“I Just Want To Help”

We are not called to save the world, solve all problems, and help all people. But we each have our own unique call in our families, in our work, in our world. We have to keep asking God to help us see clearly what our call is and to give us the strength to live out that call with trust. Then we will discover that our faithfulness to a small task is the most healing response to the illnesses of our time. (Henri Nouwen)

Six months ago, Lloyd and I said yes to something we didn’t really want to do, yet felt calmly compelled to do. We both knew on some level beyond understanding that saying yes was the right thing to do at that particular point in time. We needed to hand ourselves over whether we wanted to or not.

We both recognized that the short term (six months) full-time work with the Christian Reformed Church of North America was uniquely Lloyd’s to do. It was another one of his callings or assignments and therefore mine as well. We knew it would not be easy (it wasn’t) and that both of us would be stretched well beyond our preferred comfort zones (we were). As Lloyd said on the cusp of this opportunity, “I just want to help.”

The CRCNA was close to our hearts because it was the birthplace of our spiritual roots. Both of us were born and raised in Christian Reformed homes, Lloyd in BC Canada and me in WI USA. We understood the beliefs and culture of the denomination, the heritage we had been given. Although we had branched out from the denomination over the years, we still cared deeply about it. In some ways, saying yes was a return to our tribe of origin.

Although the work looked intimidating, we also felt an underlying courage to move forward with the decision. This courage was present we think, because the knowing, the sense of being compelled, the juxtaposition of confidence and fear was strangely familiar and comforting. These same elements had been present in many of our previous major decisions and we had learned to trust the process of following our gut instincts.

A few reflections now, as we look back on the past six months.

From a personal life perspective, living between two locations (as we commuted weekly between our home in northern Michigan and the CRCNA offices in Grand Rapids) was harder than we thought it would be. It was all we could do to keep up with relationships and activities in two different communities at the same time. We had to establish new patterns for basic life routines like running, other exercise, cooking, laundry, garbage disposal, mail etc. The hardest part perhaps, was adjusting from a daily mail delivery service to picking up accumulated mail at the Maple City post office only once a week on our 3-hour drive back back home.  It all felt quite disorienting. We missed home and stability in one place as we had known it. At the same time, we felt grateful for all the extra moments we were able to spend with our Grand Rapids kids, grandkids and long-time friends.

From a professional life perspective, work with the CRCNA was also harder than we had anticipated.

Lloyd the Builder, as I like to call him, has been passionate about organizational leadership, structure and governance for as long as I’ve known him. He is the only person I know who likes to read and write organizational policies, bylaws and governance manuals! The organizational nature of the CRCNA work excited him and made him feel alive. It was fun to watch him activate this part of himself again after retiring from ChildServe four years ago.

It was hard though, to see him put the cloak of organizational responsibility back on his shoulders. Busy brain and troubled sleep returned to our household, along with a sense of urgency to help the CRCNA catch up to where it needed to be. The organization was having tremendous difficulty functioning and was not equipped to grow and move forward  It lacked needed clarity around mission, structure and its relationship to member churches and the external environment. And yet, the organization was filled with dear, sincere, hard-working people deeply committed to the work they do.

Lloyd quickly realized that although he was hired to work in the CRCNA organization, he needed to spend most of his time working on the organization.  He could see possibilities for what the organization could be and he knew it would take a great deal of time and tending. Over the course of the past six months, he slowly but surely (as much as the organization could tolerate), moved in the direction of the possibilities he could see. He spoke into the organizational difficulties and worked on the organization with all the experience and wisdom available to him, even when it wasn’t what people wanted to hear. He saw the possibility of an organization that embodied both/and thinking, organizational unity and organizational trust, an organization where all are loved and included.

Did results materialize as Lloyd had envisioned? Probably not, at least not yet. The seeds he planted will likely take a long time to grow, if they do. He was able to make some significant changes in organizational leadership, structure and governance, but will they stick and grow over time in spite of the strong homeostatic pull for the organizational system to go back to the way it was before? Who knows. At this point, its comforting to know that there have been some beginning changes in the organization and that so much more is possible. Lloyd and I can honestly say that if something good comes out of the past six months, God be praised.

What matters more than results, is that Lloyd was able to use his gifts to express his truth and the possibilities he could see, into an organization we both care deeply about. He was able to keep fidelity to his own calling and identity as he did the work. Parker Palmer characterizes this kind of work as an expressive act (vs. an instrumental act, where action is seen as a means to a pre-determined end). “By taking an expressive act, an act not obsessed with outcomes,” Palmer says, “I come closer to making the contribution that is mine to make in the scheme of things. Whatever the outcomes are, they will be convergent with a larger sustaining truth.”

We’re still reeling from the past six months, trying to make sense of what happened. It all seems surreal, a blur, like a dream that we are waking up from. As we continue to hold the tension between how things are and how things could be, we feel underlying sadness with overriding hope.

We trust that Lloyd’s presence in the CRCNA and mine through him, has somehow made a difference in the lives of the people there and in the health of the organization itself. We embrace these words of comfort by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: “Above all, trust in the slow work of God……..give our Lord the benefit of believing that His hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.”

Perhaps we ourselves were the ones most helped……..affirmed again for who we are and for the gifts we bring into this world regardless of results. Perhaps we have come just a tiny bit closer to taking our proper place in this world, to letting go of things we still cling to, to being free.

 

 

 

 

 

Vicki Vanderkwaak On January 15, 2023   /   A Journey