Conversatio Divina

Part 6 of 17

Worry, Work, Finding Delight—and Knowing When to Play Hooky

Jane Rubietta
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Table of Contents

  1. 01.  Journey toward Delight
  2. 02.  The Tool of Play
  3. 03.  All My Needs
  4. 04.  Take Your Child to Work
  5. 05.  Wildflowers
  6. 06.  Questions For Discussion And Reflection

If they are not seen, how can you be convinced that they exist? Well, where do these things that you see come from,  if not from one whom you cannot see? Yes, of course you see something in order to believe something, and from what you can see to believe what you cannot see. Please do not be ungrateful to the one who made you able to see; this is why you are able to believe what you are not yet able to see. God gave you eyes in your head, reason in your heart. Arouse the reason in your heart, get the inner inhabitant behind your inner eyes on his feet, let him take to his windows, let him inspect God’s creation.Augustine, Sermon 126.3, as quoted in Ancient Christian Devotional: A Year of Weekly Readings, Lectionary Cycle C, 189

Last year, I read the pronouncement of the angel Gabriel, to John’s father: “You shall have joy and gladness . . .” (Luke 1:14, KJVScriptures marked (KJV) are from the King James Version of the Bible and is in the public domain in most of the world.). I burst into tears in the quiet dawn. Where was that promise being fulfilled in my life? Work occupies my waking hours, and if I’m not working, I’m worrying about work. But I do work; I almost never don’t work. I work three jobs, between my calling, my office (the necessary foundation undergirding that calling), and my family. I have become a zombie of sorts, with the lifeblood of joy and gladness sucked from my veins. 

Like so many people, I work seven days a week, week after week. I work from my house most weekdays, so home is not a sanctuary set apart from work. At night I just fall into bed. Exhausted. The sheets aren’t even cool in the muggy Chicago nights, nor are they necessarily clean because no one else changes them. Except for the sweat from living and working in a home without air conditioning, there’s no grime from my day to shower off, no bug spray left over from eager play, because I am either desk-bound or airport-bound. 

Looking at my life now, I wonder: where did that little girl go? Has she played hide and seek, ever waiting for me to find her, and now she has been in her hiding spot for so long that she blends in with the trees and rocks? Has she petrified, become a statue like one of the woodland creatures in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where it is always winter, never Christmas? The adage is true, though it doesn’t seem economically feasible to reverse: All work and no play makes Jane a dull girl. Add on what is practically an IV line of worry, and I am beyond dull. I am comatose of heart. 

A few weeks after my dawn-burst of tears over the sad state of my soul, my husband returned from a ministerial meeting (yawn) and stuck a penciled sticky note on my chest. He poked his finger onto the paper for emphasis. “Call her. You need to call this woman.” 

I wore the note for the rest of the day, debating, and the next morning grabbed the phone from its cradle. The woman lived nearby, and Rich thought she would be a good friend to walk with me toward the forgotten fields of childhood. It was time, past time, to pay attention to this little girl. It was time to reparent that lost child who loved to play but got lost in the overdrive of my life. To discover her again, listen to her child-heart, beckon her out of hiding. 

The Sticky-Note lady invited me over, and was as warm in person as a summer day at the beach. She turned out to be one of those rare people who lives in God’s delight consistently, and when we get together, my soul feels tended and attended. The tables turn during those occasional minutes. Rather than my asking the questions and inviting people deeper, she asks me deep, thoughtful questions. These intervening months are teaching me to listen to, and honor, my own heart. And God’s heart. 

The result? A journey—sometimes exhilarating, like riding a bike down winding southern hills; sometimes exhausting, like trudging up the hill with a flat tire—toward reversing worry. 

01.  Journey toward Delight

Delight is the antidote to our chronic worry disease. We can learn to live again, to live in the moment-by-moment pleasure of a God who has the whole world in his hand, a God who smiles at our antics, delights in our childlike hearts, wants us to trust him enough to learn to rest and play and enjoy him again. When we were children, playing Kick the Can, fighting the mosquitoes and smelling like bug repellant (thanks, Mr. Deet), It would shout, “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” And we all came running, trying to be the first to kick the cans or set the prisoners free without being caught. 

My journey toward delight as an adult has sometimes been more mosquito bites than lightning bugs. It’s encompassed fear, poor communication, codependence, grief, unforgiveness, and the common denominator for all these issues: worry. I’ve uncovered painful memories, and revisited some serious character defects. But, unlike scratching the top off those bites with their endless itching keeping them raw, these discoveries have led me toward healing. It has been a surprise, to be honest. A little like running to kick the can and actually setting the prisoners free. 

There are fireflies en route, as well, as I’ve met up again with the God who throws garlands of hosannas around my neck, who rips off my mourning band and tosses a lei of wildflowers over my head. As we journey together, I am moving, as the psalmist says, from “wild lament” to “whirling dance” (Psalm 30:11–12, The MessageScripture quotations marked (The Message) are from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson, copyright (c) 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved.). 

And today, with the rain tumbling against the roof overhead, I hear again the invitation, and call it out for that lost—and getting found—little girl who loved—loves— to play: “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” Or even, “Rain, rain, go away, my friends and I want to play.” 

02.  The Tool of Play

At four, our daughter Ruthie’s task was to gather flowers for her auntie’s bridal shower, and gather them she did. Fist after fist of long-stemmed beauties, a rainbow of blooms. These giants were half her height, but even their color-wheel vibrancy was no match for her innocence, her sunny brilliance and delight. 

To her alive little heart, the tulips were wild, and they were put on earth for her to pick. My parents’ backyard generously offered up these blooms, from borders of perennials interspersed with all sorts of weeds. 

And my parents loved watching Ruthie love those flowers. She danced through the yard, her curls bouncing, the blooms waving and bowing like dancers themselves. Even now, twenty-some years later, I remember, and smile. And I think God, who lives outside of time, smiles, too. Loving this little girl, loving her eager embrace of the beauty he provided, loving her wildflower dance. 

How does that dance disappear as we grow older? I don’t remember when I stopped dancing. I don’t remember if I ever danced, aside from the fist-waving ’70s and ’80s gyrations we loosely or optimistically called dancing. But I do remember that graduating from college was a clanging alarm to awaken and arise to somber adulthood responsibilities. In seminary, when I discovered William Law’s book A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, I thought, “This is true. It’s serious business, being a Christian.” And we have the hymns to prove it. “Onward Christian Soldiers” and “We’ll Work ’Til Jesus Comes.” 

I quit reading fiction—too frivolous if people are perishing. No more cracking jokes. Somewhere along the journey I stopped laughing, lost all perspective and balance. Everything seemed important, everything an issue, whether it was paying two cents too much for a gallon of milk or gasoline (good, wise, serious Christian women save money, and furrow our brows while doing so) or being two minutes late leaving for a commitment. 

But all this seriousness is killing me. It is killing my heart, probably literally but also figuratively. Joie de vivre— joy of living, of life—is not a reality, only a fun French phrase. Isn’t the root of such dreadful seriousness . . . worry? And isn’t worry a misunderstanding of the God who carries the whole world in his hands? We move from that childlike, tulip-picking innocence, from living without a worry in the world, to worrying and carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders—and our soul. 

This all showed up for me one day with my Sticky-Note Friend, who loved me enough to ask me about my workload. She’d had no idea how many hours I work, how intense the desk-life portion of that work. Nor how much I loathe all the administration; that it can eat up my entire creative life; that it forces me into my left-brain, fear-filled, there’s-not-enough-to-go-around hemisphere. 

Rather than the pseudo, Sunday-only smile that vanishes into a teeth-gritting grimace the rest of the week, this friend’s face displays the quiet radiance of a road-tested woman who’s found God’s love beyond adequate in her life. She says nothing she doesn’t know through living it. In fact, she is the face of delight for me: she lives in a profound attentiveness to God’s presence—which may be the secret to delight, to anti-worry living. Noticing and connecting with God who finds delight everywhere. So when she speaks, I listen. 

“Jane, you need help in your office.” 

Uh, duh, I thought, then nodded and protested aloud from the shadow-side of my soul, “I can’t afford help.” I heaved a mountainous sigh. “And no one wants to volunteer.” 

“Why would they want to volunteer?” 

Well. Right. Good question. Just the journey to the desk requires ample liability and health insurance coverage, because of the important and not-too-important litter en route. (Note to self: investigate workman’s comp—or in this case, workwoman’s.) Besides, they couldn’t find the desk. But if they could locate the wooden structure beneath the piles of papers and books, they would be befuddled before they began. We could run a special edition of “Survivor” for people who venture into my office. 

Her question silenced us both, except that my little child-heart started wringing its hands and running around like a mouse in a cage parked over open flames. 

One thing about my friend is that she waits for me, waits for my brain to stop panicking and to shake out the words that describe my soul’s state. “My needs hit me at my desk, especially when I return from a trip.” I brought this out with hesitation, feeling my way, though it was far from profound. “I need to do bookwork. I need to answer a hundred emails. I need to send speaking contracts, or PR, or make phone calls to church leaders . . .” 

More silence. A gentle nod of her head. 

Finally, she asked, “Jane, do you think God wants to meet your needs?” 

I raised my eyebrows and started to nod, then stopped. Obviously, the right answer, the I-grew-up-in-Sunday-school answer, is yes. “I think it’s pretty scriptural,” I finally said. I’m not sure if I was being wry or sarcastic or self-deprecating or probably all three. “You know, Philippians 4:19: ‘My God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.’”NASB. Scripture quotations marked (NASB) are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.lockman.org)

Then I stopped again. I am slow to connect the dots on the map when riding the rails of the worry train. How had I missed this? All my needs. The Sunday-school side of my brain believes this, but the faith side? All my needs? Wouldn’t that be something? 

“If God is present to you during your time in Scripture and prayer, why can’t God also be present to you at your desk?” 

Silence again. My soul stopped its mouse-running and wringing, listened. 

Invite God to work with me at my desk, to share that dreaded overwhelming worrisome task? To treat God like a companion helping me? Seriously? That sounds like an anti-worry remedy to me. 

I hauled in a lungful of air. Someone just loosened my straitjacket. 

03.  All My Needs

All my needs. This rolled around in my soul like a marble in an empty moving van. Paul doesn’t say, “God will meet some, a few, the bare minimum of your needs.” Or, only the needs Abraham Maslow considered survival needs on the bottom level of his pyramid, like air, water, food, and sleep—so far, God is providing for those needs just fine. In fact, in this verse in Philippians, God doesn’t define needs at all. Humph. 

So what is the catch here? I tried to find some disadvantage to this, some reason why it can’t be true, like a reverse loophole. Just because it seems unbelievable to me—why would the God of the universe want to work alongside me, like some hired hand, or a volunteer—doesn’t mean it isn’t true. 

Part of my problem is paying attention. As soon as I leave my morning time with God, I develop some sort of amnesia. My worries pile up like rubble from a ruin while I forge ahead into my dreadful desk tasks as though they are separate from my soul, and from my Savior. As though what happens ten feet away from my soul-breakfast with Jesus doesn’t concern him at all. That’s not true, for my brain and the Bible tell me so, but this spiritual ADHD kicks into gear. Or maybe I’m like a baby who plays with a rattle one minute, then drops it over the side of her high chair and forgets instantly about it. Pre-object permanence, only in this case, it’s pre-relationship permanence. I forget that I am always intricately tied to Jesus. 

Or maybe it’s that I move out of the relational side of my brain and into the “Onward Christian Soldier” side, and figure I just have to gut it out until I pack for my next flight or create space to write my next words for a book or article. Or until Jesus comes back and takes me to heaven. 

But, if Jesus never leaves us or forsakes us, then what about that desk time? Today, I balked at sitting in the office rubble until I had been still. The morning had run away from me like a wild horse refusing to be broken. Storm in the night, fitful sleep, son needing breakfast and gigantic packed lunch for a long day of physical workout and then a ride to the train, husband needing sandwiches for his commute. Before I knew it, 9:30 rolled past and God couldn’t slip a bite-sized word edgewise into the jaw of my tightly clenched morning. 

So I sat. Outside, the newly cut grass looked like the Emerald City artist slathered paint over it, the birds hopped about the lawn like kids on a scavenger hunt. I sat, opened the Scriptures. Sat with Psalm 33. I didn’t try to learn the words in the original language, didn’t compare other versions of Scripture. I didn’t try to exegete or outline the chapter, or take notes for a speech or writing project. 

 

Watch this: God’s eye is on those who respect him,
the ones who are looking for his love.  

He’s ready to come to their rescue in bad times;
in lean times he keeps body and soul together. 

We’re depending on God;
he’s everything we need. 

What’s more, our hearts brim with joy
since we’ve taken for our own his holy name. 

Love us, God, with all you’ve got—
that’s what we’re depending on. (Psalm 33:18–22, The Message). 

 

I “watched this.” I sat. I breathed. I directed my heart, without words, to God. I prayed with words, too, for the people I love and other concerns. I “watched this” some more, drinking in the beauty through the windows. The smudged and cobwebby windows. 

When I climbed over the obstacles to my desk, an email confirmed an invitation to speak in Ohio next spring. And a pastor left a message about booking dates for a retreat. When Ruthie still inhabited my womb, sometimes it felt like a prenatal gymnasium in there with her exercise routine. Now, thinking about those emails—might God be meeting some of my needs? (A rhetorical question. Don’t worry; I’m not entirely dense.) My heart turned a little somersault. My Sticky-Note friend says it’s the work of the Holy Spirit, that flip-flopping. 

Or else, it’s the little hand-wringing child, showing her ecstatic response in the only way she knows how. 

So this Philippians 4:19 promise. It seems to hold. But, context is everything, for us as human beings and for this passage of Scripture, and though I might doubt, Paul goes on to say that he gets it. Life is a walk through barricades and landmines sometimes, maybe often, maybe most days—he’d been shipwrecked and beaten almost to the last breath in his body, arrested, slammed in prison, and tortured. He’d starved; he’d eaten like a king. He says he learned to be content, to be at peace, in all those situations, not because he was superhuman or super-spiritual or exercised the power of positive thinking (which the context might suggest). But because of God’s provision, because whether behind bars or hanging onto a plank in the midst of tossing seas, this Christ-follower found God to be faithful to God’s promises. So Paul could wrap up that entire, almost pious-sounding section with, “My God will supply all your needs, according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” 

If God could do it for Paul, could God—would God?—continue to do it for me, though I am not waging such life-or-death battles as the apostle? I don’t have Paul’s resume. Could God supply my needs, not just this second at my desk, in this single incident, but day after day after year? 

In research, the findings must be replicated by other studies before validation. So I resolve to watch and see. 

04.  Take Your Child to Work

Back in the day, our public schools sponsored reverse career days for the students. Rather than inviting adults with various jobs to present a speech to the students, the schools offered “Take Your Child to Work Day.” Rich and I were pretty sure that our children would not be entranced with the possibility of going to work with us, since we primarily work out of our home during the week, unless it meant that they could sleep all day. Instead, my husband went after the spirit of the law, which was to interest students in various fields. Rich devised work visits with people whose careers paralleled our children’s interests and gifts. 

One year, he took our son Zak to a friend’s studio in Chicago, where they record and layer in sound for high-profile commercials. With the Super Bowl looming, the day’s audio projects included an ad for a popular sports drink. Our friend reworked the commercial using Zak’s voice instead of the original broadcaster’s, then gave Zak an audio recording of the project. His teacher played the tape the next day, and Zak’s friends treated him like a celebrity. 

On the momentous “Take Your Child To Work Day,” the worst possible fate was being stuck at school in study hall with a few other lame students whose parents (also) had lame jobs. Our daughter and her friend were so eager to avoid that social disaster that they agreed to work for me. Ordering pizza for lunch helped. In the Land of Overwhelm at the home office, I welcomed their presence, and created a list of marketing research. I still have 3’ x 5’ cards with their round middle-school handwriting on them. It was my first experience having office help, and humbling that they worked without complaining at such basic jobs, freeing me for other tasks. 

“Take Your Child to Work” days were good days. For Rich, for me, and for our kids for various reasons (getting out of school perhaps the primary benefit in their eyes). Why is it so hard for me to believe that Jesus would be really happy to come to work with me? To guide me in my office? I know he fills and inspires me, communicating through me when I’m speaking. Hopefully when I’m writing. Do I think desk work is beneath Jesus? (Of course, he’s never seen my desk. Uhm, wait. That’s not true.) 

If Jesus is working alongside me, doesn’t that render worry useless? 

05.  Wildflowers

For my daily breakfast with God, I’m working my way through the Scriptures on about a five-year plan, and for this journey through, using The Message version. David’s words in Psalm 30:11–12 caught my heart and my fancy: 

 

You did it: you changed wild lament
into whirling dance; 

You ripped off my black mourning band
and decked me with wildflowers. 

I’m about to burst with song;
I can’t keep quiet about you. 

God, my God,
I can’t thank you enough. 

 

That God wants to drape wildflowers around my neck, even in the hardest of places, moves me deeply. I carry this truth about in a pocket of my soul, pulling it out like a child with a secret hoarded treasure, longing for the delight David experienced when he wrote those lines. Those are not the words of a man consumed by worry, even though villains and threats of destruction and near misses constantly plagued him. 

Last month, my friend The Artist sent a birthday card with the invitation to get together to celebrate. We penciled it in for four weeks out. Yesterday, the day we’d reserved, I felt very noncelebratory. My desk, as usual, spilled over with scraps of paper and splayed file folders, to-do lists and urgent messages to myself. Celebrating did not seem affordable in Jane’s bombsite time-management land. 

But my Artist Friend and I have been friends for thirteen years, and God always meets with us when we meet up. So talking myself out of anxiety, I played hooky from work and we ate, drank coffee, laughed, shared stories in my family room. In my kitchen, we examined an exhausted, plate-sized sunflower picked up at the farmer’s market the week before. It was a masterpiece, too intricate for me to put in the compost pile. It seemed disrespectful of such a magnificent piece of art to bury it beneath decomposing organic matter, so I saved it to show my Artist Friend. The rich brown face of the flower was almost velvety, with yellow tips like the heads of a million pins. We marveled over the plush center, petted the long wilted petals. What a creation.  

I noticed something, then. It’s hard to worry when studying such carefully orchestrated beauty, when taking a day away from worry to just play. 

I told my friend about a nearby field, where seven acres of sunflowers stand at attention with their happy faces. On my last trip past there, I saw a short sign, “Sunflowers.” In tiny hand printing, it said, “for sale” with a wobbly arrow. When we left my home for lunch, Ellie the Artist and I rerouted our trip and pulled into the old farmyard. A woman materialized at the creaking screen door. 

“How much are your sunflowers?” we asked, after exchanging greetings. 

“A dollar each, or five dollars a dozen.” 

Ellie requested a dozen stems for us to share. The woman headed back inside for boots, a long-sleeved shirt, and shears. When she reappeared, we trudged after her to the field, where she plowed through the giant stems with their golden heads angled toward the morning sun. She rustled and pulled and hacked with her monster scissors, the flowers shimmying on their stalks. She emerged with an armload of glory. “I snipped sixteen for you,” she said, her smile as warm as the July heat, as though nothing made her happier than to share those flowers with us. 

The stems fill an antique pitcher on my dining room table—Ellie the Artist surprised me with the entire bouquet—and remind me about the rule of play. Sometimes, we just have to quit work and pick flowers with a friend. 

Afterward, I hurdled toward my desk, tired but happy, not feeling guilty in the least for missing most of the day’s work. In my inbox, from people I didn’t know, were more emails about speaking. The tool—and rule—of play created an opportunity for God to show off. 

My heart f lipped over again. It’s true. It’s really true. Like St. Vincent DePaul said, “Those who are in a hurry delay the things of God.” By hurrying through my days chained to my worries, I was delaying the work of God. And come to find out, Jesus was working all along, even when my Artist Friend and I were playing. Maybe there is something to this, after all. I danced about my office (carefully, mindful of the piles) in delight. This God who throws garlands of wildflowers around our neck . . . this God really does want to meet our needs. All of them. And sometimes, along the way, like a toddler waist-high in wonder, we just need to shove away from our worry station. We need to play among the flowers. 

The sunflowers are my witness. And God’s. 

06.  Questions For Discussion And Reflection

  1. What memories do you have of a “tulip-dance season” in your life? 
  2. When did that dance of innocence and delight disappear, to be replaced with worry? 
  3. When do your needs most hit you? How do you respond? How do you even define needs? 
  4. Read Philippians 4:19–20. What comes to mind? What’s missing in your list? 
  5. What is your version of the “Take Jesus to Work” dilemma? 
  6. How do you invite Christ to help you through the long lists filling your life? 
  7. Consider the wildflowers, those play places where you experience God’s delight… in you. Where are they, what are they? 
  8. How can you move there, to begin to replace worry with delight? 

Footnotes

Jane Rubietta is a retreat and conference speaker and the author of eleven books, including such critically acclaimed titles as Come Closer (Waterbrook, 2007) and Come Along (Waterbrook, 2008). Her website is www.JaneRubietta.com.

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