My Tender Pioneer: On Work and Leisure

Life—is what we make of it—
Death—we do not know—
Christ's acquaintance with Him
Justify Him—though—

He—would trust no stranger—
Other—could betray—
Just His own endorsement—
That—sufficeth Me—

All the other Distance
He hath traversed first—
No New Mile remaineth—
Far as Paradise—

His sure foot preceding—
Tender Pioneer—
Base must be the Coward
Dare not venture—now— 

Emily Dickinson

What is life, but to be near you?

 Do you think Jesus ever sought entertainment for himself when he was bored? Was he ever bored?

 I am a base coward.

Thoughts. I'm sure I have them. This week I've been wallowing in worldliness. Instead of attending to pain and emptiness, letting those things bring me to a better place, closer to the heart of God, I watched a couple seasons of The Office. Yes, that's what I did. During college, when every Christian I knew was watching the Office, I saw only two episodes of that show. Once, the British version during my study abroad in Oxford, and the second time, the American version, the following summer. When things are cool I do not care for them. That being said, why is it that the sight of the first 4 seasons of the Office sitting on my roommate's bookcase became the opiate for the masses of my weariness? When I don't even like television? In college, there were some memorable discussions about the nature of rest, work, and leisure. It makes sense now, these talks we had. I'm harkening back to one class session on the Autobiography of Frederick Douglass and one class lecture on Josef Pieper's Leisure, The Basis Of Culture, specifically. I have not yet read Pieper's work, though I ought to.

The general idea is this. Work and leisure are both times of productive, abundant activity. Leisure is a time for creativity and culture. According to both Douglass and Pieper, at no time should one's soul be deadened or one's intellect dulled. Life--rushing, brilliant life--should happen all the time. Leisure is not idleness: no more is it debauchery, no more is it dissipation. Leisure is contemplative, creative work.

Douglass' narrative describes the slaves' holidays: the slave masters offered up their slaves to drunken tomfoolery, knowing that just as backbreaking labor could not be sustained indefinitely, neither could Bacchic celebration. These kinds of tactics made the slaves happy to go back to their slavery, deceived into believing that leisure, or freedom, was not a good to be desired.

We talked in class about how Western culture follows this exact principle. Work too hard in your 9-5, give up all of yourself--too much of yourself--to your career, but then, the weekend comes. On the weekend, or even the day's end, pushed past healthy limits of productiveness, you seek drunkenness, sex, noise: any manner of over-the-top "leisure" to bring you back to balance. "Leisure" exists to make you forget that the rest of the week you have lived as a slave.

This, sometimes, is how I live. I don't really drink and I don't sleep around--I truly hate noise--but this is America: there are lots of opportunities for dissipation. This week, I chose to bludgeon my senses with the Office and too much Panang curry, instead of drowning my heart and soaking my spirit in a couple yellow mango margaritas and a one-night stand.

I need to live differently. Please understand, I love my job. I love my job as much as I could love a "for the time being until I figure out where I'm going to go to grad school and how to make a living not being a computer programmer/engineer/doctor/lawyer/physicist". It could just be that I'm too tired for the work that I do, that I'm not really up to it, or that this week was especially difficult. Or, it could be that I approach my job with the wrong attitude, that while I enjoy it, what I'm really waiting for is the weekend, or the end of the day, so I can "really" live. The problem with this is that when I get home I'm too spent (this is exactly the right word) to live according to my creative, child-of-God nature. I ought to be writing. I ought to be preparing papers to present at conferences, I ought to have friends over to cook or bake, and I ought to be baking and cooking whether or not anyone else is here. I ought to be reading poetry, trudging through French short stories, and cultivating my awareness of God's presence and favor. I ought to be building community with my roommate. I ought to be working on low-stress craft projects.

But this isn't what happens, or it is not what happened this week, when I come home.

When I come home I need to throw off the world, peel it off like a soiled skin, throw it outside to be burned, locking the door tight. I need to let my soul expand, and then feed it nourishing food. Steve Carrell cannot do this for me. Only Jesus can. There is something about satire, about watching other people live and work and worry, that is comforting (in a bad way) to my soul on a weekday evening. But what if I had instead written more on this blog? What would I have discovered? What if, in a week spent reading Lauren Winner's latest book about embracing life in the middle, I had actually been brave enough to live in the middle of my own twenty-something angst?

Sometimes I worry about the things I miss.

 I did read my Bible everyday. That's something. And I liked it. That's something else.

I want to be like St. Therese of Lisieux. I want to like only what God likes.

I need to do work-work and leisure-work more joyfully.

For next time. . .on bearing fruit and needing to be buried in the earth before you do.

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things (turn my heart from wanting to watch the Office) and give me life in your ways.

Give me literature or give me death!

Today is one of those days (this week is one of those weeks) and this year is one of those years, when I wish I was in grad school. Sigh.

TULIP: Total Depravity

These days, I'm not much of a Calvinist. I can see the doctrine of predestination in the Bible, so I believe in it. But there are other aspects of Calvinism that do not stand out as clearly to me. One of them is the doctrine of total depravity. I've been thinking about it for years. I can't believe that human beings are worthless. But, please hear me, I do believe--yes and amen--that human beings are all sinful and deserving of the wrath of God. I do not believe that people deserve the grace of Christ. That being said, I want to talk about redemption.

For God to redeem something, for God to restore humanity, it seems to me that something in humanity needed to be reclaimed and salvaged. If fallen mankind is completely and totally wicked/vile/worthless, then what is God saving? It seems he's starting all over again, which isn't exactly what he does. He redeems people who already exist, he didn't destroy the human race and start all over. Also, or more importantly, if human beings are created in God's image, then the essentially good image of God rests in them, is part of them somehow.

All being is derived from God, because God is the only being who truly exists completely of himself, by himself, and in himself. That being said, human beings are borrowers of existence. Existence, being an attribute of God, is good in itself. God is the manifold of all perfections. He is perfect holiness, perfect love, perfect power, perfect existence. God is also perfectly good. Everything about him is good. His love is good, his holiness is good, his power is good, his existence is good. God created the world, and the people in it, and called it good. To be a created thing, to be a creature, is to have been made good by a perfectly good being. Wickedness, sin, evil, is a corruption of the good. Someone being sinful perhaps doesn't mean that they are totally depraved without one spark of good in them at all. Why? Because they exist still, and in existence is goodness. Where is the good in humanity? Well, there isn't much, but there is some, and it is all derived. It comes from being created, from being given existence, from being created to reflect the divine likeness. If humans are, by definition, created in God's image, then to lose that image is to lose one's very existence. Thus, when man fell, he didn't lose God's image, he tarnished it. Dragged it through the dirt, dishonored it. So why do I believe there is goodness in man? Because to be human is to borrow God's very image. And God's image is good.


Here is an image that may help explain my ideas. It's from St. Athanasius' On the Incarnation.

Athanasius says:

You know what happens when a portrait that has been painted on a panel becomes obliterated through external stains. The artist does not throw away the panel, but the subject of the portrait has to come and sit for it again, and then the likeness is re-drawn on the same material. Even so was it with the All-holy Son of God. He, the Image of the Father, came and dwelt in our midst, in order that He might renew mankind made after Himself, and seek out His lost sheep, even as He says in the Gospel: "I came to seek and to save that which was lost. This also explains His saying to the Jews: "Except a man be born anew . . ." He was not referring to a man's natural birth from his mother, as they thought, but to the re-birth and re-creation of the soul in the Image of God.

Think about that for a while.

Here is something I wrote out 3 years ago, while studying fairy tale literature in Oxford:

MY CURRENT THOUGHTS ON THE DOCTRINE OF TOTAL DEPRAVITY, courtesy of George MacDonald
DOES GOD REDEEM men of a certain mettle? Something in them is worthy already (I think this works for The Lost Princess too). How could someone redeem a slag heap, if there were no diamonds buried in it? To make a slag heap beautiful is to recreate it utterly. To find and brighten the gold specks in a slag heap is to redeem what is worthy and destroy what is unbeautiful. But this thought must make men proud. Calvinism is good at making men humble, because otherwise the slag heap can say, "How fine my gold must really be, for God to dig for me!" Forgetting immediately how a clean, holy, and beautiful God must put his pure fingers into putrid dung to find us. Instead, the slagheap must feel the weight of the awesome love of God, who counts us valuable enough to be worth getting his hands dirty and his heart--and body--broken. The response can only ever be gratitude, humble wonder, and praise. It is this counting us worth the trouble, that renders us with any value at all. We have worth because God says so, and because the light shining in us is one of His borrowed rays.

Perhaps this pokes holes in my own argument, but. . .

*logical conclusion: the devil and demons must have good in them somewhere, since they are created beings.
***BUT: the devil and fallen angels are not create in God's image, perhaps this makes a difference? Also, I'm not a dualist. So, the devil can't be "perfectly" evil, or he would be an opposing equal power to God, which isn't the case. God is the sole divine power and creator, who is blessed forever, amen.

*I think a lot of this might hinge on the idea that evil has no existence, that evil is, instead, a loss of existence.

What do you think?

LENT: I CHOOSE ALL!

Currently Reading:
Shirt of Flame: A year with St. Therese of Lisieux

Currently Mulling over:
T.S. Eliot, the Four Quartets

“The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.”

Currently Lectio-ing:
Psalm 119
Philippians

LENT.
It’s over now, and, as usual, I’m feeling dissatisfied with, as my friend Sara says, my ability to “inhabit the Lenten drama”. I’m not sure what the standard should be. I began Lent concerned with mindfulness, which then led to a desire for thankfulness, which has ended up with a deep desire for belonging and the ability to welcome suffering. I do feel that Lent has made me more mindful: more aware of God and the world, more present to the Great Realities of life. It’s also made me a better reader of the Bible, which was one of my most important Lenten goals. It’s also made me more aware of superficiality in my life. A friend told me last summer that she thought I wasn’t living the life I was meant to live. I see that clearly, after Lent.
In my head, I believe that it is possible to do Lent perfectly. What does that mean? I don’t know If Lent is a skill one develops, I don’t know if that should be my concern. I gave up reading and watching, because I wanted to embrace emptiness and be more aware of God than the world of invention.
It’s very hard to sit with emptiness, and there were many times when I distracted myself with things I had not declared anathema during this forty day fast. Lent was a struggle because I’m brawling with Calvinist doctrine: very few of the TULIP’s petals smell sweet to me these days. My church is studying 1 John, so I’m struggling with assurance, too. Do I feel certain right now that I’m saved? I don’t. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, they’ve told me. Well, I believe. The issue is a lack of fruit, fruit borne as proof of this salvation. . . . I haven’t written in so long it’s hard to retrieve the right words. . . . After Lent—a time when I should have embraced struggle—I’m struggling with one thing. I’m deathly afraid of suffering.

Embracing Jesus means embracing all he offers—every blessing—and suffering is a blessing, and don’t I know that already?

When I’m not fearfully running from suffering, I like to tentatively pat it on the head with one hand, an acknowledgement of its presence and worth, but not quite a hospitable embrace. I just can’t wrap my arms around it; it might bite my face off. Or, rather, it will bite my face off. How do you welcome pain?
I like to read Saints’ lives because they challenge my understanding of knowing God. For example, St. Therese of Lisieux is all about embracing suffering.

What true saint is not about embracing suffering?

I’m struck with St. Therese’s famous saying: “I choose all!”. Well, I like to choose all the parts of knowing God in Christ that are comfortable and obviously good, and leave all the suffering for more zealous Christians. But, I must be a zealous Christian; that’s the only option available. We only live, only suspire/consumed by either fire or fire.

From St. Therese’s, The Story of a Soul:

Later, when perfection made its appearance to me, I understood that in order to become a saint you have to suffer a lot, always be in search of what is most perfect, and forget yourself.

I don’t want to be a halfway saint. It doesn’t scare me to suffer for You; I’m afraid of only one thing, and that is to hold onto my will. Take it, because ‘I choose all,’ all that You want!

Divert my eyes from toys and trinkets; invigorate me on this pilgrim way.

Lent: Bad at it

To know you only
my soul disappears.
I tire of glimpsing you
in dusty mirrors.
The beauty in the world I know
is only ugliness to me
if you I cannot see.
pregnant with your love,
I climb.
But on this narrow stair,
I recall how fair,
the vanities of this world are.
And I find the path too steep,
the pain too deep—
to keep on looking for you.
I tear my hands—clutching
at blossoms—truly,
only—thorns in my side.
My pride
woos me to stay,
while fears
—heavy iron spurs—
slacken my steps,
protecting me from truth,
making my cup—a pulsing star—
overflowing with your joys,
bitter and black,
—gall and tar.
Drop!
Drop!
Your blood in my cup.
Shine
Shine
(your light in my eyes).
The water of life rushing
in my ears
the currents rise,
and carry me along,
so strong your rivers are.
Your song now
palatable—I float
my ascent, swallowing
mouthfuls of your words.
As the earth revolves
so I spin, turned by you
the One who moves.
Sugar and sadness in
my hymn, I begin to tune
my lips to your unchanging
symphony.
Clutching to the drifting sun,
I wash up on your
golden shore—
and I can't remember anymore
anything brighter than your face.

I'm feeling very happy about this

If you can't tell from the photograph, one of those people is wearing a very fancy ring. But I won't tell you which one. HOORAY!

Lent: Oh! The Sweetness of Reality!

I am moved to blog about Lent. Though I didn't attend an official Ash Wednesday service, I had my own little inaugural ceremony a few nights ago. I'm trying to spend Lent understanding its purpose, and what it means to be in the desert. But, today, I realized that I've recently left my own wilderness. The last seven months were spent wandering through my own wasteland.

Now, with a new apartment, a new job, and a life that matches my own wishes with startling exactness, I find the terrain wooded and green. This has forced me to rethink my Lenten practices. I've decided to keep the fast by giving up things that distract or deaden; I'm taking a break from movies, TV (no Downton Abbey), and fictional narrative. I've given up these things because sometimes I use them as an opiate; I use them when I want to be removed from the Real, and in those moments I lose awareness. I'm resisting the urge to curl up with a good book and shut out the obvious.

I'm trying to learn to focus and to notice: primarily with poetry and the Bible. Poetry is important to this process because I can't read it in a hurry, and though I do get lost in a poem, it's not an inattentive absence.

This week, I've been reading Mary Oliver's The Leaf and the Cloud. I'm going to read it over and over again, though it's a 55 page poem, until I absorb it wholly. It's a helpful piece, so far, because in it Oliver roves through the glories of existence.

This Lent I'm working on two things: 1) Thankfulness, and 2) An awareness of the Real. Sometimes I forget how beautiful the world is. The Leaf and the Cloud has been helpful because it reminds me that there are things like swans, grass, and foxes. Oliver reminds me that there are, even on this broken planet, wonders like the "first egg with a tapping from inside."

A Lenten devotional I recently read said that after desert wandering comes thanksgiving. Therefore, one should either be holding on to God in the desert, or bursting with praise for being brought safely to the oasis on the other side. It's time for me to say thank you.

When I think of reality, I think of sad, prosaic things. No one ever says, "you need to face reality, come and look at this sweet little bird chirping on this branch." We use the word reality to represent the harshness of life. All is bitter, acerbic, acidity. But do you know what? Today I waited for the bus underneath a beautiful tree. It had a smooth trunk, curvy branches, and bunches of pink blossoms. Huge, black bumblebees were drinking its nectar, and the sky above it was so blue. That's reality.

Most importantly, if God is the Fount of Existence, and he is, then I need to be most aware of him. Most of my consciousness is spent on things that are not real, things that do not matter, things that don't push me to abide in God. Work, and public transportation, and grocery shopping, and checking my email, and filing my taxes, and getting up early every morning, and taking out the trash is not real. Clothes shopping, and grading papers and, balancing my checkbook, and reading Charles Dickens is not real. God is real. I don't think it's wrong to escape into film or literature, but the Beautiful is always in the room. What if, sometimes, I was more hospitable?

“Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.”

This is where I am, I choose Lent because I want to see ministering angels and birds newly hatched. I want to be familiar with the vigorous habits of bumblebees. I want to see it all and say thank you.

THANKS
W.S. Merwin
Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow for the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions.

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
looking up from tables we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and give me life in your ways.