Wonderings about enough

Maybe you’ve noticed, but this is my first blog post in nearly three months. Tomorrow will be exactly three months since my previous post on July 30th. All sorts of things have happened since then but I’m sure you’re guessing maybe Ephesians three blew my mind so thoroughly that I couldn't speak or write for three months.

Yeah... I wish that was the issue. I’ve chosen to look back over the last three months as my “desert wanderings.” I can’t recall if I’d mentioned it previously, but I had begun to lose sight of our purpose and I was lacking any real energy our passion. I suppose I had forgotten why we (in the Abbey) exist. A lot of folks in traditional ministry might call this burning out. While most churches can’t afford to give their pastor the option of a three month sabbatical or vacation, by the grace of God, the Abbey isn’t built that way.

At the beginning of this, around our communal meal, I confessed to everyone that I need to hand down my mantle to all of them... to lead and make decisions by consensus in the time I’d lost my way. And you know what? Nothing exploded these three months! Nothing burned down, and in fact, a lot of really great things happened. Perhaps due to my lack of leadership or “control issues,” we’ve grown more in the last three months than in any other period in the young life of the Abbey.

So what did I do for three months?

I avoided Scripture like the plague.

I prayed often, but probably not in the manner that you would suppose.

I stayed in the presence of people and participated in the life of the Abbey just like I would normally... except now as an oblate rather than the abbot.

I think I spent more time with my family and we took a vacation to the coast at the end of September.

But more than anything else, I built a table.

This has been my first major woodworking project and it was meant to be an experiment toward adopting a universal vocation for the Abbey. The hope was in the viability of the practice... that we might all begin designing and building furniture or anything else hand made from wood. I’d liked to have seen it become our craft together. I’m not so convinced it’s viable now. Maybe aspects of it are, but we’ll know more as we move forward.

There is much I could say about it, but the bottom line becomes I’d like to be a carpenter-photographer-film-maker-writer-speaker when I grow up.

Don’t worry... it’ll be a while.

So that is where I’ve been these three months, but I don’t think that’s why you called.

Some thoughts on enough... from my “desert wanderings,” I’ve had the unique perspective you gain from stepping back and seeing things from a bit of distance. One of the big things that has become readily apparent, is we have either done, facilitated, or funded some really great things through our efforts in the Abbey. At this point, you can post on our resume yard-work for the elderly, visitation of the ill or elderly, the practice of contemplative prayers, art classes that are free to everyone, breaking bread together, launching a medical clinic, aiding a meal program, and taking in our friends who live outside on a transitional basis.

Is that a fair amount of stuff? For some reason, three months ago, it didn’t feel like all that much. As I look at it now, that has to be at least as much if not more than a conventional congregation of 300 people accomplishes in a single calendar year. More than that, in the next couple of weeks, we’ll begin recruiting interns from Chico State through the social work and psych departments. Am I content? Do I still speak of our little community in self-deprecating terms?

So what is enough? When it comes to the people of God and their impact on the people they live around, what is enough? We’ve had no less than four articles in the local paper the last couple of weeks (regarding the clinic). Does that mean anything? Have we witnessed the transformation of lives from dark to light? Have we seen the hungry fed or the homeless find hospitality? Have all of our roles through Matthew 25 been met?

Is prison visitation the next step? Do we need more people to continually do more? Maybe if God wants a greater harvest, He sends more workers.

What is enough?

In the coming days, I’ll jump back into Ephesians. Here’s to dipping my toe in the water ever so gingerly.