There is wisdom, even kindness, in concepts like “householder” and “laity.” Broadly speaking, these ideas represent an understanding that the capacities of someone devoted full-time to spiritual practice are very different from the capacities of someone with family and “worldly” responsibilities. I say there is kindness in these concepts; someone could just as easily see it as a spiritual caste system. That absolutely can be the case! Here, though, I want to emphasize the wisdom of these concepts in a time when they seem to have been forgotten.
I could tell you stories of other folks but, listen, I’m a lifelong tryhard. Serious. Sincere. Precisely zero chill. I have a good sense of humor but my friends wouldn’t exactly call me fun. The moment I left fundamentalism I set out cranking spiritual practice to eleven. I was Lutheran for about five minutes before I started looking into Radical Lutheranism and then Orthodoxy. (“Luthodoxy” was a blogging phenomenon I was a part of, though it seems to have disappeared from the internet.) Eventually we became Episcopalians and I got into Anglo-Catholicism. Then I ended up in Zen sesshin after taking an interest in Buddhism. The pattern in clear, right?
I did the same thing with reading. The fundamentalism I grew up in was fiercely anti-intellectual. So of course I started reading academic theology. And while I was way out of my depth sometimes, I did learn a lot. The problem is, all of this landed me with a case of anxiety that took years to work through. It still pops up now and then but, thankfully, I’ve learned how to better handle such unpleasant emotions.
Now I’ve settled into a more balanced life. I’ve made peace with who I am. I am a husband and a father and time spent with my family is never wasted time. (Pity A.W. Tozer’s wife. He was so “zealous” that he would only help her if she agreed to read to him while he ironed.) I am an accountant, not an academic. I’m self-taught in religion and philosophy, which means there are gaping holes in my knowledge that will never be corrected. I will never make a living as a writer; now and then I can write a good sentence but I will never have the time or discipline to write very many in a row.
I am, in short, a householder. I have worldly obligations. I will never be a hermit or a monk or a professor in a small nineteenth-century liberal arts college. I do, however, have a wonderful wife and daughter, and we all love each other very much. I have a job that pays the bills and doesn’t make me miserable. I have enough free time to piddle in the garage, read some books, and type out some thoughts now and then. My wife is a talented gardener, baker, and cook and I regularly get to enjoy the fruits of her labor. I still explore spiritual practices but my day to day life has settled into a practice of honoring the powers that shape my life and expressing gratitude for their gifts.
The settled life of a householder is full of both compromises and blessings. And while householders are typically not remembered as saints or sages, there is a hand-worn holiness in such a life.