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Work is good, creation is good, and rest is good also

This Saturday, my daughter competed in a jiu-jitsu tournament in Pennsylvania, about two and a half hours away from where we live. She had some really tough matches, but came away with a silver medal in one division and a bronze medal in the other. It was a submission-only tournament, so there was no way to win by points. Someone has to tap. 

In this particular tournament, if no one submitted in regulation time, the match goes into an overtime cycle. The overtime cycle consists of several positions intended to put one competitor in an advantageous position from which to submit the other. For the kids, if no one wins in the overtime positional rounds, the match goes to a sudden-death takedown round where the first takedown to a pin wins. 

Of the four matches my daughter had, two in the gi and two in nogi, all four matches went into overtime. Her and her opponents truly battled it out and showed immense amounts of heart. Their grit and determination was so impressive that there were multiple spectators unrelated to either child watching their matches and cheering on the kids. 

After a long day of competing about two and a half hours away from home, we drove back and stopped for dinner. We let our daughter choose where she wanted to eat and she chose Ethiopian food. So we stopped at our favorite Ethiopian spot in Baltimore, had dinner, and then went home to unpack, shower, and go to bed. 

This morning, before church, we went to the jiu-jitsu academy so that my daughter could work with a couple of the coaches and one of her friends on the weaknesses the tournament exposed in her game. This was her choice. She wanted to go and, with the help of a good training partner and several generous coaches, she got a lot done in the hour and a half we were there while still having fun. 

After church, we went to my wife’s sister’s house to have lunch and relax for a while. On the way home, my daughter asked if we could go for a bike ride when we got back to the house. Even though my wife and I both agreed it was better to rest, my daughter continued to ask if we could go for a bike ride and told us, in spite of her physically, mentally, and emotionally draining Saturday, she wasn’t tired. 

I explained to her that, even if she doesn’t feel tired, it’s important to rest. “But resting is boring,” she said. 

“Maybe,” I replied, “but resting is necessary and resting is good for you. Do you know what God did after creating the heavens and the earth?”

“He rested,” she said begrudgingly. 

“That’s right,” I said. “From the creation story in Genesis, God teaches us three things: work is good, creation is good, and rest is good. Yesterday and even this morning, you worked really hard and that is good. You also got to enjoy creation by doing jiu-jitsu and using the body and mind God gave you, and that is also good. But now it’s time to rest because God tells us that rest is good as well, and it is good for you. God willing, there will be other days to ride our bikes.” “Okay, daddy,” she replied. 

After this, we went home to curl up on the couch, hang out, and watch a movie as a family. Moments like these are as important for her as they are for me. Through her, I learn how to do better because I want the best for her and have a bad habit of accepting less than the best for myself. Together and with the help of God, we make each other better. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Sabbath rest by choice or by force

Days like today make me realize how human I am. Once again, I have found myself overcommitted and overtrained which means that I was exhausted to the point of a migraine. Some ibuprofen, a hot shower, and an unusually long nap later, and I am still feeling the after-effects of the physical and emotional drain that a migraine can cause. 

My friend and jiu-jitsu mentor came in to teach this morning and, since he was coming down specifically to see and train with me, I didn’t want to miss it. As a result, what is normally a morning of rest and spiritual renewal for me turned into a morning of work, fun work, but work nonetheless. 

This isn’t a bad thing and I’m not complaining, mind you. I love jiu-jitsu and I’m glad I got to see my friend and learn some of his new strategies and techniques, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak, and I paid the price after class. 

The older I get, the more I understand why God gave us the Sabbath rest. We only have so much physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual energy we can give to the world before we are drained. Once we are drained, if we keep going, instead of our labors making us stronger, sharper, and more useful, they make us weaker, sicker, and less effective for God and those around us. 

Each of us has a certain capacity for work, whether it be physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual, and that capacity is limited by the limited nature of our humanity. If we attempt to exceed this capacity, if we try to draw more from the well than the well has to give, we start taking from our health. Much like with finances, overdrawing from our well of health is an unsustainable way to live. 

In the past, I would have simply popped some ibuprofen, downed a cup of coffee or two, and kept going. Lacking the sense to see that my body was trying to tell me something, I have medicated my way through many a migraine over the years. While it made me relatively successful, this drive eventually led me to panic attacks and a near ruined marriage.

After several years of therapy, prayer, meditation, spiritual work, and a lot of soul searching, I have begun to see things from a different perspective than I was capable of in my younger years. The push forward is not as important as my health and longevity. And as I have gotten older and more sensitive to what God is trying to tell me, I’ve begun to see that sickness, in whatever form it takes, is my body or mind’s way of telling me to slow down, rest, and recover. 

So today, after I crashed from exhaustion and a migraine, I took a couple of ibuprofen, a hot shower, and a long nap. When I woke up, thinking about the rest of the week ahead and realizing that a decision to rest and recover now would mean that I will be more capable of doing the things that are required of me later, I rescheduled a private lesson I had set up for this afternoon and took some time for Sabbath rest. 

“The Sabbath was made for man,” as Jesus said in Mark 2:27 (NIV). It is a gift from God for us and it’s free. We need only accept it. And Sabbath rest is not only available to us on Sundays (or Saturdays depending on your belief). Sabbath rest is available to us any time we decide to set aside time for God and rest. My friend who is a pastor takes Monday as his Sabbath because, even though Sunday is a day of worship for him, it’s also a work day because he works at the church. 

Having a whole day each week for God and rest is obviously desirable. God gave it to us for us to take advantage of. But that doesn’t mean we must limit ourselves to only that day for Sabbath rest. God is happy to spend as much time with us as we are willing to spend with him, whenever and wherever we are willing and able to do so. We don’t have to wait until we crash before we rest in God, like I often do. His arms are open for us now and forever. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Our primary purpose

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I was working at a bank as a floating teller. As a floating teller, I traveled from branch to branch to fill in as needed. On this particular day, I was working in one of the Annapolis branches and I had a doctor’s appointment scheduled at lunchtime, so I was going to be leaving work early. 

As we set up the branch, getting all of our cash drawers ready for when the doors opened to the public, we saw the news that a plane had just crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. We were all shocked and not quite sure what to do, but it was time to open. Then, just after we opened the doors, the news came in that another plane hit the World Trade Center and we all sensed that the world as we knew it had just changed forever. 

There was a haunting sense of concern and confusion throughout the branch as we did our best to do our jobs as usual, but as the towers collapsed, we all just wanted to go home. I tried to call the doctor’s office to confirm my appointment, but no one answered the phones. I soon realized that, whether the doctor’s office was open or not, I still had an appointment, I still wanted to go home, and this was my chance to do so. So, when it was time for me to go to the doctor, I left work as planned and went home instead. 

At home were my two roommates, both older than me but also very good friends of mine. In fact, we are still friends to this day and stay in touch often. We briefly discussed what had happened and kept our eyes on the news. As the day went on and the initial shock wore off, the realness of it all started to sink in. 

That evening, like every other Tuesday night at that time in my life, we had a meeting to attend in a church basement. Every week a bunch of us gathered together to discuss our lives, our relationship with God, and the spiritual experiences we had each had, through which we shared a common bond. We met regularly, and still do in a different forum, so that others who may be interested in what we have to offer may find us and a way to change their lives. 

As was our custom, we gathered, had some coffee or tea, talked for an hour, said a prayer, and then began to part ways. Before we left, however, one of the members of our group pointed out that no one, not a single person, had spoken of or even alluded to the events of that morning in our meeting. In spite of the severity and gravity of the event, it simply never came up, and the reason it never came up was because that was not what we were there for. 

We knew our purpose for being together, which was to carry the message of the profound change that had taken place in our lives after we gave our lives to God, cleaned up our pasts, and then shared this good news freely with others. We were not there to talk about current events, no matter how tragic. For that hour, the only thing that mattered was that we share with each other and whoever else wanted to listen, what our lives were like, the spiritual transformation we had experienced, the process through which we experienced that transformation, and what our lives were like as the result of that transformation, and, as this gentleman pointed out, we stuck to that primary purpose, even on what is now infamously known as 9/11. 

I think about this experience and the lesson it offers quite often. If I know my purpose in life or in specific relationships or situations, and I stick to that purpose, I am much less likely to get caught up in all of the other things going on in life that either don’t concern me or that I cannot do anything about. This is not the same as apathy, however. I care a lot about a lot of things. Rather, it is about purpose and effectiveness. 

If, on that day, we had allowed the events of 9/11 to seep into our gathering, we would not have been able to do the work we were there to do. It would have made us less effective. And, the work we were there to do was and is extremely important. It literally changed my life and the lives of many others. By talking about the events of 9/11, we would not have been talking about God and spiritual transformation, and that would have been a shame. 

I have found that this principle carries over quite well into other aspects of my life. For example, when I am with my family, if I focus on my family and not on current events or politics, I am much more useful to them and we enjoy our time together more fully. When I’m at work and my attention is on the work itself and on my relationships with my coworkers, as opposed to gossip or personal opinions for example, I not only get more work done, but it is also much more satisfying and fulfilling to be at work in general. Likewise, when I’m at jiu-jitsu, my primary purpose is to teach or practice jiu-jitsu, and when I’m at church my primary purpose is to worship and praise God. 

In every aspect of my life, if I can define my purpose for being there and give my attention to that purpose without being distracted by extraneous issues that I have no control or influence over, my life is better and I am able to serve others more effectively. Of course, there is a time and place for current events, politics, etc. and for having an opinion on these things. There are even people whose purpose and profession it is to do so. However, I find that when I adhere to my life’s primary purpose, which is to love and serve God and to love and serve my fellows, I don’t actually have much time or desire to get caught up in those things or to drag them into places they don’t belong. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Tension between the world and the Word

At church this past Sunday, the pastor gave a sermon that centered around a passage from the book of James which states, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like (James 1:22-24 NIV).”

As part of the sermon, the pastor gave out small, circular stick-on mirrors for the congregants to take home and stick in a conspicuous place as a reminder of James’s message. My daughter and I each took one on the way out, but as my daughter received hers, she dropped it on the floor and exclaimed, “Oh no!” When she picked it up, she let out a sigh of relief and said, “Whew! It’s not broken. I won’t have seven years of bad luck.”

Being in a hurry to get down the road, I didn’t think much about what happened. But then, as we were leaving the church, I noticed one of these small mirrors on the steps, broken in several pieces. “Someone dropped their mirror,” I said to my daughter. “Oh no,” she replied, “Whoever dropped it is going to have seven years of bad luck.”

Hearing what she said a second time, I couldn’t let it go. We had just left a church service wherein we heard about, praised, and proclaimed our faith in an almighty God and here my daughter was, albeit innocently, worrying about superstitious bad luck from a broken piece of polished glass. I said to her, “You know that God is more powerful than a broken mirror and that is just a superstition, right?” “Of course,” she replied confidently and sincerely.

As we drove away, this interaction got me thinking about how, even when it seems innocent or insignificant, the teachings of the world and the teachings of God are so often in direct conflict with one another. This tension between the world and the Word is a fact of life as old as humanity itself and is precisely why God gave us the filter of Scripture through which to view and understand life. I can’t and don’t fault my daughter for her childish superstitions because she is, after all, a child, but this experience did make me take a look in the mirror, so to speak, and ask myself where I hold false beliefs that keep me from accepting God’s truth.

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox.