Steps or Stops?

A couple weeks ago, one of the ministers at the Old German Baptist meeting began with Psalm 37:23: The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way. He went on to note that "stops" as well as "steps" may order our lives, by turning us in another direction.

I made a suggestion to a new friend the other day, and received a gentle, graceful "no" as an answer. It hit me far harder than reasonable considering the situation. A "stop" for sure.

Hearing "no" used to be much harder for me, before I had done a lot of work on myself in Alanon, a 12-step program for friends and relatives of alcoholics...which I'm eligible for through ancestors, friends, friends' ancestors; mine and others' former significant others, employers, customers, coworkers, etc.; etc.). And also before my Canadian adventure a few years back (the point in my life where I REALLY learned to depend on God in daily affairs, like "where am I going to sleep tonight?").

Now I know to...duh...STOP when I run into a "stop", and really look inside, when I receive "no". Sometimes I do just shrug it off...and then I know either it really DIDN'T matter or I really AM trusting God. Yay! Sign of a healthy, balanced life in the program and in my Christian journey.

Sometimes I feel relief...and then I know I really didn't want "yes" anyhow, so why did I even bring it up? Better take the time to figure that out. Note to self, don't do that next time.

Sometimes, I find a lot of feelings roiling around in me: maybe hurt, anger, resent, disappointment, loss.... Then I know to stay stopped, take a deep breath, pray, and wait for God to clue me in on what HIS plan is (since obviously it's different than mine).

Slowly I'm unravelling this current "stop." In my daily life, it's totally inconsequential. But it is an important "stop" to honor in my spiritual life.

New friendships are difficult, esp. because I'm out of practice. In fact, I've pretty well given up on finding new friends in daily life. The ambient culture has changed a lot in the last five years, with the explosion of electronic networking in all its many forms. And my journey has led me further and further from the mainstream of the ambient culture, in many ways, through immersion in the non-human Community of Life at the farm, through dabbling in the Plain culture of the River Brethren and Old German Baptists, through mingling with the world of homelessness as I go about my bus driving.

But it was always hard. I've never felt comfortable in ANY subset of the ambient culture. "In the world but not of the world" is not a remote, abstract ideal for me; it's the reality I've pretty much always lived in. The dilemma is to make sure, if I'm not OF the world, that I'm OF something REAL and HOLY. As a consequence, I don't really belong ANYWHERE. I'm ALWAYS stumbling around blindly, bumping into walls I don't see and making faux pas that no one has the heart to tell me about.

Gradually, as I continue about my routine daily tasks, the muddied water from the "no" begins to clear.

Just as expectations are premeditated resentments, I think anticipation is premeditated disappointment. So I know now to look at what I was anticipating, that I am disappointed about not having. It shows me an unfulfilled deep desire in my life, a need perhaps.

In this case, I realize that one of the biggest gaps in the cast of characters in my life is any sort of ongoing fellow traveler on this Christian journey. No matter how intimate my relationships with God and Christ and the Holy Spirit are, they just aren't human relationships, and that's something I think most people need. Healthy ones. And for a Christian journey, Christian ones.

It is partly a wish for simple, mild companionship on this spiritual journey: the kind of friendship to help smooth over the moments of discouragement so that they don't bog me down and throw me off track. Sometimes I just need another human to say "mmhmmmm" and nod or shake their head appropriately while I give myself the luxury of a rare few minutes on the "pity pot". And who will then gently remind me to get OFF the pity pot. The dog listens attentively, but just doesn't "get" my petty trials and triumphs. Not even when she could hear.

It is also, strangely, a wish for someone to hold me accountable on behalf of God. It is very easy to justify to myself my various strayings from what I think is the path God has set me on. Maybe I am entirely deluded as to what the path is and where it is going? There is no one to tell me, "Hey, you're hallucinating! Get it together!" There is no one to have to explain it to. For me, explaining things to another human being is a key way of working them out in my mind. I fall into the gaping holes that I can't even see when I'm just pondering on my own. It's esp. nice to have someone around to help me out of those holes after they help me see them and I fall in! Then they can brainstorm with me how to patch those holes. Furthermore, it keeps me humble.

The novelty here is that I actually encountered someone whom I instinctively trust enough to want to be accountable to them...to be willing and able to say, "Here is what happened, what do YOU think about it, what would YOU do, what are some options for things I could do?" with regard to ethical/spiritual issues, and to not just out-of-hand reject that person's response.

Part of that trust is founded, I think, on feeling that they would not: want power over me for any reason; want to control me or give me advice; want me to depend on them in any way. That there is nothing particular in it for them. I can take or leave their suggestions. Someone who doesn't seem to have a vested interest in me becoming MORE saved or baptized than I already am. Detachment. This is appealing. One of my key life lessons has been to NOT put my faith in any one person, or in any human institution: "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" to paraphrase the Mennonite Confession of Faith. It seems prudent to remain a bit detached from any one person or church.

In this person, I glimpse a level of integrity that resonates with mine, an intentional choice to do the right thing as much as humanly possible. I want to tag along a little while, to measure that integrity, to learn from it, to relax in its safety! Aside from Plain folks, I've met very few Christian folks who demonstrate a certain sort of integrity throughout their daily life. I find this sort of approach to life more among Buddhists...which I resonate with a lot, but those folks are not really interested in my Christian journey. We're all hypocrits to some extent, but at least there are a few rare people who a) realize they are and b) try to be less so. My respect for those few is immeasurable. My hunger to have them for companions on this journey is ravenous, the hunger that comes from starvation.

Such trust is also grounded in the humility (an extremely rare commodity) to admit their own errors and shortcomings in a way that is simple and straightforward, not overwhelmingly self-deprecating. It's the kind of humility that I admire so much in the Old Order ministers I've listened to. It makes it easy to hear things that would otherwise be very hard for me to hear, indeed...and to hear them in a way that I can consider them prayerfully and thoughtfully, in my own time.

It would seem so natural to turn to Plain friends for such fellowship! But the companionship I crave is limited to the members of the church; a more bland friendship is offered to outsiders like me. Plain culture doesn't apparently have a mechanism for such companionship with outsiders, esp. not across gender lines. Virtually all adults "of a certain age" are married...and a married person would not engage in ongoing deep one-on-one discussions with a single person apparently of the "opposite" gender. Yet my perspective and experience more closely resonates with a traditional male perspective, though my body disqualifies me from those circles. To make things more complicated, it would also be questionable to become too close with any particular person apparently of the "same" gender.

When I ate Easter dinner at the home of some OGB friends last year, I ended up literally standing with one foot in the living room engaging in a conversation about bus driving while having the other foot in the kitchen with my attention on making sure I was available should something need chopped or set on the table: an amusing but poignant symbol of my place in their community.

Sigh. New friend "stops" me with a friendly "no." Here I am. A forest of thoughts springs up around this "stop." It's bound to be slow going here as I struggle to unravel the difference between the godly feeling of spiritual loneliness, and the simple human "fleshly lust" of wishing to not live and work so much alone, with no end in sight and so many disappointments behind me. But, God willing, this struggle in the dark forest will eventually be fruitful...

Unless they are nut trees. Then I guess I'm simply nuts....

On Parade

Yesterday was the annual St. Patrick's Day parade in our small city. Quite a big deal this year--I heard there were something on the order of 100 entries.

Someone on the bus commented that they like the St. Patrick's Day parade here because it really shows the town who it is ...the fire department, the electric company (their float had linemen up on utility poles on it...I can imagine their engineers having a blast figuring out how to make that safe!), the day care centers, local businesses, schools, bars, Miss Kansas, you name it. The whole motley assortment. Our other annual parades are perhaps more unique to our community (the horsedrawn Christmas parade, or the art vehicle parade, or the Earth Day parade), but this one is all-inclusive. The parade anyone can be in, the parade for just being seen in a parade.

For me, it was an ordinary work day driving the bus. Well, sort of ordinary. At shift change, when I went on duty, we had to hike across the parade course...making it through just 1/2 block in front of the head of the parade. Traffic! Oh, my! And pedestrians, enough that anarchy took over for the crosswalk lights.

Waiting and waiting in heavy traffic, seeming to go nowhere while theoretically having a schedule, would make others tense, but the job has taught me to just relax and be in the moment. A time to meditate around the edges of full attention to the traffic light before me.

Is this parade really who we are, as a community?

So many people! So focused on one passion--St. Patrick's Day! St. Patrick's Day? Probably few of them know any more about him than I do, so what are they "celebrating" by wearing green--green anything, green everything? Do they even know?

A certain amount is spring fever, a rebound disease from cabin fever. An excuse to be out and about with the kids, to meet up with other families and friends, etc. But a lot of it seems to be simply reiterative. They are excited because the people around them are excited, who are excited because other people are excited...but about what?

Perhaps it is simply that wearing a particular color is one of the safest things they can do together with so many other people--strangers, even. It's something they can agree on, without discussing the details. There is no right or wrong way to do it, you just do it. It's easy. It's cheap. It's one size fits all, good for all ages. It contains no calories (except that green cotton candy) and doesn’t cause cancer (although the green beer was obviously causing some of my customers problems).

But what difference does it make, in the long run? It is so easy to do easy things, but what is the point? This parade may be who we are, but is it who we want to be?

I had a vision of a different parade. A parade for what REALLY matters. A parade about loving our families, whether they are broken or whole, gay or straight, nuclear or extended. A parade about loving our neighbors as our selves, whether they are homeless or housed, renting or owning, like us or different. A parade about loving God, whoever we conceive God to be.

In April, the town will have a parade about loving the earth...an Earth Day parade. Will there be 100 floats? Will there be thousands of children watching us say THIS IS IMPORTANT?
Or will they get the message that wearing green and getting drunk and acting silly is the most important thing our community celebrates?

Who are we? Who do we want to be? When do we start being it?

The rainbow covering reminds me that I am in this world, not of this world. I march in my own parade, I AM a parade every time I walk down the street. A parade of one.

A parade for living out my integrity, for keeping my focus on the things that matter.

You can be in my parade if you want to.

Why not now?