What if we were made to do nothing?

A while ago, I was geeking out on some NOVA videos, and ran into this:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/shabbat-elevator.html

For those of you too busy to watch a little under 3 minutes of video, it's basically a story about how some rabbi some time around the advent of the modern era defined electricity as "lighting a fire" and therefore "work" on the sabbath, and so many observant Jews don't operate electric things from Friday night sundown (sundown is the start of the Jewish day) until Saturday night sundown in order to keep a the Sabbath. But what do you do if you live on the 15th floor? Hence, sabbath elevators that are programmed to stop on every floor.

Why is the sabbath such a big deal to Jewish people? At times, it really seems like more work to keep it than it would be to just push an elevator button. What's the big deal? Why all the fuss? Why is it in the top 10 along with "no adultery" and "no murder?"

"Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good."--Søren Kierkegaard

 If you look at the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5 (the reasoning is slightly different from Exodus 20) there's an interesting comment on this:

 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

I've never been a slave, but I have struggled not to be a work-a-holic, and I think they have some striking similarities. When you need to work to feel significant or for your life to have value, then the way you spend your time (which adds up to be the way you spend your life) isn't really up to you, is it? It's up to the job. Or the boss, or the company, or the church, or the people in your employ. All the while your soul is dying the death of a thousand tiny paper cuts completely unaware. Then you look up and realize you hate your life, and you deserve it.

But God would spare us that pain. He commands us to go a different way. We were never created for slavery, but for His pleasure, and because He is good, our own. We were made for shalom--for peace, joy, and life in abundance. But we don't want it. We want to do things our own way. We want to earn our worth and our happiness, and it fails every time.

It's not like there isn't work to be done, or that all work is bad. In fact, if you read the story, Adam was a very busy farmer/biologist before he met Eve, and presumably for the time he spent with her before the fall. Work is a gloriously good thing. But like any good thing, without God, it becomes a curse.

So, we're in the process of moving across the country to plant a church (great activity for a guy who struggles with being a work-a-holic right?). Through a strange sequence of events, we found ourselves with a "month of limbo" in which we couldn't stay in our old place or move into the new place. The plan was for me to go out and stay with friends and look for a job while Kara hung back and took care of Bolt and spent some time with her folks. Then the day before I would have left to drive across the country, Kara got a great job with benefits! So she went out to start working, and I stayed behind with the baby. At first I had to mourn the loss of an adventure and the challenge of job hunting all by my self in the big city. I'm sure finding the job all on my own and all the things I could have accomplished would have made me feel invincible--a very dangerous place to be, especially when attempting to live for Jesus. But God arranged things so I was forced to hang back and bond with my son, read books, mooch off my parents, and do a lot of nothing.

It took some time getting used to. I have been working 50+ hours/week for most of the last 7 years. I actually prefer to be about that busy or I don't feel like I'm getting anything done. Meanwhile my poor wife is out in the big city all alone, without her baby. But this was the growth we both needed. Kara's been stretched, and we've missed each other and appreciated each other in ways we weren't previously aware of. I've been challenged to see the quality of life I would settle for vs. the kind of life my loving Father offers. Spending a lot of time playing with Bolt, I've had to meditate on how needy he is and how much I want to care for his needs, and how much I like him. I've had to see how much he needs me (and his mom) and how much I need God. I've seen how oblivious he is to my plans to one day not change his diapers and how liberating that will be for him, even though he obviously can't conceive of such a thing. I so love it when he giggles. He's even cute when he cries. I'm watching him change and grow up before my eyes and realizing how short and important the time is that we have together. I'm realizing that I'm called to be a good father, that the desire to protect, instruct, & equip my son with the skills and values he'll need in adulthood is not merely an evolutionary impulse built into us for the survival of the species, but something God desires for me to experience so that I and Bolt can get ready to spend eternity with Him. I've drank a lot of beer and wine around a fire pit with my dad, and we've shared stories of football, and ministry, and mischief. I've had time to experience the blessing that this life is and what it can be, and I'm inspired to give to my son what I've received from my dad and my Heavenly Dad. And some other really great stuff I haven't processed yet.

I'm sure that sleeping on a bunch of dudes' couches would have been fun, particularly because I like all the hospitable people I was going to stay with, but I'm positive that it wouldn't have been all that. Some things you just can't get through working. In fact I think all of the really important stuff we gain in this life is a gift that literally, according to definition, can not be earned. Things like faith, hope, love. These are the things Jesus intends to give us and that we can't fully appreciate without taking a break from our toilsome labor.

And that's why rest isn't optional.

Some thoughts on Editing

Let me begin by saying that editing--in print at least--is a largely lost art to most Americans, and that this is a great tragedy that results in a lot of crap on the internet (and perhaps this blog is not exempted from this criticism).

How is it that we have missed the power of editing?

It seems to me that in an age of social media, editing ought to be more intuitive than at any other time in history, since we all engage in it whenever we manage our facebook profiles. We delete the bad photos, post the best ones, update about things that are interesting, or make us seem interesting, and generally try to make ourselves look awesome. We are making resumes of our coolness. Editing is an integral part of this process, although it occurs to me that maybe the editing process is only the accidental by-product of an insatiable pursuit of connection and acceptance from our cloud of peers--not something that occurs with any sort of thoughtful intention.

(I recently cleaned up and made some changes to my own profile, since I'm moving to a new city and will be applying for jobs and hopefully making new facebook friends, and real friends. I want the picture I present to be accurate, and slightly flattering. Who wouldn't?)

So this week my dad and I hauled something like 11,000 paintings from my grandmother's basement in Pittsburg, KS to my dad's basement in Overland Park, KS. Whatever you say about Norma, and whatever you think about the quality of her work, you must admit one thing.

She was prolific.

Most of her paintings were not done on canvas, although hundreds were on canvas. Most of the canvas ones have been given to various United Methodist Churches in Southeast Kansas. Or youth home facilities, or banks, or public buildings. I'd bet it's pretty difficult to walk into a city building in Pittsburg, KS without running into one of her paintings. A good chunk of the paintings are on 1/4" particle board. And thousands are on poster-board.

















A few of her paintings look like this.

How much would you pay for this?

Some of her paintings look like this.

This one's on foam presentation board. It's in the "Norma Bombing" pile.

I love my grandma. She was a painter. She was a grandma. She was a prayer warrior. She never really reconciled with her sister. She held grudges. She gave generously. She was a lousy cook. She spent the years after her husband died busying herself cooking for the AA groups at her church, painting, and teaching writing classes for other widows in her church. One of her old-lady friends published 3 books as a result.

We always edit when we conceive of a person in our minds, even with ourselves. It's impossible not to do. It's difficult to not let a first impression determine the entire course of a relationship.

 

At some point while packing all these pieces up, my dad quoted an artist friend:

"You have to make 1,000 crappy paintings before you make a good one. The trick is getting them out." 

I think there's some truth in that statement for almost anything in life. Writing. Song writing. Conversations with a person you care deeply about. Preaching. Praying for the sick. Wine making. Window washing. Programming. Kissing. Well, some people are just naturally gifted at some things. But one thing that separates really "good" artists from the mediocre is how well they edit. 

Back to kissing and conversations and prayer: some things you can't edit. You just have to take risks and muddle through if it doesn't go the way you want it to go. There's no way to pray for the sick and get a 100% success rate. (Although I dare say God has a different definition of "success" than we do.) A first kiss will always be awkward and a little scary--it's part of the fun right? Without honesty there are no hurt feelings, and no true communication.

The nice thing about editing is it allows us to cover up our mistakes. The dangerous thing is that we get addicted to the feeling of control it gives us. 

But sooner or later, somebody's going to go through and look at every painting you've ever painted and have an opinion.

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.  And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars —they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”--Revelation 20:11-21:8 NIV, emphasis mine.

No use playing it safe or trying to hide our true selves from God. Good news is he likes us, and is merciful, because of Jesus.

Maybe you can measure the depth and importance of a relationship by how much you edit (or are able to edit) yourself in that relationship.

Facebook profile = highly edited = shallow "friendship," they only see what you want them to see
Work/school colleagues = edited, for sake of "professionalism" = some degree of being known
Nuclear Family = less edited = pretty important relationships
Spouse of 30 years = not able to hide much = known by this person better than anyone else
God = He sees right through you = He knows ALL your crap, loves you deeply in spite of it

(Of course, just because a relationship is important, doesn't mean that it's healthy. That takes intention on both sides.)

Part of me wonders what my grandma would think of me putting her art up in public places. What sort of impression does it give people of my grandma? Would she be proud or upset?

I guess I'll find out later.