On a sunny morning in June, 2003, two days after my 37th birthday, I had an unsolicited, unexpected and unbelievable encounter with God. Put more simply, without asking, praying or seeking, I woke up one morning a churchgoing agnostic (following years of rabid atheism) and put my head to the pillow that night a newly minted, highly unlikely Christian. I wish I could say my radical conversion happened gently…all harps and angels and light…but that was not my experience. On the contrary, I was nauseous, had trouble catching my breath and felt like there was a 500 lb weight on my chest. I thought I was having a heart attack. But here’s the kicker. A lifelong skeptic who was, at times, militantly anti-Christian, I suddenly believed without hesitation that the Christian story that I had frequently railed against was true. I couldn’t have told you what that story was, but I knew without the luxury of details that it was all true. Now this might make some sense if I needed a spiritual experience. Say if I was fighting a serious illness or was down on my luck financially-or maybe if I were struggling with a painful loss or trying to navigate a tough personal challenge. But I didn’t need a spiritual experience. As far as I was concerned, my life was perfect. I was a successful PR executive making a healthy six-figure salary, married to my best friend who also made a six-figure salary. We had three healthy, happy kids and lived in our dream home about an hour northwest of New York City. I was seven years sober and had faced down most of my major issues/resentments in a program of recovery. Life was pretty good. Yet, there I was-sick, crying and convinced that something beyond my comprehension had happened to me. No one was more surprised than my husband Martin, who was there with me when it happened. He had been a Christian since he was a kid and knew the extent to which I thought the whole Christian thing was a contrivance. I had fought vigorously over coffee and cigarettes to convince him that religion had been created by leaders to control the masses or by weak individuals to soften the blow of their incapacity to deal with their day to day lives. He never did come around to my way of thinking, but I figured if he could overlook the fact that I was an alcoholic single mother with two kids and marry me, I could overlook the fact that he was a Christian and marry him. So here I was, convinced that this Christian thing was true, with no idea what that really meant. What followed was years of learning that is discussed in much greater detail in a book that I am writing. Suffice it to say that I learned that following Christ and living by the dictates of the Holy Spirit does not always add up to the overly simplified “join the team and your life will be wonderful” message that I have heard so frequently. As a matter of fact, the years since that day in 2003 have been some of the most difficult I have ever encountered. We have lost more than you can imagine-money, possessions, prestige and people. And yet, I would not turn back for the world. So, now I’m trying to make sense of this new life. Attempting to go beyond predictable platitudes in order to allow this change of heart to lead to a genuine change of life. This blog will chronicle the day to day joys and trials of my journey and raise some key questions and challenges I face as I find my place in a faith that still confounds me.
Woke this morning thinking about the scripture that says the early Christians liquidated all they had and used it to serve God and one another.
44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:44-47)
I wonder how much that happens today? I know that there are pockets of it – in the monastery or among the new monastics. And most churches have some kind of a deacon’s fund that is available to people when they have nowhere else to turn.
But I’m not asking about those kinds of structured arrangements.
I’m wondering if the average person on an average day, when they see that their neighbor needs a hand, a word of encouragement, or a few dollars to make it to their next paycheck, feels drawn to offer support. I am not talking about close friends, or even the amorphous, nameless “poor” who are served from a distance through checks, canned food and used clothes from our closets. I am talking about people in our communities that we encounter every day. If Christian faith is, in fact, a transforming faith. If acceptance of a journey away from a life of self-service and toward Christ is actually a radical shift that is incomparable to other journeys one might choose, is there evidence of that transformation in the day to day lives of most people who claim to be Christian?
Is there evidence of it in mine?
posted November 16, 2009 at 11:09 am
Those Christians mentioned in Acts were Judean Christians.
Unfortunately, most of us today are European (ized) -Christians.
posted November 16, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Francis of Assisi was a European!
The poverty of Frances, it is interesting to note, was not simply about helping the poor (which he did) but was about letting go of our need to cling to possessions — a clinging which got in the way of relationship.
Like the Buddhists, his approach had to do with understanding the ways in which our attachment to possessions ruined our ability to see one another as divine, as brothers and sisters.
Christ, it seems to me, addressed the issues of the poor, not in a vacuum but rather in the context of how the misuse of power by a few brought about the poverty of many. In the end, it was not about poverty itself, it was about how we managed relationships.
posted November 16, 2009 at 2:08 pm
You mention helping “from a distance,” which I think points to the heart of the matter: Without true relationships it’s hard to truly help others. Not only are we more suspicious and less motivated to help when we don’t know the people who need help, but we also can’t be as effective, because it’s about so much more than money.
My church doesn’t do this perfectly (or anything perfectly), but I’ve been really encouraged by a couple of amazing examples recently. Here’s one: In Sept. we started hosting a soup kitchen that serves lunch to 125+ each day. Several of the people who frequent the soup kitchen have also started coming to worship with us on Sunday mornings. Yesterday we had a fellowship potluck after church–not to feed “hungry people,” but to be a family together. I looked around our fellowship hall and saw all kinds of people with all kinds of needs (including me and my needs) sitting and eating together. That’s when the soup kitchen goes that extra step and becomes real–not just when we’re willing to “help” those who need help, but also when we’re willing to invite them into “our” world and spend time with them.
(I think I need to write a blog post about this!)
posted November 16, 2009 at 2:51 pm
On the whole, Christians can be very charitable, but there’s charity and then there’s charity.
True charity, giving of oneself to help others in need is one thing. Tax deductible “charity” that helps to pay for that $2 million auditorium or the million-dollar mansion the pastor is living with that has his name on the deed is charity of an entirely different sort.
posted November 18, 2009 at 9:08 am
Kristin: The story about your church takes the soup kitchen from an “us and them” activity to an act of community. Love that.