Not about the buildings

It isn’t about the building. For the longest time, I thought it was. Like an early human scratching a drawing on a cave wall, I wanted to leave some sign that I’d passed this way. With some very special people, I was a part of designing and building a chapel that now sits prominently at the center of a school campus, but it wasn’t until my recent visit that I realized the building was never the point.

It was a bright, clear morning, and I arrived early for the annual Founders’ Day service. I hoped to wander through the space alone before the students and guests arrived but was surprised to see two old students of mine already there. One, the guest speaker, was in the pulpit practicing his sermon, the other, a dear friend of his, offering insights and suggestions. We greeted one another like long-lost friends and soon I was also listening and instructing like I used to.

As people began arriving, I took my seat in the back and was surrounded by retired teachers with whom I once worked. “It’s like the band’s getting back together,” someone joked, and my heart took a deep breath as I remembered how sacred our time had been.

A dear parent from my days at the school arrived and sat beside me with her daughter who now had a child at the school. They’d recently lost their husband/father, and I shared an idea I got during his funeral - the kind of idea that made me squirm like a child on Christmas morning. It was a way to remember him forever, and she loved it as much as I hoped she would. We sat by the aisle so they could beam as their handsome son/grandson made his triumphant entrance. It was as bitter and sweet as life gets. I was so glad they were here to see it; I was so sad he was not.

The organ began and we sang in a way that made the students turn around and take notice. The sermon was delivered with poise and brilliance as he spoke from his heart of his days at the school and how they had shaped the man he’d become. I don’t remember much else about the service because I was sitting back taking in the beauty - not of the building but all that was going on inside it.

“I guess that’s the point,” I said to myself. “I guess it always was.”

I left the service recalling all the other ways I’d forgotten that important lesson along the way. I thought about the houses I focused on and not the conversations at the dining room table, the parties and not the nights reading before bed, the titles and not the work, the life goals and not the daily moments.

I doubt I’m unique, but I now see I’ve had it all wrong: It’s not so much what we build or achieve in our lives, but what happens within them that matters.

Lesson on the side of the road

On a recent drive through a sleepy South Carolina town, I noticed someone sitting on the side of the road. Probably waiting for someone to pick him up, I thought, only to drive by and see his hand raised and his middle finger extended. It was not directed at me anymore than the cars ahead and behind me. It was meant for all of us and the sight haunted me ever since.

What would make him do such a thing? Had something recently happened, or was it his response to his overwhelming despair? In the midst of such divisive times, was this his form of expressing himself?

As sad and foolish as I thought the scene was, I also understood his frustration, anger, and despair. While I’ve not sat by the roadside making such a gesture, in my heart I’ve chosen battle lines with those who do not think, believe, or vote the way I do. In the safety of my car, I could admit I was not all that different from the man I passed.

But as I continued on my way, I moved from specific issues that might have troubled him to the fact that, deep down, he must not feel like he matters, that the world doesn’t care, or that he is no longer seen (if he ever was). Suddenly, my reflections moved from my head to my heart. I no longer thought of the man as a stranger on the side of the road, but a human being not unlike myself.

We all need some sense that we matter. We all need to be seen … by somebody! Without such connections, we become lonely, lost, and without hope. In such darkness, we get angry and take on such a disinterested world, like the man did, or, worse, we give up completely.

I confess that my initial reaction to the man was a desire to lift my own finger, but I didn’t. Instead, I spent the next two hours thinking about him and wished I had pulled over, sat beside him, and asked what led him to do such a thing. I’m not sure I was brave enough to ask. I’m not sure he was willing to answer. It’s easier to lift a finger or keep driving, which seems to be the problem this world has right now.

Riptides

Is it me, or are people talking about riptides more than they used to? I remember hearing about them as a child from time to time, but now it’s as if they’ve become a regular occurrence.

I remember my mother pulling me aside once and teaching me what to do if I ever found myself in a riptide. “Don’t try and fight it,” she said. “You’ll wear yourself out if you do and not be able to get back to shore. Instead, go with the current. Then swim off to the side where you’ll then be able to swim to shore.”

I have never needed to use her instructions, but I now see they could have come in handy many other times in my life.

Like most people, I’ve found myself in troubled waters. I’ve felt strong currents pushing me out to sea, and I’ve tried to fight them. I used all my strength to push against the tides only to wear myself out and drown. How much better it would have been had I accepted the tide and waited for a time when I could swim off to the side and made my way home.

Over the years, I’ve seen I am not alone.

• I remembered my mother’s lesson when I heard a woman come back into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous having tried to control her drinking to horrible consequences.

• I saw the wisdom of her instructions when a married couple I knew had a significant argument about one of their children and each was convinced they were right, only to say things and fight the current in ways that left their marriage unable to recover.

• I wish I could have passed along her advice to a church member who was asked to serve on its vestry. The church claimed to want to grow and change, but the currents said otherwise. At first, he tried to swim against the current, determined to make a difference, but he quickly exhausted himself and nearly drowned.

Riptides come in all shapes and sizes. Like my mother said, we need to not fight them but accept them and swim off to the side so we can find our way back to shore.