Laborless leisure

“The only access to Heaven is the servants’ door”

With our dependence on labor-saving devices and DYI (do-it-yourself) technology household ‘help’ today, and therefore service entrances, are a relic of a bygone era. Will the concept of service itself experience a similar fate?

The heroic witness of medical professionals, care-givers and first line responders during this past year would suggest not. Nevertheless, a futurologist might ponder the developing relationship between labor and leisure and how – increasingly relieved of the former – we are ill prepared to live with the latter. What will we do when so much of what we have had to do in the past will now be done for us either robotically or through the purported beneficence of some welfare state? Will we escape the burden of excessive ‘free time’ in otiose distraction? Or, will we find and pursue satisfying, fulfilling purpose? Will we anathematize boredom with mind-numbing addiction, or unleash our potential with enlightened understanding?

In the creation story God declares to our contrite forbearers that they now will survive only by “the sweat of their brow” (Gen 3:19). Our futurologist today might contend that our sweat in the future won’t be from the physical exertion of putting food on the table but from the psychological angst of not exploiting our talents productively. Maybe it’s time to concentrate on that access to Heaven referenced above.

Service, as the adage goes, is the rent we pay for the space we occupy on earth during our brief tenancy here. Service goes beyond the performance of some deed we perform in exchange for a fair day’s wage, as legitimate and honorable as that exchange may be. It is the voluntary support we offer in any form to another in need of assistance (material or otherwise). Incidentally, service at the most personal and local level makes subsidiarity possible, and subsidiarity is a foundation stone of a healthy society.

Some of the fund holders at the National Catholic Community Foundation are families with young members. By involving them in their decisions about distributions from the family fund these parents inculcate in their children the responsibilities inherent in monetary wealth, namely to share that wealth to help others in need. This, of course, is laudable and serves as a narrow definition of philanthropy. But, philanthropy (etymologically the love of mankind) is not limited to the use of one’s dollars. It includes the use of all of one’s gifts in the edification of others, whether these gifts be physical, spiritual, artistic, etc. It is commendable that school, churches and organizations promote ‘service days’ where young people volunteer their time and energy to help those considered ‘less fortunate’. Paradoxically, the more astute of these young philanthropists eventually realize that what makes them ‘more fortunate’ is not their possession of advantage but their opportunity to share it through service.

Perhaps our futurologist is a prophet. Perhaps he foresees a time when the descendants of Adam and Eve, released from labor, will universally realize that sharing their talents enriches life while hoarding them stifles it.

Saint Peter may need a bigger door.