-—ooo—-
The immediate thought that grazed me by the lake was a sentience of Creation around me. In the city, even such a small one as Columbia, we humans are surrounded by our own artifice and edifice. To be out in the wild, though, is to realize how little of the world’s wonders you truly know. Last weekend I spent hours just trying to make sense of the complex patterns within the lake’s wind-driven waves. I marveled at the remarkable variety of butterflies living around its shores. I remembered how dark night actually is. By some strange logic, these observations drew me back to a Bible passage that I had always considered irrelevant to our day and age: Exodus 32, when the Israelites craft themselves a golden calf, worshipping and offering sacrifices to it. I always thought that such blatant idolatry was beyond us now—until I realized how much worse our subtler brand is. They built themselves a calf of gold; we have built ourselves an entire world of steel and silicon.
Later that night, I gathered with my fellow “swinters” for an exercise called a trust walk. During said walk, groups of people form chains and stumble off into the dark; however, only the leader of the chain can see or speak. Upon returning unscathed from the promenade, participants are expected to see their experience as a metaphor for the awesome leadership of Jesus Christ and the imperative to follow, in all our helplessness. While the parallel is a good one, judging from my experience with the Lord, I find it incomplete. With God as our leader, we will often slosh through mud up to our ankles and water up to our waist. The members of the group will constantly change, and may fall apart, walking without any secure link to one another. We will talk to Him, talk and sing, but He may not talk back (or in our love of talk, we might not listen). Then we begin to doubt the very Being we follow. There will be times when He tells us to “wait here” and leaves us, blind in the woods. And while He no doubt has good reason to take leave of us—whether setting someone else aright on the path, or clearing it up ahead—the frightful noises of the black forest will tempt us to flee, blind or not. Much of our lives may be spent lost in the woods after succumbing to our fears in such a moment. Very few will manage to follow the straight and narrow to its end.
The following day was not devoid of revelation either, for it was then that my name appeared on the duty list. At first, walking into the kitchen to help with dinner was like resigning myself to a punishment I did not deserve. Nonetheless, work divided among the many hands of friends made it doubly light, and I was soon smiling wider than I had all day in my solo reading, swimming, and exploring endeavors. I realized then that the early church as depicted in Acts must have functioned something like the kitchen at Swint Lake: a group of believers unified in their faith, sacrificing for each other, serving each other in loving-kindness, and nourishing each other physically and spiritually. To close today, I encourage you to do the same. Care for someone outside your family, and even your friends. Whether you do so with tacos and Brazilian dessert, as I did that night, is up to you.
“Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon the all.” (Acts 4:32-33)
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