Moratorium Finitum Est
Moratorium Finitum Est
When Your Legs Grow Tired
For those of you who can’t read Latin, or more likely for those who do and realize that I sort of made up that title (it’s probably best that you don’t go checking what it really means), I’ll just come out and say that I am officially announcing the beginning of the end of my moratorium (just yesterday I sent a press release to The Eagle), which ironically comes just a few weeks after I realized I was on one. All of that is to say, I’m currently looking for a full-time job again – no more wandering for now.
Alternate Subheading
Some of you may be thinking I could have found a more appropriate subtitle for the last section, such as: When Your Wallet Grows Thin.
Wandering In Community
In response to David’s (a.k.a. Mr. Anonymous) question/exhortation about wandering in community (found here), I’ll simply say that wandering/embarking on a moratorium is futile without a community of people who will ask you the tough questions and bear with you during the temporary period of heightened scrutiny regarding your personal vocation (vocation = not so much your job, but your lifelong quest to integrate every aspect of your life, including your gifts, skills, values, and passions, and order them in such a way as to fully do the will of God and participate with Him in the work He is doing; this includes your jobs, but only from a zoomed-out perspective). I say temporary period because at some point my “jam” no longer needs to be to “talk about I.”
If I Had a Nickel For Every Time My Motivation Was Poor, I’d Have Few Nickels
The biggest part of my reasoning for deciding to begin the end of my moratorium was realizing part of my motivation for wanting to begin it in the first place. What I’ve realized about my last full-time job (which, consequently, was also my first full-time job) was that I was never fully committed to being there. Initially I thought I’d get my foot in the door and then (switching metaphors) make my way up the ladder. But once I’d gone from second-to-bottom rung to bottom-rung on the office ladder, I realized – in a moment of brilliant clarity – that down was not the same as up! -pause- I think this down-ness bothered me more than I initially realized. And coupled with this downward mobility (alas, I can’t claim originality for this terming this striking counter-cultural value) was my latent mental gameplan, “I’ll just work here for a little while to pay the bills while my wife finishes school; then when she’s done we can blow this joint!” How could I possibly be missional in my job context when my heart was always somewhere else?
Where I Am, Right Now
Right now I am trying to trust God’s sovereignty in all of this. I’m also trying to learn more, through reading, observation, and conversations, about this world of His and where I fit best in it. Here are some considerations I’ve come to see as important as I try to determine my own personal longitude and latitude in God’s Kingdom geography:
-Theology of Work
-Vocation as life-calling
-“How” is a dirty word
In fact, these considerations are so important to me that I’m going to go ahead and end this blog in a rather unceremonious fashion so I can get started on a blog about them.
When Your Legs Grow Tired
For those of you who can’t read Latin, or more likely for those who do and realize that I sort of made up that title (it’s probably best that you don’t go checking what it really means), I’ll just come out and say that I am officially announcing the beginning of the end of my moratorium (just yesterday I sent a press release to The Eagle), which ironically comes just a few weeks after I realized I was on one. All of that is to say, I’m currently looking for a full-time job again – no more wandering for now.
Alternate Subheading
Some of you may be thinking I could have found a more appropriate subtitle for the last section, such as: When Your Wallet Grows Thin.
Wandering In Community
In response to David’s (a.k.a. Mr. Anonymous) question/exhortation about wandering in community (found here), I’ll simply say that wandering/embarking on a moratorium is futile without a community of people who will ask you the tough questions and bear with you during the temporary period of heightened scrutiny regarding your personal vocation (vocation = not so much your job, but your lifelong quest to integrate every aspect of your life, including your gifts, skills, values, and passions, and order them in such a way as to fully do the will of God and participate with Him in the work He is doing; this includes your jobs, but only from a zoomed-out perspective). I say temporary period because at some point my “jam” no longer needs to be to “talk about I.”
If I Had a Nickel For Every Time My Motivation Was Poor, I’d Have Few Nickels
The biggest part of my reasoning for deciding to begin the end of my moratorium was realizing part of my motivation for wanting to begin it in the first place. What I’ve realized about my last full-time job (which, consequently, was also my first full-time job) was that I was never fully committed to being there. Initially I thought I’d get my foot in the door and then (switching metaphors) make my way up the ladder. But once I’d gone from second-to-bottom rung to bottom-rung on the office ladder, I realized – in a moment of brilliant clarity – that down was not the same as up! -pause- I think this down-ness bothered me more than I initially realized. And coupled with this downward mobility (alas, I can’t claim originality for this terming this striking counter-cultural value) was my latent mental gameplan, “I’ll just work here for a little while to pay the bills while my wife finishes school; then when she’s done we can blow this joint!” How could I possibly be missional in my job context when my heart was always somewhere else?
Where I Am, Right Now
Right now I am trying to trust God’s sovereignty in all of this. I’m also trying to learn more, through reading, observation, and conversations, about this world of His and where I fit best in it. Here are some considerations I’ve come to see as important as I try to determine my own personal longitude and latitude in God’s Kingdom geography:
-Theology of Work
-Vocation as life-calling
-“How” is a dirty word
In fact, these considerations are so important to me that I’m going to go ahead and end this blog in a rather unceremonious fashion so I can get started on a blog about them.
posted by joe.peebles at 2:56 PM
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