Noticing and naming

controversial (?) spiritual practices and the work of others

Last Thursday night, I stayed up later than normal finishing the last few pages of The Two Towers. Outside of this Lord of the Rings reread before bed, my reading is dictated by my syllabi.¹ I’m grateful for the syllabi and the curation and the guided journey through different topics, but, right now, I’m wanting some flexibility, some exploration, some interest-guided pathways. I’m dreaming of the reading that’s waiting for me after graduation. Because I am who I am, much of the reading will fit in a seminary course, but it will still be of my own choosing.² As I consider my own work and the possibility of teaching OT and NT in a college-level format,³ I feel compelled to dig into things that would deepen my own work and make it more fruitful.⁴

Last Thursday, I also subscribed to a new podcast from IVP Academic called Behind the Books. They are going to deep dive into some of their academic books in the show: who was involved, how they were made. It’s the kind of nerdy stuff that I love and I’m thrilled to follow along with the process.⁵ Nijay Gupta, a professor at Northern Seminary has recently joined Substack and shared about the podcast. He’s one of the hosts during the first season and one of editors of the book they are discussing. I’m so grateful for the internet and how it allows us access to people and information and training. Sometimes, though, it only reminds me that I don’t have a Ph.D. There’s stuff I will never know. What if I don’t know enough to do the work that I have? Would it be better to wait for someone better educated or more mature to do it?

Lore Wilbert wrote an essay last week that illuminated a dark corner of my life. This isn’t odd; Lore is one of my favorite writers. She was the first writer whose work I paid to read. In this essay, she unveiled her persistent belief that her presence didn’t matter. Anyone else would be just as well, maybe even better, than her. That caught my attention because I had thought that about myself the night before. I was sitting at our intern commissioning, a gathering that allows our interns to share about their year as they finish the semester. I marveled at the wonders of each of the interns and each of the coaches and when the woman who interned with me got up, I felt strangely flat. I wasn’t sure if I had mattered at all.⁶ Perhaps anyone could have been there. Funnily enough, I would have identified that outlook quickly in someone else but I have never named it in my own life. I’ve been holding that before God this week, asking Jesus if there’s anything He would like to say about that.⁷ 

I bring that up because I’ve been praying for wisdom for both my family and my work.⁸ I work at a director level at our church in a pastoral role. I may get the opportunity next year to teach the Bible in an academic setting. I want to be prepared intellectually and experientially for that work.⁹ Intellectually by doing the reading, by listening to the podcasts, by developing resource guides and learning best practices. But I also want to be prepared experientially. I want to have the continual conversation with Jesus. I want the insight of the Father. I want the direction of the Spirit. I want to have a real, deep, abiding well to draw from in everything I do. A few weeks ago, in contemplative prayer, I quietly asked Jesus if there was anything He wanted to tell me. The answer was to remember my calling. He put me in all the places that I am. I couldn’t have dreamed it up, much less made it happen. That knowledge really frees me up to not have anything to prove. That angle emphasized the “put.” I am in these places by God’s design. 

But I’m also in these places because God put ME here. He didn’t put a scholar who knows much more than me.¹⁰ He, the one who has guided me through my life and all the preparation He has brought my way, chose to put ME right here. He could have called someone else. He could have prepared someone else.¹¹ And yet, I find myself here and God reminding me that it was His work. Apparently my presence does, in fact, matter. It matters that it is me here doing the work. 

I don’t think I’m in danger of over-inflating my sense of importance¹². Karen Swallow Prior talks about virtue being between two excesses, and while whatever we might call this sense of presence is not a classical virtue, I think the principle is true here as well. On one end there is the overinflated sense of self-importance. The work could not go on without me. Nonsense of course. I’m the one that would miss out the most; God would fill in the gap. One the other hand is the self-effacing view where I couldn’t possible make a difference so I don’t try and do nothing. Someone else would be just as good. I want to find myself in the middle and right now I know which way I need to edge. 

I want to be aware of my own calling. I want to name the things in my life. 1 Corinthians 3 talks about having different work. Paul planted. Apollos watered. What mattered was not so much what one was doing, but how one did it.¹³ Can you imagine if Paul had said, “It doesn’t really matter if I do this. Someone else would do just as well”? Or if Apollos had done that? Or any number of believers whose names we do not know? I’m so glad they didn’t do that. And I’m so glad each of those people at our intern commissioning aren’t doing that. I want to be sure I don’t do that either.¹⁴ God put me here. I want to continue deepening, both intellectually and experientially, as I show up for my own work.

1. But only for 33 more days!

2. I intend to hop right back into #personalgradschool in the fall.

3. Our church has an institute whose classes transfer into a couple of different universities. I may teach for them in the fall. I have stepped in and out of lectures this year and loved it.

4. For me, it’s just plain fun as well.

5. Process is also one of my favorite things. Tell me how you do the work and I’ll listen delightedly.

6. I didn’t need it to be about me with applause and accolades. This was a much deeper questioning that other people couldn’t have answered.

7. At some point we are going to talk about contemplative prayer. For now, it’s becoming one of my most consistent spiritual practices.

8. I’m only talking about work here in this post.

9. I had this same conversation in a meeting on Sunday and forgot that I had already written about it.

10. I also have to believe that as those scholars learn more they are more and more aware of what they do not know, just as I am now.

11. Reminder, God is not actually a HE. God is not male. However, for a variety of reasons which are not the point of this essay, I am referring to God as He. Language is hard.

12. Perhaps another season, yes?

13. It was not a competition. What is yours is what is yours and that part does matter.

14. It is fascinating to consider what has contributed to forming me into the type of person who would do this. Another time, perhaps.