time to do it any more and I have also had to admit that web design has outpaced me over the last decade. It's just no longer possible. So, I've looked around and found a professional to actually fix my site for me. Hopefully this will work out and everything will turn out well.
So, you ask, what does this have to do with spirituality? In living in a culture that so often despises "experts" and thinks everyone should be able to "do it themselves," I've come to realize that there are a number of people that believe they can travel on their spiritual journey all alone. They believe themselves to be self-made people and since they're supposed to do everything themselves then they better take care of their own spiritual life. They don't need anyone else meddling about with it.
The only problem with this philosophy is that it's very similar to the "do-it-yourself" mentality of our work culture. This is the mentality that leads to worry, ulcers, hypertension, fatigue and a variety of other illnesses along with burn-out in the workplace. We're (hopefully) starting to realize that people need to slow down and let others take up some of those tasks they've been shouldering on their own for way too long.
This is where the spiritual life fits in. That's the function an organic, living church or faith community should be giving to those walking through an increasingly busy world. The church and the Christian faith should be a place of shared community and one in which we pick up and carry each others burdens. Step back from trying to work out your spirituality in a vacuum and find some good, friendly, open-minded people with whom you can share your journey. Yes, you make yourself vulnerable in doing this and risk getting hurt but that risk, my friends, is definitely worth it in the long run! I'd rather be vulnerable to some pain caused by me being too open with my friends than face another bought of spiritual burnout.
Hopefully, my little ramblings here will be helpful to some of my readers. On the other hand, it may sound like pure foolishness to others. Whichever it might be, please feel free to dialogue with me at your leisure.
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Man, I don't know where you go to get your oil changed, but the places I've tried take nearly all day to do it. I don't go to the 20 minute places because they pull your oil plug, have you cut the engine on to make the oil run out quicker. I've resorted to changing it myself to save $10 and an afternoon...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, though. Your post makes me think: Sure, many people in our society pride themselves on what they can do. Especially men and their cars, but it's elsewhere, too. Society really does seem to value independence.
Yet, society doesn't have room for this independence. Everything is geared towards speed; this 'busyness' pollutes our lives because it means no time to do things ourselves. We're forced to work for long hours, go to school when we're not working, and so forth. There's no time for stuff that really matters. By the time you're finished working, you're tired. Exhausted. Who feels like getting their oil changed at the end of the day? Who feels like cooking a meal at the end of the day? Not too many people. When the weekend comes, you're still trying to recover from the week, or study/do homework, or prepare sermons and such for Sunday.
We're so busy running to and fro that there is no time to do all these activities ourselves, even when they save us money. And man, doing things yourself can save you TONs of money. But, again, where is time to make the repairs? What if it's more than that: Where is the time to learn how to make the repairs?
What it all boils down to is that society does indeed pride itself on independence and the DIY mentality... yet it doesn't permit time for the DIY activities to take place.