Read Online Between the Dark and the Daylight: Encountering and Embracing the Contradictions of Life by Osb Joan Chittister, Joan Sister Chittister - Free Book Online
Authors: Osb Joan Chittister, Joan Sister Chittister
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bottle caps long after most workers went home for supper. Trucks did not race on in a mad dash to link the world’s cities so that packages of widgets would be delivered in twenty-four hours and modernity could triumph. The writing did not go on late into the night. The offices did not stay open. The problem solving did not continue. The schoolwork did not begin after the parties ended. Yesterday’s work did not get done in the middle of the night so that tomorrow’s work could start again in five more hours.
And human beings were not taking sedatives to cope with stress or drugs to calm down. The medical community was not warning people about the effects of sleep deprivation. And surgeons were not beginning another operation at the end of an eighteen-hour day.
We drive ourselves relentlessly from one exhaustion to another. We pace our societies by the pace of our computers. We conduct the major relationships of our lives—both professional and personal—according to the speed of ourcommunications. We measure ourselves by the amount of our productivity and every day we become more exhausted, less rested in body, spirit and mind, and so less capable of producing things, let alone of developing relationships, as a result. That’s not irony, that’s tragedy. And though we know it, we do not know what to do about it.
Now the question is a simple one: Are the ancient insights only that: ancient? Or are they wisdom because they have been carried down to every generation and found to be true?
Well, no less a person than Thomas Aquinas, easily considered the most brilliant man of the thirteenth century and a good candidate for every century after that, said about rest and recreation: “It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes.”
And in the sixteenth century, Leonardo da Vinci, one of the most prolific geniuses of all time, wrote: “Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.”
Point: The grind is destructive of both the person and the work. Unless the soul can be refreshed enough to think, to create, to recoup both its energy and its interest in the work at hand, there is no hope for either recall or creativity.
Every year surveys report the decline of U.S. excellence in one arena after another. Even our children—the hard workers, the ambitious, the bright and the beautiful—find themselves slipping in international competitions. Despitehow hard they work, despite how much they memorize, despite how long they study, despite how much they want to do well.
Maybe what we all need most is time to process what we already know so that we can put it together differently, even more effectively than ever before. Maybe we need to think a bit, out on a porch in a summer breeze, down by the creek when the trout are running, back in the garden when it’s time to put the beets and beans in again.
Turn off the television and read a good book. Quit texting and ride your bike. Close the computer and go to a movie. Don’t answer any emails. Don’t try to “get ahead.” Don’t take any callbacks. And during the family dinner, turn off the phone. And when the television is on, watch it instead of talking through it. Reclaim your life, your thoughts, your personality, your friends, your family.
No, the world will not end. And no, the rest of the staff will not get ahead of you. They’ll be too tired to even think about catching up.
It’s time to sleep in like you did in the good old days. Have a late breakfast. Read the newspapers all day long. Call some friends in for a game of pinochle. And then, on Monday, go back to work—having really gotten away from it all—feeling like what you have to do is really worth doing.
And human beings were not taking sedatives to cope with stress or drugs to calm down. The medical community was not warning people about the effects of sleep deprivation. And surgeons were not beginning another operation at the end of an eighteen-hour day.
We drive ourselves relentlessly from one exhaustion to another. We pace our societies by the pace of our computers. We conduct the major relationships of our lives—both professional and personal—according to the speed of ourcommunications. We measure ourselves by the amount of our productivity and every day we become more exhausted, less rested in body, spirit and mind, and so less capable of producing things, let alone of developing relationships, as a result. That’s not irony, that’s tragedy. And though we know it, we do not know what to do about it.
Now the question is a simple one: Are the ancient insights only that: ancient? Or are they wisdom because they have been carried down to every generation and found to be true?
Well, no less a person than Thomas Aquinas, easily considered the most brilliant man of the thirteenth century and a good candidate for every century after that, said about rest and recreation: “It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes.”
And in the sixteenth century, Leonardo da Vinci, one of the most prolific geniuses of all time, wrote: “Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.”
Point: The grind is destructive of both the person and the work. Unless the soul can be refreshed enough to think, to create, to recoup both its energy and its interest in the work at hand, there is no hope for either recall or creativity.
Every year surveys report the decline of U.S. excellence in one arena after another. Even our children—the hard workers, the ambitious, the bright and the beautiful—find themselves slipping in international competitions. Despitehow hard they work, despite how much they memorize, despite how long they study, despite how much they want to do well.
Maybe what we all need most is time to process what we already know so that we can put it together differently, even more effectively than ever before. Maybe we need to think a bit, out on a porch in a summer breeze, down by the creek when the trout are running, back in the garden when it’s time to put the beets and beans in again.
Turn off the television and read a good book. Quit texting and ride your bike. Close the computer and go to a movie. Don’t answer any emails. Don’t try to “get ahead.” Don’t take any callbacks. And during the family dinner, turn off the phone. And when the television is on, watch it instead of talking through it. Reclaim your life, your thoughts, your personality, your friends, your family.
No, the world will not end. And no, the rest of the staff will not get ahead of you. They’ll be too tired to even think about catching up.
It’s time to sleep in like you did in the good old days. Have a late breakfast. Read the newspapers all day long. Call some friends in for a game of pinochle. And then, on Monday, go back to work—having really gotten away from it all—feeling like what you have to do is really worth doing.
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