I have been ill for a little over a month now with something that has been recurrent and progressive. I’m not going to go into details about it here, but late last night (and on into early this morning) I wound up in the ER. I got in and out pretty quick – three hours – and am going to see a specialist early tomorrow morning.

Don’t worry; I am fine. I was out of school today, and will be at least for tomorrow morning, but hopefully nothing more. I am more inconvenienced than anything else right now, and not looking forward to the length of time it will take to make a diagnosis and prognosis from symptoms.

But I have had a day – nearly a whole day (I except coordinating with a classmate for a school project) – with no demands. I didn’t do a whole lot: caught up on this season’s episodes of House, loafed around, did a little reading and a little cleaning (though very little of both, I’m afraid). There was one thing, though: I’ve had time to process my own thoughts. There was no running checklist up and to the right in my head titled Things Which Need To Be Done. I gave the checklist the day off.

Not having a checklist makes me think about what I actually want to do. Drudgery and pushing on through a task is worth something, given that there is a desire to see it carried through to the other side. Talking with some friends of mine, particularly with two men I look up to – let’s call them C (who I was under in a church-like ministry) and A (who it has been my pleasure to get to know more recently) – has helped me work through part of what I want my doings in life to be. A particularly has been of enormous help in regard to the church (but that is for another time). My priorities – or what I want them to be – run something like this, from the most important down:

1. Serving
2. Being alone
3. Being together
4. Making a living

It is interesting how nearly inverted I have made this. My top priority has been my schooling (which is the analogue of making a living, once I am out of this place), and then being in community. And as a result, I have not been myself. (Though I am sure having poor constitution has not helped with this.) The wild, intoxicating idea that I can possibly have community – and truly be together with people – has lifted me up and carried me quite willingly away. I love community, but I have been shallow in it and idolizing of it.

But service is the Gospel. I don’t mean necessarily the images of homeless people under the bridge and the starving in Africa. Believe me when I say they comprise most of the opportunity to serve. I also mean the lonely in school, the needy people I see from day to day, the thankless and necessary jobs which are cleaning up after our friends and enemies. All this is hard for me, but what else did Jesus say he was doing? What, according to Luke, was the first teaching he ever administered?

The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Or what is heaven and hell? Heaven is given to the sheep, who see God (Christ) hungry and feed him, and thirsty and give him something to drink, a stranger and welcome him in, naked and clothe him, sick and in prison and come visit him. And hell is to the goats, who see him hungry and do not feed him, and thirsty and do not give him something to drink, a stranger and do not welcome him in, naked and do not clothe him, sick and in prison and do not come visit him. And how do they do this? Because as they did to the least of these his brothers, they did to him. Jesus’ ministry is service. The ministry of heaven’s children is service.

And I am firmly convinced that heaven is not the hereafter. It is the here and the after. It may well be that there is only one reality facing us after death, and it is the face which we have been hating or loving our whole lives, but until now have only seen in pieces. If I reject the pieces because they smell bad or look funny or repulse me, how great will that repulsion be when I see the whole! And if I love the pieces even though they smell bad or look funny, how great will be that reunion when I see what I’ve only glimpsed at!

I need to be alone because that is where I prepare myself to find the face. This is where I know who I am and why I am doing what I am doing. Without it, service is meaningless and community is meaningless and making a living is meaningless. But this is where I do Lectio Divina, if I choose, and not just rush through a reading plan. This is always where I let myself look for and drink in the beauty of nature that my heart is craving. This is where I listen. Sometimes this is even where I talk. And I’ve neglected it.

Then I need to be in community because it is where I know where I am. I’m not a person without a place, and community is my place. In my inversion, I’ve made it a who rather than a where.

And last of all, I need to make a living – not in order to live, but in order to support the above. I must find myself useful so that I have something to give in service and to respond with in community. It may consume the biggest and most consistent chunk of time. But it is not an end. It is not the checklist.

I know where I am in all this, and in the light of the above this is a quick path to despair. But I know where I want to be and only have to change my direction to do so. How far away it seems, but faith is stillborn without action. And so it is the specificities of service which I am directing myself to, the specificities of when and where I will be alone, and the selection of how to interact in community, and the utility and ultimately the periphery of work. I have some of these specifics lined up; and others I am still forming. My bet is I should go with what I’ve got. What a strange and wonderful thing to look to.