So after a pretty busy last few weeks I decided it was high time that I sat down and blogged again! It’s hard to find the time lately, but I definitely wanted to get another one in before the end of the month.
A few weeks ago, actually just before my birthday, I was asked by my supervisors at the tree nursery if I would be interested in taking on a new job working with growing and irrigation. I am now part of the team who is responsible for watering the crop, tracking growth and much more. It was really neat to be asked, and though I hadn’t thought of it at the time, it really is a promotion. It is a lot of responsibility, but it is also very interesting. (Plus, it’s fun when part of your work requires you to sit down in the soon-to-be air conditioning and plug in numbers on the computer instead of traipsing about the place!) The position came up when my previous co-worker, Sharon, decided to move onto other things. I was able to have two weeks with Sharon where she passed on much wisdom and knowledge: everything from nitrogen levels in black spruce to where to find her secret stash of irrigation tools. And though it was sad to see her go, it was neat to know that she believed that I could carry on with the task at hand.
We finally finished sowing at the nursery. All the greenhouses are now full. Hard to believe not long ago I was sweeping away with Thrice in one ear.
Last week was Easter of course, and we had a great weekend with family down to visit—Sarah’s from Winnipeg and Auntie Laurel and Uncle Don from Thunder Bay! We had a great time and Uncle Don brought his new album, Shine, down with him. I want to blog about it once I’ve had a better chance to listen to it, but I can already tell you we love it—especially since he’s included the song he wrote for us and sang at our wedding: “The Story Starts”.
Until then, I’m going to put my feet up and relax! See you soon.
Life is about who we are, not just about what we do. And who we are, though heavily made up of what we do, is also more than just the sum total of what we manage to accomplish with ourselves.
What I do speaks to who I am. My job fulfills an aspect of who I am: it fulfills a healthy desire and need to work. Work for my food, work for the sustenance and provision of my family. That is what I am given for my work: monetary allotment which is intended to relate to the value, quality and difficulty of the work.
And yet work is much more than that. There is something good in and of work itself. It has intrinsic value, whatever the vocation or location, regardless of pay or not. We are designed to work. We find this in the Genesis accounts where God gives Adam and Eve the task of tending to Eden, to naming the animals, for exercising healthy dominion over the land and its creatures. There is good work set before us. It fulfills us in some fashion. It should.
Yet we so often sever work as not speaking to our being. We lop off the what we do from the who we are—or we dangerously enmesh the two: we are only what we do or accomplish. The first disintegrates our lives, fragmenting our experience into compartments. The second sees no distinction at all: it is these people who, should they lose their jobs entirely border on suicidal tendencies. “There’s nothing left to live for. That job was all I had. It was who I was.” Both extremes, I think, can be dangerous.
Instead of thinking of who we are and what we do, the being and the doing, as distinct parts of ourselves we need to see them as part of the process of understanding who we are as whole people. I act out of who I am, and what I do also shapes who I will become. An illustration that might help us here is that of an upward moving spiral. Are being impacts our doing, and our doing speaks to our being, yet there is also progression: we are moving forward, growing older, changing, learning.
In our Spiritual Theology class at College, Lauren introduced us to Parker Palmer and the idea that “we live our way into a new way of thinking, we don’t think our way into a new way of living.”
Living is both: it’s the doing and the being. It’s finding that they are not distinct aspects of myself, but part of a whole. Biblically we find that the doing and being are wound together in one another. This where we often have trouble with the Book of James: we see so much of it as doing, seemingly apart from the being: from the work of Christ in our lives who has saved us. But James is not advocating for salvation by works: his point is that because of the work done in our hearts, because of how we’ve been changed—live it! If you’re not living it then you haven’t seemingly changed. It should make a difference.
Jesus transforms lives. He transforms the living: both the being and the doing. Who we are and what we are about. He reminds me that I am more than one or the other, and more than both. In light of Him, who I am and what I do with myself take on fresh meanings. And that, I think, is where joy lies.
Oh man, my wife is an avid reader! Nicole lent her eight books last weekend and she’s already read three! What I love about how she reads is that she doesn’t just devour books, she really enjoys them. She’ll often curl up on the couch with a blanket and disappear. I wish I had the same appetite as she does, but I’ve found lately that the book really needs to grip me if I’m going to invest my time in it. Hopefully it’s just a phase—there are so many books out there now, and I want to read all the best ones!
I’ll have to read four C.S. Lewis books for my Regent class this summer, too, so hopefully that’ll be good incentive to get back into more fiction.
Giving drum lessons every week has encouraged me to spend more time drumming myself. I find that I can easily become stuck in a rut, so I like to find sources of inspiration to make me try something new or show me something I’ve never thought of on my own.
I really enjoy watching Mike Johnston’s drumming lessons on youtube. Not only is he hilarious, but he’s a really good educator. I learned this beat last night while Sarah was on the phone with her parents:
This week has seen another adjustment in my work schedule. Our sowing days now start at 7:30. I’ve been disciplining myself to get up for 6:15 or so, that way I’m not rushed to get ready and Sarah and I can spend some time together before I head off to the nursery. We’ve returned to a morning tradition we started while living in Eston together which is doing morning devotions together. It’s so good to have that at the start of the day. We’ve been working through the Morning Prayer in the Celtic Daily Prayer book of the Northumbrian monastic community. You can actually read through the same daily morning, midday and evening prayers on the Northumbria community’s website. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in cultivating a daily routine in prayer.
It looks as though I am finally getting over this dry cough. Looking forward to good night’s sleep. I’ll leave you with a sample from today’s meditation. I’m off to bed! Good night!
As the rain hides the stars, as the autumn mist hides the hills, happenings of my lot hide the shining of Thy face from me. Yet, if I may hold Thy hand in the darkness, it is enough; since I know that, though I may stumble in my going, Thou dost not fall. Alistair Maclean
Sarah enjoys going out. Not anything extravagant--simple things like visiting friends or going to get ice cream or trying some new social activity. While I'm perfectly comfortable to stay home, doing the same things I usually do nearly every night, she'll be the one to suggest some new outing or adventure. At first I resist, then, often after being reminded that last time I felt the same way but in the end really enjoyed myself, we'll decide to go. And it is good. In fact so often it's exactly what I need right then. Whether it's visiting with friends when I'd rather sit at home alone, or simply getting out of the house in order to spend some time just the two of us doing something different I come home feeling better, even rejuvenated. In hindsight I find myself blessed by those moments: opportunities that need to be intentionally taken and lived in to be enjoyed.
The tree nursery often lays off their crew for a month or so in early October, and again just before Christmas until the "big sow" starts up in February. When I mention to people that I've been off work they'll often say how they wish they had that same free time to "get things done."
I felt that way too. At first.
I enjoyed sleeping in, showering late, cooking for my wife, reading and watching movies, getting the groceries, practicing drum patterns, all of that. Yet now that I look back on the time it's easy to see how I could have made more out of it. Don't get me wrong: I did a lot! I finished editing my undergrad thesis--something I'd been meaning to do for months! But do I feel rested now that I'm at the other end of the time? In some ways, yes. In others, not really.
Simply having 'no-work' space doesn't automatically make it a space of rest. We have to choose to holiday. So often that time of vacation isn't so much about doing nothing as it is about taking the time to rejuvenate. Rejuvenation comes not from the absence of activity, but from choosing to engage in activities that will restore us.
What are those restorative activities and how can we carve out time to make them a regular part of our lives?
o o o
Thinking about that question triggered another thought. How can we keep ourselves from thinking only about our rejuvenation? I mean, we need to take care of ourselves and make healthy choices. But we also need to help each other. I was reminded of this in a video clip of Rod Wilson, president of Regent College and professor of psychology and counselling. He's discussing how we tend to gravitate toward one of those two extremes--thinking only of self and only of others--and how we need a healthy balance.
Given the danger of those two sides: the danger of falling off the side of self-preoccupied, and the danger of falling off the other side--of not even engaging oneself at all--how then spiritually do I function? Now this is where humility comes in. . . . Humility is not just about Rod's view of Rod, but about Rod's view of Ross and how I conceptualize serving Ross in what I'm doing. . . Humility is not about my view of myself, it's a way of understanding myself with reference to service.
It's not about me.
So how can we, first, understand this need we have to rejuvenate and take the time to do so regularly for our own health and development; and secondly, how can we seek to foster restorative moments for those around us?
Dare to rejuvenate. Find that space in your day where you could be doing something that will bring you rest. Go for a walk, phone an old friend, paint, sing, write, make something, do that thing which you know can restore you--that which makes life's troubles grows smaller (not forgotten, but put in perspective). Then, having done that, turn around and help someone else to do the same. We're all in this together!
