Over on The Living Church‘s Covenant Blog, I write today about Gilmore Girls & how it’s really actually the church. click here
(and this may be evidence that I’m just watching too much netflix & a great rationalizer!)
I had a cold. Often, when people have colds, they clasp their hands together during the part of the church service when everyone else is reaching out to each other–the Peace (Romans 16:16, 2 Corinthians 13:12, 1 Peter 5:14)–and say, “Oh no, I’m sick. Don’t want to infect you!” or, holding up a hand as a stop, “Don’t touch me, I’m sick!”
Four years, ago, at an early morning weekday Eucharist, I did exactly that; “No no, I have a cold, don’t get too close!” And my friend ignored me. He said, “If we can’t share the peace whether we’re ill or not, what can we share?” And he gave me a hug.
That’s being a vessel of God’s love to each other.
Both before and after that moment, I took classes with this friend. We probably had dozens of other conversations, but I don’t specifically remember any one of them, just that one. Though I haven’t seen him in years, I still remember that moment, and anytime he’s mentioned, that’s the one thing I recall.
May we all being such willing vessels of God’s love.
Sometimes it’s easy to notice God–like if there’s a voice from heaven, or a burning bush. Sometimes it’s not as easy to notice God, he might even seem absent, but I believe he’s always there, only as far away as your arm can push him.
Recently, breathing has taught me a lot about God; when I spent a night with a roommate at a retreat a few weeks ago, as I turned over in the middle of the night, I noticed that I could hear her breathing. It was slow, and steady, and deep. Its rhythmic pulling through her lungs lulled me back to sleep.
I realized that if it’d been daytime, I wouldn’t have heard her breathing, though often people sit much closer to me than we had been in the room the night before. There are so many other noises, distractions, demands during the daytime that take our attention away from our own breath and from the sound of others’ breathing. It doesn’t mean that the noise of their lungs is gone, but that other noises are louder, more insistent, more immediate.
I wonder if it doesn’t have something to do with how we’ve trained our attention; whether, if we wanted to, we could shift our ears’ attention to noticing others’ breath, the living force that keeps each of us going every moment of every day.
If we let it, I wonder if each others’ breath, each others’ understanding of and reflection of the Holy, might shift our attention to the deeper, most-immediate parts of our lives–God’s presence around us all the time.
Do you ever stop yourself from doing something good, because you know there’s something better that you could do? (and then, end up not-doing the better thing and do no-thing instead?)
In The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin uses the example of her friends’ birthdays: she’d mean to send them a card, or call them on the phone, but either the day passed and she forgot, or pulling out stationery and finding a stamp, or digging up a phone number just was too high a barrier, and she’d let another birthday–and another chance to connect–pass by.
Her dilemma hit home for me: if I couldn’t think up some clever or especially meaningful thought or wish to share on a friend’s facebook page for his or her birthday, I just said nothing at all. My mind got used to ignoring the little birthday candle at the top of my newsfeed every day.
Rubin swallowed her pride, gathered all the pertinent birthdays into a program with requisite email addresses, and vowed to send an email to each person every year on their birthday. Sure, a card or a phone call would have been “better,” but if the barrier to those actions was just high enough to keep her from completing them, an email was definitely better than nothing.
On my birthday earlier this year, I noticed that it wasn’t the clever memories or sayings that delighted me as well-wishes showed up on my newsfeed all day. The messages that surprised and delighted me most were from those people with whom I hadn’t had contact over the last year, but who took just long enough to notice that it was my birthday, and to write two or three words on my wall. Just knowing that they’d thought of me warmed my heart and I started to see what it is that’s meant when we say “it’s the thought that counts,” or “90% of life is showing up.”–I’m often tempted to think that something’s got to be personalized, or super creative, or fantastically complex to be a good gift, or to be a job well done.
In and of ourselves, who we are when we’re just sitting on the couch, our very presence–that’s plenty for most people.
God created us to be fantastic, personalized, creative people just as we are, without energy-sapping window-dressing, complicated choreography, or intense planning. Just sitting on the couch, doing nothing, “contributing” (in an economic sense) nothing–we’re plenty.
Shouldn’t we all live in Berkley, California?
Watching last week’s episode, as the four adult siblings gather to support one of their ranks who’s found herself unexpectedly alone, I felt a twinge–my adult siblings live spread throughout the United States, a sad reality for many modern families (though a happy opportunity for each one of us in our life paths). The many seasons of this television show have always focused around familial support–the kind of love that’s harder to show from far away, since it’s more centered around sitting together in waiting rooms, showing up unannounced with pizza, and struggling through everyday life together.
Though we often do a bad job of it, there’s a reason God calls Jesus Christ his “Son,” and why people are referred to as “co-heirs,” “brothers and sisters,” and “family” throughout Scripture, we all belong to each other (as Glennon Doyle Melton often puts it). So whether or not we were raised in the same house, we’re now continuing to grow together in the same house–God’s–and we’re called to be brothers and sisters to each other because we all belong to God.
The glorious freedom of Christianity is that we aren’t limited to bloodlines or last names; our family is everyone who belongs to God (which is everyone. period). Often, I feel a little sheepish or tentative about reaching out boldly–as a sibling might–to offer love, support, a shoulder, to someone; the only way to change our communities is to change ourselves.
Sometimes all we need is some take out and a bottle of wine.
hope of things not seen 