Work, writing, and dodging rotten fish

 Tell me what made you think I’d want to read about what you did yesterday? Your books didn’t arrive on the UPS truck when they were supposed to and now all your orders are late? You need new socks because all your old ones have holes? Waaa. Hearing about whatever it is you are up to is a waste of my time. Throw rotten fish.

There is a person in my life who sits on my shoulder, watching, someone who lifts an eyebrow and a corner of the lip while reading my sentences. I sense a cynical vibe asking, why aren’t you doing something more meaningful? Feeding the hungry? Something valuable. Perhaps you should clean your closet or something. But stop this bushwa.

We (Denis & I) often talk about how every square inch of life and reality belongs to the Lord Christ. That includes calling and vocation. Part of my calling right now is writing. Working on another manuscript. Posting to my blog. Writing my quarterly publication “Letters from the House Between.” Answering mail. Even after all these years of understanding the importance of being faithful in what you’ve been called to do today and not imagining some big sensational save or Pulitzer Prize for your astonishing work, I can have doubts about what I do.

This isn’t strictly a “Christian” problem; people who don’t necessarily practice a faith also suffer from the guilt of living in a world with so much misery and sorrow and trying to reckon the worth of what they do. Recently I watched a 60 Minutes program about Syrian refugees that was so heartbreaking I sat on the couch and bawled. How could I be living in safety with a bowl of popcorn and a can of Coke while thousands were escaping up a hill into a Jordanian refugee camp  - their wounded bodies and hearts repositories of violence – their faces pinched with starvation and fear – How could I go about being a barista or a software developer or a writer? Especially a writer? (Opportunities to help do abound. And we can find them. That is a good topic for another time.) But, I’ve needed to reaffirm that it isn’t just okay, it is good to write.

Molly Wizenberg concludes her book Delancy: A Man, A Woman, ARestaurant, A Marriage by trying to work out their dilemma regarding the significance of opening a restaurant and her choice to write.

“…when I decided to quit graduate school, I was newly broken up with a boyfriend. He was a very kind, serious, thoughtful guy, someone who tutors kids with severe learning disabilities in his free time. I remember feeling so frivolous in comparison, so guilty, as I thought about giving up academia to try being a food writer. Food writing wasn’t important. It wouldn’t save a life. I did it anyway, because I wanted to, but I certainly couldn’t justify it on the grounds of world peace. That justification doesn’t work for opening a restaurant either. But there is something about Delancey that, to me, matters just as much: We get to make people happy. We get to give people a good night. We get to spend our days doing work that we can be proud of, and when we’re done, there’s all the pizza you can eat.”  P 225.

What I do everyday does matter. It may not be worthy of a Ten Best Books list, but I know this is what God has for me to do right now. If I listened too much to my doubts or to that person who sits on my shoulder sifting my words, paralysis would set in. Wizenberg may not be able to say “God has made me for this purpose” and understand that because they are making the best pizzas they can and she is being a good food writer honors God, but I can say it. He has created humans to live and work before him and it pleases him to bless us however big or small, significant or insignificant our work.  

Our Weakest Moments

 It has been weeks now since we have seen the sun. Among other things I have blamed the weather on my attitude. Which is one of scratchiness and resentment. My community (Denis and Anita) have been tiptoeing around me. I am at least slightly, if not clinically, depressed and a little confused. Constantly questioning what should I be doing? What have I done besides beat the pants off ten strangers who think I’m a guy in games of “Hangman” on my iPhone? (Someone should block me.) And seeming to end days having done nothing. That isn’t really the case when I give an actual account.

This morning I left the house intending to go to Dunn Bros Coffee to work, drove there, changed my mind, came back home, parked the car in the garage, left my computer bag on the trunk of the car because I didn’t want to carry it into the house or take it a block up to Caribou where I bought an Americano and returned home. Get it? For all of about six minutes, I risked leaving it right there in broad daylight. When I walked up the drive, OF COURSE, it was gone. I was almost 95% certain it was Denis who found it and took it in. (WHY is it that whenever you choose to do a foolish little thing like back out of the garage – even though you’ve done this easily one billion times- the day your husband stands watching, you smash the side-view mirror against the garage door???)

In my office, I sat down to collect myself and read the next chapter in the book O Love That Will Not Let Me Go: Facing Death with Courageous Confidence in God.  You are laughing. Don’t. I have a friend who is dying of stage four prostate cancer and also my mother is 83 years old – though in good health right now. I want to learn some things.

Chapter 10. “A Witness in the Way We Die” by John Eaves.  (Each of the 22 chapters are essays written by a different person.) John Eaves died in 2004 of metastatic colon cancer. This is from the last sermon he preached. It begins:

Life is not about us. Life is about Jesus and our witness for him in this world. It has taken me a lifetime to embrace this fundamental truth in all of its implications. It has also taken the same amount of time to recognize that our witness for Jesus is frequently manifested in our absolute weakest moments rather than when we are at full strength..”

It ends with:

In our weakest moments, God moves toward us and asks us to extend ourselves to others…

I was overwhelmed as I understood this is not just about end-of-life issues. There are universal implications that address ME where I am at today. So I am confessing. I don’t know how it can be that my weaknesses which are so petty and disgusting in the midst of things like dying of cancer or getting your legs blown off at the Boston Marathon can be of use to anyone?  But I’m here saying that, today, this is who I am. Selfish. One eye on the weather, the other on my coffee cup. I desire to be the person who sees and allows God to move in me and use me in the midst of my imperfections. I move toward you in this small way. I would be so very awe-struck and happy if this extends, somehow, to you who might read this.

Dylan on work and calling

     In the last issue of Rolling Stone there was a lengthy interview with Bob Dylan. In the midst of it,  I was fascinated to hear him talk about about work and calling. It seemed very insightful which really shouldn't be surprising.

Rolling Stone: So live performance is a purpose you find fulfilling?

Dylan: If you’re not fulfilled in other ways, performing can never make you happy. Performing is something you have to learn how to do it. You do it, you get better at it, you keep going. And if you don’t get better at it, you have to give it up. Is it a fulfilling way of life? What kind of way of life is fulfilling? No kind of life is fulfilling if your soul hasn’t been redeemed.

You’ve described what you do not as a career but as a calling.

Everybody has a calling, don’t they? Some have a high calling, some have a low calling. Everybody is called but few are chosen. There is a lot of distraction for people, so you might not never find the real you. A lot of people don’t.

How would you describe your calling?

Mine? Not any different than anybody else’s. Some people are called to be a good sailor. Some people have a calling to be a good tiller of the land. Some people are called to be a good friend. You have to be the best at whatever you’re called at. Whatever you do. You ought to be the best at it – highly skilled. It’s about confidence – not arrogance.

Rolling Stone,September 27, 2012, Interview with Bob Dylan by Mikal Gilmore.

Bob Dylan

     Way back when, when Denis and I began thinking about what in the world “Jesus is Lord over all of life” meant, we wondered how that could be as we cleaned dental offices for a few years while finishing up school. How could God be just as pleased with us doing that as when we were practicing a spiritual discipline like prayer or Bible reading. We had enormous barriers that kept us thinking that a call to “The Ministry” was a higher calling than the poor sot who goes to a JOB every day. It took time, reading, and lots of discussion to move us to a place in life where we could say, yes, this menial labor, this repetition of vacuuming and emptying, day after day, returning exam rooms and lobbies to clean orderliness – this is what God has called us to do for now. And it is good. As good as being a missionary to the homeless. We learned to honor God with our brooms and dust cloths, like Dylan does with words and guitar.

Vegetables every way, every week

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). This summer our friends, Hannah and Daniel from Easy Yoke Farm asked if we would be their drop-off place for their CSA city members. In exchange they offered us a free box. So every Wednesday afternoon Hannah and baby Paul arrive with 26 boxes of just-picked vegetables.

Stacking the boxes on our front porch.

Our first box of the season.

Hot delivery day. Hannah gives Paul a drink of cool water.

 CSA is one of the innovative ways local and small farms have begun thriving and surviving. A member buys in at the beginning of the season, paying all at once for what in faith will come. Here the season runs from mid-May through early November. This assures the customer of a weekly delivery of all the freshest vegetables and it supports the farm with a steady, predictable income. Easy Yoke grows vegetables only, but some farms include other things like eggs, grains, or meat. I love that this helps small family farms survive in an agricultural climate that is now geared mainly for mega-industry.

This week: sweet onion, carrots, zucchini, patty pan squash, beets, new potatoes, cabbage, dill.

I had no idea how much we would look forward to Wednesday afternoons. Our box is like opening a gift from someone who you know has your number. It’s like Christmas every week when I open the it to see what in it this time. Even though some folks are obviously weary from a long day, everyone arriving for pick-up looks happy to walk up to our front porch. I know that some weeks there may be more of one thing than we can use or put up, but there are always neighbors who welcome the extra head of lettuce or bundle of chard.

This morning when I stopped by the Farmer’s Market to get eggs from Heartbeat Farm,  (Hannah’s sister Becca and Joe’s farm. They have adjoining acres and share equipment and space.)  Joe tapped me on the shoulder and handed me this. A blushing yellow heirloom tomato as big as a bocce ball and just as heavy.

Hierloom tomato - Heartbeet Farm

Illuminating the unknown way

We have friends, David & Naomi Wenger, friends I’ve never met, who direct TheHermitage – a place of rural beauty in southern Michigan. A place of retreat, prayer, silence. In their recent letter Living the Hermitage Way, David wrote these words which I would like to heed and apply. Perhaps you would, too. And though it sounds simple , – “we don’t need to hold on to our work, we simply do it” – I must often, a hundred times a year, try to reestablish the rhythm of work and rest that God prescribes for my life, which, of course, is going to look different from yours.

A recent volunteer likened The Hermitage to a dairy farm. He said the rhythm here is as steady as a farmer’s milking schedule and the work is never done. He asked the question we hear repeatedly, “How do you do it all?” Of course, the answer is, “We don’t do it all.” But still, we do plenty. So when pressed further we go on to say, “We begin each day in the chapel with Morning Prayer, we stop our work and eat at regular intervals, we take a walk, we sit still, we finish our work at 5:30 and leave what is undone for another day. We take a weekly Sabbath, we

sometimes leave our work for others to tend and go on retreat and vacation.”

It often feels like an unsatisfactory answer. How can any of these practices contribute to getting things done?

The Hermitage Affirmation prayer liturgy refers to this rhythm of being as a “framework to live our discipleship.” The framework provides an order in which to move through our days; it is the liturgy of ora et labora, prayer and work. Whether our morning liturgy (meaning “work of the people”) is in a barn with cows or a chapel with candles and scripture, there is a comfort to rhythm that quells the troubling thought, that illuminates the unknown way, that quiets the excess of demands. The familiar framework holds us so we don’t need to hold on to our work. We simply do it.

Thank you, David and Naomi.

On Work

I just learned of On Work, a site begun by Nancy Nordenstrom, who writes:
"You’re invited to submit text or a photo, quote, link, or video on the topic of work to be posted on this site... My goal is to explore work, particularly the intersection of spirituality and work."

The topic touches my heart for a lot of reasons. Among them: watching, praying with and for people I know and love (not only them, but the many we see via the media, or whatever) and the difficulties of finding a meaningful calling - a way to support themselves and their families that uses their gifts and abilities. And if this doesn't happen? Or what if it does - wildly and beyond our dreams? Either way,  how to still faithfully love and serve God? How can we do this without the help and encouragement of one another? I think this site will give some inspiration.

Chewed by Squirrels

Last night we slept with the window open. The unconditioned air was soft and cool, pooling and rippling across the bed. This morning’s temp was 47 degrees. Pancakes and sweater weather.

 That makes up a little - us needing to come back from a week off. The Kaufman’s cabin, so picturesque and inviting was a restful gift to us and our family. Sometimes the lake water felt warmer than the air and you could float through surface layers that made you lazily dangle your feet until you hit gasping pockets of ice way below where fish monsters dwell. We never tire of watching loons dive and call, reading in the sun, playing Snorta with the children, eating grilled slabs of meat. Favorite comment: “Could this please not be a winning game?”  Paige, 5.

This week our wireless has constantly been dropping. We’re certain squirrels have chewed through the wires out there at the utility pole. They’ve done it before, but getting Charter to actually check it is like getting Heidi Klum to be nice. The tech comes out and we learn our modem is on the fritz after all. He also discovers the old cable coming up through the floor was stapled and dry-walled into the basement ceiling, circa 1989, is completely unreachable (and WHO did THAT?) and it’s so old it’s first generation cable wire and with the wireless we are paying for, it is like attaching a garden hose to a fire hydrant. He’s been here and gone, service is still rotten.

My computer is also unhappy, spiking a temperature, rising to 99 degrees C with only a few programs running. A thermal sensor gone bad, my Mac mentor thinks. I’ll need to take it to the Apple Store, and he coaches me on how to talk to the geniuses there. They’re not likely to listen to me. And WHY is THAT? So he says call him in Tallahassee and he will pick up even if he’s teaching class. That’s love, huh?

These don’t seem like trials, not compared to what could be happening or what is happening to so many elsewhere. I know that and I apologize. So leave it here: work is a challenge to everyone. And so are other things.

But I’m listening to Paul. He says: “We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope.” (I Thess. 1:3) I need all of this - the linking process laid out clearly. I want it sopped up, festooned on my dull heart and head - especially: Your endurance inspired by hope. Kiss my pathology good-bye. It is Christ I love and work for and hope in. Everything else gets chewed by the squirrels.

Bread for Work

Friday, May 21. We’re in St. Louis today. Denis has picked up his cap and gown. We’re making bread deliveries: Cranberry & Wild Rice. Seven Grain. Cheesy Chives & Potato. Fresh from a bakery in Rochester. There are people in the Admin department who make this place happen and they deserve a lot more than a loaf of bread as a thank you. Their patience, kindness and diligence has been part of what has made his seminary experience outstanding. What they do is a great work of being faithful in the ordinary and everyday. It was a pleasure to meet some of them and say thanks for all you do.

Denis has slowly been working on a seminary degree for the past number of years. Covenant has an excellent distance program so he could take courses at home in addition to getting down here for special weekend classes each year. Sometimes I came with him ostensibly to find space away from Toad Hall to find uninterrupted writing time. Not that it happened. I often ended up with friends. Or driving clear across town to that special coffee shop for what I can’t get in Rochester. Once we were snowed in at a hotel. Crazy. Really humbling because I’m such a braggart about how much snow we get in Minnesota.

Denis has been equally blessed by both his professors’ wisdom and their humility. Their mentoring and example has challenged him to think outside his normal interests. Christian/Muslim relations. Abuse. History of the church. He wouldn’t have traded all the travel, the mountains of books, the billion papers written late at night, or the sacrificed brain cells for anything in the world. Except for me. He’d trade for me. Tonight he graduates.  I’m proud of his accomplishments. We also have a lot of friends who’ve been awfully tolerant of us through this journey. We're really grateful.

In Denis’ words:

My studies have provided me with three rich graces. The chance to study under godly, wise scholars whose love of Christ and knowledge of Scripture is remarkable. The chance to reflect on what I believe in an organized way. And the chance to have my walk with God deepened as I have been challenged anew to see all of life and culture under Christ's Lordship.

Why I Avoid Work

I’ve been mute lately, maybe you noticed. In a slump, I guess. Being “out there” is not always where I want to be. And the hard thing about living with who we are and the doubt we can generate about our worthiness – I should probably change the pronouns to first person since I shouldn’t be speaking or writing for you – which also may be a cue or would that be clue? – that I shouldn’t say or write anything at all. This morning I got up and Denis asked right away, what’s wrong? And I was evasive, just saying, I had bad dreams. I’m moody. He managed to make me laugh right away, or a little laugh, anyway, by saying I wasn’t allowed to be moody, that was his department. And true, it usually is.

However. Taking a deep breath. Sighing and trying to come round again. Begun to read a little book by John Stott The Radical Disciple. It will be his last. In it he says farewell: “As I lay down my pen for the last time (literally since I confess I am not computerized) at the age of eighty-eight, I venture to send this valedictory message to my readers.” As he says, he is “reflecting on death and seeking to prepare for it” and thus leaving us behind, he distills with piercing clarity what we need to know to remain faithful disciples.

John Stott has meant much to me over the years, his whole-hearted following of Jesus. The profoundness of his writing – so elegant and yet simple enough for me to gain not only the ideas, but the love and devotion behind them. At my own crossroads with dark questions, he’s met me through his words and pointed me on, on to following Christ. He’s been one of my dear teachers. I don’t want to see him stop writing. I don’t want him to go. And yet, stupidly saying the obvious, he must. We all must.

Anyway, bits and pieces of this final book will stick to me, I hope, here is one that in the moment helps re-orient my thinking, my heart, and points me onward, specifically addressing the fact that I sometimes don’t want to do the work I’m called to do. I want to glide. I don’t want to be bothered. I want to complain and be miserable.

So he gently chides: “Our common way of avoiding radical discipleship is to be selective: choosing those areas in which commitment suits us and staying away from those areas in which it will be costly. But, because Jesus is Lord, we have no right to pick and choose the areas in which we will submit to his authority.”

And so…. Soon I will tell you about the angora bunny our housemate brought home, and will try to get that video posted of me making cast iron bread and answer some mail, and make a pot of chile for a friend who just had a baby… my work for the kingdom.

2009 Gift List from Toad Hall

This just went up today. It's a tough job picking the books (mostly) that meant most to me in 2009. Lots of good ones left out. I AGONIZE over choice. Denis always tells me to keep a list and work on them throughout the year. Much easier, he says. But I say, why do that when you can leave it until mid-November and then stagger to the office with a mile high stack, and be frantic about scanning covers and writing succinct helpful summaries that aren't pathetic repros of jacket blurbs and give yourself migraines?? No question there.

http://www.ransomfellowship.org/

Comment Interview

Comment Magazine published an interview with me this week. I fussed and fumed over it. I read interviews they’d previously published with people, like John Seel, who, I said to Denis, probably knocked this off in ten seconds. And Denis said, so? (I would like to thank John for a phrase I pinched from him, but since he has so many, he probably won’t miss it.)
Comment is an on-line publication influencing people to a “Christian view of work and public life. Exploring and upholding the dignity of work, the meaning of economics, and the structures of civil society, in the context of underlying patterns created by God.” Each issue features an interview with a person who reflects on their life’s work and calling. It was an honor to be a part of this endeavor.