Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - "A Moveable Feast"

Shakespeare & Company, owned by Sylvia Beach, was one of
Hemingway's favorite bookstores in Paris and served
as a rendez-vous for free-thinkers, writers and artists who lived there.

     I would've read Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast long ago but I found the title enigmatically intimidating. Hemingway wrote to a friend: "If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."  
     The book contains Hemingway's memoirs of his early career as a writer in Paris as he moved among other artists and writers. I've enjoyed getting to know the eccentric personalities behind the literary geniuses he knew such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and James Joyce. As a writer, I've grown to appreciate the risks he took and the discipline he applied to leave the steady income of journalism and succeed in his craft. He worked in a tiny room on the third floor of an apartment building rented for writing purposes only. He wrote with pencils on a notebook and typed with carbon paper. Sometimes he worked an entire morning on a single paragraph but when he put his writing down after a day's work, he didn't touch it again until the next day. Hemingway wore the same clothes most days and often skipped meals to be economical, but also because he felt clothes were unimportant and hunger sharpened his senses. People said he was rude and cruel because when he worked in his favorite cafe for a change of scenery or to keep hot coffee close by, he ignored or snapped at friends and colleagues who came into his work space.     

    God calls us to work with a similar determination and focus, minus the rudeness.

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, 

as working for the Lord, not for men," 

Colossians 3:23 

I question my commitment to the Lord when I read about people single-minded enough to accomplish something without the Lord. I romanticize my willingness to sacrifice and grow hungry for His name's sake, but then the daylight blows out the candles to reveal the costs lurking in the shadows and I find I'm not as willing as I thought.  My "hunger" pains outshout my commitment.

    God puts the moveable feast of His Presence within us so we can find Him in every setting and situation. He sets Himself before us and asks us to meet His gaze.

"Look to the LORD and His Strength; seek His Face always." Psalm 105:4

Through His sustaining Power we can release the distractions and produce what He plants in us and, without it, we suffer the tragedy of a wasted day.  

"Cast your cares on the LORD and He will sustain you; 

He will never let the righteous fall." 

Psalm 55:22

"I am the vine; you are the branches. 

If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; 

apart from Me you can do nothing." 

John 15:5

Father, keep us imbedded in and imbibing You. Fill our spiritual veins with Your Life and produce Your Spirit and works in us. Strengthen us to become like You, to bring our minds into submission to Your will. You're the Feast for our souls and we praise You. 

In the Name of Jesus, our example for focused, disciplined lives 

Inspired by Jesus Calling and My Utmost for His Highest

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