I am not one to be all Back to the Old Days! Or Simpler times were Superior!
I’m a fan of electricity, modern transportation, being able to communicate easily with friends all over the world, not making my own clothes, buying vegetables other people grow, and the internet.
But this way of living that I love (and I do), has wooed me a bit from a life of rhythm. Parker Palmer expresses it this way:
“If we lived close to nature in an agricultural society, the seasons metaphor and fact would continually frame our lives. But the master metaphor of our era does not come from agriculture –it comes from manufacturing. We do not believe that we ‘grow’ our lives –we believe that we ‘make’ them. Just listen to how we use the word in everyday speech: we make time, make friends, make meaning, make money, make a living, make love.”
I see myself reflected in his words. I am more familiar with the ideas of manufacturing and the way it views the world. Of efficiency and profits and working in shifts that keep the line running. Of making.
The seasons don’t escape me completely. The leaves fall outside my window and my wardrobe changes with the seasons. Certain dates and rituals help with seasons too. In my story, October 15th reminds me the start of NCAA basketball and that many moons have passed since I was a student. The seasons and rhythms of life ebb and flow too.
And this tension with rhythms is nothing new. Though God modeled work and rest, when Eden was lost, so was our sense of reasonable rhythm. The sense of feasting and fasting. We feast, but forget to fast. Or fast and forget to feast. How many times was Sabbath mentioned in scriptures?
One of my problems with heaven/ Eden Regained has been how boring it sounds to my heart. My head gets that it is heaven so it can’t be boring, but my heart worries I’ll be bored. The hope of rhythms is that we will not be bored! We will know how to feast and fast. Our heads and hearts will not be in conflict!
All the posts in the series will be added to this page each day of October. If you would like to receive these reminders in your email inbox, it’s easy! You can subscribe now by entering your email where it says “Jump into the Mess!” I am enjoying the journey together. Amy
Remember: Love, satisfaction, extravagance, freedom, belonging, recreation, truth, trust, purity, submission and power, unity, kindness, blameless, with abandon, acceptance, celebration, faith, generosity, joy, purpose, empathy, rhythms.
p.s. I know there is a weird space in “with abandon” and after about an hour working on it and trying to figure out what is going on with computer code … I am leaving it “wrong” and living with, oh yes, abandon.
I’d never really thought of this, but you are right. Our culture lens is manufacturing. How sad. Nature is much more beautiful and as you put it, rhythmic.
I know, when I read that passage in Palmer’s book, it hit me square in the heart. :)