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March 03, 2006
Echo, Wow, and Flutter
Echo, Wow and Flutter, 2000, Leaves, pills, photo-collage, acrylic. resin on wood panel, 84 x 120
Since being married, I have become more acutely aware of the odd collection of "ways that I am." There seems to be a push for people, particulalry in the Reformed community, to designate a specific "calling" as their primary focus. (I might blame this on a typically western need to create hierarchy.) For married women, it tends to go something along the lines of "being a wife/mother is your primary calling...and don't worry about where everything else goes because you probably won't have time anyway." I'm not sure what the representational graphic would look like, but I'm guessing that folks would either go with a stepladder or solar system arrangement.
Although Fred Tomaselli's collage "Echo, Wow, and Flutter" doesn't function particularly well as a theologically-correct diagram of relational, vocational, and spiritual calling, it does resonate with me as a quirky representation of my past week. This week, all the colorful, cherished, and sometimes separate strands of what I do and what I love overlapped into a dynamic explosion of, well, living.
I taught writing and tutored students. I studied German, read Gadamer, and discussed Heidegger and philosophical hermeneutics. I received good news from a graduate school. I designed invitations for a friend's wedding. I designed logos for a national homeschooling leadership organization. I planned paintings. I threw a party. I cooked meals. I baked bread. I visited with good friends. I wrote and sent out our church's weekly newsletter. I watched baseball while eating Cracker Jacks. I watched soccer while drinking beer. I swept our floors. I folded laundry. I bought a plant.
It was a fairly typical week, but it felt extraordinarily full and rich. Perhaps it was the particularly meaningful juxtaposition of being accepted by a graduate school... and then going home and cooking dinner. Domestic, scholarly, educational, artistic, and relational pursuits packed in tightly this week. And instead of crashing or elbowing for space, instead of me being forced to turn internal switches on and off, all the ways of being added depth and significance to each other.
It's not neat, it's not straightforward, and it's definitely not easy to unpack. But it is real -- incarnational, even -- and I want to live like that.
Faith | By elissa | 02:01 PM
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Comments
I could not agree with you more on this approach to "living." I almost feel as though I understood this the most in high school when I was encouraged to do and try a wide variety of things, and I pursued them with enjoyment (for the most part). Now that I am out of college I do not have this encouragement; rather, all I hear is, "what will your career be?" or "what singular thing are you most interested in doing with your life?" I would go as far as to say that this is a false notion of what "career" is. The same can be said for the word "calling." I long to tell people, when they ask these types of questions, the long list of things I want do and experience, and have that be an acceptable answer.
Posted by: Anna K at March 6, 2006 05:19 PM
