For three glorious days last month, I had no need to pick up a newspaper, listen to a newscast or browse Internet headlines.

I spent those days surrounded by more than 200 writers and editors from across North America. Our areas of expertise ranged from poetry to screen-writing and from journalism to novels. Our levels of experience varied just as widely; from hobby writers to Canada’s best selling author of all time. But the thing we shared in common, besides our writing, was the fact that we all affirm the Apostles’ Creed.

We gathered at a Christian retreat centre in Guelph, Ontario, for the 20th annual writers’ conference known as Write! Canada (formerly God Uses Ink).

Like many retreats, it proved to be a cocoon-like environment; both exhausting and exhilarating. We worshipped together and ate together. Together, we celebrated the achievements of the most accomplished among us.

We shared our knowledge and our questions, attended lectures, participated in workshops and took notes as we spurred one another on to exercise passion and integrity in the art, craft, business and ministry of writing.

Once home, however, I felt compelled to catch up on the news I’d missed. But almost as soon as I began, I wished I hadn’t, for from the first story on the first page of the first newspaper, I was evicted from my comfortable, Christian insulation and confronted once again with evidence of evil thriving in our world.

Chilling details about a child abduction and murder. Frightening statistics on child pornography. Name-calling politicians. Word that billboards featuring photographs of suggestive acts by gay men are coming soon to a community near me.

It was enough to make me long for a return to the safe haven of my cotton wool.

But it was a longing that lasted only momentarily, for I remembered that I am called to be a snail.

A snail?
I had the pleasure recently of meeting the Right Reverend Bishop Seraphim of Ottawa; the spiritual head of the Orthodox Church in America, Archdiocese of Canada.

In his golden vestments and mitre, with long, flowing grey beard, Bishop Seraphim looks intimidating. But he possesses an easy-going warmth and exudes such a genuine love for others it’s easy to linger near him; to listen and to learn.

Preparing to meet the man, I came across a story he told, delivered at the commencement exercises of a theological academy, in which he cautioned his hearers against the "dangerous tendency…to live in the head, to be cerebral and to compartmentalize."

With three children, I don’t often feel at risk of living too cerebrally. However, I think many evangelical Christians today are tempted to compartmentalize our lives. It’s not only easy to live within the boundaries of our Christian sub-culture, it’s comfortable, even tempting to do so.

But as Jesus reminded us, we are in this world. We are here because He has placed us here, and He wants to use us in this place. Bishop Seraphim likens it to swimming in water.

"But this school of fish of which we are part is not given just to swim in this water: it is given to clean this water, and to transform this water," says the bishop. He goes on to explain that our task is not to become a part of our environment, but to work with the Lord in changing and transforming our environment into what it was supposed to be.

"We might be compared to snails, which do this kind of work, since we generally move so slowly about it!" he concludes.

Now I have to admit that I don’t much like snails. But I like the illustration. For in an aquarium or garden pond, water snails are like slow but steady vacuum cleaners; eliminating scum by devouring algae and rotting plant material.

We can learn something else from the humble snail. They seem to know instinctively that the job is too big to be done alone, for they reproduce speedily, and before you know it, there are countless little snails all happily at work cleaning their surroundings. But allow their environment to get out of balance and the snails will quickly die.

So too with Christians. Finding the right balance, says the bishop, is "probably most of a lifetime’s work," but in finding it, we will be using "one of the most fundamental evangelical tools…self-emptying love."

Whether we preach, teach, write or work in some other field; in striving to be in this world but not of it, it is Christ’s love flowing through us that will clean up the scum. That same love will lead us to reproduce until we find we are surrounded by an army of co-workers.

It is the work of the snail which He calls us to do. Each and every one of us.