T.S. Tuesday: Attempts at Sowing Proper by a Girl Who’s Not So Proper

“All men are ready to invest their money
But most expect dividends.
I say to you: Make perfect your will.
I say: take no thought of the harvest,
But only of proper sowing.” T.S. Eliot, The Rock

I’m the kind of person who likes to have all of her ducks in a row. I like to know what I’m doing, where I’m headed, or at least be able to give an explanation of where I’m not going and why you won’t see me there.

I like to be aware of where I’m investing my time and what kind of dividends I will reap.

But T.S. Eliot takes a different view on planning. He says to “take no thought of the harvest, But only of proper sowing.”

I try to wrap my mind around the sentence. I drive out my desire to control. I tune my ears to hear what He is saying to me.

Follow Me alone, He whispers.

Follow My pleasing will.

Sow proper when corners cry out to be cut.
Sow proper in the mundane.
Sow proper when resentment burns.
Sow proper when you want to evade.
Sow proper when anger is easier.
Sow proper when laziness hangs.
Sow proper when no eyes are upon you.
Sow proper and don’t be swayed.

Today I remind myself that I follow You alone and I surrender my conduct to your pleasing will.

Amen. 

Still Here

I want to write about joy. I want to write about being filled. I want to write about how much I trust God. I want to write about new and exciting and broader intellectual and social issues like Rachel Held Evans' current series on egalitarianism and the ever thoughtful and ridiculously well read and well articulated, Tim Hoiland. 

But I don’t feel it right now. It’s been a struggle to blog lately because my story is the same. My struggles the same. My thoughts the same.

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I’m still here. I’m a broken record, a radio tuned to one channel only: the waiting.

I’m still here, enveloped in the darkness waiting for light. Weeping tears waiting for joy. Mourning the loss of burnout and waiting for dancing.

I'm still reminding myself that He will restore my joy. I’ve written about it and written about it and, quite frankly, I’m sick of it.

Bucket List Day 20: Lunch at Boomerangs

I’ve embarked on challenges at work (like today's lunch at Boomerang's where they serve burgers as big as your head--check it out!), a creativity program at home, a Bucket List for my time left in San Diego, yet I still feel trapped, stuck in the waiting, tied to the tension of transition.

Much to my cynical chagrin, I have a habit of turning posts like these around. I’ll write the bad so I can get to the good. I write the beauty into the ashes. I surprise even myself with my optimism, with the hope that will shine its face in the darkest corners of my life.

But today I don’t want to turn it around. I just want to say I’m still here, still waiting. Not farther along than I hoped I’d be. Not reaping the innumerable benefits of my burnout blasters. Not filled with grace and gratitude and every other Ann Voskamp virtue I have tried unsuccessfully to cultivate.

Today I am simply still here.

Maybe the hope I need today, the only hope I’ll ever need, is knowing He’s still here when I’m still here.

He’s with me when I’m stuck and when I’m stubborn. He’s with me when I drag my feet and when I cling to comfort even as I demand excitement and adventure. He’s with me when I can’t move or am waiting to move or simply have become too tired to even think of making a move.

So, friends, I am sorry to admit that I am still here, but I will cling to the hope that He is still here, too.

***

And, because I am still here, I will offer up yet another Psalm with promises of restored joy and of renewed laughter. I will focus yet again on the promise He has given me. I don't know about you, but I definitely need to hear it again. 

Psalm 126 

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dreamed.
 Our mouths were filled with laughter,
our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for them.”
 The Lord has done great things for us,
and we are filled with joy.

 Restore our fortunes, Lord,
like streams in the Negev.
 Those who sow with tears
will reap with songs of joy.
 Those who go out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with them.

What the heck am I going to read to get my life together?

Today I'd like to share two of my favorite books for the young and the "too empowered"--those twentysomethings who are wrestling with vocation, calling, and whether they should move back in with their parents after college.

1. What the Heck Am I Going to Do with My Life? by Margaret Feinberg

With grace and wisdom, Margaret explores passion, talent, abilities, and vocation in God's Kingdom. This book is practical, readable, and chock-full of nuggets of wisdom.

When I first read it about a year ago, my favorite part of the book was learning I wasn't the only one who didn't have it all together. As anti-hipster as it sounds, I'm just going to say that sometimes it is darn good to know that I don't have a monopoly on self-obsessed neuroses, that I'm not utterly, uniquely screwed up.

As I've been re-reading Margaret's book over the last couple of weeks, I've resonated more with her constant call to submit our callings, vocations, and desires to God.

She reminds us,

“The fact that you have a passion for something doesn’t mean that desire is meant to rule you; your passions are always subject to the cross.”

I’ve been learning this the hard way this year, as I’ve felt God saying to me, “Your job at Plant With Purpose is not yours to hold on to. Your passion is not yours to hold on to.”

Margaret writes,

“He designed us to live openhanded lives so that the passions we possess don’t possess us."

Inviting others to join in the transformational work of Plant With Purpose has been such a passion for me, a joy for me, but if He is calling me elsewhere, I want to be willing to open my hands and follow His lead.

2. Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker Palmer

I love Parker's views on this topic because he frames our search for vocation as the search to recover our 'true selves.'

"The figure calling to me all those years was, I believe, what Thomas Merton calls "true self." This is not the ego self that wants to inflate us (or deflate us, another from of self-distortion), not the intellectual self that wants to hover above the mess of life in clear but ungrounded ideas, not the ethical self that wants to live by some abstract moral code. It is the self-planted in us by the God who made us in God's own image-- the self that wants nothing more, or less, than for us to be who we were created to be.

True self is true friend. One ignores or rejects such friendship only at one's peril.”

Ever the intellecter and introspector, I appreciated Parker's emphasis on self-examination and learning to receive God's love. 

He writes,

“Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self-hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks--we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.”

He also offers a candid, yet hopeful discussion on depression, burnout, and healing, which has been a reality in my life in the lives of many of my close friends. Parker also authored one of my favorite, paradigm-shifting quotes on weakness: 

"We will become better teachers not by trying to fill the potholes in our souls but by knowing them so well that we can avoid falling into them.”

If you've been thinking about vocation, calling, and what the heck you're going to do with your life, I highly recommend joining Margaret and Parker on their journeys to discover God's call on their lives. They are both well worth the read.

Have you read either of these books? What books or resources on vocation and calling would you recommend?