What Is Ours To Do

by: Elexis Penner

 

I was in the MCC, eavesdropping on the ladies working behind the counter and trying to fight off pangs of jealousy. They were talking about how they already had tomatoes this big. I didn’t even look to see how big this big was, because I knew that when I got home I would be hunting for my tomatoe plants in a blanket of weeds that was already THIS BIG.

 

The other night I was working in my flower bed, pulling weeds, thinking, “I should give this another couple of days and I wouldn’t even have to bend over to pull these things.”

 

In fact, my vegetable garden was also extremely lush and green. And so the other day I may have taken my lawn mower between the rows – because you just can’t till waist-high Schweinz Krut. This why we don’t live in town, and here’s to not keeping up with the Joneses!

 

So my husband walked out onto the deck, took a defeated look around and said, “Maybe we should hire a gardener.” As if.

 

I said that we should probably consider driving a vehicle whose windows actually close on their own strength long before we hire a gardener. I also said that I wasn’t in the garden because I needed it to look good – I was in the garden because I needed to be there.

 

I always say that gardening is not my gift. Nor is housework, nor organizational skills, nor graceful social interaction – basically all the things I do on a daily basis.

 

But I’ve been starting to rethink gifts. I’ve always thought of gifts as that thing you excel at, the thing you’re really talented at and can perfect – think Gretzky, and Bono and Jim Carrey.

 

In Everything Belongs, Richard Rohr writes, “When we see that the world is enchanted, we see the revelation of God in each individual as individual. Then our job is not to be Mother Teresa – it’s to do what is ours to do… Thank God we have such images of holiness, but sometimes we don’t do God or the Gospel a service by spending our life comparing ourselves to others’ gifts and calls. All I can give back to God is what God has given to me – nothing more and no less!”

 

Wait… WHAT? Shouldn’t we all try to be like Mother Teresa? Maybe it’s not just about being gifted, but about discovering what is ours to do.

 

So how do we know? Sometimes it’s obvious – like if you’re Picasso or Simon and Garfunkel. It’s a talent and it seems like perfection – not that it didn’t get here without a pile of work.

 

But maybe sometimes it’s like gardening – grubby and patchy, but peaceful and inviting, just by its imperfectness.

 

A good way not to help ourselves find what is ours to do, is by shaming and guilting ourselves into stuff. It sometimes seems like when we talk about following Jesus, we have a really small container of what ranks. And when we pick from the container just because somebody told us those were our only options, the results are shallow at best and harmful at worst.

 

I came across this quote by Howard Thurman, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

 

Maybe it sounds a little fluffy and impractical in our day-to-day world of needing to get stuff done – it probably is. But maybe it’s the only real way to get stuff done.

 

I’ve stopped ruling things out just because it’s not in the container that we always perceived as ‘God’s work.’ I’ve stopped (mostly) being afraid that I’m doing it wrong just because it doesn’t look like what everyone else is doing. And I’ve tried to stop looking down on anyone else’s contribution.

 

It’s not hard to recognize people who have found what is theirs to do – whether it’s in their (paid) work, or volunteerism, or hobbies -- they just draw people in to what they’re doing. And it’s almost like they don’t even realize the effect they have on the rest of us.

 

“All I can give back to God is what God has given to me – nothing more and no less!”

 

The ‘no less’ part is not lost on me. The world needs our contribution, even if it’s not easy.

 

But not from a place of fear and guilt – from a place of aliveness.