The timer control on the boiler somehow got confused -- just how is beside the point -- a problem, given the kind of weather we've been having. Specially configured little screws strategically apportioned around the clock-wheel flip the boiler "on" or "off", depending on the screw, allowing for some measure of conservation during the building's fallow hours. At least in theory.
Unfortunately, actual practice is another thing. Studying the wheel we observed four "on" screws consecutively affixed -- "on" in the wee small hours of Monday morning; "on" again late that same afternoon; "on" again on Tuesday and then "on" again Tuesday evening. We were "off" for awhile on Wednesday morning -- presuming, I suppose, a weekly hump-day warming trend -- and then a few more "on" triggers paused briefly by intermittent "offs." I think we have worked out the erraticisms into a more regularized alternation, but the mix-up has been a bit humbling.
It's not that I had misapplied the screws. Thankfully, that's not my area of responsibility. It's that the screws reflected so metaphorically the pattern of my life, and the lives of those around me: mostly "on" -- on, on, on, on -- and only erratically given permission to be "off."
On, on, on, on...off...on, on, on, on...
If the building has seemed perpetually ill-tempered under that scenario, why would I expect my life to be any different? I have to believe the concept of Sabbath was meant to challenge and correct that obsessive and excessive pattern. On, but also off -- rhythmically, routinely; like the tide's ebb and flow, or the lung's filling and expelling.
On, but also off.
Talking, but also listening.
Giving, but also receiving.
Loving, but also being loved.
Waking, but also sleeping.
Or, as in the case of the boiler, heating up, but also cooling down.
Amen.
1 comment:
I've heard it said that the cardinal sins are just the flipside of the cardinal virtues. (but please don't ask me to recite either list from memory)
I've also heard it said that a lot of "sin" -- failing to live up to the standard -- is not doing a bad thing, but too much of a good thing. (Evil or wickedness being an entirely different category for another discussion.)
God knows our human propensity for going too far. Too much food, too much drink; greedy, workaholic, more demands than we can handle; keeping up with -- or surpassing -- the Joneses; cravings for money/sex/power;
always driven to do more, have more, be more, go more, ...
God's rules often are there not so much to inhibit our fun as to curb our innate tendencies for excess.
Perhaps it's because we forget that the Creator is infinite and we are not.
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