The Calling of Every Human Being Boils Down to This?

What if the calling of every human being boils down to this: create something beautiful in the abandoned spaces; introduce life to the forsaken ruins; resurrect something that seems too far gone to bring back.

Aletheia Schmidt shared this the other day, a time-lapse video of graffiti artists given free reign inside an abandoned warehouse, and those are the thoughts that came to mind.

What are you resurrecting? What are you making new?

Where We Found a Thing Called Hope

IMG_1503We picked the kids up from their classes and headed south, through a sky already growing dark even though it wasn’t yet 5:00. Winter days will do that here, especially cloudy ones. The van bulged at the seams, full of pillows and blankets and luggage for our annual trek to North Carolina for Thanksgiving.

We bought fast food so that we wouldn’t have to stop driving. Maile called out the orders and doled out the food. Last minute trades were bartered. Complaints were heard and mostly dismissed. Then we passed the milkshakes back.

“If anyone doesn’t finish theirs, pass it right back up to the front,” I called out, not getting my hopes up.

We continued south, two hours, three hours. We had decided to spend the night at a friend’s house in southern Virginia before driving the rest of the way on Friday morning. Four hours passed.

“Are we there yet?” Abra asked over and over again.

After four hours we got off of 81 and headed east, into the mountains, into the shadows. We missed the lane the first time, had to drive a mile up and turn around, then circle back. We called our friend. Her name is Andi.

“There’s a small sign by the driveway,” she said. “Just follow the lane and keep to the left.”

We pulled slowly into the lane, crossed a narrow, wooden bridge. We had arrived at God’s Whisper Farm.

* * * * *

The house was cozy and warm. There were books everywhere, even on the stairs where Andi’s husband had painted the kickboards of the steps to match the spines of particular books. The Hatchet. Paradise. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Their dog, Meander, was pleased to see the children, and she wrestled with them until she was completely tired out, lying on her side and panting. Andi gave out bowls of chili, supper at 9:30pm, followed by hot apple pie. Then I took the kids upstairs and wrapped them in their blankets. They were tired from the drive, and they fell asleep while listening to us through the vent in the floor.

We spent the rest of the evening talking, just the four of us, the heater lulling me to sleep. It was one of those nights when you wish it was possible to purchase extra hours, an evening when you want to keep talking but eventually your eyelids grow too heavy.

We went to bed, and for some reason I dreamed about hobbits.

* * * * *

The next morning we woke up, ate bacon, eggs and toast, then put on our boots and walked the trails through the woods that skirted the mountains. Meander ran past us, then back again, and the kids took turns racing her, falling hopelessly behind. Lucy and Sam scaled a small cliff leading up from a creek bed.

Andi showed us where they hope to build a lodge and then walked us over to the place her father plans to build a small cabin. There was the chicken coop, in progress, and the sloping field where the goats will live. A flat expanse had already been planed out for a barn.

As we walked the acres of the farm, and the three younger kids climbed on the tractor, and Cade wrestled with Meander, I realized what I felt there. I realized what was so appealing about that little valley.

Hope.

Andi and her husband have plans for that place, and they don’t seem too caught up in the concern that some of those plans might not come to pass. They’ve staked little signs into the ground with names that designate what they hope the future holds for each parcel of land: “Lodge” and “Cabin”. There is an overwhelming sense that things are not finished, that what you see is not what you get, that there is a story in the making. A beautiful story. A compelling story.

This, I think, is what the Gospel is all about. This is the Kingdom that Jesus invited us to take part in: an ongoing, compelling story, one full of hope. One where we take the time to place handmade signposts into the earth. Not signs that we anchor with cement or mortar, but signs that can be moved, signs that speak of a beautiful hope.

* * * * *

We walked back towards the van and the remaining four hours on the road to Charlotte. Lucy looked up at us with hope in her eyes.

“Mama,” she said to Maile, “when I grow up and leave our house, I want to live on a farm just like this one.”

This is the beautiful thing about hope. It’s contagious.

* * * * *

Please check out Andi’s new book, The Slaves Have Names: Ancestors of My Home.

The Problem With Hard Work

IMG_1293Where I grew up few things are more admirable than hard work. Calluses, blisters, and sore muscles are signs of worship to God. Short grass, clean cars, and weedless gardens are the result of extreme holiness. Waking up before the sun or working long after dark are indications of piety.

* * * * *

There’s a legend that circulates here in Lancaster County. It says Amish women have an unspoken competition with each other on Monday mornings to see who can get their laundry on the line first. I don’t know if the legend is true or not, but I’ve driven in a car with friends past those orderly stretches of clothes waving on a long line between a house and a barn, and the feelings of guilt experienced by those of us in the vehicle have been palpable.

“I have so much to do around the house,” my friends mutter under their breath. “Look at all that laundry that woman has already done today, by hand.”

I think about how I I slept in until 7:30 that morning, and the remorse is so heavy that in that moment I am certain my eternal fate has just been sealed.

* * * * *

When I was a kid, there were only two reasons you ever sat down: to eat supper, or to adhere to the Sabbath. Even on Sunday the sitting was only acceptable if it was on a hard bench, or the floor. During the week you could start breakfast at the table but the last few bites must be eaten on the fly as you’re walking out the door, an illustration of how sorry you were that you hadn’t started working as soon as you stood up out of bed that morning.

Armchair recliners were clearly of the devil, as were pillows and cleaning ladies. Of course you could be a cleaning lady, but you couldn’t pay one to come clean your house. Pay someone else to scrub your toilets or wash your windows? What were you, some kind of lazy city-slicker?

I often found myself sitting around on Sundays listening to the adults humble-brag about how hard they had worked that week, how many hours they had put in, how many fingers they had lost.

Yes, that’s right. How many fingers they had lost. One particular man I remember had a hand missing at least six digits.

“It’s a pity about all those missing fingers,” someone said after he left.

“Yeah, but he sure is a hard worker,” their neighbor replied, getting up and walking around the room just to keep the feeling of relaxation from settling in too deep.

* * * * *

“The Lord helps those who help themselves” was a regular saying in these parts, although it can be kind of a silly thing to say if you think about it, as if God’s willingness to act is somehow tied to my ability to put in a 16-hour day. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not against hard work. I’ve inherited my share of Anabaptist genes. I still get a kick out of sweating, of working the earth, of maintaining order.

But I’ve also seen how this little idol of hard work saturates the minds of those who worship it. Many a father went before the idol of hard work and laid his family on the altar. Many a judgment was made about those in poverty, that they don’t work hard enough, that the answer to all of their problems is a little dirt under their nails, a little ache in their shoulders. Many a beautiful moment was missed, because the enjoyment of that moment would have required a pause in the action or an “unproductive” minute.

We still joke about it, though, how much we love to work. We laugh at ourselves, because we know that we often take it to the extreme. But after the jokes settle, we still whisper in admiration, “That guy sure knows how to work,” or “I don’t know how she does it all.”

* * * * *

“I don’t know how to live in this county,” someone from the west once told me, “because all people ever talk about here is work. It seems like no one has any hobbies. It seems like no one does anything just for the fun of it.”

I’m learning how to rest. In fact, just the other day I sat in my arm chair for no apparent reason. On a Thursday. At 2:00 in the afternoon. I’m pretty sure I felt the rumbling of my grandfathers rolling over in their graves, but that’s okay.

They’ll get over it.

Crisco: Superman’s Weakness

Today I’m posting over at Deeper Church. The post is called “When Crisco is Kryptonite and Candles are Stars.” Here’s a taste:

The kitchen is an explosion of flour and sugar. Cade, Lucy, Abra and Sam sound like chattering monkeys. It is cookie-making day.

Mouths are streaked with chocolate from smuggled chocolate chips. Sam hides behind the sofa, eating cookie dough. Abra inexplicably has flour on the back of her head.

“Okay, Cade,” Maile says. “Pass me the Crisco.”

“Crisco,” Cade says, then adds authoritatively. “That was superman’s weakness.”

Click HERE to go read the rest.

What Kind of a God

An excerpt from How to Use a Runaway Truck Ramp (this section was written by Maile):

So tonight, we begin the final leg of our journey.  Two nights ago, Shawn and I sat across from each other (he on the couch, me in the booth) and decided that his grandma’s failing health was the call beckoning us back a week earlier than we had intended. 

It seems like such a small alteration to the plans: one week. But as I took a walk at our campground in rural Indiana after our decision, I felt so strange.  By the end of the existing week, our trip would be over.  My heart was fragmented with feeling:

Excitement (anticipating the tight hugs and grinning faces of so many folks that we love and miss.)

Regret (were there things left undone on this trip, moments I missed or didn’t hold quite long enough?)

Sadness (when anything great ends, sadness is always an appropriate response.)

Celebration (when anything great ends, celebration is always an appropriate response.)

Fear (that our great adventure has come to an end; that a humdrum existence is all we can expect from here on out.)

I shared that last feeling with a friend over email yesterday.  But as I wrote it, my fear dissipated; fear has gotten more feeble on this journey. So I wrote this to my friend: “But I also know that God is far more wild than that.”

In the past 4 months, I’ve seen more beauty than in my entire life up to this point. It was holy yet tangled, majestic yet terrifying, serene yet treacherous. And I found myself often asking this question: “What kind of a God makes a creation like this?” 

A wild one.

* * * * *

Thanks to the following bloggers for reviewing or announcing our book (check these folks out if you get a chance):

Scott Bennett
Pilar Arsenec
Kelly Chripczuk
The Messy Middle

Why Christmas Can’t Cure Us

There is the story of the divorced parents who try to use Christmas as a way of bringing happiness back into the lives of their children. They buy more gifts than their children could ever hope to play with, but for that one hour, while the paper is flying and the kids are squealing with delight, it is enough. The presents are a band-aid.

There is the story of the ex-convict released from prison a few days before Christmas. He goes to the local shopping mall and, since he doesn’t have any money, steals a few toys for his kids. He puts his parole on the line! He puts his freedom on the line! All because he wants to bring back some normalcy into his family’s life.

There is the story of the mother, irate after discovering the toy she drove thirty minutes to pick up, the toy that was advertised as being on sale, is now out of stock and discontinued. She berates an innocent store attendant and nearly runs over someone in the parking lot. And she can’t see that it’s not the lack of the toy that is making her angry – it’s the fact that the toy represented some sort of small reparation between her and the daughter she could never understand. The daughter she could never quite connect with.

* * * * *

Guilt.

We sing “Joy to the World” and “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays,” but for many of us the foundation of Christmas is Guilt. We feel bad that we don’t have the relationships we want with our kids or our spouse or our parents. We feel bad that we didn’t send a Christmas card this year or hang the lights on the house or bake cookies. We wish we could make up for that horrendous mistake we made in our past, you know, the one that destroyed everything.

And so, many of us, to cover up that guilt, manipulate Christmas. We use presents and lights and loudness to drown out what we’re really feeling: inadequate, insufficient, and hurting.

It’s no wonder, when Christmas afternoon rolls around and all the presents have been opened and the food has been eaten, that we once again are overwhelmed with feelings of malaise and melancholy. We feel like, yet again, Christmas didn’t quite measure up to what we wanted. And for most of us it never will measure up, because we want it to make everything better.

We want Christmas to cure us. It won’t. No amount of presents or money or food can do that.

But there is a beautiful part of the Advent season that addresses this. At church this week we will light the second candle and commit to waiting for the coming of Christ…who brings forgiveness for our sins.

Forgiveness. Not guilt, but freedom.

Rest in that reality this Advent season. Rest in the peace of a silent night, when everything changed.

* * * * *

The book that Maile and I wrote about our 10,000-mile, cross-country trip, How to Use a Runaway Truck Ramp, is now available for pre-order HERE. You can also order it on Amazon or in PDF format.