Duty Meets Delight

Duty, obligation, commitment, and obedience.

Don’t those sound like loathsome terms to our 21^st century ears?  We prefer delight-oriented tasks, learning, serving, and everything else we can possibly choose.  

Over the holidays, I started watching the first two seasons of Downton Abbey – a delightful time killer if ever there was one.  It’s given me fuel for thought that even enters my dreams at night.  I would love some international perspective on this whole idea of duty - and not the kind we pay to bring in our electronics at the airport or border crossing.

Downton Abbey portrays the whole idea of household help as a non-optional institution that benefits both the servant and the master.  Many of us live in third world countries where we are expected to hire local gardeners and maids in keeping with our “position in society” (as foreigners), whether we particularly need them or not.  Some of us are conversely placed in the position of serving whether we feel like it or not.

Presently I am in both positions at once.  I have a gal who has helped in our home since the children were little, and now she is like a member of the family, and my kids would never dream of letting her go.  I’d like to believe that Edith works for us with both a sense of duty and delight, but maybe not both simultaneously. 

Meanwhile I find myself serving in ways that I would never particularly choose, just because “someone has to do it.”  Sometimes there is joy in the deed, but sometimes, not so much.

Daily I struggle with the conflict between duty and delight.  So far I’ve not reconciled either.  Ideally, I think, delight should come naturally from service done “as unto the Lord.”  When I find myself begrudging the time, energy, and sometimes money required by my service, it is only because my attitude is out of whack.

As a friend, please don’t encourage me to quit.  Don’t tell me that I don’t have to live under a weight of “ought, should, and must.”  The fact is that I sometimes must obey, regardless of how I feel about it.  We do each other a huge disservice when we suggest too quickly that maybe "the grace of God is lifting" (whatever that means), and we no longer have to continue in a certain ministry.

At the same time I’ve been bingeing on Downton Abbey, I’ve been reading a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Bonhoeffer has inspired me to listen more to the Holy Spirit and to walk in obedience to His Word and His voice in 2013, no matter how I may feel about it on any given day. 

My goal is to seek joy in daily service and sacrifice.  Do you think that's a worthy ambition?

Sometimes we simply should do our duty, fulfill our commitments, and obediently do what we know we must.  Our generation needs to rise up and combine the old-time missionary commitment with the modern joy and delight that is only possible when we do things with a right heart.

It's a fine balance, trying to not make a god out of either duty or delight.

How about you?  How are you facing the rest of 2013?  Any resolves that might encourage the rest of us?  Any lessons learned from Downton Abbey, if you’ve seen it?

IRL*  I’m happy to be blogging again after a little break!  Hope you'll join me here every other Wednesday or so.

Those Songs

Is it okay if I just admit that I HATE, HATE, HATE goodbyes? Seeing it in print is no more of a consolation than saying it aloud.

Why can’t everyone just stay where they belong?

"Pomp and Circumstance" and the "Wedding March" are equally sad tunes, and for the same reason. Both signify the passing of time and the shaking up of “things as they are.” How well I remember sitting in Three Hills, Alberta crying at my ds* and ddil*-to-be’s graduation from the Explore Program at Prairie Bible, witnessing the cap and gown procession down the aisle to that dismal march.

That’s when my son’s dmil-to-be looked over at me with tears in her eyes and asked, “Isn’t this silly? We are crying because they graduated from (pause) – mountain climbing?” At that we exploded into giggles, and poor ds thought for sure we had both lost our minds.

We both understood what ds did not. “Pomp and Circumstance” was just one small step toward the inevitable “Wedding March” we would be hearing one short year later. Now ds and ddil live 2700 miles away. I knew instinctively that song would bring me sorrow.

Next week I will be at the Oaxaca Christian School playing "Pomp and Circumstance" on the piano, provided my eyes aren’t too blurred to see the notes. The added kicker is the reminder that I might have had a child in this high school graduating class of 2011. We lost two babies in Guatemala that would have been due either in January or July of 1993. Just when I thought I was over it, the memory returned with a fresh wave of grief.

Once upon a time, I grew weary of forever saying goodbye to friends who weasel their way into my heart only to leave the field and never return. My heart began to crust over that tender spot so that I no longer felt the acute pain of parting (and miscarriages). The trouble is that you cannot selectively block certain emotions. In blocking pain you inadvertently block joy.

Being alive means experiencing both the happy and the sad.

Through the years, God completed the restoration of my soft heart, and now I can freely bawl through weddings again, plus graduations, Hallmark commercials, and even animated movies like Up and Toy Story 3 (watching Andy go away to college and leave his toys behind … waa!).

The flip side is that I can now grieve with those who grieve. The best part is that I can also deeply experience the joy life brings.

While I still cry over the reality of loss in life, I am rejoicing in the news that, Lord willing, I am to become a grandmother later this year! What jubilation I might have missed if things had “stayed the same” like I thought I wished. I can’t imagine life without my two precious ddils, whether they ever give me grandbabies or not.

IRL* May future “Wedding Marches” kindle hope rather than despair.