Doing Something New: A Faithful Use of Time

Drive a golf cart as my sole form of transportation... on the left side of the road; make new friends; rejoice in rain as it fills the cisterns under the house; plumb a reverse osmosis system; take a 20 minute ferry ride to get to 'town'; watch my daughter rush in junkanoo; pay $12.15 for good yogurt and feel fortunate; leave doors unlocked; sweat in February; paddle board; hear my dog bark at the curly tail lizards around the yard; worship from the pew; take an almost waterless shower; rest.

These are just some of the new and different experiences I have had these last couple months.  Uprooted from my home of nine years; from my native country; from my job; from my lifestyle, it has been an education to - from scratch - consider how I live.  All the habits that took decades to form are moot here.  And many things that seem to have mattered back home are far less important here.  Being forced to reconsider the small and big things of life has been a refreshing and faithful use of time.

When should I wake up, now that I can work out at any time of day?  Now that the kids can wake up almost an hour later than back home?  What should I eat, now that everything costs at least twice as much?  I do not have work that forces me to study Scripture, write prayers or craft clever turns of phrase that share the good news of Christ.  So, what place do faith practices have in my life?  And which practices would those be?  During this sabbatical, money gets spent differently.  Relationships are either newly budding or have become long distance.  And I am not 'Pastor Stanton'.  People in Hopetown don't know or particularly care what I do for a living.  That's different.

In Barbara Brown Taylor's book, "Altar in the World" she has a chapter called, "The Practice of Living with Purpose."  It's a section about vocation.  My favorite definition of that word comes from Frederick Buechner, "where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."  Some may have a harder time than others naming their gladness or understanding how their work meets the deep hunger of the world.  As a pastor, I believe visits to the ill or grieving, sermons that afflict the comfortable or comfort the afflicted, and teaching the basics of faith to seekers all qualify as vocational tasks.

But what if I wasn't a Pastor?  New and different experiences like facing the altar at worship has re-oriented me.  I am reminded that the vocational gifts I bring to the world are not necessarily all wrapped in a pastoral shaped package.  Taylor starts her chapter listing the many jobs she has had over the course of her life from babysitting and waitressing to writing for a newspaper and serving a church as pastor; only to leave the church and become an author/college prof.

At the local Methodist church here in Hopetown, there is an elder who marries, buries and preaches on most Sundays.  He also runs the oldest little grocery store in town.  It's world famous for the fresh breads he makes every day.  He is one who feeds: the familiar locals, the strange(r) tourists with both bread and the word.

By considering every little habit, and how I participate in God's call on my life in AND outside my 'job' I hope to expand my sense of vocation upon my return home.  I think this hit me hardest when Taylor explains her sense of vocation.

      "One night when my whole heart was open to hearing from God what I was supposed to do with
      my life, God said, "anything that pleases you."
      "What?... kind of answer is that?"  I said.  
      "Do anything that pleases you... and belong to me."  
      At one level that answer was no help at all.  The ball was back in my court again where God had
      left me all kinds of room to lob it wherever I wanted.  I could be a priest or a circus worker.  God 
      really did not care.  At another level I was so relieved that I sledded down the stairs that night.
      Whatever I decided to do for a living, it was not what I did but how I did it that mattered.  God 
      had suggested an overall purpose, but was not going to supply the particulars for me..."

In these last two months I have done many new and different activities where longstanding routines have been interrupted or even discontinued.  But not being a pastor is a whole different experience of life.  Taylor's reflections on vocation remind me that my ordination was and continues to be a choice and simply saying 'Yes' to my call is not an ending but a beginning.  It is not what I do, or what my title is.  What matters is how I listen, pray, lead and teach.  What matters is discovering and rediscovering my 'gladness' so that it may meet the world's need.
Doing/Being something new has been a faithful use of my time.