To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which 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;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
a time of war, and a time of peace.
Right now, it is Lent, a season of fasting. We Christians fast on Lenten weekdays, but feast on Sundays, which are a weekly commemoration of Easter. Recently I was asked by a friend why I decided to fast in this season, rather than another. She also asked why I picked the same day every week to break the fast. “If you’re going to break your fast anyway, why don’t you just do that when it’s right for you?”
We were born into the rhythm of creation: nights and days, winters and summers, workdays and holidays. But in today’s world we can choose to ignore this communal rhythm by staying indoors in climate-controlled rooms, using artificial lighting at night, and working from home when it pleases us. We live with the conception that communal rhythms have no real influence on us. I would argue that subjecting yourself to them has value nonetheless.
We need rhythms to help us moderate
Although some people are stricter and some laxer about it, everybody follows some kind of communal rhythm for structuring their lives. For example, if you only go to work when you’re in the mood for it, it won’t be long till you get fired. It’s strange, because sticking to a rhythm like this sounds like it makes life harder. Isn’t it tough to live according to some arbitrary routine? But in reality, it’s much easier to follow a rhythm than it is to muster up individual willpower to do the right thing every day.
I can see this principle in action just by examining my own life. If I disabled my ScreenTime restrictions, you wouldn’t be able to get me off my phone. If I made my running routine contingent on my mood, I wouldn’t go for a run for the next six months. Somebody once described his routines to me as the train tracks for his life. Having a rhythm in place, and riding along those train tracks, is much easier than picking the right thing every time.
We already discussed that we need a rhythm to tell us when to work - if we only go to work when we’re in the mood for it, we’ll never go. This is on the side of forcing action. But there’s also the negative flipside, of forcing rest. We also need a rhythm to tell us when not to work.
Many countries used to have strict laws limiting commercial activity on Sundays, and others, like Austria, still do. I remember first visiting Austria and being blown away by the sense of peace on Sunday. I walked around empty streets and heard nothing. Everybody was resting. Studies have confirmed what we already knew: switching off is highly beneficial for positive mood and for mental health. Ever since having gone to Austria for this holiday, I have put more effort into building up a rhythm of truly resting on Sundays. The extra chores on Saturday have been more than compensated by the reduction in “Sunday Scaries.”
In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
So clearly, rhythms help on both the positive and the negative sides. When there’s no system in place reminding us to do something good, we do it too rarely from our own initiative. And when there’s no system in place reminding us not to do something bad, we do it all too often. So we stick to rhythms to keep us moderate.
This same principle also applies to the relationship between feasting and fasting. It is meaningful to share in somebody else’s feast by eating cake with them on their birthday. If you don’t take days off from your diet, you’ll live a less rich life. On the other hand, the opposite is possible too. After I started working in a large office in London, I got offered cake every day. It didn’t take long to lose the excitement. I started refusing cake (yes, really!) because I simply was not enjoying it anymore. To be able to enjoy treats on feast days, we need the moderation provided by fasting from treats on other days.
After the end of the Black Death, there was a rather sombre mood in society, and we got overly into fasting and mortification.
Society is now, on the other hand, in the mood for feasting excessively. The Carnival period became a feast because it is our last opportunity to feast before the Lenten fast. It has lost its meaning. I remember talking to somebody at a Carnival celebration who didn’t know what Lent was, nor that Ash Wednesday was the day after. We have the feast, but have lost the fast.1
In a society that places all the emphasis on feasting, feasting loses its meaning. We need the moderation provided by a rhythm of fasting as well.
We should follow rhythms in community
Not only is it natural to follow a rhythm, it’s also natural to do so in imitation of others. This is one of the primary ways that we ourselves grow. We’ve been doing this from the start, imitating our parents as babies. In fact, one of the distinguishing features between how a chimpanzee baby learns and a human baby learns is that the human baby imitates far more closely.
We keep this imitation up as adults too. If I want to be as fit as an SAS special operator, or as productive as a Fortune 500 CEO, I will try to imitate these groups of people. It’s hard to doubt that given the popularity of articles like “How to work out like the SAS” or “How Fortune 500 leaders schedule their days.” That said, I suspect that nobody reading this article will be well-served following the fitness routine of an SAS operator. Simply imitating somebody else’s plan because you think he’s cool will give you an ideal to live up to, but it’s not quite the moderation we’re seeking.
Making up a rhythm for yourself ends up with the same problem. Some people will build up rules that are all too strict at a time when life’s going well. Others will make rules that are all too lax when they’re at a low point. (And I suspect we can all see ourselves on both sides of this spectrum!) If the rhythms are decided entirely by ourselves, we can change them at will. This means they don’t have much value as structures. So we need to follow communal rhythms.
I can already hear the counter-argument. “Isn’t it about figuring out the right rhythm for me?” Yes! But the way we figure out what’s right for us is in community.
David Bakan was the psychologist who first termed “agency” and “communion” as aspects of our personality. Agency is the need to be individual, and is expressed through power and competence. Communion is the need to be in community, and is expressed through love and affiliation. We often think of these two things as being in conflict. What is remarkable about this theory is that he refutes that concern. The opposite of communion is dissociation - hostility and remoteness. The opposite of agency is passivity - weakness and submission. In fact, as people, we need both agency and communion. Communion enables our ability to grow in power and competence.
(I should admit here, I have never actually read anything by David Bakan. So if I am entirely misinterpreting his theories, please let me know.)
A few years ago, I did a program called Exodus 90. This program can be very difficult - no music, sweets, or alcohol for 90 days? I have never met somebody who successfully completed it by themselves. But when you do it in a group, it’s different. If somebody starts to struggle, their partner checks in with them more, and if they struggle a lot, the whole group offers them extra support. This is the same reason why people prefer to do live workout classes versus watching old YouTube videos. Knowing “We’re in this together” can make tough rhythms easier to follow.
Community also makes it more meaningful to follow pleasant rhythms. I mentioned before that eating cake and other sweets became meaningless after I started getting offered them daily while working in a big office. The solution was to moderate - but should I moderate by deciding to eat treats only on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of the month? No! It’s much more pleasant to eat cake on the days that are meaningful within your community - your friend’s birthdays, for example.
How to live in a communal rhythm
In our world, we have the choice to ignore many communal rhythms: We can ignore night with artificial lighting, ignore day with blackout curtains; We can ignore winter and summer by staying in climate-controlled buildings. While it makes things more comfortable, it also gives us the illusion that we, as individuals, have full control over our lives. But refusing to participate in communal rhythms is not a good idea.
Living under a rhythm helps us to stay moderate. It keeps us motivated to do the tougher things of life, and helps us to appreciate the pleasant things in life. In particular, that’s the case when we follow communal rhythms. This helps us to live up to challenges and makes life more enjoyable.
There are many ways to benefit from communal rhythms. Use only dim lighting at night, and you’ll sleep much better. Spend plenty of time outside, and don’t climate control unnecessarily, and your mood will improve. Eat and exercise regularly. Limit treats to days on which they’re meaningful. Set up a time every week where you relax with friends. Set up a regular time where you are accountable to someone else. Join a regular, committed group of some sort - a mothers’ group, an Exodus 90 fraternity, a book club. Inspire each other to do better and rejoice in each others’ wins.
Another way is to follow the cultural traditions of a broader community. While they often seem arbitrary, norms that developed with cultural reflection are suspiciously close to norms that develop with scientific research. For example, take a look at the healthy traditions common to Blue Zones (areas with long life expectancy). You will notice that many of these healthy traditions are shared by both scientific recommendations and by the traditions of your own culture, including the culture of the Church.
So now it’s time for my hard sell of the Church’s communal rhythms. Not only do we have weekly Mass attendance, we have a full liturgical calendar punctuated by periods of fasting and periods of feasting. Advent (22-28 days of fasting) is followed by Christmas (12 days of feasting). Lent (46 days of fasting) is followed by Easter (8 days of feasting, then the 42 semi-feast days of Eastertide). Ember Days get us fasting four times a year around the change of the seasons. Saints’ feasts, like friends’ birthdays, bring times to rejoice and reflect all throughout the year. Why not participate in the communal rhythm of the Church calendar?
The Church is a voluntary community, so nobody will force you to live by her rhythms. But you will benefit greatly as you participate more and more - weekly days of rest and community, half an hour of daily prayer, regularly resolving to do better and being forgiven of your failings, fasting two days a week, moderate consumption of alcohol and meat interspersed with periods of abstinence, and all of the other communal rhythms the Church commends. I personally am making a continual effort to grow in that regard, and hope you do the same.
The balance between feasting and fasting has been broken for about a century or two in our culture. Soft times make soft men, as they say, and it is self-evident this is the direction we’ve gone. So, as a Catholic, I find it particularly interesting to note that recent Marian apparitions (Fatima, Akita) have focussed heavily on the need to fast and do penance.
We have rules and blessings, feasts and fasts, beauty... because we're weak, and in need of strength. Together.