The Slow Work of God

Last week I was on a vacation/writing retreat. Sitting on a bookshelf where I stayed was the book, To Bless Our Callings: Prayers, Poems, and Hymns to Celebrate Vocation by Laura Kelly Fanucci. This wonderful poem by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin jumped off a page for me, and I want to share it with you. It speaks to the challenge of finding our way in life, the challenge of being patient when things take ever so long, and the challenge of understanding the apparent slow timing of God.

Read it and see if it doesn’t resonate with something in your life, if it doesn’t give you some hope for being on the way.

“Patient Trust”

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We would like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown, something new.

And yet, it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming in you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

–Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

(In: To Bless Our Callings: Prayers, Poems, and Hymns to Celebrate Vocation, Laura Kelly Fanucci, Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2017. In: Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits, edited by Michael Harter, 58. Chestnut Hill, MA: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1993.)

~

[Photo: taken of gray-headed coneflowers that I passed on a recent prairie walk]

Staying Put, Listening Well, Being Changed

This week I finished reading Benedictine Promises for Everyday People by Rachel Srubas. Rachel is a Presbyterian minister, a spiritual director, and the author of several books. I met Rachel several years ago when we both were participants in a summer writing program at Collegeville Institute. I’ll admit that when I started reading the book I expected that it would be applicable to my life but in a small sense, as in here are a handful of things that Benedictines do that may help you, the reader, in your life. But I was wrong. The book suggested much to consider and apply.

The book focuses on three key parts of the Benedictine rule: staying put, listening well (which is another way of saying obedience), and being changed by God. So much of life falls into this rubric. I was particularly struck by Srubas’s writing on staying put, because staying put is what was at the heart of one of my chapters in Finding Livelihood. In the chapter titled “Centripetal Centrifugal Counterpoise,” I wrote that “Staying in place is a pilgrimage too.” We tend to think that movement is good, particularly movement up the ladder, up the power grid, up the chain of command, up the salary structure, up up up. Or at least movement of any pleasant variety: seeing the world, visiting all the new restaurants. But the essay I wrote came from a place of feeling stuck until I looked at things another way. I’m writing this sitting in front of the same window where I’ve written for more than two decades.

Now Srubas helps me further in understanding the good that comes from staying put (please note, there’s no implication in this book to suggest staying put in a place that’s unhealthy or dangerous). Listening well to God and being changed by God follows on this point of staying put. These are the reasons for staying put. There is an intentionality to staying that goes far beyond the fact of a 30-year mortgage or vesting in a retirement plan (wait, is anyone vested anymore?), or a lack of imagination for any other place to be. The intentionality is to put one’s energy into listening well to God and being changed by God.

Srubas writes:

“Whether the vow of conversatio morum [lifelong conversion] is understood as fidelity to monastic life or more broadly as a commitment to turn to God daily and be changed, it is a promise to undergo lifelong conversion. The other two Benedictine promises, stability and obedience, make conversatio morum possible. We stay put not because we have no other choice, but because we choose to abide in Christ with these particular people in good times and hard times alike. This frees us to give ourselves completely to God where we are. Once we’ve become stable, undistracted by a life with too many moving parts, we can listen well enough to detect the voice of God speaking to us through the Scripture, other people, and daily life. It’s this attunement to God, cultivated through a pattern of prayerful living, that allows us to be changed over time into healed people who do more good than harm.”

We’re not all called to be Benedictines or to follow their rule, but Srubas shows us that it can be both exciting and challenging to re-imagine how staying in place is part of a high calling. What are you to be about sitting at the same window every morning? Sitting in the same chair, sitting at the same computer, lying in the same bed? Worshipping in the same church? To whom are you listening? What do you hear? How are you being changed?

~~~

[Photo: My grandmother’s embroidery.]

Thinking and Writing About Your Work

Those of you who have read my blog or newsletter for awhile may have seen mention of this before, but given that the second edition of Finding Livelihood was recently published, I wanted to mention it again in case you missed it the first time around and also to let new readers know about it. I've put together a guided journal that you can download, print out, and write in. While it corresponds to the book, you neither need a copy of the book nor do you need to have read the book to make use of the journal—although I always highly recommend both having a copy of the book and reading it (wink). Each page of the journal has a writing prompt to get you thinking about your work life, and you can define work as broadly or as narrowly as you like.

Here are a few examples of the writing prompts you'll find. There's 18 in all.

 What unexpected turns has your work experience, or the work experience of a spouse, taken?

In what ways are you satisfied and unsatisfied in your work? How has your degree of satisfaction changed over the years?

What people and events can you witness—pay attention to or “see ”—through your work?

I hope you'll download the journal, consider the questions, and even write for a bit. I also hope you'll let me know what you discover.

~~~

[Photo: Grass from Jay Cook State Park in northern Minnesota. Aren’t the colors gorgeous?]

A New Venture

This blog space has been quiet the last several months. At the turn of the year, now already more than 5 months ago, I had planned to pull back from writing here for a time so as to devote more time, in the already too few hours unclaimed by work and other commitments, to moving along my manuscript on hope, which already has taken way too long. But just as that plan was made, I found out that Kalos Press, the publisher of Finding Livelihood, my book that came out in 2015, had gone out of business.

While I was still absorbing this news, grieving it actually, and wondering what to do, the book's editor, Jessica Snell, emailed me to say that she and the book's designer, Valerie Bost, were on board to help me republish it if that's what I wanted to do.

Republish it?

I hadn't even gotten that far in my thinking yet. But, yes, I did want to republish it. I think this book still has some good to do in the world. My new publishing venture, Metaxu Press, was born!

Instead of having a next draft of my hope manuscript to show for these months of silence, I now have a second edition of Finding Livelihood. I've been learning about copyright law, and the Library of Congress, and business structures, and book distributors, and pricing models, and printing options. Thankfully, I didn't have to also learn about book design because Valerie allowed me to use again the same cover design and, slightly modified, inside design (did you know that a book's cover and inside design belong to the designer?).

Valerie also designed a new logo, which I love. Whether I publish anything else through this new press in the future, I can't say for sure, but it's been a fun process. So maybe I will?

The new edition of Finding Livelihood is now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online booksellers. Kindle and Nook versions too, although the Kindle version hasn't loaded yet for some reason.

You can also order it from Hearts & Minds Books and Eighth Day Books. If you live in Minneapolis, you can buy it at Milkweed Books or Magers & Quinn. If you live in St. Paul, you can buy it at Next Chapter Booksellers (formerly Common Good Books). No matter where you live, you can ask for it from your local bookstore and they can order it.

All books need some help, even second editions finding their own way out into the world. If you wanted to help this one along—and if you did I'd be ever so grateful—here are some ideas:

• Post something on social media, such as an excerpt from it or just a word about it

• Order it from your local bookstore or ask them to stock it

• Ask your library to order it (this is surprisingly easy to do)

• Write an Amazon review

• Buy a copy for a friend or for your church library

Thank you for being here and reading along. I promise I'll get some new content up before too long.

~~~

[photo: taken of the Lilies of the Valley in my yard. It was such a long winter here; the appearance of these triggered a surge of joy.]

Beyond work

Over the long Thanksgiving weekend, I watched the 2016 film Paterson for the first time. For those of you who haven’t seen it, Paterson the film is about Paterson the man who lives in Paterson the village. Paterson the man, played by Adam Driver, is in his late 20s or early 30s and drives a city bus. He is married to Laura, played by Golshifteh Farahani, who is passionate about many things, including home decorating, learning to play guitar, and baking and selling cupcakes at a weekend community market. Paterson does more than drive a bus; he also writes poems.

He writes poems in his head as he walks to work each morning. Before he drives his bus out of the garage, he writes down the lines that came to him during that morning’s walk in the notebook he always carries with him. At lunch, while he eats his sandwich and drinks coffee from his thermos, he again takes out his notebook and adds the lines that came to him while he drove. At home, he goes down to his basement office—a desk and some shelves in an unfinished basement—and adds a few more lines. His wife begs him to read some of his poems to her, and he keeps promising he will but never does. She begs him to send his work out to some magazines. Instead, he just keeps writing, line by line.

The world around him seems to give him signs that what he’s doing matters, although the signs are not profound or recognizable to anyone else. No readers show up cheering his work, and no agents or publishers suddenly appear. He has no social media account that magically gains followers. The signs are more along the lines of “I see you.”

As he writes line by line in his head and in his notebook, he has a steadiness about him and an inner drive, not toward success, which is usually how the word ‘drive’ is used today, but a drive to keep putting the words together until they fit, and the final click unlocks some inner release and the eyes widen and the soul opens.

I wish this film had been around while I was writing Finding Livelihood. It probably would have made its way into one of the chapters. While the film features a man writing poetry while he also drives a bus, the broader implication can be a fill-in-the-blank sort of prospect for any of the rest of us. What else are you about beside your work or alongside your work? In what ways do you seek the opening of eyes and soul to what is beyond your work?

~~~

[photo: taken of the juniper berries on the table at the American Swedish Institute while I drank my coffee last week.]

A reminder of the journey

This past week I put back on my finger a ring I bought in Santa Fe during my first MFA residency, 13 years ago next month. I wrote about this ring in a chapter of Finding Livelihood.

“I crossed the street to the Palace of the Governors. Blue, green, and burgundy blankets laid side-to-side in a row the length of a city block as if ready for a picnic if the goods don’t sell. On the blankets were pendants, necklaces, earrings, rings, guitar picks, barrettes, and broaches made of silver, copper, turquoise, coral, and lapis. Each Native American artist or artist’s representative presided over his or her wares from the head of the blanket, seated either on a chair, a low stool, or the veranda floor.

Small crowds gather at each blanket, and so patrons often wait for a turn to look down, crouch, pick up, and try on. I saw a ring but couldn’t reach it. The young woman with long black hair, seated on a stool, smiled and reached out with a long narrow stick she kept on the floor next to her. She slid one end of the stick through the ring’s opening, lifted it from its black velvet display box, and glided it dangling from the stick to my hand. I slid the ring on my finger.

“Did you make this?” I asked.

“Yes,” the woman said, and she showed me where the band bore her maker’s mark.

It was a split ring, open in the middle—for design purposes of course, but also conveniently accommodating the changing ring size of women throughout a lifetime or the month, like elastic in a pair of durable pants. On one side of the split is an oval turquoise, more blue than the earrings and with fewer veins. Along the stone’s perimeter, a hefty sterling silver band curves ever so slightly over its surface as if the stone were floating on hidden water and would bounce right up without the metal’s angled hold. The other side of the split is a vertical silver bar. Engraved in the silver bar and around the band is a zigzag design—a mountain range, the woman told me. It means journey.”

— Finding Livelihood: A Progress of Work and Leisure

After buying the ring, I wore it daily for years but then took it off awhile back—no reason—and put it in my drawer. Lately, though, I've been needing the reminder again of the journey. Maybe it's the book project I'm working on. Maybe it's the conversations I've recently had. Maybe it's the passage of time. So I'm wearing it again. Maybe someone reading this post needs the reminder as well.

~~~

[Photo: taken of the mountains outside of Santa Fe.]

An ordinary day on repeat

Over the last couple weeks I read The Turquoise Ledge by poet and Laguna Pueblo writer Leslie Marmon Silko. I may not have finished it had it not been a book group reading. The reason I nearly stopped reading several times in the first 100 or so pages is that while the book is about Silko’s life outside of Tucson, Arizona, it is primarily about her morning walks, during which she often finds pieces of turquoise, and the care of her home and yard, replete with rattlesnakes (so many!) and sometimes scorpions. The book goes on repeat of these daily activities and discoveries. Over and over again. Here’s another piece of turquoise. There’s another rattlesnake. But a curious thing happened at about page 125; I got in the rhythm of her walks and her watering of her plants and her care of her pet parrots and her noticing of rattlers, and my interest in her routine and her observations piqued.

The book reminded me that this is what we do in life: one’s daily stuff, but please oh please do it with eyes open and ready to see the extraordinariness of what is around us. Numerous times Silko describes a walk in which then and there, right in front of her in the center of the path, is a piece of turquoise that wasn’t there when she walked the same path yesterday. Or was it? Had it just unearthed itself or had she missed it the day before?

I wanted to post about this book as an encouragement in getting up each morning and doing whatever it is you do over again tomorrow while keeping your eyes open for what you might see or discover that takes on new shape or meaning when you see it, really see it, for the third or fourth or 340th time. Maybe that’s one of the things I was trying to do in Finding Livelihood, challenging myself and you, dear reader, to see again and again, yet anew, what there is to discover in whatever place each of us calls work.

The book made me think about how it takes attending to something over and over again, closely and with reverence, before hidden beauty emerges, understanding emerges, and appreciation for small things becomes large.

~~~

[Picture: taken during our recent Florida trip of a grand dolphin artfully carved in the sand by an unidentified beach artist; in the top left corner is a pelican.]