Dreams and Dollars

Yesterday, while I was cleaning the warehouse I had a conversation with the facility manager. I walked into his office to empty the trash and he was staring at his computer screen. He's a guy I like – always friendly, seems fair, quite funny and outgoing. He's the man in charge. He makes good money I'm sure, but his stress level always seems quite high.

The conversation went something like this.

Me (walking in his office): Afternoon!

M: (kinda distracted): Hello. How are you?

Me: I'm pretty good. You?

M (long pause while he thinks about it): I'd be better if I won the lottery.

Me (laughing): Wouldn't we all?

M (looking up so he can tell me a story): A while ago I watched a documentary about people who won the lottery. There was this one guy who was getting a divorce when he won. He paid off his wife's debts, gave her a house and quit his job. Now he's working at becoming a pro golfer.

Me (smiling): Well, why not? Seems like a good way to reinvent yourself if you have the means to do it.

There was a long pause as we both were thoughtful.

M (looking over the top of his computer screen): Reinvent yourself. Now there's a good way to describe it. (looking around his office) You know, when I was a kid, it wasn't like this was the job I dreamed about.

Me (holding up two bags of trash in front of me): Ummm. . .yeah. Me either.

M: When exactly was it that we stopped dreaming and started just making a living?

This encounter stirred up a lot of things in me. Things I'm having trouble sorting out. First, it brings up all the feelings I have about being a "janitor." Janitor is the last way I define myself. It's not something I'm ashamed of but it's also the only way about 45 people in the world have to define me - the people who see me every day cleaning up their urine, picking their gum out of the toilet and mopping up their food spills.

Yet, on another level I am quite proud that, five years ago when I was unemployed and scared, I took charge of my future and started a small cleaning company. I could have crumpled up and quit, but when the only job offer I had was to sell printing for a ridiculously small commission I said no thanks and decided to sell my own skills instead. It worked. I didn't lose everything. The company grew.

Yeah, I'm a janitor. No, it's not something I ever dreamed about, but it's also not the only thing I do with my life.

Then, on another level, that conversation stirred up all kinds of feelings about what I am really called to do with my life. I think I've written here before about my personal mission statement, written years ago.

"To reclaim, reconnect and restore faith and justice issues with those

whom my life intersects."

It's still what I believe is supposed to define me as a person. In my most honest moments I know that I still deeply mourn the loss of the church that we created as a community of faith and hope. It was what I was born to do. It was what I was created to do. It was also the most heartbreakingly difficult thing I have ever done.

Doing church - creating a community of those who want to find and follow Jesus despite our brokenness, pride and fear is the closest thing I will ever come to experiencing a miracle. I remember one particular Sunday, looking out from the front of that little church, seeing 60 or so faces, mostly people who had given up on God, and being overwhelmed that we had been able to reclaim God together. I was humbled. And joyful.

As I sit here trying to finish this post that I've grappled with for three days, I struggle with dreaming and cleaning toilets and writing sermons and finding joy and looking for hope and reinventing myself – and tears are dripping into my keyboard.

So, when exactly was it that we stopped dreaming and started making a living?

There are no easy answers to that question.