Trucks, Tractors, and Transformation

When I was a kid I used to play with Tonka trucks for hours. Tonka trucks were "the toy" for boys my age. In fact the place where they used to make them was only a few miles from my house in Minnesota. One day my parents surprised me and took me on a tour of the plant...I thought I was in heaven! Big yellow dump trucks, cranes, plows, and anything that replicated moving dirt in large quantities...seriously what could be cooler!! You see a Tonka truck mirrored the larger trucks but in a much smaller way in that they were strong enough to take a beating, you could put a variety of action figures in them, and they actually could haul and move dirt...small piles...but dirt none-the-less. They even left tread marks on the ground and could help you build a small town, roads, or make a huge hole in an attempt to dig to China.

At work this week I operated a tractor for the first time in my life...and it was awesome! Beginning my ascent into the drivers seat I found myself feeling very young. But something inside was stirring even deeper and it was this sense of this epic story coming full circle...it was a real Tonka truck! Sitting in the control cab I was amazed at all the gears, levers, and knobs. I was instructed on the use of each one, when to use them and then given the green light to go. This thing even had a radio in it set to a country station playing "Red Dirt Road"...one of my favorite country songs...could this get any cooler? The power that I had felt raw and dangerous. I thought to myself, "Wow I could have fun smashing things with this!" It was a really cool couple hours of moving, pulling, smashing, and trashing things. I felt like I had just gained a stripe of masculinity and I wanted to tell everyone.

Have you ever wondered about your life and the cyclical pattern it seems to weave? What about times when you stop and think, "I have been here before...why am I back?" I wondered the same thing the entire week after driving the tractor. In my new job I am the maintenance guy at Britton Nursery www.BrittonFlowers.com which requires working outside on different projects all day. I fix roofs, dig holes, repair things, trim bushes, and just about anything else that needs to be done...and this also means I get to use some cool machines, drive trucks & tractors, and get my hands into the earth. It has been good for my soul after working desk jobs for 10 years. I love how my mind thinks multiple steps ahead of tasks, how I work hard and finish the jobs ahead of schedule, and how I get to create again like I used to...engaging in work! I love the sun on my face, the wind in my hair (a little less now days than before), and dirt on my clothes. God's soil is good for man's soul. It all takes me back 25 years.

My first job was in 7th grade as I worked part time as the maintenance boy for a convent and retreat center in Highland Mills, New York. This place was where I found my aptitude to work hard and work smart. It was a place filled with weeds, leaves, & poison ivy, silence & solitude, a creepy graveyard, and lots of nuns- some mean ones but mostly sweet ones. Sister Cora was about 4 feet tall, spoke with a strong Ukrainian accent, and drove a mean car...when she could pull herself up to see above the steering wheel to make turns. She worked me hard but she was fair and reasonable except for the day she wanted me to burn poison ivy...a potentially lethal action. I would work under the hot sun pulling weeds for hours in the leech bed (a place where all the sewage ran into), mowed lawns & destroyed weeds, raked acres of leaves, and even using a chain saw to cut up branches. There was honor in the work and a place to become the young man. I am also reminded of this place where I began this integration of the physical and spiritual. I would find myself stopping for a few minutes in their small prayer rooms or chapels just to listen to God and ask him questions. I even remember feeling a very strong presence of peace and transcendence with God that I cannot fully describe to you as I took time to breath the air and drink the waters of transformation...work and worship. Now I feel the pleasure of God as I work with my hands and invite Him in to Father me. Today is the day of transformation both external and internal. With the tractor & truck comes the transformation if I choose to engage and invite God to speak, discipline, and teach me...other than that it will just be work, toil, and labor in vain.

I have often thought about the chasm between the physical world and the spiritual world and how I have tried to reconcile why many tend to live in one or the other. In western Christianity we have gone about with agendas of defining and understanding all things we see as mystery by creating processes of dissection we hold sacred. We pull apart scripture so we can know the meaning of each word so we can make sure we have our theology correct often to the diminishment of our relationship with the God of the Bible. We have lost the integration of walking with God and somehow lost the wisdom and synergy of the physical and spiritual worlds together. We have divided something that in reality cannot be divided. The physical world and the spiritual world were meant to exist and teach together. Dallas Willard says that if God is not God of everything He is God of nothing. In other words if God is not intimately involved in our work we will tend to divide the physical and spiritual with the eventual loss of the deep essence of why they exist must together. I want to embrace living in both with God.

Comments

[B Lee Maize]

Thanks bro... I enjoy your writing....it doesn't happen often enough! :)
Things to think about... conversations to have... things to put into practice.