Family and work
28/05/12 04:19
I was blessed with a wonderful family in which to grow up. My parents delighted in their children and worked hard to make our growing up years times of adventure and learning in a safe and secure environment. My parents adopted before they had children born to them and then adopted at the other end of our family as well, so we were spread out. My oldest sister was out on her own before I have active memories. Before my third birthday she was a mother, so we grew up in a jumble of nieces and nephews along with brothers and sisters.
Hospitality was important in our household. We knew that our friends were always welcome at our home. Our parents also invited in international guests, people from the college, visiting pastors, some of the salesmen who came to our shop and a lot of other people. My dad enjoyed inviting anyone who was around home for dinner, which at our home was the noon meal. There was always room for another.
This has resulted in fairly complex dynamics for us now that we are adults. We all have special memories of our growing up years, our home and the objects that it contains. We all have friends who have their own memories of the place.
Because of the patterns of grief, we are constantly at different stages in our grieving. All but one of the surviving brothers and sisters have gathered for this weekend, but we have never been all together at the same time. The remaining brother, who is traveling by bicycle from Atlanta, Georgia has called and communicated by e-mail during the weekend. There have been various nieces, nephews, grand nieces and grand nephews who have added to the joy of a family gathering.
One thing about it: there is no shortage of mementoes for each person to take home. Given the complexity of the family, even the mementoes are complex. For example, as we were cleaning out the shop, I came across my paternal grandfather’s toolbox. There were several tools and inventions from our great Uncle Ted, whose name I inherited. He was a skilled sheet metal worker and a person who never threw anything away. He made all kinds of useful everyday items out of things that others would have considered to be junk. I am coming home with a few things from him, though I already have a few of his tools in my toolbox.
I spent a large part of a day sorting books. The love of books seems to run rampant in our family. There are some real treasures. I have a couple of boxes of relatively unique books of Montana History and books by Montana authors. I already had a pretty good collection of such books, and I carefully avoided bringing home any duplicates. Still there were a lot of titles that I have not read.
In the process of sorting, we found that different things set off different emotions in each of us. Grief is like that. It takes you by surprise. We all noted that a little bit of anger helped us accomplish more work. Too much anger, however, paralyzes a person and makes it hard to get anything done. And there has been plenty of laughter and silliness as we worked together.
Our parents, it seems, did a pretty good job of teaching us the value of working together. But this business of being a family takes time. These days we come from different communities, different work styles and settings and different occupations. We have to re-learn how to divide responsibilities, check out lines of communication, remember sensitivities and sometimes tiptoe around sensitive feelings. We find we have different memories of the past, value different aspects of our story and carry different things from our growing-up years into the future.
In other words, we are a typical family. The families of the church I serve have similar complexities, similar differences, and similar issues to sort through. In a way, I’m more used to the dynamics of adjusting to others in the context of complex relationships than are my siblings. To the extent that this is true, spending a few days with my family of origin is a lot more like the work I do in my everyday life than a vacation. I’ve been aware of this for many years. When I plan my time off from my job, I need to keep in mind my need for solitude and separation as well as my need to spend time with family, maintain good relationships and clear channels of communication. As I have ended each day, I have been exhausted – as tired as I get when I have a long day at work. My sisters have noticed and commented about how tired I look.
I know that others face similar dilemmas in their lives. I remember the conversations I had with the family of a mechanic as we were planning his funeral. The family told several stories of how he would come home from work, eat a quick supper and spend the evening repairing cars for his kids. They had stories of a family vacation where he had to rent a shop with a lift partway through a vacation to rebuild the rear end of the family car.
There may be a few jobs where there is a clear-cut distinction between working and time off, but in many professions, the work comes home and the home life is carried with one into the workplace. Effective boundaries are necessary and important, but they are very difficult to maintain. That is why boundary training must be repeated regularly in order to be effective.
Sabbath is more than the practice of taking a day off from work. It is a spiritual discipline of balancing the complexities of life. Work must be offset with rest. Community must be balanced with the needs for intimacy and solitude. Speaking must provide opportunities for listening. Like other spiritual disciplines, it takes practice. We don’t always get it right on the first attempt. But as we mature, if we are attentive to the discipline, we learn how to find the time for the things that are the most important.
Today I will be given the gift of space. Because my family home is over 400 miles from my current residence, I will spend the better part of today driving. It is beautiful country and we’ve had several days of rain to bring freshness to the land. I will see new things as I drive that I have never before noticed. I will have quiet time to reflect on the time I have spent here and the challenges that await me at home.
With a little prayer and a little discipline I should awaken tomorrow ready to face a new day as pastor of a wonderful congregation grateful for the varieties of personalities and eager to participate fully in the building of our future together.
Hospitality was important in our household. We knew that our friends were always welcome at our home. Our parents also invited in international guests, people from the college, visiting pastors, some of the salesmen who came to our shop and a lot of other people. My dad enjoyed inviting anyone who was around home for dinner, which at our home was the noon meal. There was always room for another.
This has resulted in fairly complex dynamics for us now that we are adults. We all have special memories of our growing up years, our home and the objects that it contains. We all have friends who have their own memories of the place.
Because of the patterns of grief, we are constantly at different stages in our grieving. All but one of the surviving brothers and sisters have gathered for this weekend, but we have never been all together at the same time. The remaining brother, who is traveling by bicycle from Atlanta, Georgia has called and communicated by e-mail during the weekend. There have been various nieces, nephews, grand nieces and grand nephews who have added to the joy of a family gathering.
One thing about it: there is no shortage of mementoes for each person to take home. Given the complexity of the family, even the mementoes are complex. For example, as we were cleaning out the shop, I came across my paternal grandfather’s toolbox. There were several tools and inventions from our great Uncle Ted, whose name I inherited. He was a skilled sheet metal worker and a person who never threw anything away. He made all kinds of useful everyday items out of things that others would have considered to be junk. I am coming home with a few things from him, though I already have a few of his tools in my toolbox.
I spent a large part of a day sorting books. The love of books seems to run rampant in our family. There are some real treasures. I have a couple of boxes of relatively unique books of Montana History and books by Montana authors. I already had a pretty good collection of such books, and I carefully avoided bringing home any duplicates. Still there were a lot of titles that I have not read.
In the process of sorting, we found that different things set off different emotions in each of us. Grief is like that. It takes you by surprise. We all noted that a little bit of anger helped us accomplish more work. Too much anger, however, paralyzes a person and makes it hard to get anything done. And there has been plenty of laughter and silliness as we worked together.
Our parents, it seems, did a pretty good job of teaching us the value of working together. But this business of being a family takes time. These days we come from different communities, different work styles and settings and different occupations. We have to re-learn how to divide responsibilities, check out lines of communication, remember sensitivities and sometimes tiptoe around sensitive feelings. We find we have different memories of the past, value different aspects of our story and carry different things from our growing-up years into the future.
In other words, we are a typical family. The families of the church I serve have similar complexities, similar differences, and similar issues to sort through. In a way, I’m more used to the dynamics of adjusting to others in the context of complex relationships than are my siblings. To the extent that this is true, spending a few days with my family of origin is a lot more like the work I do in my everyday life than a vacation. I’ve been aware of this for many years. When I plan my time off from my job, I need to keep in mind my need for solitude and separation as well as my need to spend time with family, maintain good relationships and clear channels of communication. As I have ended each day, I have been exhausted – as tired as I get when I have a long day at work. My sisters have noticed and commented about how tired I look.
I know that others face similar dilemmas in their lives. I remember the conversations I had with the family of a mechanic as we were planning his funeral. The family told several stories of how he would come home from work, eat a quick supper and spend the evening repairing cars for his kids. They had stories of a family vacation where he had to rent a shop with a lift partway through a vacation to rebuild the rear end of the family car.
There may be a few jobs where there is a clear-cut distinction between working and time off, but in many professions, the work comes home and the home life is carried with one into the workplace. Effective boundaries are necessary and important, but they are very difficult to maintain. That is why boundary training must be repeated regularly in order to be effective.
Sabbath is more than the practice of taking a day off from work. It is a spiritual discipline of balancing the complexities of life. Work must be offset with rest. Community must be balanced with the needs for intimacy and solitude. Speaking must provide opportunities for listening. Like other spiritual disciplines, it takes practice. We don’t always get it right on the first attempt. But as we mature, if we are attentive to the discipline, we learn how to find the time for the things that are the most important.
Today I will be given the gift of space. Because my family home is over 400 miles from my current residence, I will spend the better part of today driving. It is beautiful country and we’ve had several days of rain to bring freshness to the land. I will see new things as I drive that I have never before noticed. I will have quiet time to reflect on the time I have spent here and the challenges that await me at home.
With a little prayer and a little discipline I should awaken tomorrow ready to face a new day as pastor of a wonderful congregation grateful for the varieties of personalities and eager to participate fully in the building of our future together.