"By surviving passages of doubt and depression on the vocational journey, I have become clear about at least one thing: self-care is never a selfish act - it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others."
- Parker J. Palmer 'Let Your Life Speak'
When I read these words, they didn't lift me from the despondence I have been feeling in my search for calling. His phrase "good stewardship" took my mind to the parable of talents where the servant who keeps his talent buried, unused, and away from the world is rebuked and thrown out. After a second reading of the story I realized it wasn't the undiscovered dormancy of his one talent that was the sin meriting the master's displeasure - it was his fear and unbelief which tied him down. "And I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the ground..." This seems to say that it wasn't his failure to immediately find the perfect place to invest his talent, it was that he was not actively seeking one. I am afraid, too.
But there is time.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
When demons are right...
C.S. Lewis writes of a demon mentor named Screwtape who advises his protege to remember and take advantage of the weak human nature in the face of minor annoyances. We can be easily swayed from seeing the body of Christ by focusing on inconveniences in ‘the stream of real life.’ When the people sitting next to us at church have double chins, or odd clothes, or sing out of tune, we don’t look at them as fellow saints that each have a different story of redemption, we only see a group of people that grate on our nerves by their mere proximity. Over the last few weeks, I have inwardly resented one of my classmates in a music class for the way that he dominated the discussion with off-topic tangents accompanied by awkward commentary. If I’m truly honest, I might not have been as quick to judge if he hadn’t been wearing socks with his Tevas, and a tee shirt tucked into jeans that were slightly too short. Yesterday one of my girlfriends mentioned his name in passing, and I was about to unload some of my comic negative complaints about his personality when she said, “You know, he has come such a long way. It’s really amazing how he has overcome the challenges of Asperger’s Syndrome in social situations and in the classroom.” A ball of guilt and remorse formed in my stomach. I had judged him for something that he not only couldn’t help, but also had worked hard to overcome. Screwtape would have been proud. Instead of extending the hand of friendship, and asking about his story, I was distracted by his clothing and turned away from his uncomfortable conversation. May God give me the grace to avoid this smug condescension that changes my faith into hypocrisy.
Holocaust Remembrance Day
Today is a day to remember. This is a poem in memoriam by Czeslaw Milosz, born in 1911 in Lithuania and a survivor of WWII in Warsaw.
Album of Dreams
June 17
And that snow will remain forever,
unredeemed, not spoken of to anyone.
On it their track freezes at sunset
in an hour, in a year, in a district, in a country.
And that face will remain forever
beaten for ages by drops of rain.
One drop is running from eyelid to lip
on an empty square, in an unnamed city.
August 14
They ordered us to pack our things, as the house was to be burned.
There was time to write a letter, but that letter was with me.
We laid down our bundles and sat against the wall.
They looked when we placed a violin on the bundles.
My little sons did not cry. Gravity and curiosity.
One of the soldiers brought a can of gasoline. Others were tearing
down curtains.
November 23
A long train is standing in the station and the platform is empty.
Winter, night, the sky is flooded with red.
Only a woman's weeping is heard. She is pleading for something
from an officer in a stone coat.
Album of Dreams
June 17
And that snow will remain forever,
unredeemed, not spoken of to anyone.
On it their track freezes at sunset
in an hour, in a year, in a district, in a country.
And that face will remain forever
beaten for ages by drops of rain.
One drop is running from eyelid to lip
on an empty square, in an unnamed city.
August 14
They ordered us to pack our things, as the house was to be burned.
There was time to write a letter, but that letter was with me.
We laid down our bundles and sat against the wall.
They looked when we placed a violin on the bundles.
My little sons did not cry. Gravity and curiosity.
One of the soldiers brought a can of gasoline. Others were tearing
down curtains.
November 23
A long train is standing in the station and the platform is empty.
Winter, night, the sky is flooded with red.
Only a woman's weeping is heard. She is pleading for something
from an officer in a stone coat.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Goodbye, Leah Davis!
Traveler, pay attention
to the hardships of the road,
to mysteries on the walls.
I know this at great cost,
that all life is not outward
nor all death within,
and that the age writes letters
with water and stone for no one,
so that no one knows,
so that no one understands anything.
-Pable Neruda
to the hardships of the road,
to mysteries on the walls.
I know this at great cost,
that all life is not outward
nor all death within,
and that the age writes letters
with water and stone for no one,
so that no one knows,
so that no one understands anything.
-Pable Neruda
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