The Wander Years
What Is a Moratorium?
Like I mentioned in my previous post, I have been blessed recently by the adoption and appropriation of a term as descriptive of my particular life circumstances, namely, moratorium. While the term typically means the suspension of a planned activity (which, in the legal sense of the word could be the act of authorizing the temporary suspension of payments on a debt, or temporarily delayed fulfillment of an obligation – props to dictionary.com, by the way), the usage of the word I recently stumbled on to has a slightly different bent. I’ll quote the text of the book Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian by James W. Fowler to give you an understanding of the way I’m using the word to describe my current time in life.
Fowler brings this term to light while discussing the theories of Erik Erikson, who actually coined this particular usage of the term. In an autobiography, Erikson shares pain he experienced in his youth – the feeling that he did not belong to any of the communities in which he lived. His stepfather, apparently, was of help to Erikson during this difficult time:
Erikson expresses lasting gratitude to his step-father, however, for his support of a year or two of what the Germans call “Wanderjahre,” a time of traveling on one’s own or with friends, often walking long distances (in those times), and reading and discussing art, literature, and politics. His own experience of wandering seems to have been healing for Erikson. We see his appreciation of that set of experiences in his coining the term moratorium to describe a time in a youth’s life when premature overcommitment to a life direction can be avoided by a temporary but crucial period of time devoted to the search for values and a sustaining world view. Erikson describes the emergent crisis of adolescence as the struggle for identity, a struggle against the inability to construct an integral unity of one’s gifts, potential roles, and images of the self, the condition he calls “identity confusion.”
The Road to My Detour
If we Americans have a culturally acceptable equivalent, then I’m not aware of it. When I was in high school, college was the next step. (You might say that people of some socio-economic backgrounds are not socially programmed with this impulse, and so a job is the next step, or family commitments, etc. However, having worked in an institution of higher education for over three years, I know that those institutions heavily recruit and seek to change the thinking of students who have grown up without the expectation of a college degree in their future, and also provide, in many cases, better financial packages and support structures for such students.) Once in college I started to recognize the social programming and wonder whether I was on the right course (in terms of major, career path, and so on), but since my alma mater was so expensive, I didn’t dare embark on a moratorium then – this thought wouldn’t have even seemed plausible then – but I pressed on and graduated in four years. Post-graduation I acquired an office assistant-type position - at the college where my wife was finishing her undergraduate degrees - in order to pay the bills (please, if you will, pardon my omission here of that part on resumes where one includes something about being a team-player and using one’s strengths to serve the interests of the institution; I woke up in a not-lying mood today).
This is some of the background for my decision to leave my job on November 1, 2005, and enter a period of voluntary unemployment. Though at the time I wouldn’t have called it a moratorium (or “moving years” as our German friends have termed it), the motivations and longings were the same. I wanted a deep and unified sense of convictions and values, and work that utilized my gifts and abilities according to those convictions and values - with integrity and faithfulness to, and for the sake of, the kingdom of God. I remember thinking and saying, “If I’m going to be working a job that I don’t feel is a good fit for me, shouldn’t I at least have some deep convictions about the way I live my life at work, and know that with the responsibilities I have been given I’m doing the will of God?” At the time I didn’t seem to be ordering my work life consistently with those convictions, if indeed I was even clear what those convictions were. And the will of God in the context of my job was fuzzy at best.
Tension… How Do You Spell Relief?
I have realized recently that much of my internal tension was in regards to the radical nature of the claims of the kingdom of God on my life. In my mind (and I hope dearly in my actions, too) there is nothing I can value more than the reign of God in every part of my life and in the whole world. And I believe that this means the world has to change in order to align itself with God’s rule (in every way, every sphere, not only just in personal lives), since it can only be aligned with God or aligned with darkness. And life and joy come with that change. Doesn’t this mean, at some point, that the world and our everyday lives will look very different? (Positivists, beware.) Isn’t this what a new heaven and new earth is going to be all about? Surely I’m not alone when I have near-Amish impulses with regard to food, money, entertainment, work, technology, medicine, etc. (no offense, of course, to the Amish – I’m merely drawing on a popular sentiment for illustrative purposes).
While at some point I may need to clarify exactly what it is about the institutional environment that warrants my desire for radicalness, suffice it to say for now that I believe we experience the effects of sin in very real ways on our jobs, not only in the hearts of the people we work with but in the values, missions, goals and ideals of the institutions we work for. There are spiritualities and spirits and powers we battle with when we align ourselves with God’s reign. Our churches, our communities of faith, will do well to equip us to discern our loyalties so we can serve and love only one master, our Father (and we will do well to give ourselves for each other to that end), as we corporately point to Him and embody His life through ours.
Neither Practicing Nor Preaching
The difficult part of living the way I believed on my job is that I gained all these convictions somewhere about midway through my tenure with the office where I worked (this would be due to some of the things I was reading at the time, and also – especially – to the healing work of God in my life to bring me to a point where I could even hope to believe in the coming kingdom). Certainly, I didn’t not believe it before, but it became more real and important to me. Frustratingly, as these convictions grew, I noticed in my life at work that the fruit of my endeavors there did not reflect the values of the kingdom of God – at least not very clearly so. And frequently I caught glimpses of myself (perhaps the way others perceived me) that showed me to be bitter, or sarcastic, or discontent, or confused, or overwhelmed. How do you suddenly (or even gradually) shed this baggage when this is who you’ve come to be over time, and your habits are engrained, and when you (in my particular case) feel overworked to the point that you don’t even manage your work responsibilities well, much less have the time and energy to devote to conversion? (While I would never consider myself a workaholic, I can see how those who struggle with this are in many, if not most, cases pursuing cultural expectations and ideals that are deeply and pervasively embedded in cultural structures.)
Anyways, I figured that if we could afford it for a while, I would take some time off to ponder some of these important questions, and attempt to fill in some of the gaps in my theology, worldview, and values. It was (and still is) my belief that God is able to, and will provide for our financial needs during this time, even if it means going back to work sooner than later (and indeed, currently I’m working a few days a week as a substitute teacher, so I guess that means that I only “wander” part-time).
Now That I Have Everything Figured Out
That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Simply being able to identify where I’m at in life has been a blessing, but doesn’t help me too much with where I’m headed. I guess that’s why it’s called Wandering. In the meantime I’ll be reading my books, pondering my thoughts, discussing my questions, and in general doing my best to embody those things that so greatly annoy all you honest, hard-working, living-earning individuals. (Yes, of course my tongue and cheek were perpendicularly related during that last statement; and don’t you forget, either, that bit about being a part-time substitute teacher… so I guess that, taken together, the fact that I’m neither fully committed to either Wandering or earning a living makes me, in a profound sense of the word, wholly half-ass – and I’m assuming that this word somehow refers to a donkey, since they’re neither fully mule nor fully horse, or something like that…)
Until next blog, I hope that you have peace, whether you wander or settle, whether you’re on the move or in the groove. Should you wander my way (or if I’ve wandered near your settlement), drop me a line, and we’ll talk.
Like I mentioned in my previous post, I have been blessed recently by the adoption and appropriation of a term as descriptive of my particular life circumstances, namely, moratorium. While the term typically means the suspension of a planned activity (which, in the legal sense of the word could be the act of authorizing the temporary suspension of payments on a debt, or temporarily delayed fulfillment of an obligation – props to dictionary.com, by the way), the usage of the word I recently stumbled on to has a slightly different bent. I’ll quote the text of the book Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian by James W. Fowler to give you an understanding of the way I’m using the word to describe my current time in life.
Fowler brings this term to light while discussing the theories of Erik Erikson, who actually coined this particular usage of the term. In an autobiography, Erikson shares pain he experienced in his youth – the feeling that he did not belong to any of the communities in which he lived. His stepfather, apparently, was of help to Erikson during this difficult time:
Erikson expresses lasting gratitude to his step-father, however, for his support of a year or two of what the Germans call “Wanderjahre,” a time of traveling on one’s own or with friends, often walking long distances (in those times), and reading and discussing art, literature, and politics. His own experience of wandering seems to have been healing for Erikson. We see his appreciation of that set of experiences in his coining the term moratorium to describe a time in a youth’s life when premature overcommitment to a life direction can be avoided by a temporary but crucial period of time devoted to the search for values and a sustaining world view. Erikson describes the emergent crisis of adolescence as the struggle for identity, a struggle against the inability to construct an integral unity of one’s gifts, potential roles, and images of the self, the condition he calls “identity confusion.”
The Road to My Detour
If we Americans have a culturally acceptable equivalent, then I’m not aware of it. When I was in high school, college was the next step. (You might say that people of some socio-economic backgrounds are not socially programmed with this impulse, and so a job is the next step, or family commitments, etc. However, having worked in an institution of higher education for over three years, I know that those institutions heavily recruit and seek to change the thinking of students who have grown up without the expectation of a college degree in their future, and also provide, in many cases, better financial packages and support structures for such students.) Once in college I started to recognize the social programming and wonder whether I was on the right course (in terms of major, career path, and so on), but since my alma mater was so expensive, I didn’t dare embark on a moratorium then – this thought wouldn’t have even seemed plausible then – but I pressed on and graduated in four years. Post-graduation I acquired an office assistant-type position - at the college where my wife was finishing her undergraduate degrees - in order to pay the bills (please, if you will, pardon my omission here of that part on resumes where one includes something about being a team-player and using one’s strengths to serve the interests of the institution; I woke up in a not-lying mood today).
This is some of the background for my decision to leave my job on November 1, 2005, and enter a period of voluntary unemployment. Though at the time I wouldn’t have called it a moratorium (or “moving years” as our German friends have termed it), the motivations and longings were the same. I wanted a deep and unified sense of convictions and values, and work that utilized my gifts and abilities according to those convictions and values - with integrity and faithfulness to, and for the sake of, the kingdom of God. I remember thinking and saying, “If I’m going to be working a job that I don’t feel is a good fit for me, shouldn’t I at least have some deep convictions about the way I live my life at work, and know that with the responsibilities I have been given I’m doing the will of God?” At the time I didn’t seem to be ordering my work life consistently with those convictions, if indeed I was even clear what those convictions were. And the will of God in the context of my job was fuzzy at best.
Tension… How Do You Spell Relief?
I have realized recently that much of my internal tension was in regards to the radical nature of the claims of the kingdom of God on my life. In my mind (and I hope dearly in my actions, too) there is nothing I can value more than the reign of God in every part of my life and in the whole world. And I believe that this means the world has to change in order to align itself with God’s rule (in every way, every sphere, not only just in personal lives), since it can only be aligned with God or aligned with darkness. And life and joy come with that change. Doesn’t this mean, at some point, that the world and our everyday lives will look very different? (Positivists, beware.) Isn’t this what a new heaven and new earth is going to be all about? Surely I’m not alone when I have near-Amish impulses with regard to food, money, entertainment, work, technology, medicine, etc. (no offense, of course, to the Amish – I’m merely drawing on a popular sentiment for illustrative purposes).
While at some point I may need to clarify exactly what it is about the institutional environment that warrants my desire for radicalness, suffice it to say for now that I believe we experience the effects of sin in very real ways on our jobs, not only in the hearts of the people we work with but in the values, missions, goals and ideals of the institutions we work for. There are spiritualities and spirits and powers we battle with when we align ourselves with God’s reign. Our churches, our communities of faith, will do well to equip us to discern our loyalties so we can serve and love only one master, our Father (and we will do well to give ourselves for each other to that end), as we corporately point to Him and embody His life through ours.
Neither Practicing Nor Preaching
The difficult part of living the way I believed on my job is that I gained all these convictions somewhere about midway through my tenure with the office where I worked (this would be due to some of the things I was reading at the time, and also – especially – to the healing work of God in my life to bring me to a point where I could even hope to believe in the coming kingdom). Certainly, I didn’t not believe it before, but it became more real and important to me. Frustratingly, as these convictions grew, I noticed in my life at work that the fruit of my endeavors there did not reflect the values of the kingdom of God – at least not very clearly so. And frequently I caught glimpses of myself (perhaps the way others perceived me) that showed me to be bitter, or sarcastic, or discontent, or confused, or overwhelmed. How do you suddenly (or even gradually) shed this baggage when this is who you’ve come to be over time, and your habits are engrained, and when you (in my particular case) feel overworked to the point that you don’t even manage your work responsibilities well, much less have the time and energy to devote to conversion? (While I would never consider myself a workaholic, I can see how those who struggle with this are in many, if not most, cases pursuing cultural expectations and ideals that are deeply and pervasively embedded in cultural structures.)
Anyways, I figured that if we could afford it for a while, I would take some time off to ponder some of these important questions, and attempt to fill in some of the gaps in my theology, worldview, and values. It was (and still is) my belief that God is able to, and will provide for our financial needs during this time, even if it means going back to work sooner than later (and indeed, currently I’m working a few days a week as a substitute teacher, so I guess that means that I only “wander” part-time).
Now That I Have Everything Figured Out
That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Simply being able to identify where I’m at in life has been a blessing, but doesn’t help me too much with where I’m headed. I guess that’s why it’s called Wandering. In the meantime I’ll be reading my books, pondering my thoughts, discussing my questions, and in general doing my best to embody those things that so greatly annoy all you honest, hard-working, living-earning individuals. (Yes, of course my tongue and cheek were perpendicularly related during that last statement; and don’t you forget, either, that bit about being a part-time substitute teacher… so I guess that, taken together, the fact that I’m neither fully committed to either Wandering or earning a living makes me, in a profound sense of the word, wholly half-ass – and I’m assuming that this word somehow refers to a donkey, since they’re neither fully mule nor fully horse, or something like that…)
Until next blog, I hope that you have peace, whether you wander or settle, whether you’re on the move or in the groove. Should you wander my way (or if I’ve wandered near your settlement), drop me a line, and we’ll talk.
posted by joe.peebles at 1:28 PM
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