Lament

In true davidic fashion - I thought why not do a brief entry in response to the busyness of my life as of late. I am guessing that i put close to 70 hours, possibly more this past week in preparation for the new course I am teaching. Admittedly, I have wondered if it has been worth it all? What has the cost been to my lifestyle?

I enjoy my leisure time and plan on doing a serious mtn bike ride once a week for about an hour or so. I love spending any time I can outdoors, in fact at one time I used to get paid to work outdoors. I love to spend time playing with my daughters & wife! Our family usually spends a morning a week with our church community that meets in a building near where we used to live and every two weeks we spend an evening with our small group. But lately - all those things I love have been pushed aside to meet the demands of my so-called work or ministry.

How many hours do you pour into your work so that you can put food on the table, make those house payments, & buy those vehicles to put in your garage? How much does our lifestyle actually cost us? The government of Manitoba estimate that to raise a single child from 0-18 costs somewhere in the neighbourhood of $166,000 Cdn. Again, this is an average guestimate and perhaps a reflection of the lifestyle choices we force our children into. Why do we work? Obviously to meet the economic or physical needs of a family. But what about the emotional, social, & spiritual needs that exist?

Ironically, if I would maintain my current workload I most likely would be sacrificing my children on the altar of "doing." The hours we spend at work each week (even if it is a job that we truly enjoy) obviously are more than the hours we actually spend with our families right? In fact, even when we are home away from our workplace, often we are still at work solving some type of problem. The problem of our age is that often never leave work - our computers now fit in our pockets and tell us what to do hour by hour.

Humankind has made the mistake of believing that what we do actually counts for something when in reality it is who we are or are becoming which should really be recognized. Some people call this self-actualization - others simply call this discovering your calling. We have all been called to develop our character - to be people that extend grace & mercy to those less fortunate.

We are called I believe to some form of community - we all need friends and function best when we have other people to interact with & love. We are all called to commission - to reach out to the world in sharing what we have learned and in a Christian context - the good news that this life can have meaning beyond what we do or even who we are. And finally, I believe we are called to communion - to spend time reflecting on who we are becoming and we are called to be. For me personally, this not only includes self-introspection but God-introspection. Who is God and what does our relationship look like?

So here I sit in lament, typing out my frustrations but closer than ever to finding a way out of the cage. I may be deeper in the darkness but I'm closer to the light.

G