This weekend, find something better than the busy-busy

Get the life-work balance the right way round.

Jack Nicholson

Jack is a graduate of Peterhouse, University of Cambridge and Blackfriars, University of Oxford. He writes, and also works in local government.

Two people. sitting at a street cafe amid empty tables and chairs, are silhoutted.

Krisztina Papp on Unsplash.

It was 9.38pm and I was in the library connected to Pusey House, the Anglo-Catholic Chaplaincy where I have done much of my work over the last five years, when I submitted my pitch to write on ‘work-life balance’.

‘Work-life balance’ has been up for debate recently after British businessman and investor James Watt, co-founder of BrewDog, posted a video on Instagram in which he claimed that the ‘whole concept’ was ‘invented by people who hate the job that they do.’ He went on, ‘if you love what you do, you don’t need work-life balance, you need work-life integration’. Unsurprisingly, trade unions and large swathes of the population who are not multi-million entrepreneurs disagree.

For the record, I am not a multi-millionaire entrepreneur either. Yet I should say, I disagree too, even though lately I have taken on more paid work than I have ever taken on before – possibly, too much – and I am attracted by the notion that work and life should come together in some sense. In my life, they do. And the very fact that I pitched this piece late into the evening, having tended to several competing work commitments throughout the day, and feeling rather tired all told, would suggest that I am out-of-the-running to write a worthy-read about work-life balance traditionally conceived.

I also love what I do. I am in public service.

Nevertheless, I am uneasy about James Watt’s notion of work-life integration, and I certainly object to being told by him what I ‘need’ to thrive. Work-life integration is surely problematic if it suggests that they should be completely blended such that neither work nor leisure are afforded their proper place and given proper parameters. Watt is engaged to be married and, I would suggest, the right relationship between work and life-outside-of-work ought to be more like a marriage in which each is respected and persons involved are lifted onto an altogether higher plain.

Some boundaries are crossed in this process. Others remain. Life is not lost but changed.

This is why I do not work on Sundays. Sunday reminds me that work is surely an opportunity to go out to shape the world around us, serve it, or to ‘subdue it’ (to use a Biblical phrase). However, to subdue the earth is like as to tend the garden, in which we learn to restrain ourselves to produce greater bounty (life). The first man and woman were told by God, it is said, to ‘be fruitful and multiply’. So, multiplication – or integration – is not enough. And relatedly, there are some fruits in the Garden of Eden, in the story, which God tells Adam and Eve emphatically not to eat. Most fruit trees bear more fruit than they can support. They need to be pruned. So too do our working lives from time-to-time. Work-life balance matters in this sense.

Life-work balance, however, may be a more helpful phrase in so far as the ideal life entails work; work is not a distraction from it if approached in the right manner. In the twentieth century, two Christians I admire thought as much. C. S. Lewis wrote, ‘For most men Saturday afternoon is a free time, but I have an invalid old lady to look after [at home]’, a lady called Mrs Moore. He described himself as ‘Nurse, Kennel-maid, Wood-cutter, Butler, Housemaid, and Secretary all in one’. However, C. S. Lewis also wrote that ‘The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things’, the work, ‘as interruptions of one’s “own” or “real” life.’ They nourish it. They change it for the better.

That “great thing” requires serious effort, make no mistake. The writer Thomas Merton made a distinction between a contemplative life and a life of work and wrote this:

“When I speak of the contemplative life [...] I am talking about a special dimension of inner discipline and experience, a certain integrity and fullness of personal development, which are not compatible with a purely external, alienated, busy-busy existence. This does not mean that they are incompatible with action, with creative work, with dedicated love. On the contrary, these all go together.

They go together, but not in the way that Watt would have it because a busy-busy existence is exhausting, not fruitful. A life-work balance is. Life and work in this equation are not multiplied but respected as each offering our souls something they need: the opportunity to be loved and to love in how we engage with the world around us.

I was glad to have an opportunity to reflect on this, however late in the day.

Hating one’s job is certainly not a requisite for understanding this. If anything, I would suggest, it was invented by people, formed by Christian values, in the nineteenth-century who hated the common life they saw around them and went out their way to protect fellow men, women, and children from overwork.

The concept of work-life balance, or life-work balance, rightly conceived, goes to the very fibre of our being, and I for one think that it should stay.

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Article

Culture

Digital

20 March 2023

4 min read

What's good – and bad – about cancel culture?

An ancient story of compassion inspires an ethical response to social censure.

Erin Crider

Erin studies and explains modern churches. She is an Adjunct Professor of Biblical Studies at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Torn fly posters layered under graffiti on a wall.

Ripped-off posters and graffiti.

Jazmin Quaynor, via Unsplash.

You cannot ignore cancel culture today. In her 2022 BBC Reith Lecture, the writer Chiamanda Ngoni Adichie called it “social censure”. Even beyond universities and other public forums, many of us worry about the effects of cancel culture in everyday social settings. Saying the wrong thing, or trying to respond well when someone else does, can quickly lead to awkward family gatherings, strained meetings, and broken friendships, or awaken the ever-present social media trolls. In a post-pandemic moment, when people are already struggling to re-establish healthy human interactions, cancel culture can make social engagement seem even more challenging. How can we navigate this moment well?

Behind the fraught discussions and growing angst around cancel culture, we can perhaps detect something well worth preserving: compassion. Some of the most heated controversies today involve language concerning people who have been historically disadvantaged. Genuine compassion motivates many who want society to speak more kindly, with more understanding, in order to avoid perpetuating harm to people who have already suffered. People who have been hurt deserve to be acknowledged, and that means taking their pain seriously. This compassion is an important and noble instinct. Many faith traditions call us to honor the vulnerable and pursue justice.

'Silence out of fear of ending a relationship itself ends the relationship.'

At the same time, resistance to cancel culture also includes an element of compassion. Within the voices expressing concern about cancel culture can often be heard a humble awareness that we all are prone to say the wrong thing at times. We cannot hope to learn or grow without honest risk and mutual, human grace. A brief period of silence to let emotions cool can be helpful; ending a relationship permanently seems less helpful. It might seem easier to say nothing than to risk offence, but silence out of fear of ending a relationship itself ends the relationship. Seeking to continue a difficult but important conversation can also be an important and noble instinct. Many faith traditions also encourage humble self-assessment and generous engagement with others. As the Bible records Jesus saying, “Let the one among you who is without sin cast the first stone.” None of us is wholly above reproach, and we all need a bit of compassionate grace.

So how do we balance these conflicting calls of justice and grace?

This conflict might seem peculiarly modern, but in the story we re-tell every Christmas, we see a young man named Joseph wondering how to balance justice with gracious concern for someone who had deeply disappointed him. Joseph is engaged to Mary, but she has been found to be pregnant. Joseph is sure the baby isn’t his. In their culture, a woman who was pregnant outside of marriage brought shame to her fiancé, her family, and the whole community. Matthew’s gospel tells us that Joseph was “a righteous man,” which means that he appreciated the demands of justice. Ignoring her situation meant ignoring the pain they all felt, papering over a grave offense which they wanted no part of. At the same time, though, the text also tells us that Joseph was “unwilling to put her to shame.” Like many people today, Joseph wanted to leave Mary some way to move forward with her life, but their culture did not provide people much opportunity to learn from tragic mistakes. Sometimes, it can feel as if ours doesn’t, either. If you’re familiar with the story, you already know how it ends, but it’s important not to skip too quickly past Joseph’s dilemma. It feels strangely modern, Joseph’s desire for justice coupled with his equally strong desire not to see someone condemned because of a single mistake.

'Courageous compassion creates much needed opportunities to heal, learn, and grow.'

Thankfully, the story also describes a way forward from Joseph’s dilemma: the baby in Mary’s womb, Jesus. In Jesus, we see the depth of God’s compassion for all who suffer. Jesus never ignored the painful consequences evil can create. Indeed, he allowed himself to experience the absolute worst of humanity. As an adult, Jesus was thrown out of his home village and religious community. According to the gospels, he endured one of the most unjust trials ever recorded. Jesus was tortured, beaten, and sentenced to a cruel death. When we suffer injustice, we are not experiencing something alien to Jesus, and therefore, alien to God.

But there is another side to Jesus’ suffering that is equally important: Jesus also demonstrates profound compassion for people have made terrible mistakes. Jesus never mis-stepped or said a single cruel word, but he allowed himself to experience the full shame and isolation of being cast out of society. Crucifixion was the ultimate censure, being publicly put to death outside of the walls of the city. Yet even in this moment, Jesus demonstrated compassion for people who had harmed him. While on the cross, he forgave those who put him there. Jesus offered forgiveness to the man dying on the next cross to his own, who by his own admission deserved his fate. In contrast to aspects of cancel culture, Jesus’ actions at that moment of extreme injustice tell us that human redemption is always possible. Jesus created a compassionate way forward from guilt and shame. Whatever our situation, we can find life-giving grace and healing in Christ.

Compassion isn’t easy. It cost Jesus dearly, and at times it will cost us, too. Courageous compassion creates much needed opportunities to heal, learn, and grow. When we suffer and when we err, cruelty and failure do not get the last word. As it says in the last few pages of the Bible, Jesus is making all things new. Cancel culture ends conversations and damages relationships, but a better balance between the righteous demands of justice and the need for redemptive grace remains possible.