Vocation & Call

The Spirit of a Piece of Land: Nearer My God to Thee

Steve · October 31, 2010 · 2 Comments

Sue and I own a sloping patch of land in central Missouri where we have a small, 50-year-old weekend cabin on the shore of the Lake of the Ozarks, a sprawling, man-made, spider of a body of water, created by the damming of the Osage River back in 1931 and dotted now with houses and jet skis. But it’s a nice quiet getaway, especially this time of year, when the crowds and most of the loud boats have disappeared for the season. It’s our favorite time of year.

The dam created one of the Midwest’s favorite (and most beautiful!) summer playgrounds, but it no doubt took with it the history and culture of those who lived here before, and I do think of that often. What exactly was right here on our little plot before the dam I cannot say. Maybe just a shady corner of a majestic and ancient forest akin to that which still exists as you move in all directions away from the lake, but perhaps more. Maybe someone’s home, someone’s church, someone’s grave.

And before then? Before the coming of the white man? Perhaps where I sit right now typing on my laptop a young tough-skinned Osage Indian crouched in his very first hunt, his bow drawn and his eyes locked on a 16-point buck making its way gingerly through the trees to drink from a sliver of a stream.

The point is this: We don’t really own the land. We are given the blessing of calling bits and pieces of it “home” for a while, but it belongs to the creator and to the lives of all who have touched it and worked it and walked it over the years.

Tim Grimm performing at our house concert series. Photo by Fred Volkmann.

Excuse me, but you seem to have a plank in your eye

Steve · July 11, 2010 · 2 Comments

Detail of angel, St. Louis Cathedral. Photo by Steve Givens

“Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?” Matthew 7:2

“So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us…” Ephesians 5:1-2

Here’s a truth we Christians need to hear: For many non-Christians, one of the biggest obstacles to becoming believers is not theological. The obstacle is not an inability to comprehend or believe the Christian salvation story. The biggest blockage in their path to faith is how they see the Christians around them acting. For we can be our own worst witnesses of faith.

Obviously, some people choose to believe in other faiths or in nothing at all. But the truth is, many people choose not to believe in the teachings of Christianity (or perhaps have left the faith of their childhood and family tradition) because they can’t see themselves as part of a group that so often preaches against its own core teachings of love and forgiveness by the way it acts.
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Way Down the Old Plank Road: History and Faith Under Our Feet

Steve · April 10, 2010 · 4 Comments

Footbridge on the path behind Faust Park. Photo by Steve Givens

I went for a short hike last weekend in the beautiful, hilly, wooded area behind St. Louis County’s Faust Park, located just off the busy, four-lane, suburban neighborhood-lined Olive Street Road. Less than a quarter-mile off the noisy road I slipped silently into the woods and back in time. Entering the canopy of ancient oaks and elms, I knew I could have been walking where Native Americans and pioneers tread hundreds of years ago.
The narrow, rough path through the woods is contemporary and no doubt made by park rangers and summer workers, but the land belongs to another time and to generations of walkers, workers, hunters and gatherers. As I completed the mile loop through the woods and emerged on the other side of the park and just a stone’s toss west of the traffic-filled road where I started, I came across a historic marker that brought me up short. It read:

Pioneer Path
Olive Street – Central Plank Road

Standing Still and Learning to be Astonished

Steve · March 28, 2010 · 7 Comments

We are all waiting patiently, but spring has not fully sprung here in eastern Missouri. It has teased us a bit, has shown us a few sprouts and given us a handful of warm days, but it’s not quite ready to fully bloom. Or if it is, it’s keeping that secret to itself.

Yesterday, despite the gloom and the threat of rain, I decided to go for a walk, camera-in-hand, through a small conservation area just a mile or so from my house. It’s a beautifully simple piece of land dedicated to the state in the name of someone’s loved one (August G. Beckemeier) that occupies a virtually untouched 54 acres that lies between a busy north-south road and the bottom lands that edge the Missouri River as it cuts between St. Louis and St. Charles Counties. As I got out of my car in the parking lot and walked toward the footpath, I remembered well the last time I was there, late last fall, when most of the flowers had ceased blooming and the green was gone from the trees and grasses. Despite my spring-filled thoughts and hopes, it didn’t look that much different yesterday. That thought, combined with the fact that the sun was hidden behind thick, menacing clouds, didn’t bode well for me as a photographer. Still, I trudged on, hopeful for moments of brightness and illumination, recalling the words of the wonderful Cape Cod poet, Mary Oliver:

Responding to the Call: Olympic Lessons (still) from Eric Liddell

Steve · February 13, 2010 · 1 Comment

I’ve been thinking a lot the last few days about the idea of vocation and calling. I think maybe it’s the Olympics and all those great stories that come out of it. Sometimes I think I like the personal stories of the athletes more than I do the actual competition. Sometimes. I love competition, too. Head-to head competition is some of the greatest real-life stories we ever get to experience, even if it’s from the sidelines or from the comfort (and warmth) of our easy chairs. And here’s why: We are all called to something. We are all called to the equivalent of Olympic excellence and a life of purpose and meaning. Our job is to hear that call and find a way to respond.

In one way or another, these gifted, committed athletes are responding to a call that they have heard for a long, long time. No one becomes an Olympic athlete overnight, and none do it because they have nothing better to do. They do it because they can’t imagine doing anything else. They do it because they know they must respond to a call they sense, even if they cannot always identify where it comes from.