A Week with W. H. Auden
Written by Rev. Dr. Scott Paczkowski
“Making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”
It is already possible to imagine a society in which the majority of the population, that is to say, its laborers, will have almost as much leisure as in earlier times was enjoyed by the aristocracy. When one recalls how aristocracies in the past actually behaved, the prospect is not cheerful. –A Certain World, “Work, Labor, and Play” (1970)
Most of us have used the phrase “the good old days” as if saying it, will make it so. Yet, go back more than a hundred years in time, and life for almost everyone was harsh. There were few diversions and long hours of back-breaking labor, six and seven days per week. The idea of childhood was also different, with many of the world’s children working instead of learning and playing. Personal time and the concept of leisure were alien to most of society not that long ago.
Rather than embracing our lives as blessed with aristocracy-type leisure, we whittle the time away doing inconsequential things that do not nurture relationships or enhance our future. Like most things, time can be a blessing or a burden. Unfortunately, like the aristocracy or the contemporary Trust Fund Kids, time can lead to destructive and selfish behavior. Auden calls us to respect the time given us.
Today, reflect on how much easier daily life is today than we did one or two hundred years ago. We have time to act on our passions, even if those passions do not include our jobs. Time provides the blessing to respond to God’s call in our lives in ways we couldn’t have imagined two hundred years ago. So instead of wasting time like the spoiled aristocracy, allow us to treat time like the treasure God intended it to be.
