Freedom from the Career vs. Calling trap {Book Review}

"In the Christian view, the way to find your calling is to look at the way you were created. Your gifts have not emerged by accident, but because the Creator gave them to you. [...] What if you're struggling under and unfair boss or a tedious job that doesn't take advantage of all your gifts? It's liberating to accept that God is fully aware of where you are at any moment and that by serving the work you've been given you are serving him." 

(Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work by Timothy Keller, 241)

Over the course of my 20s, I went through a lot of angst about "career" vs. "calling". I had two desires within me -- to pursue academic studies and a "secular" career, in the jargon many Christians use, and the strong desire to help others find the joy, peace, and hope I have found in following Jesus. I hadn't had much career advice in my life, I more or less knew my strengths and I knew what I was interested in, but could always imagine a great variety of careers or "ministry" roles I would be happy in. I had the luxury and privilege most women in the world today don't have: choice. I had many options before me: travel to different countries, fields of study, pursuing paid work or volunteering, getting married or not, having kids or not, working or not. Sometimes I found these choices more bewildering than freeing. 

I sought counsel. I tried things out. I failed at things and, especially thanks to my husband's unflagging support and belief in me, picked myself up again and kept going. Even though I had always been interested in studying literature and writing, for too long I believed somehow that the humanities weren't important enough. ("Not that kind of doctor.") I didn't yet know that narrative could save lives, that stories change the world. I doubted doing a Master's, wondered if I should just spend that time and energy volunteering at church. This inner battle between "career" and "calling" led to a lot of worries, heartache, indecision, guilt and angst.

If I had read Tim Keller's Every Good Endeavor 10 years ago, it would have saved me a lot of grief. I started the book in January and could. not. put. it. down. 

The foreward by Katherine Leary Alsdorf grabbed me by the throat (I read it online and immediately downloaded the Kindle edition of the book). Someone was actually, finally verbalizing and addressing the questions I'd had rolling around in my subconscious about work, career and calling. 

"For the next decade, I served in executive leadership in several entrepreneurial tech companies in New York City, Europe, and Silicon Valley. In each job and each day I wrestled with what it means to be “called to serve God” as a leader in business. Redeemer and its senior pastor, Tim Keller, had given me good grounding. I’d learned that I was supposed to be changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ and therefore be “used by God” in my relationships with others, and maybe even be distinctive in the way I led companies. Nice concepts, but what did they look like in practice? The models were few and often seemed remnants of an age when most of America went to church. One CEO would share that he kept a Bible on his desk and that occasionally someone in the company would ask about it. Another prayed and the company thrived. Many viewed their corporate jobs primarily as a means to make lots of money to give away to charities and organizations they cared about. When I asked pastors and businesspeople how their faith related to their work, they often answered that a Christian's primary, if not sole, mission in the workplace was to evangelize those with whom they worked. But most business people would quickly add that evangelism was not one of their gifts. And none of these approaches addressed the issue of how Christians' faith should affect the way they worked." (12)

Keller's book goes far beyond these common, thin models of integrating faith and work and provides a thick, relevant theology of work. I was all "yes" and "amen" and highlighting. Keller addresses why we work--not as a punishment given to Adam after he ate the forbidden fruit, but that work is good, that Adam and Eve worked alongside God in the garden before "the fall." We get to work, to create, to contribute to society. Keller addresses God's Plan for Work, Our Problems with Work and the Gospel and Work. 

"The question must now be 'How, with my existing abilities and opportunities, can I be of greatest service to other people, knowing what I do of God's will and of human need?'" (67)

"Christians are to be fully engaged at work as whole persons, giving their minds, hearts and bodies fully to doing the best job possible on the task at hand." (214)

Too often in Christian circles there is a glorification of "church work", whether volunteer or paid, that being in the church building 24/7 is somehow better than doing any other kind of work. Yet it was Martin Luther who so profoundly preached the value and equality of all kinds of work. 

"First, if religious works were crucial to achieving a good standing with God, then there would always be a fundamental difference between those in church ministry and everyone else. But if religious work did absolutely nothing to earn favor with God, it could no longer be seen as superior to other forms of labor." (73)

 Keller writes so poignantly, 

"There may be no better way to love your neighbor, whether you are writing parking tickets, software, or books, than to simply do your work. But only skillful, competent work will do. [...] all jobs--not merely so-called helping professions--are fundamentally ways of loving your neighbor. Christians do not have to do direct ministry or nonprofit charitable work in order to love others through their jobs. " (76, 79) 

Keller gives insight in how to work for the glory of God and good of all people in many different vocations, often specifically dealing with higher education, artists and writers, of particular interest to me, but many other examples as well.

"So Christians are free to study the world of human culture in order to know more of God; for as creatures made in His image we can appreciate truth and wisdom wherever we find it." (182)

I highly recommend every person to read this book, whether you are in a "secular" or "ministry" job, stay-at-home parent, in the service industry, farmer, educator, in a helping profession, business executive, student or entrepreneur -- this book is for everyone. Keller's insight into the value of ALL kinds of work just might change your entire outlook on what you do each day. It is essential for the Church to value and understand the theology of work as Keller elucidates it and encourage its people how to live and work in this gospel freedom. This book is a game changer.

Review of: 
Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work by Timothy Keller (2012)
Amazon Affiliate Link used. If you buy the book by clicking on this link, you will not pay anything extra but I will receive a tiny subsidy to help finance this blog.

The mystery and drama of the everyday extraordinary

Narrative helps us have eyes to see each other.

I love how author Alix Ohlin, in this post about her collection of short stories Signs and Wonders, explains how poignant and fitting a short story can be as a means of exploring our everyday lives and connecting to people.

In the stories I write, the people tend to be flawed, to make or have made mistakes -- because I think that's true of most of us. Nobody's perfect all the time, after all, and if they were, we'd have no need to tell stories about them. Real people struggle to connect with the people around them, even those they love the most.

And that's my main theme as a writer: the necessity and difficulty of the connections between people, how they sometimes break, how they can be sustained. I'm fascinated by the problems we have relating to other people -- their agendas, their emotional histories, their inner lives -- even as we crave intimacy with them.

There's something about a short story that is perfectly suited to exploring the mystery and drama of what we call, misleadingly I think, "ordinary life." (Because nobody's life is ordinary when you look at it closely.) In a short story, you don't usually cover a massive span of time or multiple generations of a family, say, the way a novel does. You can, however, do justice to the small moments that somehow become turning points in people's lives.

Our creative geniuses are looking for stories to come out of the fabric of our church. I hope this sets a few minds humming. We can use story, our stories, our creative stories, to connect to the real, raw, everyday extraordinary, to tell the greater Story.

Required Reading {Engaging Culture}

As a child, I lived much of the time in the imagined 19th century of my mind, playing dress-up and reading hundreds of girl's novels about the olden days. Laura Ingalls and Mandie were among my best friends. 

It seemed more exciting, more romantic, more adventurous than my own farm childhood.

I often wished I had been born in another time and place.

~

At a recent academic conference, I was chatting with an acquaintance from another university, catching up on our private and professional lives. We discussed her past research in Canadian literature, and a novel both of us had read. She raved about this novel, while I expressed that although it was a page-turner I had read within the space of 24 hours, years ago in a tent while camping in Austria, I had found some scenes in the novel extremely disturbing. 

"Am I just overly sensitive when it comes to protecting children and abuse?" I wondered. The novel gave a stark and realistic portrayal of a Maritime community, a certain kind of life in a specific time and place. 

Knowing each other to both be believing Christians, we cautiously broached the subject of what is acceptable for a Jesus-follower to read, to research, to teach. 

Is there merit in fiction which portrays evil? In filling one's mind with images, stories which disturb, even disgust?

This is a topic I have wrestled with for a few years. On the one hand, I believe each reader must be discerning about what does them good and may cause them to have thoughts which are negative, unhelpful, even sinful. The Bible teaches us to "gird up the loins of our minds." To think about, to dwell on, that which is honourable, pure, just, lovely, excellent, commendable, praiseworthy. 

But perhaps there is a difference between reading, and dwelling on. 

I do not believe Christians should confine their reading to the sterilized "Christian fiction" (often taking place in a romanticized 19th century or among the Amish) of the Christian bookstore. This kind of reading seldom portrays realistic, present-day characters, with real questions and problems, real sin, real struggle, and real redemption. It rarely helps you to better understand your neighbour who is facing a divorce, your brother-in-law's alcoholism, your high-school aged son who feels lost and isolated, hiding a porn addiction, the bi-polar colleague with erratic behaviour, nor the homeless man you pass everyday in the street feeling guilty about. Rather, "Christian fiction" provides escapism from the realities of life in the here and now, the place God has pulled me out of eternity to live in. 

Escapism does not honour a God who determined the exact times and places where we should live.

~ 

As I've mentioned before, I found great encouragement in knowing that the prophet Daniel did a Bachelor's in literature. He was appointed to a place of influence in a foreign Kingdom after having studied the language and literature of the Chaldeans for three years.

Jesus hung out with people of all walks of life, from the despised prostitute to the hated rich tax collector, from working-class fishermen to the religious leaders of the day. He engaged with his culture, ate and drank and went to parties, and never shied away from a controversy. He cared about people. Messed up, broken, sinful people like us. He was not oblivious to the world going on around him, to the needs and struggles. He was not hiding in his holiness.

~

Literature - short stories, novels, poetry - is an amazing tool for understanding and engaging the culture we live in. Classic works of a nation's fiction, as well as current bestsellers, should be required reading for anyone hoping to impact that culture. Fiction gives us a window into understanding peoples' motivations, their world view, the history and politics which impact their way of reasoning, behaving, deciding, believing.

There will be things which disturb. You probably won't like all of the characters and wish you were like them, or even want to cheer for them. 

Fiction gives us eyes to see, ears to hear. It enables us to go where perhaps our own feet never will, to ask questions we are too embarrassed to speak out, to understand and give a frame of reference for starting a conversation.

Here. 

In the real world, with our real, broken, messy colleagues, family, neighbours, ourselves.

Now.

For such a time as this.

Stumbling Stones {Day of German Unity}

My eye watches for them
and catches their quiet gleam
amidst busy and rush and to-do.

Crowds push,
Swiss shoppers getting
a Euro bargain.

Children pull and run off,
prams heavy-laden.
Dogs snuffle for crumbs.
Spoons clink glass at outdoor cafés,
Air sharp with autumn.

For those with eyes to see
they quietly remind
of tragedies gone by.

Names not quite erased.

How many eyes really stumble across them?
Another century, a millenium from here.

People made in the image
of an eternal God
Taken.
Tortured.
Murdered.

Verhaftet.
Deportiert.
Ermordet.

These words stark and cruel
Interrupt my self-absorbed life.
Imprisoned. Deported. Murdered.

Is it enough
just to remember?
To pause for a moment,
then continue
empyting my purse.
Eyes never have enough of seeing.

Some fled.
Überlebt.
Survived.
A sigh of relief.
Does one cancel out the other?

No.

Here lived Max Braitsch
Born 1901
Arrested as part of the resistance 1939
1940 penal camp Aschendorfer Moor
1944 Pardoned
Survived

Today we celebrate the "Day of German Unity." We are so thankful. Reconcilation, reunification. East and West. One nation again.

Lest we forget what preceeded that division.

One of the things I cherish most about Konstanz is the initiative of artists to lay down Stolpersteine (stumbling stones), small brass stones integrated into the cobblestone in front of the houses (the last freely chosen home) where Jews and members of the resistance lived before the second World War. Their names, dates of birth and death, and what happened to them are straightforwardly stated. If they escaped. The names of the camps where they were taken. Whether they survived or were murdered.

I stop, I pause, I remember. I pray.
Lest we forget.

The school courtyard where my husband teaches.

Here taught
Dr. Hermann Venedey
Born 1904
Fled 1933
Switzerland
Survived

Here lived
Simon Alexander
Born 1901
Arrested 1938
Dachau
Deported 1940
Gurs
Rivesaltes
Murdered September 18, 1942
Auschwitz

These photos from the Stolpersteine Konstanz site: http://stolpersteine-konstanz.de/.

In Memorium: My Austrian Spiritual Father

We had slept in the parked car since about 3 a.m. I got our almost 3 year old son out of his car seat and let him snuggle on my lap so that I would have enough room behind me to recline my seat. My husband held our daughter in his arms to give her a break from her car seat, although he was unable to sleep sitting up in our tightly packed rental car. We'd decided to undertake the 8 hour drive from my parents' place in southwestern Ontario, Canada, to Montreal overnight so our kids would sleep through it, but stopped in the parking lot of an OnRoute rest stop to (try to) sleep for a few hours. At 6 we went inside for some breakfast, to freshen up and to enjoy the free WiFi. After getting our kids settled with juice and yogurt, my husband checked his phone. I was laughing at my son's excited antics when my husband nudged me, "Look at this." His voice broke.

A friend back home in Germany had alerted us to the sudden announcement on Tauernhof's Facebook page. Hans Peter Royer, the director of Tauernhof, an mountain retreat centre and Torchbearer's Bible School in Austria, had died suddenly in a tragic paragliding accident.

a snapshot of Hans Peter from the summer of 2007
when my husband & I returned to work as guides

We were shocked. He was only 52. He was an experienced mountain guide, often rescuing others. For a few moments I wondered if it had been some kind of sick joke, how could he have passed away in the same manner as his predecessor? My heart broke for his family, knowing his daughter Lisa, with whom I had hiked when she was 8 years old, had celebrated her wedding only a few weeks before.

We held it together so our kids would not notice our sadness. Back on the road, when they were sleeping again, we shed tears and reminisced about our times at Tauernhof, where we met at Fall School in 2004, and how Hans Peter had impacted the narrative of our lives.


I first went to Tauernhof in 2002 for a mountaineering program called Upward Bound. Those six weeks truly changed my life. Never had I understood or experienced the sweetness and beauty of Christian community like that before. We were often pushed to our physical limits, hiking with heavy packs for up to a week without having a shower, sleeping in a cave 1200 m under the Dachstein mountain in utter darkness at 0 degrees. We were challenged emotionally, putting up with teammates from all over the world of various ages, abilities and personalities, with whom we had to live, cook, and sleep in tents or mountain huts (note the aforementioned lack of showering). We were forced to work together to cross glaciers, literally shouldering each others' burdens when injuries or weakness brought some teammates to their breaking point. I remember fondly the morning we woke up to find our leaders had abandoned us in the night, and we were left to make our own way down the mountain, and then run a 12 km jaunt back to a warm shower and a real bed. My time at Tauernhof taught me that, by God's grace, I am capable of loving other people, even those whom at first impression I thought would drive me crazy, whom I judged and wrote off as uncool or too cool. That I can learn something from everyone.

entering the cave

In those six weeks I learned things that have shaped me continually since then, though I have to admit forgetting how profoundly my character, my outlook and beliefs, were formed in the Austrian Alps. Once we got back home to Germany a week ago, I spent a jet lagged night reading through my journal from that summer in 2002, my first time in Europe. My 20 year old musings are at times cute, painfully embarrassing (I was just getting to know myself), at times profound and still true. And such a reminder of God's faithfulness. Reading through this old journal reminded me that the roots of all the spiritual growth I have known as an adult go down to the cold mountain stream that runs through Schladming and the teachings of HP.

I don't want to try to tell Hans Peter's story here. I can't. Not only is it not mine to tell, hundreds of people knew him better than I did. HP's ministry, not only at Tauernhof but traveling and speaking all over the world, has touched tens of thousands of lives. But he is part of my story, for whom I will be forever grateful. His strong leadership, blunt manner and challenging messages called out to the best within me. He stirred up my desire to grow and change, he made me want to "live a life worthy of the calling you have received" in Christ Jesus. Many students seemed a little bit afraid of him, intimidated by his expertise in the mountains and straightforward Austrian ways. But I saw the twinkle in his eye, the sarcasm and fun behind his rather stoic exterior. I wrote in my journal back then, "If he wasn't so demanding, I wouldn't be confident enough to do all these things [in the mountains]. The staff are totally not about babying us, especially Hans Peter. He just presses on, you don't have a choice or time to think or worry, just go. It's so good, no time to fear." One of the strategies of the program was not to reveal much about what activities we would actually be doing in the course, in order to simulate real life (we do not truly know what the next day will hold), teaching us trust, spontaneity and shaking us out of our desire to control our lives and circumstances.

spot the hut we were headed for...

I remember a particularly painful day in the climbing garden by Hofpürglhütte. I was new to rock climbing, and trying to find my footing wearing big hiking boots on the slick rocks was proving nearly impossible. I was complaining to my belayer why it wasn't working and Hans Peter hollered from a nearby peak, "Don't argue, just climb!" Even after HP scurried over to try to help me, I failed to make it to the top of the route. I fought back hot stinging tears while others took their turns. I was embarrassed and felt terrible, being someone who had always put her self-esteem and value in what she could achieve. Later I wrote in my journal "HP had tried to help me and I felt like I had failed him." But with the encouragement of others and knowing I would only feel better if I got up and conquered something, I completed the Klettersteig and went on with the day, proud to have overcome failure and fear. I'll never forget his words, it meant a lot to me that he noticed me and pushed me to go beyond my comfort zone to achieve what I guess he somehow knew that I could. Others told me later they would have been embarrassed if he had hollered at them like that, or perhaps found him too challenging. But for me, I needed that and it stirred me up to want to achieve the potential he saw in me.

Another day in that same climbing garden, with Heli sitting in the top spot

"Don't argue, just climb" became my motto in the following years, as I tried to stop arguing with God about all the reasons why I can't or don't want to do things and instead get on with obeying him, stepping out in trust. I hadn't thought about that now in a few years, but HP's wisdom has proven timely again.

We were all impressed with the stoic confidence of his children in the mountains. Lisa who told me, "God gave us legs to use them" as she cheerily hiked about 10 hours uphill with us. Lukas as an 11-year-old, helping us slow, somewhat scared, 20-somethings through a wind tunnel in the cave which blew out our lights, telling us in a semi-bored sounding Austrian accent, "I am coming, give me your bag."

I remember him teaching on death in the context of Ecclesiastes, quoting Psalm 90:12 and Amos 4:12, telling us to be prepared for and comfortable with it. Hans Peter told us, "We aren't afraid of dying as much as dying without having really lived." I think everyone would agree, Hans Peter was a man who really lived. And he read us a quote which I took down in my journal, "I depart from this life like a little boy running home from school."

Hans Peter truly was a spiritual father to me, his teaching and timely guidance forever changed me and the course of my life. Tauernhof taught me to love the local church and directed the passion I had for Jesus. We loved you HP and grieve with your beautiful wife and children. Thank you Hannelore, Lukas, Lisa and Eva for sharing him with all of us. His legacy lives on in the thousands of lives he touched, and the millions of lives they will in turn reach.

"But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it."

2 Timothy 3:14

Next stop: Museum

When I saw these pictures of a surprising flash flood in Toronto yesterday, I got all nostalgic seeing someone's Twitter pic of water pouring into Museum subway station. The residence buildings where I lived for two years were just down the street from Museum station while I was attending U of T. Stale, lukewarm TTC dank air gusting in your face a minute after the train arrives; quiver of fear in my belly when returning home after dark. Sigh. Free Friday nights at the ROM, feeling slightly sophisticated, listening to the live string quartet while gazing repeatedly at the beautiful Roberta Bondar exhibit of photography of Canada's national parks. As a Canadian Studies major I think I visited the exhibit a dozen times.

Growing up on a farm in rural southwestern Ontario, I always dreamt of moving to the big city. We went to Toronto, a three hour drive away, fairly often, especially after my brother, and later one of my sisters, went to university there. I felt so grown up taking the VIA train by myself to visit my brother, 7 years my elder, while he studied at Ryerson. I loved the excitement of things happening, the vibrancy of the streets filled with people of all ages, shapes, sizes, colours and languages. One of many things this farm-girl enjoyed was trying to spot mice (rats?) while waiting for the subway, something that seemed to me truly urban. I loved the notices glued to mailboxes and light posts, the movie sets and actor's trucks on our street, and the thrill of danger observing some sly drug deal along the counter beside us while eating burgers at Harveys. 

I took my Quebec exchange student Jessie with me to sleep on the floor of my brother's apartment for a few muggy city nights the summer we were 15. (Poor girl. She was from Quebec City and spent 4 weeks on our farm that summer, in my rather slow-paced summer social circle. I remember my teenage shame and shock finding a letter she wrote to a friend - yes I was snooping - in which she said her trip to my place was not as fun as a previous exchange to Cambridge Bay. That's in the Arctic, people.) 

So I was trying to show my cosmopolitan Québécoise some of the urban life Ontario has to offer. I have two strong memories from those few days in Toronto: rollerblading downhill into the Don Valley from Bloor; me not knowing how to brake and throwing my body onto a little piece of grass just in time before careening onto the street. 

My other memory is of some sort of miscommunication which left Jessie and I sitting outside of my brother's high-rise apartment building on a sweltering afternoon waiting for him to return (this was in the land before cell phones). He lived in a somewhat seedy area on Sherbourne, downtown, in the contact zone of ordinary life. Sitting on the planter box that day, waiting, smelling rotting garbage in the oppressive August humidity; watching a man, probably homeless, definitely on drugs, rambling to himself and sometimes shouting at others. Little children playing on the sidewalk, clapping and dancing on the cement steps and chasing each other around stunted bushes. I was confronted with poverty, difference, Otherness from which my farm-life usually sheltered me. I don't think I was afraid as I waited for my brother, but I was intrigued and felt terribly alive.

Three years later, even though I was offered scholarships to the other two universities I applied to, I still chose U of T because it had always been my dream to live in Toronto (and thankfully some scholarships showed up later). I remember deciding this the preceding winter on another visit (staying with my sister that time). I walked around downtown and made that decision while sitting in a coffee shop, on a bar stool by a window overlooking the street, writing in my journal. Choosing the messiness of downtown mega-city life over the security of scholarships and mid-sized-cities.

We've now lived in a small German city for 7 years, and smaller village-part of that city for 1. We love our city. Now, when we visit Toronto or Montreal every year or two I feel like a country bumpkin (perhaps even more so than I felt at 15), I am dizzied by the pace of life, the sheer variety of products/buildings/possibilities. And of course, the people, the beautiful, mixed, vibrant people of every background, continent, socio-economic bracket imaginable. The city is a crossroads where identities mingle and new lives can be begun. Our current town is very similar in size to the town in which I attended school and church as a child. It is peaceful, clean, safe, a typically "great place to raise kids." But I have a feeling we won't be here forever. Part of us longs for the heartbeat of a metropolis, being at a cultural centre, the convergence of streams of thought which carries influence downstream. 

Why does our church need writers?

All of life is permeated by Story. Each individual has a Story, and each of these stories is woven into the greater tapestry of humanity. The human Story. By unearthing and telling the Stories unfurling around us, we can send an arrow into the hearts even of strangers, strangers to the church, even into the hearts of people scattered across the globe. People who will say, “You too? Me too! I thought I was the only one.” In that realization and identification with one another, doors are opened, arms are uncrossed, and walls come tumbling down brick by brick.

All of life is Story.

And permeating it all is God’s narrative, how He is wooing and sending and saving us. His great redemption Story is pulsating beneath all of our stories, giving life-blood and breath. He chose to speak to us through a Story, an actual written down book.  His words. Living-breathing-sharp-poignant- marrow-rendering-mighty-freedom-giving Story written down in language humans can comprehend. Sacred Word. Divine Authorship. His Word is the Grand Story, the metanarrative for all of life.

The Bible says that Jesus is the Author of life. He is the great Author, from whose pen every word that is True and Good and Right has streamed forth. He is the Author of every genre. Love Story. Tragedy. Comedy. Mystery. Passion. Suspense. Adventure. Redemption.  God is an Author and so too am I. Telling the stories of His goodness to me. His righteousness and love and redemption in my own life. He is an Author of second-chances, forgiveness, and adventures beyond my greatest hopes. I tell stories to reveal, I hope, more of Him and less of me. I help to tell the stories of those who cannot speak for themselves or cannot find the words. That’s why I write.

That’s why our church and The Church need writers. Who will tell the Stories?