12. A Rock and a Hard Place

New year, new thoughts, Terrible Writing.

Same soup, different day

Not much to update on, friends. I’m still “running on ice” (I only gain a little distance when I fall).

The feelings don’t stop, though

And I want to share some of them with you. Lately, more than ever, I feel squeezed between a rock and hard place.

Before I explain, I’ll tell you that, yes, one of those is the part where I’m unemployed and running out of money. So I’ll be turning back on the options for this Substack to ask for funds.

I don’t know exactly what you’ll see, when I switch paid subscriptions back on, so I’m giving you advanced notice.

You might get an email asking if you want to re-up your previous subscription. You might not. So make your choices, and set your settings accordingly.

You might even decide to chip in for five bucks a month. It would be wonderful if you do.

Part One: The Hard Place

This one’s easy: I’m broke. Unemployed, out of savings, and job hunting like I never have before. And this experience is in the context of 21st century North America, where one is meant to pursue the “American Dream”, clear one’s temporary embarrassment, and become the millionaire that one truly is deep inside. And one is expected to pursue this despite all the evidence that none of it ever happens to anyone.

We are, all of us, talking ourselves up: “this time I’m gonna kick that football”.

And here I am, kicking and kicking and never connecting. I’m flying apart after yet another full-strength swing that met nothing but empty air.

Worse than a ghost step.

It gets worse: my feelings are always urging me to blame myself. And then on top of it all, there’s the very real consequences of going absolutely broke. No, I’m not going to discuss those consequences in more detail. By the way, has anyone seen my glasses? Bent frames? Slightly pinkish lenses?

Part two: The Rock

This one’s a little tricky. It is centered on one of my personal theological cores: resurrection sets me free.

Resurrection sets me free.

Through my baptism, I was baptized into Christ’s death; I have already died. And if all of 21st century North American culture were distilled into a binary of success or failure, death is the biggest L. It’s a failure even bigger than being broke. I’m a big, dead loser. Soy un perdedor.

But I was also baptized into Christ’s resurrection, which makes me alive again. And after sinking to the lowest level of failure (dead), anything after that is a step up. Even more, resurrection puts the lie to the whole success/failure dichotomy. Everything is made up and the points don’t matter. And that is freeing.

It’s a charming book and I highly recommend it.

Since I have resurrection, I can uncouple myself from the expectations and scripts of the dominant culture. Resurrection sets me free from the pursuit of the American Dream and unlocking my inner millionaire. Instead, I can turn my focus on living a life where my practice is following Jesus, where my hustle is “be quick to do good”, where my grind is doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God.

And that is pretty terrifying, because the way of following Jesus is usually NOT a lucrative way (as I’m experiencing now).

So right now I’m feeling caught between:

• the very real need to participate in capitalism enough to support myself, and

• I believe that God richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life.

Part Three: Between

I’m not going to make you boggle at my quandary. Here’s what happened this week that helped me so much: I talked to my pastor.

My congregation is embarking on a multi-year listening project. It’s similar to the “connect/discover/respond” cycle of customer service, but on a community scale. So my pastor met with me over coffee to listen. One of his questions was about what is going on in my life. Of course I talked about being unemployed, but then I also talked about my theologically-driven rejection of the capitalist paradigm (not the words I used), and how I felt caught “between a rock and a hard place”.

Then he said something that helped the squeeze-y feelings ease off, a little bit: “you’re not asking to become a billionaire, you just need things to be a little easier; you just want to have enough.” Thanks, Pastor, you really get it.

I just want to have a job, with enough income to support myself and my cat. I want to live in a part of the city where I’m near my friends and the activities and communities that I connect to. I don’t want to own everything, I just want to have enough.

If there’s anything that you can do to help, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Finally, a list

In issue 01, I talked about making lists like those in The Pillow Book of Seishonagon and I will continue the practice. Here’s one of her prompts.

• Things that cannot be compared:

  • cherry, plum, peach, and apricot blossoms

  • siblings

  • one’s favorite songs

  • deep kisses

  • cats with different personalities

  • sunsets

  • piles of leaves as one is walking somewhere

  • one’s good friends who have fallen out of touch

  • all the times that so-and-so has hugged one

  • noticing seasonal changes in a familiar place

  • one’s place in life to anyone else’s place in life

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