Awakenings

You know, driving a vehicle is weird.  We get inside these huge machines and head down this space that’s designated for the machines, and then we accelerate to high speeds that could kill us if we happen to collide into other “machines.”  It’s like another world out there on the highway.  Different car styles, shapes and colors.  Loud trucks that drive slowly and get into the passing lane just when you want to pass another car…and then you’re stuck behind the truck.  And is it just me, or does it seem like the truck suddenly gets slower once it gets into the passing lane?!  (As you can tell, trucks can make me very annoyed when I drive). And then there are motercycles and all the different looking people who ride them.  It’s like this other reality takes place when we’re all driving together.  A reality of rights and violations and unfairness, or of busy thoughts as we think about where we’re headed to.  We seem to forget that we are all sacred human souls with our different stories and journeys and loved ones.  We seem to take on this defensiveness when we get behind the wheel, this feeling that “all are out to get me.”

I was driving the other day when I ran into a traffic jam.  You know the kind, where it seems to materialize out of nowhere.  We were all flying down the road with all our appointments and agendas nagging, when suddenly, life as we knew it came to a crawl.  Red tail lights everywhere, vehicles inching along.  And then you have the idiots who think honking will somehow help.  Really?  Anyway, there we all were, inching along.  Of course we’re all wondering what is causing the holdup.  Is it an accident? (Which, by the way, definantly brings us back to reality when we are flying down the road in these huge machines.  An accident reminds us that we are mortal and fragile and that the agenda is really not that important).  Was it a cop stopping someone?  What could is possibly be?

After what seemed like forever, I inched closer to where I could catch a view of the cause of the traffic jam.  On this 3-lane highway, one lane was merging into the other two, so that it was becoming a 2-lane highway.  But that’s not what was causing the delay.  The traffic jam was being caused because every car was trying to speed ahead on the merging lane, and then at the last-minute trying to swerve into the next lane.  It’s as if the drivers were thinking: “if I can just get up close enough, then I can beat 3 cars and get ahead.”  What they didn’t seem to realize was the fact that this action was causing a reaction for every car behind them, in every lane!  And it was progressing backwards, causing more and more cars behind them to have to put on the brakes.

After being annoyed that this selfishness was causing all of us to suffer, it occurred to me that we do the same thing in a lot of other places in life, not just on a highway while driving.  We think about “getting ahead” and if we can cut corners so that we can get our ever-so-important agenda done, we’ve won for that day.  We don’t think about all the people behind us and around us that will have to react to the actions we set in motion.  We don’t realize that we can cause others in their journey to slow down and be effected by our mistakes.  What we don’t seem to understand is that every decision or choice we make, does effect others for either good or bad.  We are that powerful!

I like this music video I saw on a friend’s Facebook post.  It’s called Forgotten Promises.  It’s talking about ending world hunger.  At first I wasn’t sure about the title of the video, but now I think I understand.  Most of us don’t like to see someone starving or in pain or suffering.  And so we make promises of one kind or another.  Maybe it’s to sponsor a child.  Maybe it’s to choose more ethically in the way we spend our money.  Maybe it’s to eat less and not be a glutton.  But sometimes, a lot of times, we forget these promises.  We get caught up in the game of life.  We get distracted in the hurry of the rat race, and like the drivers on a highway, we forget that we are all fragile creatures connected with the same stuff.  We are all human.  We all have our stories.  We all have our journeys and our loved ones.  We forget that our actions will cause reactions, either for good or bad to others around the world.  And my choice to try to selfishly cut corners and “get ahead”, may result in a huge “traffic jam” of people who are held back from their destinations that they were created for.  We are more powerful than we realize.  May we all remember and celebrate the fact that we are connected and that every action has direct, immediate repercussions on other sacred souls.  Let’s remember that we’re all made of the same stuff.  We’re all brothers and sisters.  And if we are this powerful alone, how crazy powerful we are when we choose to connect and unite to change the world for the better.

I get really irritated when I hear people complain about certain things that they have the power to change.  One of these things is “church”.  I find it interesting when I hear people say things like “church this week just didn’t feed me” or “I don’t like going to that church cuz I feel like I’m working – I don’t get anything out of it.”  What gets to me is that these types of statements reveal that we don’t understand what church is.

What we don’t realize is that church does not consist in just a 1-hour-a-week service.  Church is not a building, it’s not a program.  It’s not a ceremony or a bulletin.  It’s not a song service or a sermon.  Church is not the carpet color, or whether there is a drum set on the stage.  Church is not who’s wearing what, or whether the pastor is male or female. Church is not the Republican party.  The concept of church is on a whole different level.

Church consists of every moment of my life.  I carry church with me where ever I go.  I am church.  You are church.  We are church.  It is not a thing outside of me that is provided for me that I sit back and critique like a movie columnist.  It’s not a spectator sport where I cheer from the sidelines or the grandstands while wearing my team’s colors.  It’s not a spiritual restaurant where I can hopefully get “fed”, and if I don’t, I can write a review warning all my peeps out there of its lack of “real food”.   If there is something wrong with church as I see it, it is up to me to change it and do something about it – cuz I am church, as well as you.  If there is a problem, we are all responsible for it because we are church. Wherever we go.

Every moment of every day has the potential of the divine.  The random moments of the day are significant holy possibilities waiting to be realized and grasped and turned into acts of worship.  The way I treat my colleages; how I respond to my spouse after a long day of work; what I choose to spend my money on and how it will effect those on the other end of the supply chain; treating every human I come in contact with, with the dignity and sacredness they deserve.  These are just a few examples of what it looks like to be church in the humdrum moments of life.  And even when the 1-hour service comes along once a week, it’s just 1 hour in my day, of my week, of my reality of being church!  It will be then that the 1-hour service traditionally known as “church” will begin to look like a different gathering, as all people present will actually be the church instead of sit in church.

So what do you do if you have a problem with “church”?  I like what Shane Claiborne says:  “We need to stop complaining about the church we’ve experienced and work on becoming the church we dream of.”  I would go even further and say that we become the church God dreams of.  Because God has already told us what church is and what it means and what it looks like.  It’s us humans who have screwed things up.  It’s time to set it right again, and this starts when we realize that church happens every moment of every day wherever I show up – because I, and you, and we are the church.