I remember a time when I waited five days each week for the weekend. I recall a time when couldn't perceive Monday through Friday as a time of joy; rather, it was the routine, monotonous interim between brief periods of fun and excitement in my life. In short, I remember a time when I spent most of my days waiting to live. And then I moved into the Lake House.
Twelve hours ago I was already knee deep in Monday evening. The night's responsibility to prepare dinner was mine, and I was entering the house two hours late due to a last minute appointment at work. I didn't want to let down my family of nine, but I was forced to prioritize a distressed client with a tight schedule, so I rested on my confidence that my community would understand the decision to serve others before ourselves. As I walked through the kitchen door, I found some of them sitting around with bowls of cereal and silent looks of desperation written across their faces. So... I got busy. I was moments away from shelling out $40 at Boston Market when Natalia, who knew my usual cooking partner was no longer available due to a phenomena called "marriage," instantly halted me and volunteered to help me cook. In her usual resourceful way, she scrounged up a bit of this and that until we ended up with a melting pot of various pasta shapes, sausage cuts, homemade sauce and twisty ties that I had forgotten to remove from the bundles of noodles. It was surprisingly tasty.
Before long, Jimmy, the tall, handsome Puerto Rican of our community, waltzed in ready to hit the weights as we normally do on Monday nights. Instead, due to the temperature outside (and inside the Lake House) we discovered ourselves huddled around the living room fireplace with other members of our community, cooking smores, fighting to stay warm and wondering when we might pass out from carbon monoxide. As people dwindled in and out the room, the conversation plunged a bit deeper until Jimmy and I were discussing our recent desire to rededicate ourselves to God. It had begun just yesterday during church when Brian, the director of the Underground, reviewed the impact that Jesus has had on the world over the last 2,000 years. Because of Christ's influence we have hospitals, universities and calendars. We have the very concept of hope and equality of the human race, which had not previously existed in ancient thought. With this in mind, Jimmy and I agreed that our lives would be a tragic waste if in the end we look back and realize that we did not turn the world upside-down. After all, we know personally the most powerful figure in the history of the universe, and we live presently in an age with such great need and injustice. Why shouldn't our lives serve as the conduit for Jesus' radical touch and transformation? How is it possible that our lives might become anything else? And why aren't our lives having that sort of impact right now?
As Jimmy and I were dwelling on the need for deeper devotion to God, Jon and David were in the next room hammering out some house documents for our ongoing communal formation. After they were finished, Jon was soon recruiting folks to accompany him on his journey to Home Depot where he would scavenge blocks of cement from dumpsters. Our house values simplicity and ecological sustainability, therefore we are always striving to do spend less and reuse resources out of concern for our neighbors and the environment. These chunks of cement, which were Home Depot's trash, would become the treasured foundation of our new shed. As everyone piled into Jon's truck and sped off, Jimmy and I stayed behind in order to wrap up our time together with an activity that each of us secretly wanted: prayer. We sat in my room and thanked Jesus for our new found inspiration to know and follow him, and we begged him to help us in this endeavor because we both knew all too well how prone we were to waning.
Jimmy left soon after while the rest of the house returned in time to find the fire dwindling and the room being invaded by frigid air. At this point, most of us would love to turn on the heater except that our electricity comes from a plant that uses coal which in turn pollutes and pains the communities from which it's mined. As opposed to being the covert partakers of an undue system that hurts people and the environment, we lit the fire once more and piled into the living room with our sleeping bags to enjoy injustice-free heat and a good night's rest.
I was half asleep when the doorbell rang at 1:00 AM, as it sometimes does at the Lake House. As Andrew answered the door, I could hear the rattled voice of a young woman explaining how she was nearly stabbed across the street. I will admit that as I lay there I couldn't help but think "Agh... I just wanna sleep. Do I really have to tend to someone else? When does it stop?" But in a flash i remembered what my oath to Jesus entailed, and that this was part of it. There was no way I could ignore her tonight and then say I love God tomorrow. So... I crawled out of the couch and followed Philip into the kitchen. As I introduced myself I noticed the tattoo that spanned both of her hands: "Don't Hate." How appopriate. As Philip slipped into his room to put on something warm, Andrew calmed her down and answered some of her questions, explaining who we were, what we were all about, and why we were all in our PJs together sleeping the living room... before long Drew and Phil had taken her home, and the night was finally over...
There is never a dull moment at our house. There are always ideas being born, projects being started, people dropping in and dishes being dirtied. I used to wait to live. Now, I'm more alive than I've ever been.
"For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it." -Matthew 16:25
No comments:
Post a Comment