Criticism: Don't Let it Keep You Up at Night

Criticism can kill. Or it might just make you stronger...

Read more at The High Calling.


Princess & the Pea illustration by Sara B. Used with permission.

Working Like Annie Dillard

This picture is Sara's roller coaster car invention. I look at it and it makes me feel tired. It makes me feel tired because I do not feel so inventive right now.

I am feeling rather more like Annie Dillard who says, in The Writing Life, "how...do you prepare yourself, all alone, to enter an extraordinary state on an ordinary morning? How to set yourself spinning? Where is an edge— a dangerous edge— and where is the trail to the edge and the strength to climb it?"

Further on, she reveals the secret... "I pointed myself. I walked to the water. I played the hateful recorder, washed dishes, drank coffee, stood on a beach log, watched bird. That was the first part; it could take all morning or all month..."

I realize I've been leaning ever harder towards this secret...

On Saturday, looking to set myself spinning, looking to crank myself up the roller coaster hill so I could come racing down it, I began to work on my writing, like Annie D. I spent the morning on the phone. I did some dishes. I spent the afternoon coming up with 9 themes around which to organize a homeschool club for the year. (I was most pleased with the thought of "bridges" and "The Magic Flute"). I mowed the lawn with a manual mower, which makes a pleasing "whirring" noise and knocks down as much grass as it cuts. By evening, I hadn't penned (keystroked?) a single word towards an article I'm pursuing.

Yes, I had worked like Annie Dillard. Now all I need to do is write like her. Or maybe like the essential, recharged me.


Sara's Roller Coaster Invention photo, by L.L. Barkat.

Seedlings Invitation: If you write a post related to this post and Link It Back Here, let me know and I'll link to yours.

Work Space: 3

Thinking further on stewardship and work, I liked this quote from Wendell Berry, on the difference between agribusiness and traditional agriculture...

To set this squandering, urban-industrial "agribusiness" against the elegantly conservative traditional agriculture is again to illustrate the difference between imposition and adaptation— between bigotry and force on the one hand and grace and skill on the other.

The Papago adapted farming to their country, and by that adaptation gave it— and themselves— the power to endure as long as the bonds between them and their land remained unbroken. The modern industrial farmers, on the other hand, have forced the country to conform to their way of farming.

So long as their technology and their surplus capital can provide shortcuts, such as pumping groundwater and transporting fuels, this way will "work." But it cannot work any other way, and the signs of its failure are readily apparent to anyone who will take the trouble to look.

I wonder, as I work, if I steward what is in my hand with grace and skill? Do I adapt myself to the needs of others, rather than forcing my way (all in the name of supposedly bringing a blessing)?

It is definitely a challenge to bring forth blooms with humility and sensitivity. And I suppose that when I do not, the signs of my failure might be readily apparent if I take the trouble to look.

Quote from The Gift of Good Land, p.64. Peony photo by Gail Nadeau. Used with permission.


Seedlings Invitation: If you write a post related to this post and Link It Back Here, let me know and I'll link to yours.




As you recall over the past two days, TheHighCalling.org is going on blog tour this week, to bring you special ideas regarding the work space. If the issue of humility interests you, try these tour options on for size...

Membership... become a member of TheHighCalling.org Becoming a member allows you to track issues of interest, like humility, right on the HC site.

Membership could also lead to GETTING PAID FOR ONE OF YOUR HUMBLE BLOG POSTS! Check it out.


A High Thought... Leadership by Light


Other tour rest stops...

Green Inventions Central
Gordon Atkinson
Gina Conroy
Craver VII
CREEations
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
Mary DeMuth
Karl Edwards
Emdashery
Every Square Inch
Amy Goodyear
Marcus Goodyear
Al Hsu
Jennwith2ns
Chalres Foster Johnson
Mike McLoughlin
Eve Nielsen
Naked Pastor
Ramblin Dan
Charity Singleton
Stacy
Camy Tang

Enjoy day three of the journey!

Work Space: 2

One of the best books I've read on work is John Beckett's Loving Monday.

In a chapter on stewardship, he reminds me, "Each of us has been given some measure of stewardship responsibility. Often it's so obvious we can't even see it." (p.126)

Then Beckett goes on to share an incident concerning Moses, when God asks him, "What is that in your hand?" Beckett says that Moses saw a plain old stick... one he had held through the desert to steady his steps. But "in God's eyes, it was something altogether different." This was the very stick that God chose to work through, to turn into a serpent before Pharoah.

So, ultimately, the question is, how do I use what is in my hand to nurture, challenge, speak out, and provide for others?

To answer this question, I guess I first have to look at what's in my hand.

Walking Stick photo, by L.L. Barkat.


Seedlings Invitation: If you write a post related to this post and Link It Back Here, let me know and I'll link to yours.




As you recall from yesterday, TheHighCalling.org is going on blog tour this week, to bring you special ideas regarding the work space. If the issues of stewardship and gifting interest you, try these tour options on for size...

Membership... become a member of TheHighCalling.org Becoming a member allows you to track issues of interest, like stewardship or gifting, right on the HC site.

Future benefits will offer inclusion in a social networking group on their site (where your blog may be specifically highlighted from time to time).


Audio Encouragment... Ticket to Joyride


Reflection and Prayer... Eugene Peterson, "One Heart and Soul"


Other tour rest stops...

Green Inventions Central
Gordon Atkinson
Gina Conroy
Craver VII
CREEations
Milton Brasher-Cunningham
Mary DeMuth
Karl Edwards
Emdashery
Every Square Inch
Amy Goodyear
Marcus Goodyear
Al Hsu
Jennwith2ns
Chalres Foster Johnson
Mike McLoughlin
Eve Nielsen
Naked Pastor
Ramblin Dan
Charity Singleton
Stacy
Camy Tang

Enjoy day two of the journey!