By Christopher Lind
June 25, 2009
There is a story I often heard in Saskatchewan about a farmer who had to make his way to the barn in the middle of a blizzard. In order to find his way back to the house, he tied a rope to the back door. When he was finished tending to the animals in the barn, all he had to do was follow the rope in order to find his way back home.
If the truth be told, I never actually met a farmer who had done that, but I heard the story often. It may not have been historical truth but it contained great truth all the same.
Part of its appeal is that the story is archetypal – there are many versions of it in different cultures. For example, in Greek legend, Theseus, the son of the King of Athens, volunteers to enter the maze on the Island of Crete in order to kill the dreaded Minotaur, a monster who was half man and half bull. Theseus’ lover, Ariadne, gives him a ball of thread which he unrolls as he travels deeper into the confusing cave. This allows him to find his way out after the Minotaur is dead.
We can relate to the story of the farmer in winter in many ways. The farmer’s journeys from home to the workplace. The winter blizzard is beyond his control – success is represented only by survival. The blizzard is dangerous and ultimately disorienting. In the middle of this life threatening confusion, how do we find our way back home?
The current economic recession is like the blizzard. It may be caused by humans but from the perspective of any one person it is dangerous, confusing and beyond my control. The best I can hope for is survival.
The current storm is causing all kinds of damage to the workplaces of our lives. For some of us, our workplace has disappeared; for others it will be a long time before it is fully functional. What is the rope we cling to? What thread can we follow to guide our way home?
In the myth of the Minotaur we learn that the thread comes from the desire of our heart. It is Ariadne’s thread. It links the head and the hands and the feet but it is governed by the heart. We sometimes call it vocation. Over the years I have found that farmers are equally divided between those who see farming as one business among others, and those who see it as a ‘calling’ – a vocation. The American writer Fredrick Buechner says that vocation “is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet”.
In this time of economic recession, confusion and disorientation, many people will be searching for a way home. Now is the time to test your and my fundamental values and ask if we have organized our life in a way that connects our deep gladness with the world’s deep hunger. Now is the time for each of us to build a moral economy of the heart.
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