Mark Scandrette

The article originally published in CONSP!RE Magazine. Spring 2011

When I was nineteen, I quit college with the lofty goal of resisting the pull of American materialism to embark on the adventure of seeking God’s justice and compassion. I married my girlfriend, and we relocated to an iron-mining region in northern Minnesota, to work with at-risk kids and families. The mines had recently shut down, resulting in 85 percent unemployment and escalating rates of alcoholism, wife battering, and child sexual abuse. Anyone who could had moved out of the region to look for work.

We quickly set up faith-based children’s clubs in public housing projects and shanty towns and enjoyed becoming friends with many of the struggling families. Neglected kids would wander over to our apartment for meals four or five nights a week, even in sub-zero weather. Families in crisis confided in us and we often sat in their smoke-filled apartments talking and drinking coffee past 1 a.m.

I had what I now term “sophomoric compassion”–emotionally overwhelmed by the stories I carried, though not wise or equipped enough yet to actually be very helpful. At the same time, the intoxication of being vital and needed propelled me like a drug addiction.

Evelyn Paulson, a saint in her late seventies with whom we prayed weekly, warned me: “Slow down! The problems of the people you are working with didn’t develop overnight and they won’t be solved in a day. You need to learn to rest and pace yourself, or you’ll burn out in five years.”

That winter, my wife Lisa’s father died suddenly. Returning from the funeral we resumed our work. A family with six kids from the housing projects wanted to show their appreciation for our friendship by a special meal they splurged to buy with food stamps. Late in the afternoon on the day of the feast, Lisa became overwhelmed by the dark ache of grief that often comes weeks afterwards. I was torn. Lisa was in no shape to be with this family, but I also knew how disheartened they would be if we canceled. It had taken time to build their trust. Reluctantly I called to say that we couldn’t come. I knew we’d made the right choice because Lisa, stricken with grief, cried over the next two hours with me by her side. Yet it bothered me that we had disappointed our friends. After dinner, I called to say that we would still be coming, late, and Lisa wiped the tears from her eyes as we grabbed our coats.

Twenty years later I’m still haunted by the fact that I felt more urgency to please this family than to care for the needs of my grieving wife. But this was part of the learning.Eventually we learned how to say yes and no– and for the right reasons. We developed a system for letting people know when we could accept visitors—a green card on the door meant it was okay to ring the bell; a red one meant we needed time alone.

For me, self-awareness and realism about sustainability has come with time, by trial and error, and with some pain.

While it’s inspiring to see so many in our generation taking risks and making radical new choices to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly, a surprising number of our experiments are short-lived.

I believe there are lessons we simply can’t learn about life in God’s kingdom by being cautious. We must throw ourselves into challenging and overwhelming situations that take us beyond ourselves. But once we’ve gone over the edge, we have to learn how to fly by finding balance and flow– spiritually, physically, emotionally, financially and relationally. Our faith-inspired activism has to grow into a substantive and sustaining rhythm of life that engages struggle without becoming jaded or embittered.

If we aren’t careful, the call of justice can become as dualistic and disintegrative as the pursuit of the American dream. We are being invited into the shalom of the kingdom of love that promises restoration and at every level of our existence. For me, self-awareness and realism about sustainability has come with time, by trial and error, and with some pain.

In my twenties I was hardly aware of how the mind, body and soul are connected. Flush with the urgency of the work, I would often skip meals or try make do with the KoolAid and cookies we served at our programs. The combination of bad nutrition and lack of sleep made me volatile and susceptible to my most base instincts for comfort and escape.

A friend of mine recently told me, “I’ve noticed that a lot of us activist Christians, including me, are overweight and physically unhealthy. I think this is a poor testimony to our shared values, like simplicity.” Over the past six months he and a small group of other leaders have each lost a significant amount of weight. A healthy diet, regular exercise, and proper sleep can do a lot to keep us motivated and energized for the work we do – and it’s so important to model good practices for the people in struggle that we live and work among.

After moving to San Francisco’s Mission District, I once took philosopher Dallas Willard on a tour of our neighborhood, explaining the challenges of living in a place that was characterized by violence and culture clash. He abruptly turned to me and said, “If I lived in this neighborhood I would limit myself to 34-36 hours of work a week. Your soul will need extra rest to be sustained here.” It’s easy to become conditioned to the place where you live and not realize the subtle effect that is has on your soul. It is tempting to let the subjective view from skid row or the cul de sac skew our perceptions of reality. Not everyone is in crisis or struggle just as not everyone who is wealthy is selfish or comfortable. To be healthy, we probably need a variety of relationships, both in and out of the neighborhoods we live in.

Each year in the extended community of which I am part, we take time to reflect on the rhythms and patterns we each need in our lives to sustain us. First, we spend some time examining how we are directing our life energy, by examining how each one of us is seeking God’s greater wholeness in the following areas: how I live in my body; what I think about and the habits of my mind; how I manage my feelings, sense of identity, and the stresses in my life; where I spend my time and resources; and how I show up in my relationships. From our responses to these questions we each set goals about our next steps towards wholeness in each area.

Second, we create or review a personal rule of life by reflecting on the question, “What are the daily, weekly, and seasonal habits and practices I need to help me keep momentum in my formation as a holistic disciple of Jesus? These might include silence and solitude, Sabbath-keeping, time in nature, exercise, sleep, time away with family and friends, or other nurturing commitments.

All of us must find those disciplines and practices, those rhythms and patterns in our life, through which we are able to walk the path towards what Dorothy Day described as “the long loneliness” of obedience. It is a path which, God willing, we will be walking for many years.