Several years ago, I went to a folk song festival in Philadelphia. Many of the singers sang labor songs of the 1930s, civil rights songs of the 1960s, songs of many decades. The audience sang along, nostalgia strong in the air. Then Charlie King began singing a song with the refrain, "Whatever happened to the eight-hour day? When did they take it away? When did we give it away?"
The audience roared with passion. Not nostalgia. This was our lives, not something from the past. I was startled. Suddenly I saw that my own sense of overwork, of teetering on the edge of burnout, was not mine alone. Something was burning in the air. I began to talk with others, especially people whose religious and spiritual traditions call for some time to reflect, to be calm, to refrain from Doing and Making in order to Be and to Love.
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| I was startled to see that my own sense of overwork, of teetering on the edge of burnout, was not mine alone. | ||
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Out of those discussions has arisen a coalition of Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Unitarians, and some secular intellectuals that is attempting to redress the rhythms of work and family time, community time, spiritual time--on a national level. Free time. Not just through the ancient practice of Shabbat but through new ways--fitting to an industrial/informational economy--of pausing from overwork and overstress.
The case against overwork has been building for some time. In 1993, Harvard economist Juliet Schor wrote a book called "The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure." She argued that the promise made to us 30 years ago--that new computer technology would give us more leisure time--had been betrayed. Most Americans work longer hours, under more tension, than they did a generation ago.
