The Age Old Question

It is a question frequently asked in our age, though it is the question of the ages. It didn’t seem to bother ancient people as much, for some reason. Possibly because they were not as oriented toward individualism as we. Possibly because they had no serious intellectual options other than God, so they were rightly afraid.

But the question bothers modern people. It plagues us. Everywhere I go I hear it. “Why does God allow such bad things to happen to us?”

Writer and professor and blogger James Schaap lives in a part of our country that has a history of tornadoes. And these days, those parts of our country have been pretty scary. Jim knows people who have suffered recently. He asks “The Question.”

“Last weekend an F-5, the monster, wiped out one-third of Parkersburg, Iowa, the central Iowa town where my grandfather grew up, a place where I spoke just last fall. The devastation was immense and unbelievable. It will be years before that town looks like anything more than a war zone.

Four people died that night in Parkersburg, two of them elderly members of the church where I spoke last fall. They were eighty years old and on their way to their basement when the monster struck. They just didn’t get there fast enough.

When TV cameras caught some of the survivors standing before the mangled wreckage of their homes–if there was any home there–some of them praised God for sparing them. It’s a natural and wonderfully pious impulse, to thank the Lord for keeping us in the palm of his hand. It’s an expression of blessed relief and immense gratitude.

But the flip side of the argument–or so it seems to me–is to blame the Lord God almighty for not protecting the elderly couple who died, by keeping them from the safety basement by inflicting them with gimpy knees or whatever. How can the God of heaven and earth be responsible for the safe-keeping of some, but not for the deaths of others?

I don’t know.” …Read More

What We Learned from Animals (and Robert Hruzek)

Robert Hruzek of Middle Zone Musings is hosting our third group writing project!

We’ll be compiling posts from the participants beginning June 1, 2008. This writing project has a deadline of June 15. So start thinking about what you’re going to do!

If you’re interested in participating, watch your email for the guidelines in our June newsletter to all High Calling Bloggers.

What? You don’t get the email because you’re not a member of HighCallingBlogs.com? You can join now! It’s easy and free and you can participate at several levels depending on how much time you have. Click here to read more information about what we do and how it works.

Maybe you don’t want to be in HighCallingBlogs.com, but you still want to participate in this group writing project? No problem! We’re not seeking world domination here. Anyone can participate in this–whether you’re a member or not.

Here’s a short summary of how it works:

To participate, here’s all you have to do:

1. Write a new post on your blog. As Robert says, feel free to be as eloquent (or concise) as you like. C’mon; show off for us!
2. Include a link to ROBERT’S POST, PLUS, please include a link to the THIS POST, too. (That would be the page you’re reading right now.)
3. Send Robert an email (rhruzek@sbcglobal.net) containing your name, the title of your post, and the permalink of the post. (To make sure we don’t miss it.)

That’s all there is to it! On Monday, June 16, we’ll the entire list of entries here. And Robert will post them over at the Middle Zone. Drop by both spots to check out what everybody’s said.

It’s Hard to Say Yes When No is in Your Soul

A few years ago a number of us at church sat around, trying to figure out the nature of our little community. We’ve never been very “successful,” at least not in the ways that can be easily measured. A lot of people have come and gone over the years. Someone finally said, “I think we are a hospital church for the spiritually wounded. I think that is our gift.”

That person was right. A hospital church for the spiritually wounded. And the world is filled with wounded people.

In one of the best things I’ve read in some time, High Calling blogger Ann Voskamp writes about the deep spiritual wounds left in her father and her family after the death of her sister. As she puts it, even after she said yes to God, she found herself living “no” from Monday through Saturday.

Fabulous stuff! Don’t miss it.

“Did you ever used to go to church? Like a long time ago, Dad?” The neighboring Williams family took turns with the van Veen family, picking me up Sunday mornings for the drive into town and services.

“Yeah, we went. Your grandmother had us go every Sunday, after milking was done. That was important to her.”

I kept my eyes on his dark strands of hair running through my fingers.

“But it’s not important to you now?” The words, barely whispered, hung.

He pushed up his plaid sleeves, shifted his head, his eyes still closed. “Oh….”

I waited, hands combing, waiting for him to find the words for those feelings that don’t fit neatly into the stiff ties, the starched collars, of sentences.

“No, I guess not anymore. The day Aimee died, I was done with all of that.” …Read More.

Listening: One of the Hardest Things You Will Ever Do

No doubt about it. Listening is one of the hardest things you will ever do.

Most people do not know how to listen. They think they do, but they don’t. Someone begins speaking and they pay attention with about 1/4 of their mind. One part of their mind is casually paying attention. Another part is listening to music, thinking about something else, or (worst of all) planning what they will say in response.

You can’t listen like that. Listening is a rich, full experience. You have to take a deep breath and watch the person who is speaking. You have to watch their body language and watch for expressions of emotion on their face. After all, body language and inflection carry most of the meaning.

New High Calling blogger Hollie Atkinson writes about the art of listening in a recent post.

“When good communication takes place, the listener listens with their whole being. Their ears are tuned in, certainly, but their eyes are focused, and their whole body says, “I am interested in what you are saying.” Good listening means letting your eyes light up - raising your eyebrows - expressing interest verbally like, “Oh, wow!” “Is that right?” “Are you serious?” “How about that!” People tend to keep talking about a subject that they think someone is interested in.

People who are skilled at listening are concerned with two tasks: 1) They must hear and understand what the speaker is saying, making sure that they are not hearing more than the speaker is saying. 2) They must encourage the speaker to continue to communicate.” … Read More

Babysitting Is a High Calling Too!

I found this post by “Julie, a college Junior who loves a cup of tea and a good book” over at Bloom Where You’re Planted. She’s not a member of HighCallingBlogs.com, but I found her through my google alerts.

Man, does this young woman have some wisdom!

She talks through a series of regular events that helped her change her attitude toward babysitting. At first, she says her attitude wasn’t great. Then during a sermon, she realized, God has placed me where I am for a reason. He gave me this job and He wants me to use it for His glory!

Here’s where Julie shows some real wisdom. Rather than just have this abstract realization, she actually starts to glorify God in her work. And not by selling cheap Jesus or just preaching at whoever she’s babysitting. No! Julie gives four tips for how to be a better babysitter. She understands what so few people do:

Excellent work has intrinsic value to God.

Bravo, Julie! Keep up the good blogging, baby sitting, and “college student”-ing.

If you have a minute, head over to Julie’s and drop her an encouraging comment.

Julie’s post begins, “I have been a babysitter for quite a bit. I did some nights and weekends during high school for a couple of awesome families from church and also nannied during 3 summers in high school and before college. I have loved these experiences as they have really taught me so much.

“BUT, all that said, I really did not want to babysit this summer.” Read more…

Happy Memorial Day

Hopefully, you are enjoying the day off somewhere. But we still want to highlight folks in our community who are sharing about the importance of this holiday for Americans. (I know not every member of the network is American. So if you have a similar holiday in your country, this might be a good time to tell us about it.)

Robert Hruzek of Middle Zone Musings writes about the Washington, D.C. Vietnam Memorial in “Memorial Day, 2008.” He includes that iconic picture of the wall. And Robert is such a good conversational writer:

Today we in the United States recognize our debt of gratitude to those who have given their lives for the cause of freedom while in the military service of our country. Read more…

J. C. Schaap of Stuff in the Basement writes a moving essay about how Memorial Day changes when the names read on the list are soldiers who have died recently. In “A Year of Morning Thanks: Memorial Day 2008,” Schaap says:

Okay, this from an old anti-war protester. The annual Memorial Day celebration in town where I live had long ago become wooden. The same man reads the names of the dead while surrounded by a profusion of flags… But then, just two years ago, things changed dramatically… a name was added to the list of fallen. Read more…

As for me, Marcus Goodyear, the guy browsing through blog posts to feature this morning on HighCallingBlogs.com, I found myself remembering one of my favorite American poets, Yusef Komunyakaa, and his elegy for the Vietnam War, “Facing It.” It’s a fitting poem for Memorial Day:

I turn
this way–the stone lets me go.
I turn that way–I’m inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
…I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap’s white flash.
Read the full poem at Poets.org…

What Do You Do When You Hit a Brick Wall?

That’s the question Robert Hruzek asks over at Middle Zone Musings. Robert is almost brand new to the network in the new “daily living” category. So new in fact, that I still need to create it in the sidebar. Tomorrow.

OK, so actually Robert isn’t even that new. He tried to join several weeks ago, and we had some hiccups. Let me be blunt. We dropped him (and some others) between the cracks somewhere. Robert, we’re sorry! We’re doing our best! Really! And things are looking up.

Quick vague status report: Gordon Atkinson has been writing all of our featured posts lately, while Chris Cree, Christy Richardson, and I (Mark Goodyear) did our best to get this network out of beta. It’s been quite an adventure.

You could say we’ve hit a few walls . . . to get back to Robert’s question.

Be sure to click over and check out his post. Even though Robert is new to the network, I first met him at SOBcon07 in Chicago. That early blog conference helped give us the fodder to go ahead with HighCallingBlogs.com aggressively–even though we were far from knowing where this would all go. It was a step of faith, really.

Certainly, we’ve hit some walls during the past few months. Some big ones. But like Robert, we just keep plugging away at things. When he hits a wall, Robert says he is like water:

You remember the water, don’t you? You remember how it behaved when it came up to a barrier of some kind, right? It eventually built itself up until it either went around, over, under or through whatever was in the way.

This site certainly seems to be building to something. We are almost ready with an AUTOMATED registration system–thanks to Christy Richardson. And we’ve just restructured our levels of engagement to give people more options and opportunities. Gordon is combing through the member sites as quickly as he can. Christy Richardson and I have been working hard on some new ways to share RSS feeds. And Chris Cree is beginning the main site redesign that will officially take us out of beta. (I think.) Like I said, the future looks bright. (I think.)

Thanks to everyone in the network for being patient with us through this process!

And be sure to drop by Robert Hruzek at MiddleZoneMusings.com to say hi. He’s a good guy with a completely unique style of writing. Definitely pay him a visit. He’ll make you smile.

Do You Love Your Job?

Do you love your job? That’s a hard question. Let’s start by admitting that some people are forced to work in order to survive. That survival means that they do not have the luxury of asking questions of meaning. That’s a sad reality of our world. Let’s also admit that some people are blessed or fortunate to have a job that they absolutely adore. Writers, musicians, artists, etc. If you love basketball and are a professional player in the NBA, you probably love your job.

But what about the rest of us? What about those of us who, while we might not get to pursue our hobbies in making a living, nonetheless have some choices in where we work and what we do. For the rest of us, let’s ask the question.

Do you love your job?

The writers behind the Red Letter Believers blog are always asking challenging questions like this. They suggest that whether or not you love your job may have as much to say about you as it does about the nature of what you do.

Check it out.





“I love my work.”
“I love my job.”
“I love my coworkers.”

These expressions are pretty rare in our modern landscape.

Instead, in the break rooms, in the hallways, in the kitchen and at the timeclock, there is angst, frustration and resignation. Love and work seem to be polar opposites.

Those that do expression admiration for their employment are met with ridicule or regarded as shameless stooges sold out to the man.

What makes a job worth loving?… Read More

Ancient Craftsmanship

Real Live Preacher has an interesting piece up about the ancient craft of scribal calligraphy. We aren’t the first generation to consider that our daily work is a calling. The big surprise at the end is when we learn what this ancient craft has to teach us about Xmas.

“No one knows who created this manuscript, though it is thought to have been done in France, for it was guarded for centuries in a monastic library there. But the man who actually lettered its pages is lost to history. Whoever he was, he would have seen his craft as a sacred calling. Writing was an exotic way to spend your time in those days; few people had the materials or the ability to do it, nor would they have understood why it was important. Many monks gave their lives to the painstaking task of copying the text of the Bible. Their method of writing would best be described as calligraphy. Speed was unimportant. The style of the lettering was as much a part of the art of writing as capturing the content. Hunched over an angled writing desk, using a quill dipped in ink, the man who created Codex Bezae slowly copied the words of the text, one stroke at a time, day after day, until it was finished.” … Read More

A Look Ahead

I’ve known for years that bad times often make us stronger, often lead us to good things, often turn out to be somehow in God’s plan. I’ve learned this over the years as a minister but also as a human being, someone experiencing the full range of life. But here’s a tricky thing: You can’t tell this to hurting people. You can’t look at someone in pain or in trauma or in the middle of a grief mess and tell them, “It’s okay. You’re going to learn some great lessons. And probably God has a plan.”

I repeat: Do not say that to people.

What can you do? There is nothing to be done except to live in hard times with your friends, holding them close and walking through it with them. And indeed, on the other side of the pain, if things are learned you can talk about it then. Just not before.

High Calling Blogger Ann Voskamp sat with her sister during a long and difficult labor. Only after the birth could they talk about the pain. This is good stuff. Ann is a terrific writer. You’re going to be glad you went to read it.

“I don’t remember how many times stainless needles poked about her blue veins in attempt to drain in another IV bag. You lose count in a storm of hyperemesis gravidarum that pounds relentlessly, leaving one limp and hanging over a toilet bowl. The days, weeks, months of wooziness, churning smells, swirling green nausea, it all eroded away at joy.

But when a whisper of fingers wrapped close yesterday….

“Wasn’t that worth every single day of it?” The words are soft. No one speaks loud on holy ground. I search my sister’s eyes.”… Read More.

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