Billy Coffey

storyteller

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The endless grind of the everyday

January 14, 2016 by Billy Coffey 2 Comments

time clockI was seventeen when I entered the workforce in what was likely the most unglamorous job possible—a gas station attendant. The reasons why I ended up at the local BP are any and not very relevant twenty years later. This, however, is:

I wanted to make a difference.

It might seem strange to think such a thing would be possible. After all, I wasn’t spending my days healing the sick or teaching the young or shepherding a congregation. My eight hours were spent wiping windshields and asking, “Fill her up, ma’am?”

But still, I thought the gas station would be the perfect place to bring God a little closer to folks who didn’t normally get a good look at Him. The BP was a busy place. I wasn’t sure if God could call someone to pump gas, but I was sure He expected me to do the best I could with what I had.

And I did. For a while. I smiled. I was the polite gentleman. I invited people to church. Once I even prayed with someone as I checked her oil.

And you know what? It was nice. Very nice. For the first time in my life, I felt useful. I may have been making minimum wage and driving home with more dirt and grime than I ever thought possible, but I didn’t mind.

God was using me, and I was right where I wanted to be.

But then something happened.

The days grew longer and the nights shorter. The work became harder. And the people…well, somehow the people turned into customers to be herded in and out as fast as possible. My mood soured. I said as little as possible. My life went from being one of service to being one of clock-watching. I felt like a prisoner that was paroled at 4:00 every afternoon but had to report back promptly the next day.

My job became just that. A job.

How this happened still escaped me at the time, but experience has given me the answer. The newness wore off. The shine that was purpose, even calling, was covered by a gray film of the same old.

It doesn’t take a life-changing event to rob us of joy and faith. Not a death or a sickness or a job loss. No, all it takes is the endless grind of the everyday.

It’s our menial tasks and not our extraordinary ones that challenge our calling. It’s those things we do and those people we see every day that lull us into a false sense of who we are and what we God expects us to do.

Our jobs can become a highway if we let them, an endless expanse of pavement with nothing but the thump-thump of time to let us know we’re not holding still. But it doesn’t matter much that we’re simply going, does it? What matters is Who’s doing the driving.

And that’s a lesson I’ll learn and relearn for the rest of my life.

Filed Under: work

A day’s work

November 13, 2015 by Billy Coffey Leave a Comment

image courtesy of photobucket.com
image courtesy of photobucket.com

Though I’ve never been one to engage in talk both detrimental and salacious, I will say this: There is trouble down at the Howard farm. That in itself is not gossip, but fact; things between Clive Howard and his son Darrell have been spoiling for years now, ever since Darrell proclaimed his intent to leave, and you don’t have to be a farmer to understand what spoils eventually rots, and what rots will inevitably die.

Way it was told to me, Darrell knew long before high school that farming would not be his future. His first trip to the cemetery guaranteed it. The Howard farm rests along two hundred acres of bottomland, in a holler just off the ridge road in the western part of town. Beautiful place, that farm. Wish you could see it, the way the willows curl up along the riverbanks and how the wood there carry the scents of cedar and pine in the winter and honeysuckle come summer, the deer that gather in the fields just as the sun dips over the ridges, the barn, a red so bright it looks slick. And at the border between corn fields and pasture, the four oaks rising like thick fingers into an empty sky and the white gravestones beneath them. Nearly twenty of them all told.

The Howards have farmed this land for generations; most of them are buried beneath those oaks, from Nathaniel Howard (“b. Dec 3, 1758 d. Mar 20, 1819,” reads the stone) to Robert Howard, Darrell’s own grandfather, who passed from this life to the next the summer Darrell turned ten. There are moments in all of our lives that come with a kind of slow focus that will define all the moments after. That’s what happened with Darrell that day. Standing there with his momma and daddy, tugging at his Sunday suit under a hot morning sun as the preacher read the Psalms and they all cried and sang, Darrell looking out upon all those bleached stones set against hard earth, knowing there would one day be others. There would be his daddy’s and his momma’s. One day, there would be his own. That’s when Darrell made the quiet promise that he would never be a farmer. He would break free of that hollow, make himself a life.

He’d seen enough of the future Clive had for him already. The early mornings spent milking the cows and feeding the hogs, the slop and the mud, the cold, the heat. Planting in spring and praying for rain and warm weather, only to watch as God said No and sent nothing but a scorching sun that turned the green corn a withered brown. The calloused hands, the aching back. Sunburn in August, windburn in January. All of it to scrape by as the prices of beef and corn plummeted, the only security what Darrell’s momma had canned to store in the pantry. For Darrell Howard, that was no sort of life. He wanted more from the world, and that’s why he’s leaving come summer. The university first, and then a proper job. Someplace in the city. Downtown, with a view of the skyline instead of the ridgeline. Suits instead of coveralls. Early retirement. The country club.

In Darrell’s own words, “An easy life, because that’s what living should be.”

Thus far, Clive Howard has not taken well to this news.

It isn’t that he views his son’s goals as less than the life Darrell had been born into. Whether sitting in a corner office or plowing the back forty, so long as Darrell works, Clive will be happy. And yet Darrell’s decision cuts deeper than mere employment, deeper than even carrying on the generations who have farmed the bottomland. It is work itself, and the place it will have in the life of Clive Howard’s son.

We are meant for toil, that’s what Clive would say. He would say the land is in his son’s blood, the fields and pasture as much of Darrell as the marrow to his bones. He would say the sweat that stains his brow and dirt packed hard beneath his nails, that ailing back and those calloused, hardened hands, are not the mark of a life spent in hardship, but one spent with purpose.

The Howards have always worked their acres believing such. They have been raised up in that same bricked farmhouse and laid down beneath those same towering oaks since the Revolution, and in all those long and lean years between, saw little more of this world than what lay between the ridgetops. None of them enjoyed what Darrell would call an easy life, and yet they each found this one truth: This world is not meant to be easy and our work in it is not meant to be short, because that work becomes a living prayer.

(This post originally appeared on the High Calling Blog, November, 2014.)

Filed Under: ancestry, work

The cost of failed dreams

February 12, 2015 by Billy Coffey 2 Comments

I don’t think of him often, only on days like today. You know those days. The kind you spend looking more inside than around, wondering where all the time is going and why everything seems to be leaving you behind. Those are not fun days. In the words of the teenager who lives on the corner, they’re “the sucks.”

I had a day like that today. It was all the sucks. And like I often do, I thought of him.

I’ve been conducting an informal survey over the years that involves everyone from friends to acquaintances to strangers on the street. It’s not scientific in any way and is more for the benefit of my own curiosity than anything else. I ask them one question, nothing more—Are you doing what you most want to do with your life?

By and large, the answer I usually get is no. Doesn’t matter who I ask, either. Man or woman, rich or poor, famous or not. My wife the teacher has always wanted to be a counselor. My trash man says he’d rather be a bounty hunter (and really, I can’t blame him). A professor at work? He wants to be a farmer. And on and on.

Most times that question from me leads to questions from them, and in my explaining I’ll bring him up.

Because, really, he was no different than any of us. He had dreams. Ambitions. And—to his mind, anyway—a gift. The world is wide and full of magic when we’re young. It lends itself to dreaming. We believe we can become anything we wish; odds, however great, don’t play into the equation. So we want to be actresses and painters and poets. We want to be astronauts and writers and business owners. Because when we’re young, anything is possible. It’s only when we grow up that believing gets hard.

He wanted to be an artist. I’m no art critic and never will be, but I’ve seen his paintings. Honestly? They’re not bad. Better than I could manage, anyway.

His parents died when he was young. He took his inheritance and moved to the city to live and study, hoping to get into college. The money didn’t last long, though. Often he’d be forced to sleep in homeless shelters and under bridges. His first try for admission into the art academy didn’t end well. He failed the test. He tried again a year later. He failed that one, too.

His drawing ability, according to the admissions director, was “unsatisfactory.” He lacked the technical skills and wasn’t very creative, often copying most of his ideas from other artists. Nor was he a particularly hard worker. “Lazy” was also a word bandied about.

Like a lot of us, he wanted the success without the work. Also like a lot of us, he believed the road to that success would have no potholes, no U-turns. No dark nights of the soul.

He still dabbled in art as the years went on. But by then he had entered politics, and the slow descent of his life had begun. He was adored for a time. Worshipped, even. In his mind, he was the most powerful man in the world. Because of his politics, an estimated 11 million people died. I’d call that powerful.

But really, Hitler always just wanted to be an artist. That he gave up his dream and became a monster is a tiny footnote in a larger, darker story, but it is an important one. He didn’t count on dreams being so hard, though. That was his undoing. He didn’t understand that the journey from where we are to where we want to be isn’t a matter of getting there, it’s a matter of growing there. You have to endure the ones who say you never will. You have to suffer that stripping away. You have to face your doubts. Not so we may be proven worthy of our dreams, but so our dreams may be proven worthy of us.

He didn’t understand any of that. Or maybe he understood it and decided his own dream wasn’t worth the effort. Painting—creating—isn’t ever an easy thing. That blank canvas stares back at you, and its gaze is hard. That is why reaching your goals is so hard. That’s why it takes so much. Because it’s easier to begin a world war than to face a blank canvas.

Filed Under: choice, dreams, endurance, work

Designed to Work: Are We Meant for Toil?

November 4, 2014 by Billy Coffey Leave a Comment

photo by Sandra Heska King (used with permission)
photo by Sandra Heska King (used with permission)

Sitting in a corner office or plowing the back forty:

What comes to mind when you consider a hard day’s work?

I’m pondering that over at The High Calling today. I hope to see you there.

Filed Under: career, High Calling, work

Labor(ing) Day

September 1, 2014 by Billy Coffey 4 Comments

image courtesy of photobucket.com

I’m working. On Labor Day.

Ironic, isn’t it? That I would be working on a holiday that was instituted to celebrate the working man (and woman), I mean.

I’m sure I’m not the only one schlepping off to work this morning like any other day. We’re toasting the end of summer by sitting in offices or factories or standing outside building houses or putting out fires. Nothing wrong with that. These days, we’re lucky to have a job at all—a fact no doubt driven home by every boss everywhere whenever an employee vents some dissatisfaction.

Work is a part of everyone’s life at some point. I suppose that’s God’s plan. We hear the adage of idle hands being the Devil’s tools and read scriptures like “He who does not work should not eat.” Seems pretty clear—we’re not here to just hang out, we have to be useful.

Holidays are such because they’re meant to focus our minds on something in particular rather than leaving them in their normal, scattered state. Christmas and Easter are all about Jesus (or should be). July 4? Freedom. Thanksgiving is a time to focus on our blessings because there are always some, and Valentine’s Day is all about the people we love.

And Labor Day? Labor Day is all about what we do for a living.

For me, it means a private liberal arts college nestled among the Virginia mountains. I’m the campus mailman. Just me and the two or three student workers who may or may not bother to show up on a normal day. Working pretty much by yourself has its advantages, no doubt about it. Job security, for one. Not having to spend hours in small talk is also a plus, because I abhor small talk.

But working here also has its drawbacks. The campus post office was once home to three full-time employees instead of only one. To say things get a little hectic around this time of year would be an understatement. So if you’re wondering where the heck I’ve been for the last few weeks, the answer is under piles of Cosmopolitan magazines and packages from twelve hundred mommies.

The truth? I’d rather be doing something else. I took this job because I was going to be laid off from my previous one (which wasn’t all bad, since I got a novel out of it), and I took that one because I was burnt out from the one before. So while I’m walking my five miles a day with a smile haphazardly positioned on my face, I’m really wishing I were up in the mountains somewhere writing.

Chances are that when it comes to occupations, you’d rather be doing something else, too. I read an article a while back that said the best job to have in this country as far as pay, benefits, and perks, is a college professor. Since I’m surrounded by professors every day, I thought I’d test that theory. Over the course of a week I asked twenty of them if they were happy where they were or if they’d rather have a different line of work. Each answered they’d rather be elsewhere. Some wanted to write books, others to travel. Two wanted to be farmers. There was even one who confessed what he really wanted to do was become a bounty hunter.

There’s nothing too strange about that. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that what’s rare in this life is to find someone completely happy with what he or she does to pay the bills. We all have our secret dreams and far-flung desires. It’s part of being human, I think. In our deepest selves, we’re always searching and never quite finding our place in this world.

Do you think this is true? I’d like to know, because reading back through that last paragraph left me feeling a bit pessimistic.

Maybe that’s just a symptom of having to work today. Then again, maybe that’s just one of those non-negotiable, hard truths of life.

So let’s celebrate this Labor Day with a little survey. Leave a comment below. Tell me what you do for a living, and then tell me what you’d really rather do for a living.

Let’s put my theory to the test.

Filed Under: career, dreams, work Tagged With: contentment, dream job, Labor Day

How bad do you want it?

January 20, 2014 by Billy Coffey 2 Comments

image courtesy of photo bucket.com
image courtesy of photo bucket.com

It’s amazing how many conversations I have with people that end up with them saying, “Well, I’m working on a book, too.”

I met one such person at the local bookstore last week. Nice fella. Rooting around the reference section and about to pick up a copy of On Writing, by Stephen King. We got to talking. Sure enough, he’s a writer. Has two manuscripts sitting in the top drawer of his desk back home. Funky stories, full of zombies and whatnot. They’re good, he promised. I didn’t doubt they were. He has dreams of agents and publishers and auctions and signings, all of which will happen as soon as he sends those manuscripts off. That’s the problem. He can’t seem to get either of them out of the drawer.

I nodded. He explained that deep down, he’s afraid an agent or editor just won’t understand the depths of his writing. I nodded again. Happens all the time, he said, and then he held up the book in his hand and asked if I knew how many times King had been rejected before he made it big, or Grisham, or Rowling. I said I didn’t but guessed it was a lot. He nodded gravely and whispered, “Oh yeah. A LOT. I can’t handle that, dude.”

He bought the book. Saw him in line a little while later, thumbing through the first few pages and nodding as he soaked up Mr. King’s words.

I couldn’t really think bad of him. I was that man once. I think we all are in a way. Doesn’t matter who we are or how old we happen to be, we all have dreams. We might not act upon them, but they’re there. We have all at some point sat in the middle of our lives, looked around, and said, “There’s gotta be more than this.” That’s my theory—none of us really want a lot, we just want a little more than what we have.

But the thing is this: often, that little more we want requires a lot. A lot of risk, a lot of work, a lot of sacrifice. In the end, that’s what separates the ones who manage to reach their goals from the ones who don’t. Sure, talent plays a part. But talent can only get you so far. My friend in the bookstore may be the next Tolstoy, but none of us will ever know. Writing is easy. It’s sending it out into the world that’s hard. It’s wanting it bad enough. And when I come across people like that, I think of Wayne.

I met Wayne years ago at the boxing gym. Huge guy, hands as fast as lightning. While the rest of us were there to get in shape and occasionally get the snot beaten out of us, Wayne had higher aspirations. He wanted to turn pro. And he wanted it bad.

Trained every day. Fought as often as he could. He racked up wins and knockouts, took on ranked opponents, climbed the ladder. His dedication was inspiring. Having him there made me work harder and sweat more. There was no doubt in my mind he’d make it.

Wayne worked construction during the day, said it kept him in shape. He was two months away from the biggest fight of his amateur career when an accident mangled the ring finger of his right hand. The doctor said he’d need surgery, followed by a few weeks of rest. And absolutely, positively no training.

The fight would have to be cancelled. No telling how long it would be to reschedule. Wayne’s dream of turning pro hung in the balance. So he did what he had to do.

He cut his finger off.

Nope, not kidding. Did it himself in his garage one evening. Trained left-handed for the next week, had his fight. He won.

That’s what it takes to succeed. It’s the only way. Doesn’t matter if it’s writing or boxing or college or a new career. You have to want it, and then you have to go get it with a mindset that says you’ll get up every time you’re knocked down. You won’t surrender. Ever forward, never back.

Even if it means losing pieces of yourself along the way.

Filed Under: birthday, conflict, encouragement, freedom, pants, purpose, rest, superbowl, truth, work, writing

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