Lots of sick, injured, and old people have a hard time getting up and around. Today, when most systems are collapsing around us, healthy young people are having a harder time getting up and around. Debts continue to rise, and no one wants to stop spending. More people seem very, very confused. Confusion makes us tired.
Making it worse, no one seems to know what to do. No solutions are proposed, nothing new is considered, the downward slide is accepted with a shrug of the shoulders and a resigned, “Whaddya gonna do?”
Things are Looking Good
On the other hand, the sun continues to shine, rains continue to fall, seeds continue to grow, harvests are ongoing, food is processed, and things keep humming along. And, we probably haven’t dropped anything heavy on our foot.
Oil continues to be pumped, refineries keep refining, miners keep mining, electricity runs through the wires, machines go around and around and up and down. People, and the things they need, are moving on land, sea, and air. New clothes are being made and sold, along with lots and lots of gizmos.
As the song says, “My pa is rich and my ma is good lookin’. Fish are jumpin’, and the cotton is high.”
So, what’s wrong?
Admittedly simple-minded, Catholic Fundamentalism suggests that many of our problems are caused by feeling guilty because we are not wisely using the dwindling amount of time we’ve been given. The only thing that any and all of us have is time. Most of us have so much more time than ever that, in historical comparison, we’ve become “time millionaires”.
Catholicism was able to keep believers occupied during the thousand years between Charlemagne and Napoleon. The few labor-saving devices that were developed in that period weren’t as disruptive as thousand-acre tractors and combines. Iron Agers did have a little more time than their predecessors in the preceding Bronze, Copper, and Stone ages. Most of them meaningfully used that time for prayer. There was enough time to spare that many could move into monasteries and convents. There, they prayed all day, and often, at night.
Now, we have even more time. We have so much time that we’re drowning in it. When we realize that God is The Loving Programmer, Who programmed and downloaded The Creation Program, and each of us is a greatly beloved program within it, we realize how much more there is for which we should thank Him. In our time, for instance, we see that He programmed and downloaded millions of whole galaxies. It’s hard to have enough time to thank Him for letting us see more of what He’s done.
Improperly Using Our Time is Bothering us More Than we Know.
Few of us need to be involved in food production, processing, and distribution because those systems are highly automated. Most of us don’t realize that pork production, for example, is under the guidance of a cadre of people who have Masters’ Degrees in Swine Management. They automate, automate, and automate, making more protein available with less human effort than ever. Soon, those activities will be replaced by giant, protein-making and flavoring processes that will convert grain directly into meat. (Will Moslem fundamentalists be allowed to eat test-tube pork chops?)
Every human economic activity is being similarly simplified. As a result, more of us are rolling in time. Some of us commute an hour or so, each way, to work. When we get there, we may spend hours on computers and internet, “catching up”.
Too few of us use much of our available time to pray. Many of us spend hours listening to purveyors of left or right wing gloom and doom. Then, we tell other people about what we’ve seen or heard from our favorite purveyor. Many are worrying themselves sick. Lots of us are on the phone. (“I’m crossing the bridge. I’m paying my toll. Oh, there’s a new car! It’s pink! I like pink cars! Don’t you like pink cars, too? ” etc., etc., etc.)
After work, we waste hours on TV. It’s carefully designed to keep us from blaming the people in charge of our government for wasting their time and our money (which is a result of our time) on failure after failure. It never reminds us that those who hurt us do so in exchange for big bribes from greedy people. Time that we could spend getting closer to The Loving Programmer, praying, reading the Bible, learning a new skill, making something in a workshop, or visiting an old person is frittered away.
Each one of us knows that we’re wasting time. What we do not realize is how guilty we feel about wasting all that precious time. Wasting so much of the time we’ve been given is a type of suicide. It’s a sin. A depressing sin. We are all guilty, in varying degrees.
