"And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good."
-John Steinbeck, East of Eden
It's taken me being sick and stuck at home to sit down and write this, plus a snowstorm the next week to finish (who else's year is going like this?), but I'm back! If you feel like January got away from you, and you're still realizing it's 2023, this post is for you. Welcome to the new year.
I spent much of my sick days reading on a blanket outside, often laying down with my eyes closed beneath the bright sun, listening to birds and squirrels. The squirrels were especially loud because my cat Oliver was hunting them (key word hunting, not catching). This week, I've got my beanie and patagonia on, under a blanket, drinking coffee and working. Welcome to Texas in the "winter."
This month, one of my freelance jobs became a full-blown part-time job (hence this late post). As I added more work to my life, I tried to map out my time so that I could be as efficient with my work day as possible. Then I remembered that I work in ministry, and much of my work cannot be done efficiently, at least not in the way we usually think of efficiency.
I can't sit down to pray efficiently. I don't meet with students, parents, and volunteers to have efficient conversations. Even in my new part-time work (I'll share more about it later), I don't have an efficient formula for coming up with creative content or thinking through solutions to systemic problems in the world. Like all jobs, there are tasks I just need to be efficient in completing, but my primary work requires order, commitment, and the willingness to sit with God, people, readings, and problems without caring about productivity.
Although much of the work required of each of us demands efficiency, the work that we're called to often begs us to put down our phones, turn off our internal clocks, and just be present to God and the people around us.
New Year's resolutions often seem entirely ordered toward efficiency- our modern virtue. We strive for efficiency. We feel guilty for wasting time. We constantly multi-task. A lack of efficiency is a threat to perhaps our most highly sought after need- money. If we're not working efficiently, then we will make less money. If we're not spending our rest time efficiently, then we will not be rejuvenated to work more efficiently and make more money. Even leisure, it seems, is now oriented toward the end goal of efficiency.
In his book You Are Not Your Own, Alan Noble makes this argument about our society's obsession with efficiency. He provides numerous examples to illustrate this point, from paid time-off and lunch breaks to increase worker production, to farming techniques that harm the environment and people who consume certain products for the sake of mass-production, to pornography and prostitution.
"There is no space in contemporary life that has not become subject to the dominion of rational methods for achieving maximum efficiency, from the marriage bed to art and warfare." -Alan Noble
I picked Noble's book up because I've been feeling weighed down and overwhelmed by the constant pressure of creating myself and living the most meaningful life. On the cover of his book, there's a little figure rolling a boulder up and up a mountain (shout-out to Sisyphus if you're into Greek mythology). Mentally, I feel the boulder he's pushing. I've always been afraid of my own agency because, as we know from Spider-Man's Uncle Ben:
"With great power, comes great responsibility."
Uncle Ben is right here, but there's a balance we hold as Christians when it comes to knowing who we are and why we're here. There are certain things for us to determine, but there are other things that we are given. Contrary to popular belief, God gives us our core identities. Before we are doctors or lawyers, football players or thespians, parents or siblings, generous givers or greedy consumers, faithful or flaky, we are creatures made by God, beloved by God, and invited into relationship with God.
This year, I watched Nashville's New Year's countdown with my husband and parents. One of the musicians explained that she loves New Year's resolutions because "I can be who I'm becoming." My parents found this phrase to be utterly ridiculous. It became a catch phrase joke the rest of the week. But I'll confess, I heard these words and thought, "Yes! This year I will be who I want to become. Nothing is holding me back. I can be perfect. I can save myself."
It all sounds good until we get to those re-phrasings. As a Christian, I know I cannot be perfect on this side of heaven. Even if I concede that some saints become perfect (a point I'm not too interested in debating), I know for sure that I cannot save myself.
New Year's resolutions (or intentions- this year's preferred term) are not all bad. They can be quite good and lead us to live healthier lives physically, mentally, and spiritually. They help us create habits and goals. Following Uncle Ben's wisdom, resolutions, habits, and goals help us harness our power responsibly to care for ourselves, others, and creation.
But oftentimes, we want our goals and actions to be so much more than they can be. We want them to save us. We want to become perfect through them. Over time, they can become boulders for us to push up a mountain over and over again as we grow wary rather than becoming who we want to be. It's not that we don't have any boulders to push- goals to achieve, addictions to kick, new habits to create- but we are not called to create ourselves.
Most of us don't say that our goal is to become perfect, but when we get down to the root of many of our goals, they are an ends to that means. We have work out goals to perfect our bodies. We research the latest tactics for brain health and disease prevention, so we start doing more puzzles and learning another language to perfect our minds. We have therapy, meditation, and a list of healthy coping mechanisms to perfect our souls. I'm saying "we" because I hope you can relate, but I'm talking about myself here.
I hope you caught the irony of this post's opening picture. F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby was a self-made man. A literary self-made god, if I may be so bold. He and the world he creates around himself are beautiful, captivating, and mysterious. Yet, to be self-made in this life is not to be self-preserved. We are upheld by God, not ourselves, our wealth, or other securities.
Before we can "be who we're becoming," we have to be who we are. We are God's children with God-given purpose and meaning to live life with God and others in this hard, beautiful gift of a world. If New Year's resolutions are oriented toward self-creation and efficiency, then here's my good news for the new year:
You are not self-made, but made by God. God creates and sustains your life.
God gives you a life that matters with indelible purpose and meaning. You cannot lose this, though we often lose sight of it.
No amount of efficiency and productivity, or lack thereof, can change your identity as God's beloved creation.
What if, instead of resolving (or intending) to do a host of wonderful, productive things this year, we resolved to believe that we belong to God?
Perhaps such a radical belief would lead us to become who God created us to be.
Your fellow pilgrim,
Kingsley
Song Recommendation: "Beautiful Life" by The Collection
If you're in the DaySpring Youth Group, you've probably heard this a few times :)
Book Recommendation: Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
This book is hilarious and incredibly timely for our context, even though it was written in 1908. I was warned that this one is rather challenging and heady. If you've been to seminary, you should be fine (that was a joke because most people don't go to seminary). But really, between footnote editions and articles on Google, you can find a guide should you need it.
Note: This post is heavily influenced by Alan Noble's You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2021). It's not a coincidence that I conclude by making his overall point: we belong to God.
I do recommend Noble's book with the caveat that you need to read the whole thing. I was rather distressed by the first few chapters where Noble diagnoses our problems and countless forms of self-medication. Keep reading! And remember, just as the Scriptures can sound contradictory, we must learn how to hold truth in balance and in its rightful order.
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