Roy Jacobsen's The Unseen - And allowing routines to shape us

I read Roy Jacobsen’s novel, The Unseen, last year. It tells the story of the Barroy family. They live on an island, also called Barroy, off the coast of Norway. It is a brutal place, pounded by wind and waves and rain. Little vegetation grows. There are only five people on the island, three generations of Barroys. They burn peat to stay warm and move their beds from the north side of the house to the south side of the house depending on the season. Eider down blankets are their specialty. They sell them in the village. They make most everything they use - their tools, their buildings, bread and salted fish, they mend their own nets and grow potatoes. They drag up seaweed from the coast for winter fodder for the few livestock in the barn. Hans, the father, believes that if they could build a quay where boats could safely land, they might have more connection with the outside world - at least they could get to be part of the milk route that picks up three days a week. They only travel to the mainland a few times a year for necessities. 

I read the book with a group of friends. We have a text thread together and I remember one of them saying, “I’m 160 pages in, and nothing has happened yet.” In one sense this is true. There are no murders. There are no major plot twists. Nobody goes on a heroic journey. Survival is the goal. And Jacobsen is content narrating the daily chores of the family. One chapter describes the handful of trees that grow on the island. Another describes the ill-natured ram that needs to be isolated away from the ewes, except at breeding time. And yet, early on the narrator says, “An island is a cosmos in a nutshell, where the stars slumber in the grass beneath the snow.” For all the “nothing” that happens, Jacobsen contends there is a whole cosmos here on Barroy. There is love and therefore worry. There is the burden of family. And the joy of it. There is work and feasting and laughter and traditions and heartache and singing. 

The first novel I read last year was Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. The title, The Unseen, makes the same statement but for different reasons. Unlike the unnamed narrator in Invisible Man who is unseen because of racial prejudice, the Barroys are invisible because they live in total solitude. Their lives consist of their daily work. The work changes each season but is the same each year. Martin, the grandfather, was born on the island. As was Hans. And now Ingrid and Lars.

During the winter the men leave for several months to fish. If they don’t come back with enough then they don’t have enough. But their isolation doesn’t change their humanity. There is hope. Hans buys a horse in an attempt to make work easier. He dreams of how the quay might change their prospects for more financial freedom. And there is disappointment. Neither the horse nor the quay live up to his expectations. Maria longs for the island she grew up on, a different place, with greener grass. A small group of Swedish soldiers come to help build the boathouse. Nine months later, Barbro, a young adult with development challenges, gives birth to Lars - the soldier-father long since gone. The same challenges found anywhere are also found on Barroy.

One scene in the novel has stayed with me. Upon returning home from the fishing season, Hans has a heart attack unloading the boat. He dies on the dock. The narrator describes the scene with this: “He lifted out his purchases, winched the boat in the shed, sat on the step, got out his pipe and noticed that he wasn’t able to straighten the fingers of his right hand, as if it were still holding the tiller. He smoked and looked north at the rosy sunlight, which slowly turned blue. And that was where they found him, dead.” Living on an island meant fishing was his life. His years were marked by months on the ocean on a boat. When he dies, his hand retains the shape of the tiller used to steer his small fishing vessel. The island life shaped and formed everything about him, including the contours of his body. 

My father-in-law worked as a plumber and HVAC repair man for fifty years. This meant that he daily found himself contorting his body to get under sinks, or wedged it into crawl spaces. His hands bent and shaped sheet metal. He tight-rope walked on ceiling joists in attics. Now when he gets up off the couch he often has to pause after standing and manually move his left leg with his hands to get it going before he can take a step. Whenever they visit, he brings his tool belt. Miraculously projects around the house that I have neglected for months get finished in a few hours. Occasionally I serve as his gofer on these projects; gofer-ing is where most of my mechanical skills begin and end. The tools he has used for decades feel as if they were custom made to fit his hand - the handles worn to the shape of his grip.  

What shape is my body being sculpted into through my life as a pastor? Perhaps a slight stoop in my neck from reading books? Or standing with my preaching Bible in my left hand, eyes scanning the congregation for signs that the Spirit is using the words we prepared to comfort and convict, encourage and rebuild. I wish I could say it might be me on my knees in prayer, but I still too often rely on my own strength. Perhaps my most satisfying moments come when I have the opportunity to listen to someone share a portion of their life story. And to gently ask questions to draw more out. And to help them notice the ways God has been with them. I’d like to think my active listening face might be my version of Hans’ hand on the tiller. 

I was recently talking to a friend who is also a pastor and he described the last few months of his ministry as a fog. I know the feeling. On one level, I can describe the past twenty one years as wandering in the dark, uncertain as to what exactly I am to be doing. I’m not sure what shape bewilderment takes. 

On another level, the pastoral task seems obvious enough - through diligence at Word and Sacrament, time together, both intentional and in leisure, in suffering and celebration, in serving and learning to accept the service of others, in conversation over coffee and around dinner tables and at hospital beds, we are to help cultivate a community that is learning to trust and follow Jesus together. There are plenty of surprises. One never knows what phone calls or emails will come each day. But much is routine. The work changes with the seasons but the rhythm of the seasons come each year.

If a small family island can be described “as a cosmos in a nutshell,” so can a congregation. There is more than enough here to offer a lifetime of joy and sorrow. Jesus is never done with us. And the mission of offering a credible witness to him and his gospel, living into the values of his kingdom, failing in big or small ways and learning to rest in his grace and trying again is new every morning. But we get bored with it. We get 160 pages in and wonder why “nothing has happened yet.” Sundays come with alarming regularity. Other congregations appear more interesting. Strategies and trends seduce us with promise. Betty complains about the music. John alerts me to how great Andy Stanley’s sermon was on the television that morning. We add a few people here and lose a few there. The dynamics change. The possible mutations of sin are endless. So is the countermeasure of grace. Stay the course.  

For all of his futile attempts at finding new ways to get ahead and the challenges of having to daily make do, my guess is Hans would ultimately be grateful that his hand and his life was shaped by his work. I am learning to be grateful too. For the stoop of my neck from looking at books. For the privilege of standing each week, with Bible in hand, looking for signs of God’s word accomplishing its purposes. For less talk and more listening, helping people pay attention to the signposts of grace in their lives. And hopefully, for more time on my knees in dependent prayer trusting anew in an ever-dependable Savior.