Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Envision and Do

The Time Warp Wife is having a 31 Days Challenge and today, Day 28 is a guest post on Dreaming Together. It struck a cord with me because, while my husband and I have done a lot of things ineptly in life, the one thing we rock at is dreaming. We are visionaries. And the other thing we do exceptionally well is do. We envision and then we put our hand to the plow. This explains the plethora of degrees and children that we have together, the number of times we've moved, the educational anarchy that we embrace, the house that we are working on and most of the details of our lives, including how we worship and study and the Messiah that we embrace. God's of wood and stone just don't give one ample enough opportunity to envision beyond oneself. It's so limited and narcissistic.

I was told by a friend several years ago that I am odd because most visionaries that she knew didn't "do" and most "do-ers" that she knew didn't envision. That just seems really bizarre to me cause I thought faith without works was dead and "submit yourselves one to another" were actual directives, not suggestions. The division of doers and visionaries in the current political climate of the American church seems to be a division of labor designed to stunt the growth of all involved, both queen/king and worker bee alike, perpetrated by the current business model that the American church has adopted. Those in "leadership" with the professional degrees are the ones that get to do the envisioning while the worker bees get to be the hands and feet. Leading to a lack of mutual accountability and the full development of the body beyond the head. My husband and I both have seminary degrees so maybe I've just seen too much. Maybe if I believed in the magical formula of higher ed more, or seminary more, or the head being the grand poombah of the church more I wouldn't be so cynical and keep writing these type of posts. And yet....

Back to the point of this post; what are we currently envisioning?
Our house being done. We've been sanding floors and walls and ceilings, texturizing, painting, washing out junk from clothes and brushes and rollers and talking about colors and what's next every spare moment. Our vision for this property from the time we moved here was to redeem, restore, rebuild and reclaim. We are doing that to the very best of our ability. I'm not sure what God has in store for this little acreage on the edge of nowhere but somehow we are part of it. And the character that is being built into us because of it- whew. Could we get it any other way? My goal for this week is to thank-God for the hardships that we endure. I am great at being grateful for the amazing God-answered prayers of finished but the hard won and exhausting producing "waits" or "not yets" or "suffer unto Me's," are more difficult for me.

An educational environment where study is worship; where people are challenged to go beyond themselves academically, educationally and ultimately spiritually. We have a very small circle, but we believe in being faithful in the small things (I count young children as "small things" all the time!)
A church environment that is more Biblical than American in culture. Have I mentioned being faithful in small things? It's what we do.
Writing. We have so many ideas and we are both teachers at heart. We are bursting at the seams with the ideas and are so hungry and yet we are stretched to the limit on time and money and resources with what we are doing. So far it's a "not yet" answer.

What are you envisioning? What are you doing?


Find more great reading at Time Warp Wife and at HHM.

2 comments:

rednanasteph's place said...

I envision some kids moving out of the house and me not supporting them all the time. OOOOOPs a bit selfish I know

Sunshine Cottage said...

An educational environment where study is worship; where people are challenged to go beyond themselves academically, educationally and ultimately spiritually. We have a very small circle, but we believe in being faithful in the small things"

((love this))
-Kathy