I had the good fortune of spending some days at a conference this summer that included a day-long visit from well-known and well regarded Quaker educator and spiritual teacher, Parker Palmer. Throughout the day he was with us, he shared many insightful ideas and thought and soul-provoking questions. One view he shared has had me musing and contemplating ever since (it is 3 months later). He said he was concerned that too often in our work and in the world we are focused on effectiveness when perhaps instead we should focus on faithfulness. He went on to comment that it is his observation that when we focus on being effective we tend to take on tasks or projects that are smaller and smaller in scope. We only try to do what we think we can do well and fully. This is not all bad, to be sure, but it isn’t very satisfying.
Lately I have been wondering about the work of staying faithful. If that word doesn't work for you because of certain specific connotations, insert committed or commitment. What are you committed to that you will stick with and continue working at regardless of how effective you are at it? The more I think about it the more I realize that most of the biggest and most meaningful commitments of my life are the ones that call for (and perhaps even demand?) my deep willingness to keep going and keep at it with absolutely no assurance I will be effective. What’s on your list? My quick, first effort at identifying those places of faithfulness begins me to the list: marriage, parenthood, steward of the Earth, and good global citizen. In all of these endeavors faithfulness is required and I fail and have to try again all the time.
A favorite contemporary gospel tune of mine has the title, Faithful Over a Few Things. When I first heard the title of Glenn Burleigh’s song I thought it sounded meager. Just hang with a few things. The more I listened to the song, however, the more I came to appreciate and understand its inspiring underlying advice. At one point the lyrics intone, “…if you have song to sing, faithfully sing that song; and if you have some love to show, show it the whole day long; and if you have a kind word to say, try to say it each and every day…” If we can be faithful (committed) to those things they feel most important, most meaningful in our lives then it is easier to maintain perspective when smaller things are amiss. What are the few things—ideals and people—to which you are deeply committed? How do those things shape your choices and actions and view of the world? How do those big commitments hold you steady when the challenges of our times and cruelties of our world insert themselves into your life?
I find it reassuring, and somehow comforting to know that for the rest of my life I will keep plugging away at doing the best I can with these big commitments of my life. I don’t have to do everything, and I certainly don’t have to be perfect (and neither do you). I have to be faithful. I have to keep working at these commitments to which I have promised my life. There is something of value in the striving, and in the awareness that my greatest causes for faithfulness don’t require me to get it right once and for all—they ask me to remain in the constant and continual effort to be better. The work of being a good partner, parent, peacemaker, environmental steward, and racial justice advocate is never done. I hope that at the end of my days I will feel that I got as good as I could at the work. Faithful Over a Few Things concludes with the listener hearing from God, “well done, good and faithful servant, well done.” However you conceive of the Holy (if you do at all), how do you want to feel about your life on your death bed? What do you hope to have been faithful to?
Rev. Shana Lyngood is co-minister of First Unitarian Church of Victoria. She has loved and served in Victoria since 2010.
You can read more articles on our interfaith blog, Spiritually Speaking, HERE
