So Many Unessentials – Sunday, June 10, 1956
Often, we enter each season with new plans and new purposes—but time is so swift, and the months move by, and we look back and wonder how they could have gone so suddenly and soon.
Only a little longer and this year will be half over. Only a little longer and the sun again will be receding to the south. Only a little longer and school will begin again. Only a little longer and again we shall be looking back on another summer season.
Always there is less time left—a fact that we sometimes face with feelings of frustration because we are so busy—too busy sometimes to think enough about what we are busy about. Why are we so busy when we work fewer hours than those who have gone before? Why are we so busy when machines perform so many services? Are we busier than our grandparents who had fewer conveniences, fewer services—and fewer unessentials? Are we busier than those who processed all their winter food, than those who sewed and churned and milked and mended—than those who cut down trees and squared up logs, and planted and hoed and harvested with simple tools? Are we busier than pioneer and pilgrim parents, who, with all they did, yet seemingly found time for some of the real essentials? Could it be that we have somewhat enslaved ourselves with many unessentials?
It seems sometimes we work so hard at leisure—so hard at entertaining ourselves—and load our lives with the impediment of paraphernalia. (The boy with the bent pin, the worm, and the willow pole has all but passed!) And we work so hard at social situations.
As one eminent writer recently wrote: “The man who has made his mark is caught up in an eternal process. The social machine, so cunningly contrived, passes him from cylinder to cylinder, from roller to roller, from dinner to dinner, and, each day that passes, flattens him out a little more.”1
This doesn’t mean that we would return to primitive times. The conveniences and services we have are a boundless blessing. But can we recapture some things we seem to have lost? Can we avoid letting unessentials enslave us? Can we resolve to seek somewhat to simplify, and to make a new appraisal of what we really consider essential, with a little more living, a little less of mere mechanics, a little less time on the treadmill, a little less of meaningless motions.
God help us to use well and meaningfully the short and precious seasons—as the shortness of time moves into the endless events of eternity.
1Andre Maurois, Olympio: The Life of Victor Hugo.
June 10, 1956
Broadcast Number 1,399