11 July 2022

Work Gods

    I finally got around to reading a fascinating piece forwarded to me by a Temple Sholom congregant from the New York Times, entitled "When Your Job Fills in for Your Faith, That's a Problem" by Dr. Carolyn Chen.

    I was reminded of a High HolyDay sermon series that my father gave decades ago at Temple Beth El in Somerville.  He brought up how people exercise (in those ancient days, he noted playing tennis, not pickleball) "religiously" and wondered what the metaphor meant when people no longer practiced their religion religiously.  (I personally have always been fascinated by the American mindset that takes a spiritual practice like yoga, culturally appropriates it into an exercise practice, and then re-spiritualizes it as a spiritual discipline.)

    The article talks about how people's free time that they previously gave to religious and service communities is now taken up by work (without even mentioning how e-mail has put everyone to work 24/7) but emphasizes how companies have built up work cultures that fill particular personal needs that religious communities have heretofore filled, such as personal fulfillment and a moral framework.  I am reminded of certain drugs that fit into dopamine receptors in the brain that mimic natural body processes of feedback, that create shortcuts that lead to addiction and cut off healthy response.  The piece mentions what happens when a person who has found this type of faith community in their work moves on to another job, and the loss of support.  I would argue that one of the points of a faith community is not just to find a place to strengthen your moral code, but also to find people outside of the other cohorts of your life (in different fields, of different ages, in different life situations) to balance the mono-cultures in which we may find ourselves for the majority of our weekday hours.  It is tough to find support for losing your job from the people you no longer work with and see everyday, all day.

    The more insidious aspect is the creep of workplaces consciously proselytizing themselves as sources of purpose and meaning in life. Certainly, it is hoped that as many of us as possible can find meaning in our employment, and even feel that what we are doing makes the world a better place and is good for others as well as ourselves.  However, most work is for companies that, in the end, need to turn a profit or benefit their shareholders.  Even in the non-profit world, there is still a bottom line in the budget.  The ideal may be benefiting the world, but the paycheck is still slave to the means to do so.  For many, the idea of volunteering - of giving without getting any money back - is actually a welcome change, and needful contrast to the daily grind.  We must also lift up those who work long hours, with little rest, in unpaid positions - giving care to family members - who may find the chance to volunteer outside of home and family a welcome breath of fresh air and a place to have different conversations with different people.

    We talk a great deal about "work/life balance" as if the two are opposed.  Perhaps companies have begun to respond to this dialectic by coopting life into work.  We need not hold the two as opposites, but we can also spend the time to find communities of purpose (and faith) that give us other ways to engage than those we are being compensated for.