I intended on using this clip recently when wrapping up a series of talks on the discipline of Sabbath and rest.  I ran out of time (if you can imagine me talking too long). I think it’s reflective of the uphill battle one faces when trying to discover and maintain a healthy pace of life.

“…turning you… into an instrument of efficiency.”

The goal is efficiency. But not just efficiency as a general principle… efficiency a principle of productivity.  And in order to achieve that goal, one needs to become something more than human.  Namely, one must become a machine; shake off the limitations of his humanity in order to get more done.

In contrast to this image of man becoming machine is an image I found in Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow of humanity as.. well.. as human.  After a series of disappointments and personal discoveries, Jayber rid himself of the one piece of efficiency-boosting machinery he had in his possession; his car.  He now lived, functioned and belonged only to his home-town of Port William.

“I felt older. I felt that I had seen ages of the world come and go.  I had lost every last twinge of the notion that I ought to get somewhere or make something of myself.  I was what I was…”

So, here I sit typing on my 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook with 4 GB of DDR3 RAM and 250GB of drive space watching my iPhone 3g ping to remind me of the text message I’ve not yet read and wondering about my pace of life.  What is it I am chasing that I run as fast as I often do? Success, as did my father? Fame, as I’m told I ought to as an artist? Or maybe it’s just the wind.

Over the past 2 years, my wife and I have implemented a weekly Sabbath, partially in order to step away from the pace of the Marketplace which fosters a need in us for the kind of machinery the above ad is selling (some of which, as you can see, I happily own) but also fosters in us the temptation to become machinery, subjecting ourselves to judgement on the scale of productivity and efficiency. The practice of Sabbath reminds me that I am what I am and that my value will not be established nor will it be shaken according to the work of my hands.

This is part of why I love observational comedy.  In the middle of laughing my face off, I am struck by the profundity of the comedian’s thinking.  This is one of the best routine’s I’ve heard since early Carlin.