Thursday, June 21, 2012

Mendocino, June 2012




I studied languages in school, twenty years ago. They were never meant as objects, or ends, but rather as tools for delving deeper into truth. Like buying a shovel or pick axe, they were supposed to help dig deep for some treasure that God had buried, and if I had the tools, I could find what other people couldn't. Knowing Greek, Hebrew, and cutting-edge theology were the tools that would allow my mind to probe the Scriptures and give me an angle of understanding that might get me on a good path. Formal education, for me, was the way to spiritual and lifestyle security. If I dug deep enough, I'd find something of worth, and surely God or a wealthy investor would wrap his arms of benevolence around me and pay me to keep uncovering the hidden gems. 

Education is overrated, at least the liberal arts kind. 

Twenty years later, my hands are wrinkled from making manual labor a business. I'm not as interesting as I thought, and I'm one of the last to know. I've used those theology tools some, dug holes along the way, discovered some blessings, but mostly it's been about making ends meet week to week. I run a small painting operation. I've ventured out on side paths, hoping they would be the bridge from this temporary setback to the right career, or calling, or purpose, or whatever the latest reframe the experts are using to name the thing you're doing, but they seem to be short lived. I was an adjunct professor at APU teaching ethics and world views. I was a hospice counselor and chaplain. I was a worship pastor. I was an unanswered applicant at the local college for teaching philosophy. So I kept painting. I still paint. What began as a temporary means to sustain my family while attending graduate school has followed me like a shadow for twenty years.

And now, as I look back, I'm grateful. I no longer have to prove that I am more than what you see. I've been at this manual labor thing long enough to realize that hard, blistering work can shape a man in ways that sedentary academic or church work can not. I'm tired in the deep places of the soul as well as my hands. My head hurts a lot of the time. But in those deeper places there's a longing for rest that even the best and most current education can't satisfy. And here's what I've come to know: the one with a weary soul and a broken body needs to find rest. I might have said this twenty years ago, but it would have been cheap. What do you know when you're twenty? Like that scene in Good Will Hunting where Matt Damon gets called out by Robin Williams about Michael Angelo's Sisteen Chapel painting. He knows all about it, but not really, because he's never left Boston. He's never crossed the Atlantic. He's never gazed at the arched ceilings and felt small in the iconic magnitude of that chapel in Italy. He's just read articles.  Twenty years ago I had just read articles and heard sermons on hard work and the soul's craving for rest, beauty, connection. Since then my journey, in large part, has been unwelcomed, and yet I'm strangely grateful for it. I have a deeper appreciation for the struggle in life and for the yearning to rest, to take a breather. And I respect those who have labored longer because they've had to, like my late father-in-law, who didn't have time to tinker, as do so many in my generation, with finding his path, or his purpose. He just worked, provided, endured, and tried his best to believe in God like a child would, despite the onslaught of injustices. He gave credibility to character, and I only wish he had more moments of rest along the way. 

So I believe in work and in rest. I don't balance the two very well. But I've acquired a new language that's taken a lot of years to learn. It's still very rough, inarticulate, offensive at times, even reactive, but it's real, at least it's becoming more real to me. It's what I've lived. It's a tool I won't waste or put on a shelf. 


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