Note: This is a
passing reference to Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener”, published in
1856. A scrivener is a legal copyist, a
now defunct occupation which involves painstaking replicating legal documents
by hand.
Recently, I have been blessed with a job at a company called
CoPart, a multi-million dollar corporation in the automotive industry. In short—we sell salvage vehicles, and do it
wonderfully. Therefore, as a part of my
job, I am responsible for filling-out titles for new buyers. Early-on in this activity, I chuckled to
myself when I thought of Bartleby and his business of being a scrivener. Of course, my job is entirely more comfortable
than that of Bartleby, and I would prefer a great many more things than he in
my service.
Nonetheless, I find myself consoled by my travels, and by my
books. Especially thoughts of the Black
Forest, which bring tears to my eyes as I stare at my computer or fill-out
paperwork. These thoughts cause me to
halt and contemplate my adventures, if just for a moment. They constantly remind me that although I am
very blessed with my job, and although I love it as a temporary occupation
until I go back to school, I know that it does not fit my heart. I am passionate about other things, about
history and literature, and art—these have no place in an office.
In this I find great encouragement, knowing that although I
am happy now with where God has placed me, I will not be able to rest until I
am a professional scholar, for better or worse.
My only fear is that I do not have the mind to set me in a place of
scholarship, and that I am doomed to do that which I do not love because I am
incapable of that which I do.
Until such a time as I am once again in the academic world,
I will continue to work hard for CoPart, but I feel that I am destined for
something quite different from that which I am now doing.
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