Job or No Job

I want to say a word of appreciation about how valuable communications from my friends have been to me since I was plunged into this time...

Lots of folks have suggested that I compare myself to Job, the righteous man from whom God takes everything. I am understandably resistant to seeing myself as being Job-like. For one thing, far from everything has been taken from me! For instance, I still have my family and my friends.

Of course, Job had his friends, too... And those who have an understanding of the story of Job know that the phrase "friends of Job" has a rather mixed connotation! This is another reason for me to resist thinking of myself as being in Job's shoes: the support I have received has been quite remarkable, and gratifying.

I might even say, the support I have received has been sustaining, and I mean that in a very particular way. When I was cut off from my former employment, I was cut off from a network of relationships that gave me some sense of who I was, and more, how I mattered to people. In the living of these days, I simply do not have the kind of frequency of contact with folks that I did when I was working. Thus every phone call, each letter, every wish for my well-being takes on greater significance.

It sometimes amazes me how easily it is for me to lose sight of who I was, or what I've meant to people over the years. I forget. I discount. I unravel. I realize that I need help to remember.

I need, in fact, to be remembered, in the sense not just of not slipping from people's memories, but also of being "re-membered," which is to say, "put back together," in some way. Being remembered not only lets me know I am not forgotten, but it also has the dual gratifications of being reminded that I might have had a positive impact upon peoples' lives in the past, and that I might again have that positive impact in the future.

In that way, being remembered keeps me together through days that otherwise lack a certain coherence. Once the scattering of the Usual Schedule of Things begins; once one's days are a series of seemingly haphazard occurrences; once one begins to rise each day knowing that one's life is more likely to be shaped by the unexpected than the expected: everything, including one's sense of oneself, can seem rather tentative! Who am I to be-- today?

In this context, it is helpful to me to know who I was, to some at least, before; and from that, who I might be to others, in some time to come. You who have responded to these blogs, you who have written me, you who have called-- even you who have simply held me in your prayers and expressed your confidence in God's leading: you have helped me immeasurably to maintain a sense of continuity of myself amid all of the outer changes I am going through.

Thank you! I am grateful to believe that I am not Job. And I am even more grateful to have a very different experience of my friends than Job had of his!

Blessings, all!