Day 19 - Letting Go of "Doing"
The most important thing in your life is not what you do; it’s who you become. ~Dallas Willard
I have a peach-colored Post-it with this quote scrawled on it with my handwriting stuck to the front of my computer. I’ve needed this reminder a lot lately. It’s not that I’m not “doing” stuff; it’s just that what I’m doing doesn’t come with a business card. Or if I did have a business card to describe what I do, it would end up being a 5X7 sheet of paper! I don’t fit into one conventional slot, like accountant, lawyer, teacher, writer, or speaker mostly because I don’t actually have a career. What I do defies a title.Whenever I go to a gathering where I’m meeting people for the first time, after they ask me my name, their second question is inevitably, “So, what do you do?” It’s a surprisingly difficult question for me to answer! I usually size up the person asking the question and decide if they get the short answer or the long answer. The short answer usually involves a big grin while I quip, “As little as possible,” hoping for a laugh and an opportunity to move on to the next topic. If that doesn’t work, the next short answer is, “I’m in transition and waiting to see what the next thing will be.” Most people will then drop the subject and talk about the weather, or something else. But if they insist, since I have already decided this person is not worthy of the long answer, I will then launch into what my husband does for a living…he’s an attorney/CPA doing business consulting and running a private equity firm. Boom! That usually impresses people and I can move on to the next person. However, if I deem the person interested enough in the longer answer, I usually start with the fact that I grew up in Central America. Then, I touch on my early training as a bilingual educator and trace my patchwork career through various roles in Wycliffe Bible Translators (an international mission organization)…to running my own crowd-funding non-profit…sitting on the board of another non-profit for women in ministry leadership…getting a Masters in Global Leadership from Fuller Seminary… and now experimenting with writing and creating a model for a weekend of spiritual renewal with the vineyard as a backdrop…not to mention the ongoing job of wife, mother and grandmother. See what I mean? It’s laborious… It’s interesting, but terribly disjointed in the casual conversation. To be honest, sometimes I watch other people doing jobs like driving a UPS truck or making lattes or answering phones or pouring wine and I think I would just like to have a simple job that could be easily described with one sentence.Here’s the thing… When we focus on what people DO, we (perhaps subconsciously) ascribe them a certain value according to our hierarchical social system. The simple question “What do you do?” often is a subtle way of understanding where each person is in the pecking order of society. The more authentic people I know who are genuinely interested in the lives of others, will follow up that question with numerous other ones to really get to know the other person.We all know, intuitively, that our value is not wrapped up in what we do. It’s who we ARE that counts. Unfortunately, that doesn’t fit neatly on a business card! But, if who I am is important, then it’s worth the time and effort to address those parts of me that make up my character and are capable of being transformed by the Spirit of God. As I journey ever deeper into my Lenten Musings and 40 Days of Letting Go, I’m digging into the messy, clunky, imperfect attributes of my soul. As I drag all the sludge of trying to DO stuff into the light of God’s love, God gently washes it all off and reminds me that I can trust him. It’s like I’m getting a “soul shower”! All the dirt and grime of “doing” gets washed off and what’s left is my “being”. So free to love and be loved without having to perform!