Have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

As part of research for a paper in my Introduction to the New Testament class, I went over to the Cal Berkeley library and checked out a moderately obscure book. It was published in 1967. As I'm fond of doing whenever I check out an old (or older) book, I flipped to the little library circulation tag in the back to see how the book has been checked out in the past. Sadly, Cal Berkeley doesn't put names (you'd be surprised how often you find out some famous scholar also used the book), but they do have dates. The book had been used in waves. It was checked out on a fairly even basis after they obtained it. It languished until the late 70s when it changed hands a lot. It was either totally unused in the 80s to the mid-90s or the library was using some other circulation tag which is now lost. It was heavily used in the late 90s and early 2000s, but it was last checked out 5 years ago.

What struck me was that, despite the relative obscurity of the topic, and the long periods of disuse, the book does continue to get picked up, used in research and probably in the development of students such as myself. One of the things that got me changing careers here at mid-life is that I felt like, no matter how awesome my research might be, it was likely to be completely irrelevant in less than 50 years. Very little research is timeless, if only because the questions we are interested in change. Among a whole host of other reasons for choosing this path, I felt that I needed to do less research and more community work here and now.

I think I have to adjust that perspective a bit. The circulation record of this little book reminds me that we don't always know how or when what we do is going to be useful. The truth is, I've checked out books even more obscure than this one and found that even they get occasional use. Most clergy that I know will tell you that they are often surprised at how some minor thing they did years ago was one of the most helpful or meaningful things they did for someone or for a community. It is hard, perhaps impossible, for us to see the overall picture of what we are doing and how it fits into the purpose and life of the world (“Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare if you know all this.” Job 38:17-18). Perhaps walking in faith also means doing what you have done your best to grasp is your purpose and calling in the world and doing so despite not seeing the benefits you may, in fact, be creating.