by Kayla McClurg
“The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.” – Marge Piercy
When the doctor calmly told me, in that sudden crazy phone call, that my heart had an urgent problem and I needed to get to the nearest emergency room immediately, I went. But not before walking up, then back down, a flight of 15 steps to get a book. I actually risked death to keep from sitting in the ER for hours, perhaps my last hours on this good earth, with nothing to read! In that brief visit to my bedroom, my ‘third eye’ knew this might be my last time there. It scanned the room quickly and noticed two things: how topsy-turvy my closet was and how many things I have that are not fulfilling their intended purpose.
Within sight at my computer as I write this now are a pottery vase holding two pairs of reading glasses, a coffee mug holding ink pens, a small fruit basket holding cards, and a larger basket with leather handles holding magazines. None serve the purpose for which they were created, although happy enough to be helping as they can. In these desk drawers are note cards waiting to become letters and birthday cards carefully selected but so far silent and unsent. All around me are stacks of books, dipped into but few thoroughly absorbed. And the closet is still stuffed with clothes that don’t get out much.
I’ve pared down my life substantially over the past decade, from an entire house to this bedroom, more or less, yet I still own things that are seldom used. Usually I think of this as a stewardship issue: “The coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes,” is the way Basil the Great put it. But lately I’ve been wondering if it also “offends the dignity” of a pair of shoes, a pitcher–a life–not to serve its purpose, fulfill its unique design, have work that is real.
What does it mean to serve our intended purpose in the way a pitcher, well-used, serves the thirsty? And might the common good be better served if we didn’t fret about our “real purpose” but instead lovingly attended to “the duty of the moment” as Catherine Doherty called it? The Church of the Saviour way is to take seriously the finding and following of one’s Call. Not so much doing what makes you “happy” or “following your bliss” but more like Frederick Buechner describes it, responding to that place where the world’s deepest hunger and your deepest joy meet.
Yet I wonder, what if the pursuit of our “true calling” causes us to miss the simple duty and beauty of what is in front of us right now? What if in pursuit of the right work, the right church, the right place to live, the right political and moral stances, we miss the awesomeness of this moment? What if the person, activity, dilemma in front of us right now is our true calling?
If I had spent those 15 hours in the ER reading a book, I might have missed the random acts of trauma, isolation, connection, fear and small kindnesses that mark us all as painfully human and which happened at warp speed in those 54,000 consecutive moments. Would I have been any better prepared for the moments that lay ahead of me?
Now I’ve had 10 bonus weeks, and what do I have to show for it? I sense the urgency that the world calls Making Your Life Count, Accomplishing Something Already, Producing More. But called by its true names, my life is Rich With Potential, Fullness of Being, Relaxed Readiness. It grows best in the soil of the present moment, which is nothing less than a succession of ordinary opportunities to give and receive love. Whatever else our lives might be used for, this is our real work.
Kayla McClurg was on staff at The Church of the Saviour and facilitated the website: inward/outward.
