Spiritual Busywork

In an old Seinfeld episode, Jerry and his pals attend a party. The host is known for assigning jobs to his guests, as in “Jerry, you’re in charge of the stereo. Make sure no one messes with the volume.” Or “Kramer, you’re in charge of the coat pile. Whenever someone arrives, make sure they put their coats on the proper bed in the spare room.” The guests take their responsibilities seriously, and it takes them some time to realize that the host’s ploy is simply to keep them out of mischief while they’re in his apartment.

I can remember in my Protestant days how the leadership of every church used this tactic. As soon as someone joined a congregation, the pastor and elders and deacons swooped in and asked the new member to do something. Teach, lead a group, head up a committee, sit on a committee, hand out bulletins, greet visitors at the door. These functions sound important, but when you’re in the middle of the day-to-day operations of such a church, it’s easy to see that most of it is just busywork.

It’s interesting how little attention is paid by the leadership to the interior and spiritual development of members, new and old. Oh, lots of lip service is paid to spiritual development, but again, when you’re in the middle of it, you see how shallow and worthless most of it really is.

For example, at one church, my beloved wife was asked to take part in the women’s group. The sort of things they were asked to do in their meetings gave me a permanent case of sore eyes from rolling them after my wife would describe a meeting. “Let’s all go around the circle and describe the best prayer you ever heard your mother pray.” Sigh…

Like most church activities, this sort of thing mirrors what we see out in the world, in the business sector. Busywork is designed to do one thing: justify the existence of an organization/entity. Most of the things I do at my job are a complete waste of time. Like the fellow said in the movie Office Space, I probably do about fifteen minutes of real work in a given day.

When one becomes aware of this, the busywork can become intolerable…one has to really work hard at not showing exasperation and even rage at the silliness of it all. This is particularly true in the world of church and religion, no matter the stripe.

Best to withdraw from busywork in matters of faith, to refuse to allow one’s valuable, finite time to be wasted in pointless and endless activities, and to devote one’s self to contemplation of Christ, the mysteries of His church, and the final things.

The rain and the winds are pounding the countryside right now. The landscape will be changed when the sky clears and the sun shows the aftermath. Pray for those who are buffeted by the frightening might of God’s breath.

~ S. K. Orr