Hate Meetings? Yeah, I get it. But.. you should probably go nonetheless.

“Why” you might say. “I don’t need that meeting.”

And you don’t. You are gifted and motivated as it is.  You don’t need the meeting to remind you of what you care about; you naturally care about those things. You don’t need the meeting to inform you; you are self-taught. You don’t need the meeting.

Furthermore, the meeting is irritating to you because it is made up of people who actually do need the meeting; They aren’t self-taught or self-motivated. They suck the life right out of you.  They need to get motivated. They need to get informed.

They need.. well.. they need someone like you.

So go to the meeting. Not because you need it but because you are needed there.

Along with covering Christina Aguilara during last night’s FEJMILRS webcast, I debuted a new song I’m currently calling “Take One On The Chin.” It will eventually make its way onto the Untitled II project I’m working on (a follow up my my 2001 Untitled EP). Below are the lyrics to that song.  Also, if you missed the FEJMILRS Webcast, we’re leaving it archived at Ustream for the time being.

Take one for the team
Take it on the chin
Pick yourself back up
And brace yourself again
They don’t come to fight
They only come to win
So take one for the team
And take it on the chin

Take another step
A mile beyond the call
Bear the weight of choice
The choice to bear it all
At times you want to stop
At times you want to crawl
But take another step
A mile beyond the call

Honestly, you should know
You’ve been there
Sad and slow
Patience waited on you, though
So, honestly, you should know

Take a moment now
To ponder your next move
Is what you’re giving back
The honest best of you?
I truly understand
You’ve got to know I do
You took one on the chin
But you were swinging, too

The second First Ever Justin McRoberts Interactive Living Room Session is Wednesday, October 6th, Follow Justin at Twitter to catch the announcement or catch the broadcast at this blog starting at 6pm PST.

I was honored that Charlie Peacock asked me to contribute some thoughts about the intersection of art, worship and justice to the Art House America blog. The blog is a landing place for thoughtful reflection on music, justice, the visual arts, sabbath and many other vital topics.  If you’re a consistent blog reader, add Art House America to your RSS feed… maybe even start with this entry of mine.

Earlier this summer a good friend, who for purposes of anonymity I will heretofore call “Streaky the Supercat” helped me put together some shelving I had purchased at IKEA. I’m not a handy man so building this shelving unit was quite an accomplishment for me; It was my Everest.. I weep even as I type.

That night, after Streaky the Supercat had collected his tools and headed home to giggle with his wife about the dimwit he had assisted with his lego-set, I sat in a chair in the middle of that room and, for at least an hour, just stared happily at the work I had done, saying “that’s good.”  Sure, I could have moved on to the “next step” and started placing things on it’s shelves and hanging things on it’s hangers.  But that was next.  This was now.. and for now… I was done.

In his description of creation, the writer of Genesis notes that God “rested”* on the seventh day.  The language used to describe this moment is very interesting to me.

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. 2 And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.”  -Genesis 2 (NRSV)

“Finished,.. finished,.. done,.. done,.. done.”   That’s the elusive idea… What does it look like to be “finished”?  To be “done” with ones work?  What is enough?

Being self-employed with a job rooted in creativity means that There is always “more” to be started or achieved. But I recognize that this temptation towards endless “progress” is the very temptation that my father gave in to.  His pursuit of “more” resulted in a darkened vision of his own life in which it was not enough to pay his own bills or send a son to college or have a family. There was more.. more security, more freedom etc… and in the absence of “enough” my father allowed his identity to be shaped by the pursuit of more.. “progress” became his goal and it was the end of him.**

I do not want to fall into the sam patterns my father lived in.  And so I practice the Sabbath.

The invitation and challenge of Sabbath is to learn what “enough” is and rest in it. To have a day in which I can pause and enjoy the good of what is rather than constantly reach for what is not. Likewise,the Sabbath provides a day in which I can see what is not good in a larger context… to separate the light from the darkness, as it were; to sit in the middle of my life, enjoying the work of my hands and the work of other hands as well, ultimately knowing that “it is enough” and even that “it is good.”

———

*The particular Hebrew word the writer uses for “rest” is a word that describes a very purposeful choice to cease from work; not the kind of rest that becomes necessary at the end of overexertion.

**I  follow in the line of thought that sees this same drive towards endless progress as part of a cultural mindset in which it is somehow permissible that “we built gargantuan bridges to span the seas, we built gigantic buildings to kiss the skies” while others are “devoid of a decent sanitary house to live in,” (Martin Luther King Jr. March 31 1968)