Badly underestimating a life
Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 6:21AM On NPR today, a man was being interviewed who had made it his year-long quest to bake the perfect loaf of bread.
My first thought was, "This guy has badly underestimated the cosmic drama unfolding around him." My second thought was, "This guy has a really lackluster sense of his own personal calling."
Don't misunderstand me: I think freshly-baked bread is one of life's true pleasures. In fact, today I enjoyed a sandwich made with a nutty garlic and potato artisan bread: Nourishing and hand-crafted. But taking a year of my life to learn how to bake the perfect loaf isn't something that strikes me as urgent or enduring. Rather, it strikes me as a bit naive.
He has miscalculated two things: the unfolding Story into which he has been invited; and his place in that Story. It's much like the journalist in the movie, Saving Private Ryan, who had never seen battle before. He's been asked to join a rescue operation. He wants to bring his clunky and cumbersome typewriter; but the Captain, played by Tom Hanks says, "Here, take this instead" and hands him a pencil. The journalist didn't know what to take because he sorely underestimated the unfolding circumstances: He wasn't taking another desk job - he was about to engage in field ops, where he would get shot at.
Surely the man who took a year of his life to pursue the perfect loaf has much more to offer the world -- a more needed and substantial treasure to give. If our naivete persists, we might as well bring cookies and punch to flood victims; and board games to the clinically-depressed. Surely much more is needed than that.
Reader Comments (5)
As for the bread-baker, I see this kind of thing praised all the time now in society: A simple, childlike passion for anything organic, environmental, wine-related, coffee-related, pets. The less demand for it by others, the better. It is lauded in commercials, magazines, web articles and blogs. Often they are selling something, of course. But what grates me is they are subtly creating this very low bar for moral achievement as if the ultimate act of courage or life pursuit is to just be so dedicated to enjoying the very freshest coffee and taking a walk outside with your dog. Wow - isn't it blissful and so fulfilling?
No doubt, we need our simple pleasures and I have mine. But the emphasis I see is on a refusal to enter any dangerous or controversial aspect of life, that life is ultimately about just enjoying the simplest of things and calling it a great day.
Well-said, Walker. As Tony Campolo used to say, someone has "switched the price tags." I think one of the primary reasons this has happened is because of the loss of the Larger Story -- the Grand Epic we're living in. If all we have is piece-meal fragments of whatever stories we borrow from, we're likely to give ourselves to lesser things.
I don't know, I guess I see it a bit differently.
There is something this man has embraced that perhaps he is uniquely called to demonstrate to others - the idea of "excellence." If he can spend a year just trying to bake the perfect loaf of bread, he might be the kind of person that God calls to stand up at the day of judgement and testify to those who were unwilling to obey the Lord in some concern about the perfect loaf of spiritual bread - His body.
I guess all I'm saying is that beauty captivates people in different ways, and in whatever way they are seeing beauty, there may be something of the Kingdom that God is trying to reveal in that. This guy is captivated by the beauty of "the perfect loaf." Its possible something prophetic is being worked out in his life here - I wouldn't be quick to dismiss or condemn it.
Hey Heather,
I see what you're getting at. I do think there could be something underneath his quest; and I agree that the search for beauty is quite valid [ I'm also an artist and musician, so I truly understand that.] I hope this man sees below the superficial to get at his deeper heart underneath.
Another thought, Heather. I like the possibilities you're suggesting for connecting this man's loaf-quest to noble, spiritual issues -- but that's not the way in which the issue was presented. It was presented as a worthy endeavor for a year's worth of energy -- but came off as sadly trivial, unconnected to any larger story and meaning.