Since moving to Maine at the end of May, I have been faced with life questions that I had never encountered before. Some of these questions were anticipated with the natural transition from college life to ‘life after college’. Questions that would fit into this category would include:
1. Is pottery a hobby or career?
2. I also have a passion for urban community development? What does it look like to have such a passion while living in rural Maine?
3. How long do I want to stay in Maine? Who will I meet? What will my life look like here?
4. How do I plug into community?
5. What do I do when most of my free time is alone time?
These are all broad questions. These questions, mostly logical, have to do with my life professionally. Well, what about everything else? My time at Covenant taught me to think holistically. Instead of asking myself WHAT is missing, I want to ask myself WHY I feel like I’m missing something.
Thanks to a recent phone conversation with my sister, Niki, I am realizing that it is vital to view my life holistically and see how the various aspects of my life connect, in order to start answering these questions.
An example of this would be my current financial situation. I am working part time as an apprentice to a potter. Overall, I spend about 20-30 hours a week in the studio, doing anything from cleaning, to working with molds, to throwing pots. I do not get paid for all of these hours. The time that I spend making my own pieces and improving my skill is unpaid work, as it should be. I also work about 30 hours a week at the Farnsworth Art Museum Store. Anticipating my time in Maine, this is exactly what I was hoping for. I wanted to be completely entrenched in pottery, learning the in’s and out’s of the business, while also having the opportunity to improve my skill. I also wanted a small job on the site that would financially supplement my unpaid hours of pottery. Ok. So, I got what I wanted.
What’s my problem? What thoughts have lead to discontentment?
1. I feel discontent because I am struggling financially. I find myself wishing that I could live in a cute little house or apartment and be able to walk to the museum. I find myself wanting a garden and a cute little life. I want to have a small place to live that I can call my own and have people over for a meal. I want to be able to cook food that I like and that is both good for my taste buds and body. I want friends to be able to visit me and stay in my little home and not be a bother to anyone else.
Response: This is the first time that I have put those thoughts into words. When reading my above explanation of discontentment, I am slightly disgusted with myself. Yes, it is true- all of the above things are reasonable. They make sense for any employed adult to want those things. It sounds right because of the selfish culture that we live in today. We feel entitled to have things to call our OWN. We feel entitled to have THINGS. Is that what I really want for my life? Do I want to live alone with nothing but all the stuff that I have accumulated? I certainly can’t live that way and be an apprentice to a potter and a museum store employee! Does that mean that I would have to make sacrifices in order to live a comfortable life filled with stuff? What about being alone? I’ve never wanted to live alone. I have strong convictions toward living alone and I believe that we are creatures created for community and that communal living is the essence of that. So why am I being bent toward this ideal that a cute little place to call my own will satisfy? That leads me to my next point:
2. I feel discontent because I long for a sense of home: After my parents moving from Maryland to New Jersey, I made Chattanooga home. I spent my school year months there, and between my Junior and Senior year, I lived there and became involved in a great church community which deepened this desired sense of home. That sense of home was confirmed with close friends, a church that I loved and older people I look up to. Now, I am in Maine and I’m starting over. It takes time and I get restless. I just want to speed up the process and have everything in place.
It’s strange to me that I want a sense of home at this point in my life. I’ve had this just assumed plan that I would spend my few years after college living in various places, being exposed to new things. Why am I having this almost subconscious pull to have a home and a place and a sense of permanence? Is this feeling even directly correlated with my move and new environment or is that just a general human desire. We want to be fulfilled by this world. We want to be grounded and produce something. How humanistic of us. How selfish it is to live to please ourselves and pursue our own ideas of what will satisfy.
The following verses seem to be the only applicable response to my chaotic stream of thoughts.
James 4:13-17
“Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”- yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”
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