“For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down and a time to build up; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance.” Ecclesiastes 3:1-4
“Mark C. Taylor has detailed the way in which the ideology of the market has made speed and efficiency primary virtues. The cost of such a rush is immense in terms of tradition, culture, memory, and our capacity for humanness and neighborliness. Speed goes with commoditization.
On the other hand, Carl Honoré has considered the quality of slowness that “challenges the cult of speed.” It is worth noting that the regulation of time in worldwide terms was accomplished in the service of the British navy, that is, in the service of power and control. Honoré nicely observes: “The telling time went hand in hand with telling people what to do.” There is indeed a time to hurry and a time to wait.
The tilt of the matter in our society is obvious. The frantic pace of overanxious 24/7 attentiveness and endless electronic connection requires that our accent in this added word pair must be on the side of slowness. Whereas speed is all on the side of commoditization, slowness is all on the side of neighborliness.”
Walter Brueggemann in Materiality As Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (Louisville: WJKP, 2020), 59.
I am guilty of functioning along the lines of commoditization rather than neighborliness on many occasions. Productivity in that paradigm trumps people. God forgive me for living this way. This study is helping me.
I pray it helps you too. Materiality as resistance says that we will choose neighborliness over commoditization because we realize there is a time for everything and not everything needs to be in a rush.
The lesson for me today and anyone reading this. Generosity or neighborliness takes time. It’s not fast or demanding. It’s timely and deliberate. God help me grow in neighborliness.