Living Deeply

Marriage By Email (Wall Street Journal)

My husband and I navigate our personal and professional lives in cyberspace. I call it marriage by email.

We manage everything — our schedules, two daughters (ages 8 and 15), obligations to family and friends — by email. We even argue (and make up) by email. Some days, as we rush through various family and sports commitments, we email far more than we have face-time conversations or phone calls. Read it all.

Overworked Americans Pay with Loss of Family, Spiritual Life (Charles Hoffacker)

Too much work, too little time? You've got company. Many of us are working more now, but enjoying it less. Family schedules feel like a road race.

Not only are we putting in longer hours on the job than in the 1950s, we're working more than the citizens of any other industrialized country. Mandatory overtime is at near-record levels. Millions of Americans are overworked, over scheduled and just plain stressed out.

Time stress threatens our health. It leads to fatigue, accidents and injuries. It threatens marriages, families and relationships as we find less time to care for each other or simply be together. It unhinges our communities, as we lack the time to know our neighbors, support our youth and engage in volunteer activities.

Time pressures keep us from involvement in civic life. We do not maintain religious and spiritual practices we regard as important, claiming we just do not have the time.

Monday is the 65th anniversary of the day in 1940 when the 40-hour week became the law of the land, but there's little to celebrate now about how long Americans toil. Productivity has quadrupled since 1940, yet most American workers put in more than 40 hours, and the fabric of personal and national life shows the effects.

"Take Back Your Time" (http://www. simpleliving.net/ timeday) is a major U.S.-Canadian initiative challenging the epidemic of overwork, over scheduling and time poverty threatening our health, our families and relationships, our communities, our environment and our spirituality. A project of Cornell University's Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy, Take Back Your Time makes a practical case for reform and seeks to stimulate discussion throughout society.

Its approach appeals to North Americans of many backgrounds. People of faith have contributions to make to any reappraisal of time and work.

One ancient resource for renewal is the biblical notion of Sabbath. Jewish rabbinical literature notes that Sabbath serves several purposes. It frees both poor and rich for at least one day a week.

On the Sabbath, no one takes orders and no one gives them. The Sabbath is an opportunity to consider whether one's work is life-giving, following God's own review of creation on the original Sabbath.

The Sabbath also encourages people to contemplate the meaning of life. Noting these purposes, Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister said, "If anything has brought the modern world to the brink of destruction, it must surely be the loss of Sabbath."

She also considers holy leisure, a similar feature in Benedictine practice.

"The purpose of holy leisure is to bring this balance of being ... back into lives gone askew and to give people time to live a thoughtful, a contemplative, as well as a productive, life," Chittister said.

The 40-hour week. The Sabbath. Holy leisure. How we structure time can contribute to human dignity and welfare.

Our current arrangements do not.

From Times-Herald, Michigan (Originally Published, October 24, 2005)