Two poets and a place to exercise happiness in between

“Your job is to find what the world is trying to be.”

William Stafford, the great 20th century writer, put those words in the mouth of his father. They occur as the last line of a poem, called Vocation, which begins with “This dream the world is having about itself includes a trace on the plains of the Oregon trail…,” and this, you may have guessed, is the vicinity of Stafford’s time at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore.  After spending World War Two as a conscientious objector, serving in work camps and maintaining roads, he joined the English Department, published his first poem at the age of 46… and never looked back!

Only he did look back. Looking back, it seems, is the best way to discover “what the world is trying to be,” and primarily, that’s what I’d like to reflect on in the following paragraphs.

I bring up my literary hero for two reasons:

1.  I am an ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA), and have been for over 25 years. For half of my life I did all the things that ministers of the Word and Sacrament do for a living and for a salary. I did them and for most of that time, I believe I did them well. But, as far as the institution of church now goes, I’m offering myself up as a conscientious objector. I object, for example, to the commodification of the mystery of God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth… and, among other things, I object to the disingenuous careerism that plagues the clergy ranks and will plague it for the foreseeable future. In this figurative sense I resonate with William Stafford, who recognized the evil wreaking havoc in Europe, who perhaps the supported the individuals who served in the United States military, but who believed that the world was trying to be something that the Allies could not possibly imagine…  And…
2. Like the Kansas-born poet, who re-located to the Northwest, I’ve landed here in Spokane, and here I intend to write and to teach for as long as the money and my good health shall last.  It makes me happy…

It makes me happy, but not in the pop-psychology sense, but in the sense that the ancient Greeks used the word, Eudaimonia. Human Flourishing.  Happiness is Human Flourishing, which is to say, what’s often regarded as a personal disposition is ultimately a communal narrative. We are happy in authentic relationships.   We are happy in conversations that aren’t steered by ideology. We are happy to think deeply and to feel honestly what our circumstances suggest it’s reasonable to feel, and then also to express other irrational feelings in company that is trustworthy and compassionate. In short, what Aristotle means by being happy is not what Joel Osteen, or Hallmark, or even Oprah Winfrey means by being happy. And I’m with Aristotle when he says, “Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue…”   And virtue must be practiced.  Virtue must be exercised. And the context of this virtue-calisthenics happens to be in places where there’s tension and stretching and learned flexibility…  Places like this one. I mean this very place, where the effort to opt out, to go on vacation or to go on-line has been intentionally avoided. Let’s avoid avoidance. Let’s dance right here and right now!

Now, at this point, I should pause and declare the obvious:  Yes, I know that there are other places.  And I know these other places have their own peculiar value and significance to the people who live there… But isn’t it part of our vocation, if not our job, to pay attention to the places and to the people who are here, face-to-face, and with us in the room?  Isn’t it?

Poetry and Teaching, for me, do this very well. That is, as disciplines, they don’t simply generate notoriety and/or a level of income. They ground me with the embodied consciousness of this person and that person. I once went to a Starbucks and saw two people with cell phone arrive at different times. One arrived and purchased her Skinny Latte and sat down on one of those soft, cushy chairs in the corner. She then received a phone call and began talking with a person who wasn’t there. The other person showed up and bought her Frappacino and sat down in the cushy chair opposite her friend. She waited patiently for the phone call to conclude until she herself received a call. And look! There they are sitting, face to face, but talking through the technology of the day to others who are disembodied. Well, at this point, it gets comical. Each phone call comes to a completion after 10 or 15 minutes and the two friends, sit for another five minutes before saying, “This has been nice!  We’ll have to do it again some time.”

Really?   Will we?   Will we have to do THIS again and again?

My sacred calling says No!  Not like this!

My sacred calling resonates with tow-truck driver, played by Danny Glover, in “Grand Canyon“.  In the 1991 film, there’s a group of gang members harassing a rich man at the scene of his broken-down car, and the tow-truck comes and the driver says to the guy with the gun, “It ain’t supposed to be this way!  Maybe you don’t know that!

And when I show that scene in Philosophy both at Eastern Washington and at Gonzaga, I’m impressed with how the students in each of these institutions respond.  Some of them recognize the disparity between the rich and the poor in the blink of an eye.  They usually shrug their shoulders and declare, “That’s the way it is.”  And the way it is is I’m here to avoid all that harassment and all that violence.  I’m here at EWU or GU because I’d like to get a degree and with that degree I’m hoping for a well-paying job, and with that job, I’m looking forward to a car that won’t break down and a house in the suburbs with a water feature in the yard and a privacy fence around the whole property…  And, of course, it stands to reason, what others do on the outside of that fence is up to them.   Let them pursue their own happiness like they want.  Isn’t that the way it is?

And my sacred calling says No!  Happiness doesn’t happen like that… It doesn’t happen behind a privacy fence…  And it doesn’t happen while clapping your hands at the Worship Center.   And it doesn’t happen while turning the pages of a Hymnal in the pew. It happens, I tell them… It happens I tell myself, when we get a glimpse, or hear a whisper of what the world is trying to be.

My students, my former congregation-members, my readers and perhaps you now are becoming nauseous. Perhaps the poet’s words and the poet’s ideas on vocation make you want to gag. And, if that’s the case, let me say that I understand that.   I understand when language — when “the world” — just doesn’t convey the terrible displacement we feel day and night, night and day.

I understand going to school, and wanting the teacher to tell me the right answer so that I can pass the test so that I can get the grade so that I can look good.

I understand getting a job at the Delicatessen and slicing the lunchmeat just right so that the ladies want me, just me to take care of their orders of imported ham.  I understand being a security guard and making sure no one breaks into the office complex.

And I understand the roles and responsibilities of pastor and teacher, but with every breath I take, I’m winking at you. These jobs that I do are not me. The offices I occupy and assume are not me. And so, if I really have a conversation, I’ll even nudge you. I’ll wink and I’ll nudge you as if to give you a hint. My sacred calling is to disrespect and to deconstruct every objectification that other people can place on me… because it’s the role-playing and it’s the job-searching and it’s the career-craving that’s gotten us into this predicament.

I started this reflection on the Sacred Calling with some poetry from William Stafford, but it could be that Stafford’s style doesn’t connect with your sensibilities.  After all he wrote Vocation at a means of determining his true calling in life, and it could be that you don’t need that kind of advice (if it is advice).  And so, here’s another slice of the poetic pie, from Wendell Berry.  It’s called “For the Rebuilding of a House,” and I like it for someone whose been around the block and whose observed a lot of good work go down the tubes.

Here goes:

Join us at our next Coffee Talk for a discussion on “Sacred Callings: Jobs and Vocations,” which will take place at 10 a.m., May 3 at Revel 77. Kinder-Pyle is a panelist.