A Grudging Craft

Some days I just don’t feel like showing up for this job. I want to; I just don’t feel like it. Satisfying moments are few and far between and so briefly enjoyed. When I was a printer, though there were those grudging days when nothing seemed to get accomplished, I got to see the results of my work—stacks of paper and ink…and satisfied customers.

When I was a calligrapher, though the inked paper didn’t exactly pile up, the craft itself—not unlike printing—was satisfying. I saw the results of my work. There was a tactile nature to lettering and a delight in seeing a well-crafted serif or flourish appear. Then there was the privilege of hanging it on the wall (my own or another) and just having it there to appreciate over the years.

As a pastor, most days begrudge me of satisfaction. Where is the accomplishment? Where even the gauge of movement? Where is the stack of paper?

I desire do two things this morning. One is get my fingers in ink again. The other is find a way to make pastoring a craft that is tangible and satisfying. The first I may rediscover insofar as lettering and painting but probably not printing. Still, I keep having printing dreams; the last two nights especially. But it’s hard to imagine where I’d find the time and money to print again.

The second, discovering a pastoral craft, seems theologically implausible. This vocation is based on faith. The tangibles are distantly spaced over one’s life and so fleeting that the rewards of a pastorate are left to believing or hoping you’ve made an impression.

I can study and write and preach and teach and marry and bury and visit and counsel…and call it a craft or even approach it as a craft. (There is an idea worth exploring.) But where are the results? Where are the stacks of imprinted lives? I suspect I will never see the results in any lastingly gratifying way until my days are no more.

Until then, this grudging craft must be done in faith, days stacking up as leaves, no page quite the same as the previous, letting the Holy Spirit be the printer and I more the press.

(Perhaps there is yet a way I can find the time and space to bring these crafts together in my calling.)