10/01/2015

FOR SEASONS OF BEAUTY AND TENSION



 
It was my birthday, and among many gifts received, three were remarkable and rare: a letter from a dear aunt (letters are so much more personal than email or phone calls) and two video renditions of Vivaldi’s four seasons: one a full orchestra in formal splendor, the other an a capela sextet. Both of the musical presentations lifted my spirit while pulling my heartstrings as they reminded of the beauty of the earth and wonder of the skies. Vivaldi is not known for being conducive to worship, nor is my aunt known for Christian piety (though she’s got an enormous blend of zest for life and common sense), but they made my day and caused me to say “Thank you, God”.

Yesterday I read an article for ministers about the tension between pastoral excellence and a life of scholarship, and it struck a full ring of keys. I am not a pastor, nor am I a scholar, but as a Christian who enjoys thinking and cannot but write, the pull of ordinary, everyday, intellectual integrity, and hunger for beauty and excellence, while present and constantly remaining barefoot, true, and coherent in what I think with what I do.

Used to think such tensions were part of adolescence, later conceded that they came with being a woman but would dwindle with maturity. Now I’ve had to admit that “golden years” may bring increasing pains of aging, dwindling mobility and white hair, but maturity is still elusive – I may be getting old  but am far from being wiser or more settled. Oh, I’m okay with my spouse whom I love more than ever, and with myself though there are areas I can’t begin to plumb. We’ve carved out a good life and reached many of the goals of our youth.   But there is so much more I want to understand, be, develop, do, produce, expand… I have time on my hands because no job and no kids at home allow me to “do whatever I want”. My husband’s health has improved to no longer need to care 24 hours a day—he is returning to thinking and doing many creative, productive tasks that don’t require my help.

But I have no time for getting one single thing done as planned. Writing deadlines are seldom reached – well, I write in the dead of night and cross lines every day between writing ordinary, even superficial stuff, with deep insights into God’s Word and people’s worth. This Garland blog, for example, has been dormant for months – and I can’t get my keyboard unstuck. My proposed second novel has been waiting with question marks from chapter eighteen on, for the last eighteen months. The planned book on changes in life from the Biblical lens of Paul’s letter to Philippians is still in the planning. Nothing’s changed since before Lau was hospitalized. Joyous to be home, I get some weeding done, scatter seeds in my garden, but procrastinate the dreaded total revamping of my back yard. Hands and back ache too much! Walk through the orchard and verify that macadamia and persimmon will be producing, got lemons galore, got tired of so many chestnuts and still am hopeful for our peaches, passion fruit and jaboticaba. Planned to sit down and put my collection of recipes and home-cooked stories on paper for publishing by February—not 2016, but last February. It is still simmering in my imagination, though I’ve enjoyed scores of Nigella and Jamie Oliver and Barefoot Contessa and Bel Gil and Rita Lobo on TV these past months. Get real, Beth! Gonna have to speak to the Rock in the desert for the water to flow?!

Yes, must speak to the Rock, drawing near and keeping my eyes focused on Him, listening to Him more than to the sounds of multiple screaming tidbits of demands that that burst like soap bubbles as soon as you attend to them. Wanted to study more, prime my thought-patterns for sharing with friends who seem hungry for the Word (which I profess to aim to communicate). Only managed to publish one article in academic paper, two years (or was it three?) after I researched and wrote it. Get some likes on my facebook communiqués, but even dumb blonds’ posts (pardon the pun) get liked on facebook. In what is my life making a difference?

When I went to the Moody Write to Publish conference in 1988, my room mate was an eight-plus lady who had published years ago and then bemoaned her article about “how to date and get a husband” being rejected by a Christian woman’s magazine. I was forty, at my prime writing period, and was bemused at this lady’s not having a clue as to why such things occur. Lord, keep me from being that way today! Keep me renewed in writing every day—even when I reach Edith Scheaffer or Elizabeth Eliot’s old age (well, now both my mentor writers are in God’s presence living what eye has not seen nor has ear heard!) and I’m still in my sixties.

The pull between having, ambition to be well-pleasing to God, with excellence as goal – and being an ordinary, barefoot, clean-faced older student/writer is a see-saw — or roller coaster—for the young and daring. How dare mature ladies like me venture on such a tilt-a-whirl?

My consolation is that such tensions are common to many human beings like me (“common to man” is the biblical expression). The great Reformers, Calvin and Luther both had bouts of doubt and deep frustration. The greatest writer-pastor-apologist  in Christian history wrote:

I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… I know that nothing good dwells in me… I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Romans 7:15-25

And yet to those at Philippi, Paul wrote:

I press on to make it my own, because Jesus Christ has made me  his own… forgetting what lies behind and straining forth to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12-14

Garden trivia and writers’ block, living in a home that always needs fixing and fixing furniture and décor one day at a time all remind me of the exquisite beauty of Four Seasons and the common grace of a great letter from Aunt Cindy, because though we wage an inner war that spills outward, we run a race that Jesus has already won for us. Hands on in working! Hands raised in praise. God is not through with me yet.
 
Elizabeth Gomes