Reckless Love
April 24, 2006 "One of the best things communities like ours do is carve out a space for people to discern and redefine their vocations. Vocation comes from the same root as voice, denoting the hearing of a divine call. Beyond knowing that God has a purpose for our lives, most of us (especially non-Catholics) spend little energy seeking our vocation, especially in light of how the needs and sufferings of our neighbors might inform how we use our gifts for divine purposes. There are many people who are miserable in their jobs because they have not listened to God's call. And I would add there are many Christians who are not fulfilled in their spiritual lives because they just run to the mission field to save souls rather than transform lives and communities using their gifts and those of the people they live among."
From "the Irresistible Revolution", by Shane Claiborne, one of the founding members of a faith community in Philadelphia called "The Simple Way."
The kitchen is addictive for the wrong temperament. Very early in my career I got hooked on the adrenaline of a Friday night on the hot line. When the entire dining room fills in half an hour it's called a 'rush' for a reason. I loved everything about kitchens - the smells, the sound that only a busy restaurant kitchen has, the insane stress, the long hours, and that feeling, when you're in the middle of it all. I was an addicted to the life. Needless to say, one can't sustain that forever, and I grew more and more unhappy, lost, angry. Weekends were traded for work, family holidays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, you name it. Life caved in on me.
Through an amazing set of circumstances, God brought me to the Mission, and I'm so well aware of this being the purpose of my life. It has profoundly changed me, and turned everything I ever believed about church and Christianity on it's ear. I've been stripped of things, and given such precious gifts instead. It hasn't been easy - it's taken almost three years to come to this day, when I look at where I am and realize that my heart is filled with such peace, with a sense of belonging, with an almost overwhelming sense of 'rightness' to my every day. I have the curse of every old chef I've ever met - bad knees - and health problems besides that. I tire far too easily, I have no heart for the stress, have no place to go next. I don't care about any of that. Today, and tomorrow and the next day I go to work and spend my entire day amongst those who are poor in spirit, who mourn. I spend my day in the middle of a house full of guys who hunger and thirst for righteousness, though they don't really know how to say it, so instead they just want a world that's stacked against them to cut them a bit of slack. I work with staff who are meek and merciful and pure of heart in the face of what are sometimes insurmountable client needs, and I've finally realized that my job isn't about feeding guys and establishing programs and "ministry" - today I got to be a peacemaker with nothing more than a few quiet words; I got to touch the heart of someone who had - in a very real way - been persecuted, who had been condemned.
Yet amidst all the peace, love and contentment that I have been bathed in today came such overwhelming sadness - I couldn't explain it. I neglected my work to sit in the office, puzzling over it, and only now do I realize that God was going before me. Later in the day I had two separate conversations. One was with a client who was a trucker and has been struggling to get his life back on the road. Everything was in place, but then his cell-phone ran out of hours and with no money to reload it, he lost a job offer. Another man, a welder, lost his job because he couldn't get to work this morning at a shop on the edge of the city. This is where I live, and this is the mystery of God in the world, and I don't understand any of it, don't grasp it, don't know how to live with it all. Blessed and brokenhearted, loved and loveless, lost and laggard, and all of us in it together, and Jesus, who walks among us, robed not in splendour and majesty but in the beggar's torn coat, and perhaps, just perhaps, I imagine - a wry smile is playing at the corner of his lip while tears stream down his cheek.
And I love him so.
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Reader Comments (12)
I wonder if at times God is doing so much in our lives (because we finally let Him) that there is no way we can comprehend it, so He "protects" us with darkness, sort of a nurturing bewilderment.
And He prunes.
I dearly love your tender heart.Thank you and goodnight.
You and me, brother - you and me...
this rocked.
you heard the call and you immersed yourself in it. you dove in.
may we all do the same.
peace, brother.
Amber - That's much how I feel about your post on Pine Ridge
Layla - I've always suspected you and Amber were twins. If you two ever got together you'd probably really enjoy each other.
dudehead - "Because we finally let him" is exactly the right phrase.
Lorna - Keep Shining!
Patti - "Beauty for ashes" - three words that say it all.
Hey Jules - Ain't it wild'?
so i go - I most definitely did not dive in. What happened is that God gave me a shove and off the end of the dock I went.
put the cozy on, bro. i'll bring some berries...