Posts tagged ‘Laurelville’
The practice of waking up to God (“An Altar in the World”, chapter 1)
When I recommended “An Altar in the World” a few days ago, I mentioned that I was looking forward to re-reading it (and taking it to heart) when I got to Laurelville. I decided to get a jump-start this week. My goal is to experiment with the practical suggestions that Barbara Brown Taylor gives for incorporating spiritual discipline into everyday life. At least, I thought she gave suggestions – that was my recollection/impression when I reached the end of the book the first time through. But when I went back to chapter one, it surprised me.
In chapter one, Taylor is describing the practice of waking up to God. ‘Vision’ is the word she suggests for this practice. So as I was reading, I was looking for ways one might learn to see God. But I didn’t find answers – at least, not the kind of concrete suggestions I was looking for. And then it occurred to me that this was the point of the whole chapter. We create events for God to attend and structures to serve as God’s dwelling. But Taylor notes that the whole world is the dwelling of God, and she asks, “What if the gravel of a parking lot looks as promising to God as the floorboards of a church?” Like Jacob we gradually wake up to the realization that “the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it.” (Genesis 28.16)
Taylor writes…
If there is a switch to flip, I have never found it. As with Jacob, most of my visions of the divine have happened while I was busy doing something else. I did not make them happen. They happened to me the same way a thunderstorm happens to me, or a bad cold, or the sudden awareness that I am desperately in love. I play no apparent part in their genesis. My only part is to decide how I will respond, since there is plenty I can do to make them go away…
And she continues by describing how she can respond to a “vision of the divine”:
I can set a little altar, in the world or in my heart. I can stop what I am doing long enough to see where I am, who I am there with, and how awesome the place is…
… I can see it for once, instead of walking right past it, maybe even setting a stone or saying a blessing before I move on to wherever I am due next.
As I anticipate my new job at Laurelville, I have been keenly aware that this is a very dramatic change in my life. It isn’t realistic to think that I’ll ever return to science, at least not in the way that it ordered my life for the last eighteen years. And yet, during these months I have never had the sense of these years being wasted time. Everything in my life, each community and place, has led to this moment, contributing to what comes next.
So I thought it was appropriate to be reading chapter one this week and to pause to “set a stone or say a blessing before I move on to wherever I am due next.” I needed to clean up some geocaches* that my daughters and I had placed around the suburbs. As I did this yesterday, I decided to take some time at each place to offer thanks and a blessing…
* For those of you unfamiliar with geocaching: geocaching.com.
Eaton Preserve
Eaton Preserve is less than a mile from our Plainfield home. It has a park area, a few acres of prairie, and a small out-of-the-way wooded corner. It was in that corner that Oldest Daughter hid her geocache. You have to work to get there. But once there, you find yourself in a quiet spot to watch the stream pass by.
Black Partridge Woods
Black Partridge Woods is just southwest of where I work at Argonne. There aren’t any groomed trails; subsequently, few people know that it exists, let alone visit. Middle Daughter chose a hollow tree for hiding her geocache – a kind of rebirth for the tree (to invoke the music of Rich Mullins). Her cache was also close to a stream. Our family seems to like these riverside locations.
Sag Quarries
The Sag Quarries lie beside the Calumet-Saganashkee Channel and are just to the southeast of my work. There is no more quarrying; the area has been converted to a county park. I spent many lunches here. Like the other two locations, you can find a spot that almost no one visits. This is where I had hidden a geocache. Yesterday, as I started out to retrieve my cache I was greeted by a flash of orange: a Baltimore oriole welcomed me to the path. Cardinals and chickadees also kept me company.
At each of these places, I thanked God for being present with my daughters and I, even if we hadn’t recognized it at the time. I said a blessing for the plants and animals that had witnessed our presence and God’s Spirit in that place. I even placed my hands on the hollow tree as I blessed it and created an altar of rocks like the one at the top of this post.
What good did any of this do?
Heaven knows. I’m just learning to wake up to God.
Adventures in moving
As I hinted in the last post, my family has essentially moved to Pennsylvania. Originally, the timing of the move was necessitated by the scheduled closing date for our house, combined with the requirements of my job at Argonne. When the house closing fell through, it made the early move date unnecessary, so we were frustrated. Nevertheless, we have spent the last four days moving, and only the essentials remain in our house in Illinois (so that I can stay there through the end of the month).
The last four days have been a blessing in some ways. A whole bunch of friends and family helped with the packing on Saturday:
- My dad spent the entire week with us, doing odd jobs and entertaining his grand-daughters.
- Ordinary Spouse’s mom, brother, and sister-in-law prepared food for all our workers. They also helped us pack the moving van and clean the house.
- Her brother (packer extraordinaire) coordinated the loading of the moving van. Nothing shifted on the trip to Pennsylvania.
- Tons of church and neighborhood friends helped with packing (or played with the girls while the packing was happening).
The packing was complete by early afternoon. Once the house was clean, we left for OS’s parents’ place in Goshen, Indiana (in order to break the trip into more manageable bits).
Driving a 26-foot moving van was a new experience for me. Shortly after we got on the road on Saturday, I was dismayed to see the oil pressure gauge fall to zero. (“Oh, please let us not have to unpack this van and repack a new one!”) I dutifully called the UHaul help number and was relieved (and amused) when they said, “If you really had zero oil pressure, you’d know it. Keep going.”
Sunday was the big day of driving. I was happy to have Oldest Daughter as my co-pilot for the day, and I think that she was excited to be sitting up high in the truck. We left Goshen early, about an hour before Ordinary Spouse and my father, and managed to stay ahead of them the whole day. At one of the rest areas in Ohio, I realized that we had been running the air conditioning on the truck, rather than the vent. That did wonders for our already poor gas mileage. I think we averaged about 8 mpg on the first tank of gas, but managed closer to 10 mpg on the second tank.
Once at Laurelville, we unloaded a little stuff from the back of the van, but left most of it for Monday. We were glad to have a room in Laurelville’s Solarhouse, so that we didn’t need to dig out bedding for the night.
On Monday, all went well. A bunch of my future co-workers joined forces to get the van emptied out. But our piano presented a difficulty. Going in one door would require carrying the piano up a rocky path for a distance – not realistic. Going in the other door meant going up a flight of steps that was only wide enough for one person. Also not realistic. So what to do?
Gene, the director of facilities and grounds, decided to take the railing off of our deck and to get out the big toys…
Like this:
A wrench in the plans
Our transition to Pennsylvania seemed to be going so smoothly. Packing was well underway. Job and church obligations were being wrapped up in Illinois. I was counting the days until the move, the house closing, and the last day of work.
And then about two weeks ago, the house sale fell apart.
The house appraised for far less than the agreed-on price. The buyer’s financing would no longer work, but there seemed to be possibilities for saving the deal. But those didn’t work out. But there were other options, and the deal was back on. And then in one stunning and brilliant display of confusion, the buyers’ agent said that the buyers wanted the house and were pursuing alternative financing at nearly the same time that their attorney said that the deal was “null and void”.
Ever since, I’ve think I’ve been going through the stages of grief. The anger bothered me the most…
- Anger at the appraiser for doing a bad job (which we shall not be discussed here);
- Anger at FHA appraisals for not having an easy way to challenge them;
- Anger at the people who could challenge them for being unwilling to do so;
- Anger at the buyers’ agent and attorney for confusing messages and apparent lack of concern;
- Anger at our agent and attorney for their inability to help save the deal;
- Anger that my family had planned our move date to accommodate the deal and that we’d now be needlessly apart for two and a half weeks;
- Anger at myself for being so angry.
That last one was the most significant. Life goes on. My family is healthy. We have food and shelter. We have love. We don’t lack anything.
And yet, it took me days to feel anything except the anger. (And fear. I guess there was fear, as well.)
I really didn’t like that side of me. It felt ugly. And I hated to admit my weakness. During that struggle, I was reminded of the classic spiritual discipline of asking oneself, “Where have I seen God today?” I confessed to one of my friends, “Sometimes we only observe God in God’s absence.”
In the midst of all of that, we traveled to Laurelville for the spring gathering of its association members. It was a trip that we would have made, even if we weren’t moving there. Jane Hoober Peifer was the featured speaker for the weekend. I was too distracted to remember much of what she said, but at some point she spoke about anxiety and gratitude. Sometimes when fear is too great, we have to take small steps. We remind ourselves that God has given us what we need for this minute… or maybe this hour or day. And when we have learned that, we can begin to think about the week or month. Eventually, we can rest fully in God’s care. I’m trying to do that now. So let me conclude by with some gratefulness…
- At the darkest point in all of this, one friend (the one to whom I confessed God’s apparent absence) didn’t try to rationalize things or to cheer me up. She simply heard me and gave me a hug.
- This past weekend, my family packed our things (with lots of help from friends) and moved everything to Laurelville. Being there helped me put things into perspective.
- In the last couple of days, our house has gone back on the market. Already we have a showing for today and another for tomorrow.
- One of the children from church made me a bracelet as a going-away present. She gave it to me last Saturday as we loaded the moving van. Last night, I returned to Illinois from Laurelville in order to finish my work at Argonne. In a moment of depression as I moved about the house that used to be my home, I encountered the bracelet. Like a hug without words, it reminds me of the love of my community.
Small glimmers of hope that help me to move forward.
I’m surrounded by love.
Like this:
Transition doings and happenings
Our lives are full of transition things right now, and some of it is getting fairly stressful. But here are some of the more enjoyable happenings…
A few years ago when we moved a couch into our basement, it took our entire small group to get it through the doorway (with the door frame removed). This time around, Ordinary Spouse and I didn’t have too much patience and we simply forced it out. On the way, however, Lexi tried to convince us to leave it where it was…
She scooted right up to the top and wouldn’t budge…
Maybe we’ll have to create a new climbing toy in Pennsylvania.
In other news, we’ve had an outbreak of beauty at our bird feeder – a scarlet tanager and an indigo bunting. I’ve been at work both times, but Ordinary Spouse and the girls have been spotted them. I’m especially glad that Middle Daughter (our bird expert) was there to see them.
The pictures are a bit blurry, but still quite stunning. It’s funny that we’ve never had either of these birds before this year, and now they both arrive within two weeks of our move.
And this past weekend, we were out to Laurelville for their Spring Gathering. This is a trip that we had planned a long time ago – we’ve regularly attended these weekends in the spring and fall for many years now. However, since we were there, we had the chance to see our new home and to finalize some of the details of my employment. Here’s our home…
And here’s the view from the porch outside our bedroom…
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
- from “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost
This far, by grace
As my family prepares for our move to Laurelville, it has been interesting to think about how we got to this place. At first, it seems like a pretty drastic move: X-ray science to Christian camping. The education and work of the last eighteen years of my life would suggest that I have had the perfect job. And at the important times when I’ve had a choice between science and ministry, and I’ve been pretty consistent in choosing science. So what happened this time?
I decided I wanted to take a closer look – to “raise my Ebenezer”, if you will. I want to give thanks for what has come before in order to live fully into the future.
(If you don’t care to read this autobiography, just skip it. I’ll summarize below.)
1990 - I was a junior in high school. Out of nowhere I received a phone call from the youth minister of Allegheny Mennonite Conference to talk about my position in the conference youth cabinet. Unfortunately, there had been a mix-up. I didn’t know I was part of the youth cabinet. Nobody had said anything to me. And it was supposed to be a two-year term, but I was leaving for college in little more than a year. Nevertheless, after clearing up all of these confusions, I ended up serving for a year on the cabinet. This mistake in communication changed everything for me…
1991 - The conference youth minister was also the director of summer youth programs at Laurelville. She encouraged me to consider being a counselor for the summer camps after I graduated from high school. Not much encouragement was needed – I had been a camper at Laurelville for eight or nine years and was glad to join the summer staff. And I met Ordinary Spouse that summer.
1992 – After my first year of college at Goshen, I really wanted to return to Laurelville for a second summer. But my advisor had encouraged me to apply for a summer program for science majors. (I was studying physics.) So I decided to use a “fleece” like Gideon: I applied for the program and committed to being a part of it if accepted. Well… I was accepted, and so I spent the summer as a scientist, rather than a counselor. This choice (science over ministry) seemed to become a recurring theme.
1993 - I spent the winter semester studying in Costa Rica. Part of the time I lived with a Mennonite pastor and his family – people who became very dear to me. My host mother told me that one day I’d be a pastor, and I took that pretty seriously. In fact, the whole semester was so disorienting (in a good way!) that I decided to take a year off in order to think about the future of my academic studies: Should I continue in science or adjust my focus?
1993-94 - I spent the school year away from school doing voluntary service at Laurelville. Most of the year was spent in the dining hall, where notions of Christian hospitality were being formed. The summer was another chance to be a counselor. At the end of the summer, Ordinary Spouse and I were engaged. I often describe this as the best year of my life; certainly the combination of this year and the semester spent in Costa Rica were profoundly influential. And when I returned to school in the fall, I continued in science – in fact, I added chemistry as a second major.
1994-96 - I finished my undergraduate studies. During the summers, I was an undergraduate researcher in Ann Arbor, where (soon-to-be) Ordinary Spouse had begun her graduate studies. I had also received a number of invitations to explore seminary studies during those summer breaks – supposedly my name was suggested by one of my professors. Those invitations went unanswered.
1996 - Ordinary Spouse and I were married at the end of the summer, and I began graduate school in chemistry immediately after we returned from our honeymoon.
1996-2002 - Graduate school. I think every grad student encounters a time when they want to quit. Four or five years in, I was starting to think about quitting going to seminary. Thankfully, Ordinary Spouse had enough wisdom to suggest that maybe my low point wasn’t the best time to change directions. She suggested perseverance in my graduate work and re-evaluation at a better time.
2002-04 - Immediately after finishing grad school, I started a two-year post-doctoral appointment at the National Synchrotron Light Source. In many ways, the work was very similar to the work that I did in graduate school, and it was the perfect training ground for my current job. This was not a time of re-evaluation.
2004 – 2012 - I knew that I couldn’t stay in the post-doctoral position indefinitely, so I was actively searching for a long-term position… in science. I was pleased to be hired to work for GM/CA-CAT – the position that I’ve held until now.
2012 - Seemingly out of the blue, I applied for a position at Laurelville that came to my attention on the day before the beginning of Lent — a position that pays one-third of my current salary; a position that I may be completely over-qualified for; a position that represents a complete break with the science that I’ve done for the last 18 years; indeed a position that is incredibly similar to the one I held during my year of VS at Laurelville. And by the end of Lent, I had accepted the position, our family had sold our house, and we were getting ready to move.
Ok – you’ve either slogged through that biographical stuff, or you’ve come here for the summary. I’ll put it like this:
My new job at Laurelville will be quite similar to much of what I did when I worked there 18 years ago. So what was the point of leaving? What good was all this science? To put it bluntly: Was this all a waste of time?
You know what? The person who is going to Laurelville now is not the same person that was there 18 years ago…
- Eight additional years of school means that I don’t think of anything the way that I did then.
- I am a whole lot more comfortable with doubt. Challenges to my faith don’t cause me anxiety.
- Four different congregations have given me a chance to explore gifts and calling. In some ways, I think it must have been something like a seminary-of-the-world.
- I’ve blogged quite a bit about hospitality. This thinking has been refined, especially in the last few years, and it motivates this move.
- I’m married. Ordinary Spouse is anything but ordinary. It has been a joy to watch how life and faith have developed for us during this time.
- I’ve now had a taste of the American Dream. I’ve found it to be lacking.
As I’m typing these things, a couple of things occur to me. For one, each of these changes deserves a blog post of its own. For another, I realize that I have no sense of wasted time – only thanksgiving and a curiosity for what comes next.
Anyway, that’s all for this blog post. It’s a bit messy, but I’ve been writing it for a few weeks now, so I’ll let it go and work on something else.
Like this:
Need a job?
Do you know someone with experience as a synchrotron beamline scientist? Or if you know me, have you wondered what it is that I do at work? Here’s the job that I’m leaving behind in a month and a half when I leave for Laurelville…
(Click on image for an expanded view.)
Anyone interested can find out more on the Argonne website.
Like this:
An apology for the poor blog output
I’d really like to be blogging on everything related to our upcoming move to Laurelville, but with work, church, and preparation for the move, I don’t actually have time to think or write much of anything.
On a different topic, the weather in the Midwest has been crazy warm for this time of year. If you’re into weather, you might enjoy reading Dr. Jeff Masters’ Wunderblog for today.
That’s all. Sorry.
Like this:
What am I thinking?!?!
I believe that I’ve just entered a midlife crisis, but Ordinary Spouse says that’s ok, as long as I’m honest about it.
Say what?
Read on…
My occasional readers will know that faith is a constant struggle for me. Over on my ‘About‘ page, I say this…
I’m trying to be a disciple of Jesus. Really trying. But I’m not always successful, and I have a hard time reconciling my suburban middle-class life with my faith.
And roughly two years ago, I wrote this…
On a typical work day, I begin my morning in my house in suburbia, safely isolated from the world’s pains. At the appropriate time, my garage door goes up, I pull out in my car, close the door remotely, and drive to work. Once at work, I show my ID to a guard at the guardhouse, and drive through the gate and into a fenced-off research campus. I carry out this process in reverse when it is time to go home, and I tuck myself safely into the garage once more. Everything is clean and sterile. Not once do I have to deal with anyone else’s reality. For all I know, the whole world is middle class.
To be honest, I don’t know how to live with this.
I have often described my struggle by saying that my faith and work don’t really communicate with one another. It’s not that they’re in opposition to one another. They just don’t connect. I like my work. I’m doing precisely what I’ve been trained to do. But I’m not passionate about it.
So what am I passionate about?
Hospitality.
For a while, I’ve found that focusing on hospitality has served as a guide to me. It doesn’t necessarily tell me where I’m going, but it does serve as a standard by which I can discern my way. And what is hospitality? As I’ve come to define it…
Hospitality is opening up a safe space for each of us to be authentically ourselves, and in that space to encounter God.
But what does that have to do with a midlife crisis…?
Sometime in the past year during one of our family’s trips to Laurelville, I told Ordinary Spouse that I’d probably enjoy working as their host. (The host welcomes guests and is generally on-call to help with any needs that arise.) “If that job ever opens up, I’d like to apply for it.”
Well – it opened up sooner than I expected. About four weeks ago, I saw it posted on Laurelville’s website. And even though I was fairly certain that there were too many obstacles in the way, I sent in my application.
Evidently, Laurelville was as interested in the possibilities as I was, and after three weeks of discussions I accepted a job offer last Friday.
I’m giving up well-paying job doing exactly what I was trained to do. I may or may not be over-qualified for what I’ll do now. But it’s a rather drastic break with the past and an entirely new direction in life.
This makes no sense to lots of people – especially the ones that I work with. Sometimes, it doesn’t even make sense to me.
I’m writing this just before I publish this blog post. As I was proof-reading things, I realized that parts of this post might sound pretty bleak. And that is precisely what I’m not feeling right now. In fact, I’m feeling energized by just about everything (with the possible exception of trying to sell our house).
And yet, the last four weeks just leaves me shaking my head and trying to catch my breath. I hope to do some more reflecting on all of this in the coming days, but this post is already too long and our family has already started to vigorously prepare for the move. I’ll be working at Argonne through the end of May and will be working at Laurelville by mid-June.
Since the beginning of my blog, my angst regarding middle-class life in the suburbs has been a recurring theme. I wonder what happens now.
Like this:
A few more scenes from Laurelville
Laurelville put together a brief slide show with scenes from Association Weekend. Look for me at 0:13, preparing for the 5 km walk.
Enjoy!
5 km for my health
This past Saturday, Laurelville held its first ever Spring Classic – a 5 km run/walk, a 1 mi run/walk, and a 200 meter junior jog – organized by Brian Paff, Director of Communications and runner extraordinaire.
A few months ago, I thought I should try to participate in the 5 km run. It would be a goal in my ongoing recovery from my DVT. Well, I didn’t manage to get in shape for the run (and I’m not sure that my leg would have allowed it anyway). However, I did manage to walk the full 5 km.
Here are a few pre-race photos:
Number 5 is ready to go!
Can anything slow him down?
No! He’s speedy!
And here is a cute little video of the race route. (I carried my GPS so that I could plot the route in Google Earth.)
I finished in under 50 minutes which isn’t saying anything. But hey – the last time I was at Laurelville I could hardly walk.
