sabbath 14: carpe diem

Sabbath 14: Tripp's post, Megan's post

In his second chapter on the section titled "Time," Muller asks us what our time is worth, and how we value it. He begins by telling the story of the Kellogg plant in Battle Creek, Michigan, in the 1930s. Kellogg experimented with four six-hour shifts instead of three eight-hour shifts, and the result, at the time, was viewed positively.

In 1932, the U.S. department of Labor sent a research team to Battle Creek to interview Kellogg's workers. They found that nearly eighty-five percent preferred the six-hour shift, primarily because it provided "more time for family activities and home duties and leisure" and because it helped some of the unemployed find work. The great majority of the Kellogg workers used freedom or closely related words when the agents asked them to compare the eight-hour and six-hour shifts.
(Muller, p. 104, paraphrasing B. Hunnicutt, Work Without End)

He goes on to describe how the workers described the shorter hours as "a moral act," stressing their willingness to share with others. But in the 21st century, workers no longer use words like "freedom" and "family" to describe the benefits of work. We tend to work for one thing--money--and we can never get enough of it unless we work full time or overtime. Theoretically, enough money is supposed to buy back our leisure time, but we tend to use any extra time we have to...work.

Muller begins his description of the suggested exercise by asking: "What do we place on the altar of our life? It is useful to have a visual reminder of what we hold sacred..." And only now does the title of his chapter begin to make sense. He might have tried "the value of time" or "take back the leisure hours," but it doesn't have the same pithy punch as "Carpe Diem." I, of course, immediately went in a tangential direction in my head:

They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they're destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? - - Carpe - - hear it? - - Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day, boys, make your lives extraordinary.
--John Keating, "Dead Poets Society," 1989

Muller's suggested sabbath practice for this week is to create a sacred space in your home, a space where you can remember things that are important to you, a place to put reminders of what's important--for example, pictures of family. This follows somewhat naturally from the chapter, in which he mourns that we have come to value money as a society more than time with family.

Unfortunately, he uses the loaded word "altar" to describe the special place. In my world, particularly in my parish, that conjures a very different image than the one he intends.

It's an open question whether the piece of liturgical furniture we gather around on Sunday is a "table" or an "altar." The liturgy, and the tradition, and the prayers, mix the images up. On the one hand, we put bread and wine on it and say grace and then eat, deliberately and mindfully recalling a meal that Jesus ate with his disciples and asked us to continue, so it's a meal, and the thing the bread and wine sit on is a table. On the other hand, the Eucharistic prayers refer to our "sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving" and we give thanks for the death and resurrection of Jesus, which has elements of a substitutionary sacrifice... so it's an altar.

The liturgical architecture clearly thinks the thing at St. Thomas is an altar--it's on a raised platform, three steps higher than any other thing in the room, and lit by nine theater-style stage lights. It's mostly surrounded by a waist-high railing, so that it feels like crossing a boundary to deliberately step into the area immediately adjacent to it. We even tend to dress differently for Sunday--the people who serve inside the rail wear special dresses, and the people who serve outside the rail wear street clothes.

I will occasionally say "table" to describe the thing, but I don't really pay attention to deliberately using one or the other. It comes up in odd conversational moments. Yesterday, for example:
me: would you put this [handing over a folded stole] on the table for me, please?
parishioner: oh, on the [pause, glance at me] altar?

I love the concept of having a sacred space in your house. In our house in California, we had a whole room that served as the chapel. (okay, it wasn't much bigger than a closet, but still) There was an altar there (we used a bookshelf), with a cross, and a bible, and a finger labyrinth, and a few other prayer tools and/or reminders of grace. There was a comfy-ish seat, and some artwork. We dedicated it as a chapel in the company of friends.

Given the directions Muller seems to be going with his text, I'm sure I'll get a chance to talk more about the chapel in a future another post.

However... I balked at Muller's suggested exercise. Maybe it was because I'm doing these exercises to try to rest, and having an altar at home is too close to a job-related thing. Tripp didn't feel that way; let's see how Megan reacts when Muller asks her to read a new play for relaxation.

If I decide to put one up in the house, though, I know exactly where it would go.