Another World

For this to make any sense, I need to say a bit about where I am. Located off of St. Martin in the Caribbean is an island called Anguilla. It’s a spectacular island with no ports for cruise ships and no hotels with cassinos. Glistening light green seas reflect of the soft sand and stark white buildings. In other words, it’s a different world, or at least a world far away from the one I know. In fact, as I sit on our balcony with my coffee this morning and watch the sun rise behind the mountains across the bay, I’m incapable of comprehending the scene before me.

As beautiful as it is, part of me wants to open one of my devotionals, turn on my phone, or listen to my spiritual music. I know those things. I get those things. I use them every morning, but what lays before me is beyond me - beyond past experiences, beyond the usual practices that help me make sense of the world . . . therein lies the valuable lesson.

I believe there’s much more to life than what we see, or at lease more than what we allow ourselves to see. I suppose my sense of this is why I consider myself a spiritual person, but this morning reminds me just how little I know about that “something more.” It’s as if I’ve gone through life beside a wall. I’ve heard about the world on the other side. I’ve even heard sounds and seen glimpses of it when I’ve tried to climb up the wall, but I’ve never looked at it head on like I did this morning.

My hunch is, seeing the “something more” is unsettling and incomprehensible. I’ll want to reach for a devotional, check my phone, or play music rather than sit and experience something beyond my imagination or control. Life on the other side of the wall “surpasses human understanding,” someone once wrote. To hear about a place where people live as one, love all, forgive all is beyond me. To hear of a place where we are not in charge, where we live at one with the one who created us, where the meek inherit the earth and God’s love extends to the most unlikely, is to encounter a place where the horizon of grace extends beyond my touch and none of the things I use to ground me will work to make sense of God’s world.

I imagine this is how it’s been for those who’ve ever encountered the world not as we have known it, but as God created it. It must have been all over Moses’ face when he came down the mountain. It must have animated every conversation people had after seeing Jesus and hearing about this thing he called the “kingdom of God.” He was describing another world, one he knew, and it must have been as exciting as it was frightening to witness it. Like us, people back then must have wanted to run back to the world they knew rather than toward the one they’ve just encountered.

This morning, I sure would like to become one of the latter.

Silent Cheer

Cars were lined up for miles, others pulled onto the median and on the sidewalks lining the route of the Tibetan monks. It was a scene unlike any I’ve ever seen. Thousands of people gathering in frigid temperature to see these pilgrims on their way to Washington. Then came the greatest surprise: silence. Despite the countless people lining their route, it was quiet - like a cathedral, temple, or other sacred space. (Yes, some felt the need to speak to friends on their phones (on speaker mode) but they were the exception.)

I walked alongside the monks and tried to make sense of all that was going on. I thought about their decision to make such a journey, thought about the overwhelming response, and I listened to the silence. Like a good book, movie or sermon, I’ve been thinking about the experience ever since.

The size of the crowd revealed how starving people are. For what, I am not sure. The monks were walking for peace, so maybe it’s peace they’re hungry for.

The monks were just a bunch of guys walking a really long way with nothing but their shoes and clothes. Maybe people came to witness and celebrate such simplicity, or maybe they came to honor their faith.

I’m not sure what they plan to do when they reach our nation’s capital, but maybe the journey is as much a statement as what will be said or done when they arrive. Maybe people came to support the monks’ wisdom in knowing a long walk might speak to someone, might turn a heart or two in a new direction.

But it was the silence that said the most. In a world where those who lead seem to only shout, they didn’t speak. In a world where we are told to run, they walked. In a world of possessions, they carried nothing. In a world of division, they brought people together, if only for a brief moment.

The cynic in me thinks such a walk is not enough to change the world, but maybe it is. At least they’re doing something, I said to myself, and that gave me hope. In fact, I think it gave a lot of people hope. So much so, we wanted to stand and cheer, but silence was a better way to cheer.

Diving In

As a woman spoke of the dark patch of life she was walking through, as she described the way she was spiraling through all the things wrong in her life, I thought of the wonderful, pivotal scene in Frank Capra’s film It’s a Wonderful Life when George Baily is leaning over the railing of the bridge, overwhelmed with his troubles, and asking God for help. For those familiar with the movie, you know Clarence (the angel) then falls into the fridged water below taking George from his overwhelming problems to helping the man below. The scene taught me that the best way to rise from my problems is to think about someone else.

I can host a pity party better than Martha Stewart can host a dinner. I can invite every single woe and set the table for a long and sumptuous evening of despair. On some sick level my soul likes it. My guilt and shame love company, and yet I’ve come to know how dangerous it can be.

I remember a time, however, when I was struggling mightily and came across someone whose problems made mine pale in comparison. Like a switch, my concern for him caused me to awaken and focus not on me and my problems but him and his. Changing my focus and doing what I could to sit beside him changed me in profound and life-giving ways. Like George, I forgot my problems and dove into the water.

As we begin a new year, may we all look beyond ourselves and see those around us who are struggling. May we be lifted from the dangers of thinking only of ourselves and dive into the water below where others could really use our help.

Something tells me, it will save us both.