It is found!!

Yesterday morning, when gathering my stuff together to go into the office, I COULD NOT FIND MY DATEBOOK!! Feeling increasing panic, I searched through everything I had brought home the previous evening from the Synod Vocations Conference, several times. I searched in the car I had driven. My calendar was not to be found.

I got to the church office, and Sandy said, "You look terrible!" When I explained what was going on, she shared my panic! I called the conference center and told them what my room number had been. Since I had left the conference a day early to get back to what I needed to do here, I called the cell phones of several participants still there -- and could only leave messages, because they were in the final session of the conference. Every time the phone rang I hoped it was work about my appointment book. I worked on the sermon for this Sunday, and waited. I worked on the letter sent out to students and parents in the upcoming Affirmation of Baptism classes, and waited. I talked to several people on the phone and, in my anxiety, it was all I could do to be civil! The person from the conference center called to say that their housekeeper had searched the room and hadn't found the datebook. Desolation! I envisioned having to send out an e-mail to everyone on my address list this morning, asking that, if they had scheduled conversations or baptisms or weddings with me in the weeks and months to come, to e-mail me back so I could reconstruct my calendar.

At lunchtime, the phone rang. It was one of the conference participants. Yes, he had my datebook!! He's putting it in the mail to me. (Sandy and Robin, imagining the panic they would feel if they lost their datebooks, let out a cheer at the news!)

Time and again I have heard and I have read (and I have said!!) that God values us because of who we are, as precious children, and not because of what we accomplish or do. So -- what does it mean that so much of our lives are contained in our calendars and datebooks? Why is it that we become so frightened when we lose track of what we have scheduled in the coming days? Why do we feel so threatened when there is something that prevents us from doing our work?

Since it rained last night, I went out early this morning to pull some weeds out of the soft earth. As I did the work, I spent some time meditating on work. In monasteries, most monks do manual, agricultural labor, which is often repetitive. Monks train themselves to see their work as prayer. They center in God as they work. They focus on the work itself, and so there is no boredom. They do not concern themselves about the results of their work, and so there is no anxiety. (They do that, of course, as much as is humanly possible!! Monks are just as sinful as any of us, just as disconnected from God.)

I thought about what I have learned from monks about work, while weeding. I only had an hour or so to devote to the work, and I could not come close to finishing the job. If I weeded for an entire day I still would not finish the work. So I tried to be monastic, not thinking about how much I had done, and how much I still had to do. Such worry turns work into a curse! Instead, I tried to center in God's presence, simply doing the work for its own sake. And you know what? When I looked up after the hour, what an improvement there was in the patch of the liriope bank I had been working in! I had simply been doing the work. I had not been worrying about how much I was accomplishing. But what results!