Leaf by Niggle

One of the blessings I've experienced along this journey into the University of the Desert is deep compassion from brothers and sisters who almost seem to share a stake in my journey and its outcome.  Their compassion manifests itself in true concern, heartfelt prayers, and patient listening ears (over and over and over...).

In the most recent installment of such compassion, Larry and Jackie gifted Mr. Squire and me with Tim Keller's "Every Good Endeavor."  Upon the recommendation of other friends from church, we had actually already purchased a copy, but I hadn't started reading it (wanted to finish Bonhoeffer's bio and "The Cost of Discipleship" first).  Following a most encouraging church retreat (in which I finally realized and accepted my place in the desert, and turned my heart from despair to expectation), I decided it was time to crack open the book. 

I couldn't even get through the Introduction without bawling.  The story of JRR Tolkien's "Leaf by Niggle" just launched a stream of tears as I read about this artist named Niggle who struggled through his entire life to paint the tree of his dreams.  He could see it in his mind's eye, and he tried to devote his life to transferring the tree in his dreams onto a canvas to share with the world.  But life kept interrupting him, and the magnitude of the project--combined with his perfectionism--was much too large to accomplish in Niggle's lifetime.  Niggle died, and in the afterlife, he was judged by two voices:  Justice and Mercy.  Justice criticized Niggle for not accomplishing more in his life, while Mercy acknowledged all the good that Niggle did for others, even sacrificing time to work on his painting for the sake of others.  At Mercy's behest, Niggle is allowed to cross into paradise.  There, to his great astonishment, he sees the tree of his imaginings in its full glory, and not just on a canvas, but for real. 

Everyone is Niggle.  Dr. Keller writes this:

[L]et's say you are a lawyer, and you go into law because you have a vision for justice and a vision for a flourishing society ruled by equity and peace.  In ten years you will be deeply disillusioned because you will find that as much as you are trying to work on important things, so much of what you do is minutiae. . . . Whatever your work, you need to know this:  There really is a tree.  Whatever you are seeking in your work--the city of justice and peace, the world of brilliance and beauty, the story, the order, the healing--it is there.  There is a God, there is a future healed world that he will bring about, and your work is showing it (in part) to others.  Your work will only be partially successful, on your best days, in bringing it about.  But inevitably the whole tree that you seek--the beauty, harmony, justice, comfort, joy, and community--will come to fruition.

I am all at once encouraged and moved, and totally deflated, by all of this.  On one hand, the reminder (previously so easily lost on me) that God will restore justice to the earth makes my heart sing.  I truly long for that.  My heart desires it.  My eyes cannot wait to see it.  That's so much of the reason why I went into law: to be an instrument that brings such justice about.

On the other hand, ... really, Dr. Keller?  Here I stand, a few years into my career, and as I squint into the long distance ahead, you're telling me that...throughout my many years of toil and trouble, only a select few, "best" days will produce mere glimpses of the justice in God's restored kingdom?  Really?  That makes me really sad.  Is that all I have to look forward to?  What is the meaning of everything else I do, as I toil after the remaining "minutiae"?  

Or is that not the point?  Maybe (probably) the point is that it's not actually about me and what I accomplish in this life.  Maybe the point is that there's a real, just world out there that God will one day reveal, and that alone should make our hearts sing.  Maybe the point is also that even though we are mere dust, God gives us an innate longing for his justice, and He lets us do work that strives for that justice.  And maybe the point is that, against the crazy tide of this world and its ways, sometimes He lets us successfully reflect--albeit on a tiny scale, and only in part--the beauty of the just world that is to come, and in so doing, He allows us both to see and point to the Kingdom before our time has come.