Turning Overflowing Lives into Life Overflowing

There was an elderly woman named Virginia in one of our former churches who once said during a meeting, as we were listing things that required attention: When will it ever end?!  (She has sense passed, so I suspect maybe she now knows the answer to her question.)  But my wife and I often quote sweet Virginia when we're dealing with life’s seemingly endless “to-do” list, balancing jobs, children, ministry, and whatever else a given week brings that we didn’t plan for on Monday morning.   

On one hand, I think maybe the answer to Virginia’s question is: Never.  Now, I admit, that sounds a bit depressing at first; but think about it.  We’re alive, and life by its nature is dynamic and active. If we aren’t constantly moving and changing, we begin to decay and die.

But at the same time, I relate to the angst in that beloved saint’s question.  The struggle is real. I’m a task-oriented guy, and I too long to “complete the list” and be finished, with no more worries.  But it never seems to happen—this side of eternity anyway.  

Jesus once said to his followers: “I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly”—John 10:10. Abundance conveys a sense of overflowing or filled. What was Jesus saying to them—and to us—through these words?  Jesus, being God, knew we’d all be living full lives.  In some sense, that’s the nature of life as a human being on this third rock from the Sun.  But I think he was promising something more than a full life; he was promising life to the full.  

Ask anyone how they are doing these days and before the conversation gets too far you are likely to hear: I’m very busy.  Very few people are bored these days, that’s for sure.  Life keeps us hopping to say the least as we seek to satisfy all the callings on our life:  e.g., spouse, parent, friend, church member, employee.  We’re all living full—if not overflowing—lives; but are we living life to the full? How do we find what Jesus promised he came to give his followers amid an überbusy life?  Can it be done, or are we destined to struggle with a nagging sense of unfulfillment all our days. 

I believe this is where call (or vocation) comes into the equation.  Yes, there are many calls placed on us, and we have a responsibility to respond to them.  However, there’s something unique that each of us was put on this Earth to do.  We can and will do other things out of necessity, or even out of choice, but we won’t feel fully alive until, in the words of Elrond from Return of the King, we “become who we were born to be“. The Elven Lord’s words resonate with those of the saints of Christendom.

“Our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee”—Augustine

“The glory of God is a [human being] fully alive…’— Irenaeus

We find abundant living as we seek out who God created us to be—and once we discern it, we seek to become it, with all of our heart, mind, and strength.

I can speak with most authority of my own experience. I am fairly certain at this point that my call is to storytelling.  If you are reading this article, you most likely know that I like to write.  Some of you have even told me that you enjoy what I write.  Thank you for your kind words.   It’s always an encouragement to hear from others that what we think we enjoy doing is resonating with others.  

In an essay about vocation, Natalia Ginzburg once wrote: "Words are the only tools that some to fit in my hands.  When I've tried to do any other kind of work, it has been with discomfort and ineptitude to the point of comedy."  That certainly rings true with a guy like me.  While I envy what some “handymen” (I think of Neil and Phil at my church, for example) can do with a set of tools, it’s just not me.  When something breaks in my house, I usually have break down and call someone and pay them to fix it.  Like Ginzburg, the “tool” I seem to wield most efficiently is a pen—or, more often these days, a keyboard.   

So, writer’s write. Go forth and write stories… End of article. 

I wish it was that straightforward.  

Life is something of a paradox.  The very raw material that shapes me and the stories I write is the same substance that opposes my efforts, and makes it a challenging to “have time” to get the stories written.  

Nature itself seems to generate forces that resist unimpeded flows of energy.  In mechanics, there is friction, which works to slow an object in motion, and in electronics, there is resistance, which opposes flow of electrical current through a circuit.  My experience is that there is a similar “force” that opposes spiritual growth.   If you believe as I do, that there is an Enemy, who works counter to the interests of God, then it stands to reason that this entity is the ultimate source of spiritual resistance.  If it’s true that we are most fully alive—and living life to the full as Jesus intended—when we are living out our call, then our Enemy has a vested interest in us not achieving that state.  It should therefore come as no surprise that our endeavors to pursue our call would face stiff opposition, or resistance.  Things that at first seem like random acts that happen in life may in fact be intentional (coordinated) opposition from the Enemy of our Soul, who is threatened by what we will become if we were able to more intentionally focus on the pursuit of our call. Does what I describe here seem “over the top” spiritualizing of random events, or does it resonate with your personal experience?

Last year I took an online Spiritual Writing taught by a Catholic author named Jessica Mesman Griffith.  During one of the weeks, we discussed “Writing as Work and Vocation”.  In her lecture, Jessica shared about her own sense of being called to write. Her words resonate deeply with my own experience.  She talked about how she has known the call was there since she was very young.  So have I.  She said it wasn't until much later that she realized writing could be a spiritual calling. Me too.   

She also said in her lecture that even though she knows she is called to write, that doesn't mean it automatically happens without her putting forth effort.  “Writing for me even if it comes 'naturally' in that it uses an inborn, God-given facility and love for storytelling, requires single-mindedness."   

Jessica’s words here remind me of a Dallas Willard quote: “Grace is not opposed to effort.  Grace is opposed to earning.  Earning is an attitude; effort is an action.”   

Life owes us nothing; we don’t earn our call; we must put forth effort to achieve our dreams.

Fulfilling our call usually doesn’t just happen at random. The natural flow of life tends to drift toward disorder—and away from our destiny.  We need to take intentional action to move toward it—and expect to encounter resistance when we do.

As Jessica put it in her lecture: "Vocations are not necessarily easy to live into.  The one called to priesthood still enters the priesthood and does so at great personal cost.  So does the one called to Olympic athletics."  So true...  Pursuing our call—whatever it is, will be costly.  

Consider for example the call all believers have in common, the universal call to “carry our cross and follow Jesus”—Luke 9:23-24.  Jesus warns his early followers that following through on that call is going to be hard.   The road will rarely be easy, and followers need to “count the cost” before they commit to the journey—Luke 14:25-34.  And despite that warning from the start, when the going got tough, many followers turned back—although the Twelve were among those who persisted—John 6:60-66.  But on that fateful night in the garden when Jesus was arrested, even his closest friends denied him, betrayed him, and abandoned him, fleeing into the Jerusalem night.  Of course, that was not the end of the story; there was redemption after the resurrection, but in that difficult moment, following through with their calling to follow Jesus “to the end” proved too difficult—Mark 14:43-51.

Likewise, pursuing our individual calls will be difficult… but is also worthwhile. When I get in the flow of writing it’s hard to describe how it feels.  The Universe feels “right” for a while.  Time still flows around me but I can lose track.  (In fact, it’s happening right now as I write this article!)  For better or worse, I am completely absorbed in my world. But it’s hard to sustain that state for very long without some external call intruding—sometimes it’s literally a phone call from my wife.

.Jessica said that she frequently uses Ginzburg’s words to remind herself why she does what she does:  "My vocation is to write." Others have expressed to her that they benefit from what she labors to write.   I often try to remind myself of the same thing: My vocation is to tell stories through writing.  When I want to throw in the towel, I think of kind words from people (at my church) like Adelia, Lucy, and Nancy, and others, who say they like reading what I write—and even miss it when I haven’t written in a while.  It’s moments like this when I remember that my call to write not just for me. It benefits others—and ultimately my being more fully alive is to the glory of God. 

I am Facebook friends with Jessica.  I know she is raising two children just like me, and has daily challenges she has to deal with as she tries to be a writer.  She also has to pay bills, like I do.  She gets paid to do writing that requires significant amounts of her time and energy, but doesn't necessarily fulfill her as much.  Oh, how I relate to this! 

While the writing (and editing) I do for NASA “pays the bills”, and I find some fulfillment doing it, I am still left with that internal restlessness, a pervasive sense that there is something more God has for me—but with precious little time and energy to pursue my dreams.  There’s this constant struggle to “find time to write”, but then when I do take time to write, I feel guilty because I feel a bit selfish spending time writing, that I could have spent doing something “more productive”.  Indeed, it can be a vicious cycle! 

Jessica’s story serves as an inspiration for me, because despite resistance in her life, she has managed to overcome the resistance in her life and publish several books—and teaches Spiritual Writing courses.  Her story is uniquely hers—but elements of it are similar to my own.  She has turned spiritual writing into what she does for a living.  I would like to do the same thing.  I could see myself teaching classes in writing as Jessica does, but one must “earn” the right to do so by being a published author, and for now that dream remains elusive.  I know that with God all things are possible—but I know it’s going to require effort on my part too.  This is the growing edge for me, where the rubber is hitting the road and the resistance seems overwhelming some days.  The dream is real; the means to have it come true exists; but my willingness to “follow-through” and build a bridge between dreams and means via intention seems lacking.  

So this is a bit of my story, and the specific details of your story will be different.  But I have a hunch many of you might relate to this struggle to turn our overflowing lives into life overflowing. I think it's part of being human. Perhaps you get hung up at the same point that I do? Or maybe you have a different take?  Do you even feel God calls you at all, or is that just for certain special professions like priests and pastors?

May God help us persevere, despite the very real resistance, to become who we were born to be.  

This is Not the End: One Woman’s Tale of Surviving—and Thriving—After an Unexpected Loss

I have recently read Sarah Burke’s book, This is Not the End: Reflections on Finding Hope During the End of the Marriage. While, as the title suggests, this book is most directly relevant to those who have experienced the loss of a marriage, I think her writing will speak to anyone who has experienced an unexpected loss of any sort.  It certainly spoke to someone like me, who has never lost a marriage—but has lost a child.  As Sarah says in the book: “Loss is loss is loss; the only difference is there’s yours there’s mine.”  

In the book, Sarah shares her experience of losing her marriage to her high-school sweetheart and “best friend” unexpectedly after over 13 years together, which thrust her into an unchosen journey on which she rediscovered the “story of her”, and found hope—and God—along the way, sometimes in surprising places.  She describes how she grieved her loss, began pick up the pieces of her shattered dreams, and create new ones, as she moved forward into a new day with brand new hopeful possibilities.  Throughout the book, Sarah mixes in anecdotes from her own personal story with practical wisdom applicable, not just to loss of marriage, but to all types of loss. For example, when we experience loss, she encourages us to shift from asking the unanswerable question of, why, to for what purpose. 

One theme that Sarah drives home throughout the book is the idea of choosing to live well. Almost from the moment a tragedy happens, we have a choice as to how we respond.  In fact, Sarah describes it as making a series of positive choices in a “million tiny moments” that make up our life story—i.e., choosing almost minute-by-minute to become better instead of bitter.  From early on, she had a sense that “this would not be the end of her", and she set about making it a reality through self-care practices like exercise, journaling, prayer, and creating beauty.  She also explains how her children have been a huge motivating factor in her making good choices.  (I recall feeling similar after our loss; as much as we grieved and felt like we wanted to curl up and die when our daughter died, we had two other children that needed us to keep living.)  

One specific choice that Sarah made in the book that impressed me was to share only the details of her personal experience that we the reader needed to know to help us understand her situation and form connections to our own circumstances.  In doing so, I think she showed immense respect for her ex-husband. She had every reason choose the bitter path; she could have easily portrayed him as the sole villain of this story.  But over time she came to realize that it takes two to make a marriage—and it takes two to break one.  She chose what I consider to be the better path, keeping details about why the marriage ended more general, and focusing mostly on her own experience of the events that transpired.   I think others will benefit from that choice.  By the end, she seems even able to look back on the positive memories of their time together and feel grateful—no matter how her husband chose to reinterpret them.

Surely, as Sarah makes clear in her book, we will all have moments when we succumb to bitterness, for there is no denying the very real pain felt over such a tragic loss.  We need space to shed tears for what we have lost and to let ourselves feel whatever we feel.  We need people with whom we can be real.  However, hopefully our overall life trajectory is toward the better.  Sarah explains how she had to risk being vulnerable to others, and it was not necessarily easy, but it was only by doing so that she discovered God's grace through the kindness and compassion of others, and found she was "not the only one".  While her journey of grief was indeed unique and only she could walk it, there were others who have walked similar paths, and they could serve as guides if she allowed them to do so.  

The chapters I liked most come toward the end of the book, where Sarah discusses what here experience has taught her about Grief (Chapter 9) and Forgiving When You Can’t Forget (Chapter 10). Sadness, she reminds us, has its place in life, right alongside joy. Sorrow and love were comingled on the brow of the suffering Jesus, and the boundary between them in life can sometimes be very thin.  (This was certainly true of my personal experience of sudden loss.)   We must learn to welcome both into our lives—even when we didn’t invite the sadness. 

Regarding forgiveness, Sarah thought she had to forgive before healing could start.  Her experience taught her that it is “an inextricable part of the whole process of healing”.  Ultimately it is God who forgives, and forgiving sets the forgiver free from the burden of anger, hatred, and resentment, just as much as it frees the person forgiven of the burden of their sin against the forgiver.

Then comes what might be the most powerful chapter to me: No More Sacred Cows (Chapter 11). In this chapter, Sarah shares some very practical advice to married couples, that she has clearly learned via the “school of hard knocks”.  She explains how she naively assumed her marriage was a sacred cow.  Other marriages might struggle and fail, but hers would be different. After all, she and her husband were “best friends”, so they would surely rise above any challenges they encountered together.  Sadly, she had to find out the hard way that she was wrong.  Her partner changed, but she didn’t notice.  They were no longer on the same page.  Frankly, it seems to me that he was in a different book!  But by the time she figured that out, it was too late to save her marriage.  She reflects on the “red flags” she either didn’t notice or chose to ignore.  Her rumination provides a font of wisdom for those fortunate to be happily married.  In short, she reminds us to cherish our marriage and never take it for granted.  Both partners must be willing to fight for it each day.  (In her case, her husband ceased to be willing to fight for their marriage.)  We should find reasons to celebrate one another.   We also need to trust our instincts when something is “not right”, and have the courage to have the difficult conversation with our spouse, as opposed to staying quiet in an effort to “keep the peace”. 

Sarah’s tale reminds us that loss is a unique journey while at the same time it is a universal experience.  

There were moments where I read a passage describing some aspect of Sarah’s experience of losing a marriage and it resonated with my own experience of losing a child—as some of my many margin notes can attest. Overall I enjoyed reading This is Not the End…, and I recommend it to any who want to learn to live well after an unexpected loss.  I hope that it speaks to in your unique tale of loss as it did to me in mine.

Easter: The Lenten Journey Ends... The Journey to Galilee Begins

I had a wonderful Lent and Holy Week experience.  After beginning Lent with a community Ash Wednesday service on Valentine’s Day at another United Methodist church in our community, our church (Good Shepherd UMC in Waldorf, MD) spent six weeks in worship intentionally journeying closer to the cross via prayer.  In successive weeks, we looked at prayer in the context of community, sacrifice, service, transformation (discipleship), and perseverance.  We also invited people to participate in the practice of prayer both individually and corporately.  In lieu of our regular 11 AM Adult Sunday School class I normally attend, two of us committed to be present in the Chapel each week during Lent, for any who wanted to come and pray.  Each week we had at least two—and wherever two or more are gathered, Christ promises to be there.  (And he’s there when we’re praying on our own too!) 

To start out Holy Week, on Palm Sunday, we considered the prayer of Hosanna—God save us—which can be both a joyful and anguished prayer.  We thought about the cries for salvation in our world today, including the voices heard at the March for Our Lives the day before, where thousands of young people waved banners and shouted out to be saved from the constant threat of gun violence in our society. The service began with joyful songs of “Hosanna”, but by the end the mood had shifted.  We ended with a much more subdued call to “Lead Us to the Cross”, foreshadowing the events of the coming week.

We next gathered as a community on Holy Thursday to reflect on scenes form the Last Week of Jesus’ earthly life. This year, we focused on the Upper Room and eavesdropped on some of the conversation around the table on that fateful night, just before Jesus was arrested. We got insight into what might have been going through the minds of Peter, James, John, and Judas, as they sat and listened to Jesus speak.  We stopped to ponder how we are like the disciples, who would soon betray, deny, and abandon Jesus, their teacher and friend. We watched as, much to Peter’s astonishment, Jesus stooped to wash his dirty feet, willingly doing the task even the lowest servant tried to avoid. We contemplated the kind of King who conquered not by a sword, but by a towel—and ultimately by dying on a cross. We saw Judas depart the fellowship, slipping away into darkness, as the others wondered: Where’s he going?  

Then on Good Friday, we picked up where we left off the night before.  There was a Cross Walk, which this year began at an elementary school near our church (Arthur Middleton Elementary).  Given how much it is needed right now, with a shooting at Great Mills High School in neighboring St. Mary’s county having occurred less than a week earlier, we wanted to take time to intentionally pray for our schools. Then, like the army outside the city of Jericho, we literally marched around the school in prayer asking God’s Spirit to bring down “walls” of division—as only God can.  As we walked, I thought of song lyrics:

I soften my heart like clay on a wheel; your hands hold me firm in the spin.

Your grace is a powerful force I can feel; the Kingdom of Heaven within.

And it will change the world by a rugged cross. an empty tomb… a bridge across

All barriers keeping us apart.  I open up my heart. 

—“I Open My Heart”, Brian McLaren

We then walked from the school up the corner of one of the main roads through Waldorf (Smallwood Drive) lifting high the cross as a visible symbol of God’s Presence in our community.  We stopped at the intersection to pray for all churches (and other faith communities) to work together to confront the complex issues that our community struggles to adequately address. It was inspiring to see several of our youth taking time to come, and not only to come, but to choose to participate in carrying the cross.  

Along the way, I saw a sign that said: “Hidden Entrance”.  I thought it was somehow a fitting message for Good Friday.  The cross seems such an unlikely entry ramp the Kingdom of God, yet by willingly submitting to it, Jesus opened the door for all to smoothly merge into life with God.  

It is one of life’s great ironies that often the gateway to new life is only found after we pass through death—with no guarantee of what waits for us on the “other side”, but with a firm promise that God has been where we are, and will be with usthrough it all. 

Our mid-day procession continued down Smallwood Drive, ending at the sanctuary of Good Shepherd, where we gathered for a time of informal worship.  We heard the three clergy that participated read the Passion story from Mark’s Gospel.  Then, we were invited into a time of individual prayer at the altar with “Jesus Remember Me” playing softly in the background.  

We returned to that same sanctuary on Friday evening, where our youth led us on the final leg of our journey to the cross.  There were a series reflective readings, dramas, and music to help us enter into and meditate upon Jesus’s final moments of life, right up to when he said, “It is finished!” and gave up his Spirit.  The Roman Centurion, the Pharisee, the Thief on the Cross, and Barabbas pondered together how Jesus died for my sin, your sin—our sin.  We were reminded that: By his wounds, we are healed…We departed in silence.  

Then came Holy Saturday. This is the day we Protestants aren’t always quite sure what to do with.  We don’t have a formal Easter Vigil at Good Shepherd, like some churches. However, this year our family did our own informal vigil as, after a busy day that included baseball and softball practices for the kids, and sermon preparation for my wife, we went to a local theater (the Port Tobacco Players) in La Plata, MD, to attend an evening performance of “Jesus Christ Superstar”.  It wasn’t the whole Bible story like the Easter Vigil; nevertheless, it was an interesting way to get a modern musical interpretation of the Gospel story as we awaited the coming day.  (And, as it happened, we got an encore production of the same show on live TV Sunday night!)

Then, finally, Easter Morning was here!  There is no Sunrise Service in our community, but we still rise early to have time for our family’s morning Easter basket tradition before church.  Then it’s off to church—like most every Sunday for the Wards. But this wasn’t just any Sunday; it was Easter.  When I walked into church and saw the sanctuary, which had been stripped bare two days ago when I last saw it, with only a crown of thorns on the altar, now fully decorated, with white paraments on the pulpit and lectern, festive banners adorning the walls, and purple and yellow pansies lining the altar (no Easter Lilies due to allergy sensitivities), I experienced a sense of exhalation.  The strife is o’er the battle done the Lenten Journey is finally done.  Alleluia! 

From the “Easter Glory” introit to kick things off, to “He Lives!” at the end of the second service, it was a truly great day of worshipping the Risen Lord. I don’t know if Sunday’s worship would have impacted me the same, had I not been there for all the events of Holy Week leading up to this moment. I doubt it…  I don’t know if it mattered that I had had voluntarily chosen to fast from Friday evening until Sunday morning, after having done so on the six Fridays of Lent.  I also don’t know if engaging in prayer for six weeks made a difference.  I‘d like to think those practices had an impact, but I know the practices themselves aren’t the point—I engage in them to create space for God to work as God chooses, and when God chooses. All I can say for sure is that Easter touched me this year in a way that maybe it doesn’t always, and I’m grateful for that. 

We met my parents for lunch after church and had a nice meal together.  And then we came home and engaged in a time-honored tradition among clergy (and their families) once Easter Sunday is done: Relaximus maximus.  The responsibilities were now finished and we could finally exhale…  And exhale we did; and soon we were doing so repeatedly—which quickly led to extended contemplation of our inner eyelids.  

Proclaiming new life—resurrection—seems to demand a great deal of energy.  Once Easter is done, we feel emptied spiritually, and in need of rest.  

Those that have been active participants in the events of Lent and Holy Week know well the feeling I describe.  The Monday after Easter is usually a day of well-deserved rest for clergy. Likewise, the Sunday after Easter tends to be a day of rest for laity   We call it low Sunday because it is marked by a pronounced drop in church attendance. Frankly, many clergy plan a vacation day for the Sunday after Easter.  

Theologian N.T. Wright argues that the weeks following Easter is the last time when the Church ought to be “on holiday”.  Wright says, “Is it any wonder the world doesn’t take much notice if Easter is celebrated as the one-day happy ending tacked on to 40 days of fasting and gloom?” He says that Christians should be as joyful and celebratory in the days following Easter as we are penitent and contemplative during the season of Lent leading up to it.[1] While I think ole “Tom” is fighting a somewhat uphill battle here to turn the tide of years of tradition of “taking off” the Sunday after Easter, I also think he has a point.  While taking some time to exhale following a busy Holy Week is more than justified, we need to remember that a while the Lenten Journey ends on Easter, another journey is just beginning—and if we want to find the Risen Lord, we will have to keep walking.  

Such was the case for the first followers of Jesus. Their journey didn’t end on Easter. No, it was really just beginning.  The next step of their journey is implied in the cryptic message the angel gives to the women who first discover the tomb is miraculously empty: 

Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He has been raised; he is not here. … But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you—Mark 16:6-7. 

Surely, the disciples were tired too, after all they had been through in the Last Week—and in the last couple years walking the road with Jesus.  They didn’t necessarily understand yet the implications of all that was happening on Easter.  Waking up the morning after, they must have wondered if it was all a dream:  Was Jesus really alive out there somewhere?  They weren’t sure, but they wanted to find out, and that meant they would have to keep walking—to Galilee. 

The disciples’ summons is our summons. If we want to see the Risen Lord, we too must continue the journey to “Galilee” where he waits for us.  

 Along the way, Jesus appeared to the disciples on several occasions: e.g., on the Road to Emmaus [Luke 24:13-31]; in a locked room in Jerusalem [Luke 24:36-49 and John20:19-23]; to doubting Thomas [John 20:24-28]; at the lakeshore while several of them were fishing [John 21:1-14]; and to Peter, for his “restoration” [John 21:15-24].  The lectionary for the Easter Season touches upon some of these encounters.  The 50-day post-Easter journey ultimately leads us to Pentecost—the day we celebrate the “birthday of the Church”, when the Holy Spirit comes with power to the believers gathered in Jerusalem.  But that story is for another day…

For now, enjoy a well-deserved rest this week if you so choose.  Take some time to exhale, then come back renewed to join us as on our post-Easter journey at Good Shepherd (or wherever you worship). I pray that, like the disciples, we too will have our own memorable encounters with the Risen Lord in the weeks ahead.  Maybe, like those disciples long ago, we’ll encounter Jesus along the way, in some places we never expected to find him.  We might even struggle to recognize him at first as they did.  But as we walk with him, and especially when we sit down to break bread with him, our hearts are strangely warmed, and our eyes are opened.  It begins to dawn on us that it is indeed the same Jesus we knew and loved before the crucifixion—and yet he is different somehow...  We can't quite put our finger on exactly what is different... All we can say for sure is that resurrection seems to have changed him... us... everything...

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[1]See N.T. Wright,Surprised by Hope(Harper One, 2008) p. 256.