JOY COMES FROM CREATING

During the last two weeks, I’ve attended a couple of conferences: one on the ministry of daily work, and one on our emotional and spiritual response to money.  While the presenters had a lot more faith in the market than I do, I learned—or re-learned—some things that are making me think.

            One is how important it is to have creative work, whether that is in your job or in family life or in an avocation that brings joy.  In fact, I don’t think you can have joy without immersing oneself in creating and in creation.   Creating—at least for me—brings me in contact with both the unlimited nature of human and natural gifts, and the struggle to bring those gifts into being as a fragile, complicated being.

            Another is how much our current economic system and our adoration of money saps the human spirit.  In part, because it takes the joy of creating out of people’s lives—especially the materially poor—and turns everything into a commodity.  Commoditization kills communion, because it takes compassion out of everyday life.

            And finally, I have learned again that creation often takes place in the context of struggle.  I doubt that anyone has a “perfect job” where there is no drudgery, conflict or futility.  My father was a barber for nearly three decades, and I know there were times of physical pain as well as emotional loneliness and spiritual struggle.  But he made our family a living, and especially as he grew older, he made of his conversation and welcoming spirit a place of hospitality for those who came through the doors of his shop.

            I’m thinking about saints on this All Hallows Eve, and Walter Hansel was one of them.  Here is a poem set in his shop, which explores the tension and love in our relationship (It was originally published in Turtle Quarterly, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize).

QUITTING TIME

I sweep up the hair that lies like pigeon’s feathers

on my father’s shop floor: Callahan’s red

mixed with the dark Slavinskys and Knauers and Ryshavys,

and one blonde Swede who must have snuck

in just before five.  His candied fleece shimmers

on top of the pile.  Dad double counts the till

and snaps caps back onto brown bottles of tonic

and grunts with the weight of the day. And all the men,

who sat in the chair while he plied their heads

with scissors and razors and combs, the men

from the plant, still aching from cutting hogs

and steers into bite size pieces, the men

who smoke Camel Straights and hit their kids

because God says it’s good for them and because

their hands were tied behind their backs

by fathers whose tongues were stolen from them

when they crossed the sea, all of them have

trailed off into the twilight like fog,

leaving their hair to sparkle under my broom

as my Father and I work in silence, and in hope of wings.

Be justice. Be beauty.  Be creative.

Patrick