How Busy Are You?

My church in Myerstown kindly has been sending me literature from every Sunday service, including the pastor's sermon.

This past week he wrote about one of the ten commandments - "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy."

So much for that huh?

It's long been my argument that our society has developed ideals that promote ignoring that commandment.

I've worked my share of 60-hour weeks. It's not that I enjoy it, or agree with it. But often times I've had no choice. Once I worked 12-hours a day, seven days a week, for nearly two months to get a product catalog to press before a trade show. It didn't have to be that way. But the owner of the company didn't see any problems with that kind of work schedule and I was backed into a corner.

I ended up finishing the catalog, and leaving work in the middle of the day one day to visit the doctor about exhaustion and stress. The doctor's recommendation? "I'd quit your job," he said.

There are cultures who appreciate rest, time for worship and spirituality, time for contemplation. But that's not our culture.

Somehow through the decades we've pushed and pushed and pushed the ideals of work, work, work. The only countries that may work more hours than us are all Asian countries.

Work is an important component to a healthy life. But how much work? All work and no play, I'm convinced, does not equal a healthy lifestyle.

Sometimes we have to slow down, sit down, and just watch the clouds go by. Yet how many of us slow down enough to actually do that?

I always remember a lesson I learned from boating with my Uncle at his then home in Virginia. He had all kinds of boats, a sail boat, motor boats, canoes.

When we took a boat out with a motor we missed a lot. We would move to fast and the motor would scare all the wildlife away.

But when I took the canoe out and paddled along the inlet's edge I could see and enjoy so much more. There were herons and osprey, all kinds of wildlife and natural surroundings that I never could have enjoyed any other way.

I learned the same lesson when I started riding bike every day. There was so much around Marietta that I never saw driving around in the car. But on the bike I learned much more about the town I live in.

We truly do need to see the value of rest and reflection. I feel sometimes that Americans act like they have it all figured out, that we can't learn anything from other countries because we are the best.

Well, we've got a great country, with strong ideals, but that will never mean that we do not have room for improvement, room to keep learning and growing as a society and a culture.