Balance vs. Rhythms

When you imagine your ideal life, what comes to mind?

For many, one ideal theme comes to mind: balance. Like Luke Skywalker and his floating rocks, we can long for that season of life in which the right balance of floating rocks or spinning plates coalesce into a singular state of bliss. The burnout rates among young professionals speak to a looming problem with this ideal. Perhaps the balanced end we seek is not only unattainable, but also flawed conceptually. As soon as the plates spin and balance is struck, you go into maintenance mode, vigilant to keep what you have in motion. There is an implicit restlessness in balance we tend to overlook.

It seems to be the case that rest is not only an overlooked value, but also an unattempted practice. This is exactly what you would expect to find in a culture that values balance. Balance is effort, weighing and sorting and contorting. Balance is also a percentage game. The logic goes, "If I get the ratio correct, I find success." But how do we sort the ratio? If you work 40-60 hours a week from age 23-53, you may be able to retire at 65? Till then, you can adjust your work/life balance to accord with this promised vision of retired bliss. Is balance really just work now and rest deferred? The logic of balance seems to answer, "Yes."

Now, do not let restlessness fall squarely on the way we idealize balance. Restlessness wears masks, all of which cover a deeper longing. Rest is neither sleep nor entertainment, though those things may be restful. Rest is goes deeper than time management. Part of rest is knowing that our present occupations matter, though not ultimately. Ceasing is a necessary feature of rest, but what ought we cease from? Perhaps, to use an older phrase, we ought to cease from trusting the work of our own hands, returning to a simpler, more mysterious trust.

If there is any obvious apology for the Christian faith in the 21st century, it is the case for rest and rhythms. Christian orthodoxy at once speaks of a God who is always at work and at rest, that our work matters but is not penultimate, and our call is resting in the mysterious rhythms that do not, on face value, track with common sense. The Christian is the one for whom the charge, "Pray without ceasing," is sweeter rest than, "Use your PTO before the end of the calendar year."

The Christian faith will not solve the puzzle of balancing your schedule. It will invite you into various rhythms, all of which include rest. Our calendar includes feasting and fasting, reflection and exertion, joy and pain, the extraordinary and ordinary. You are invited into an active trust that orders your time, talent, and treasure around a mysterious and sufficient God who at once calls people to care deeply for the world but not seat it on the throne.

It is for this reason that I prefer the language of rhythms instead of balance. You would rightly question a musician who remarked, "The ratio of F major to A minor chords is off. What percentage are we aiming for?" Rhythm assumes a shared pattern of beats and rests. It includes a structure that responds accordingly to the work at hand, adjusting tempos as easily as the swing of a baton. Perhaps an additional difference between balance and rhythm involves the various intuitions they correspond to. We conceive of balance in spatial terms and rhythms in temporal terms. This means if we aim for balance, we frame rest in terms of space rather than time, as if there is a place we can rest but not a time we can rest. No wonder we are so restless; we're constantly trying to write our own songs when we're really sitting in a symphony.

I cannot tell you what rhythm you ought to adopt in your day-to-day life. I hope I at least connected the dot from balance to the restlessness we all experience. For the Christian, prayer is our day-to-day rhythm, not because it is our droning cry, but rather because it is responding to a God who is rest itself yet always present and at work. G.K. Chesterton wrote, "Orthodoxy may be surrounded by walls, but they are the walls of a playground." Practicing the rhythms of the Christian faith are how I play and participate in a rest I could not find on my own.