Uncovering Joy: Whole World
“While the Day of Pentecost was running its course they were all together in one place, when suddenly there came from the sky a noise like that of a strong driving wind, which filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues like flames of fire, dispersed among them and resting on each one. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began talking in other tongues, as the spirit gave them power of utterance.” Acts 2:1-4 NEB
Between here and there was Whole Foods. I was alone after a conference on internet law and wanted a quick bite to eat before I started running around and through the city. Back in Columbus, I do not live in the right area to have a Whole Foods. I soon found that it was close to some of the notions that had been passed on to me. The food selection is wonderful – the best of best of best. The prices were as people have said on occasion – whole paycheck. There was an upscale feel to the place that catered to people on the move – great place for singles to meet other singles.
So here at the edge of Central Park and across the street from the Trump Hotel I was meandering through a long line in a place that was filled with a Pentecostal host of flavors and colors and sounds and wonder. I found myself walking through a whirlwind of activity blessed with the presence of the unique diversity of our humanity. Not only was there a bountiful display of people winding through the store and toward an enormous bank of cash registers, the food was just as bountiful, colorful, and embracing the wide-expanse of our worldwide tastes.
There were booths filled with families and tables over-stuffed with high school students in various uniforms. I took my food to a long snake-like table that was already quite full of people. It reminded me of the first time I was in a restaurant in Cambridge, England. While a few of us were eating, a man simply made himself at home at a vacant chair at our table and he started to eat and read his newspaper. No conversation was expected. We were there to eat.
On this day in New York not only did we share tables – the tables were filled with a global expression. The women to my right and across the table - were Japanese. The two women across the table and to my left were Muslims. The woman and her young daughter to my immediate left were African-American. In the booth near our table was an older white woman sitting with what appeared to be a daughter and granddaughter. Here in the middle of what seemed to be chaos was the whole world acting as though we truly were a whole – a united – a healed – a gifted world. I came to eat and I was being fed by what was in front of me at my place at the table and what was in front of me and around me in the likes of the textures and colors of God’s people.
We are not made to walk around and avoid such gifts. We are created to be a part of a divine wholeness that is so close to us. And yet, it can be missed if we do not pause and look up. Urban spirituality takes seriously that “strong driving wind” that will be the power to open our eyes and our hearts and our minds to the wild, freshness of life that cannot be contained within my mere experience of life as I might want it to be. To look up and see what is not me is to be filled with a Spirit of life that brings together that which was thought to be separated. In one glance, there was the whole world –an amazing bit of grace. What an opportunity for transformation and liberation and utter praise. It is quite real that such a picture can bring up within us all the biases and bigotry and prejudices and stories that would remind us to keep away from those unlike us. And yet, the Spirit of Wholeness will not be held back from putting in our pathways the reality of God’s whole world in God’s hands.
There are times in all of our lives when we long to be somewhere other than the place in which we live and walk and breathe every day. Urban spirituality is made up of the fleeting moments when we lift up of our heads and behold God‟s presence abiding with us. Maybe nothing more is needed than that. Maybe this is enough. In those simple, regular, plentiful moments we can either look away, thinking nothing of the moment, or we can become a people who have flames of new life dancing on our heads and awakening vision and hope and life that stretches our imagination and then leads us to new life.
In the biblical picture of a packed upper room in Jerusalem, there may have been some people who decided to walk out of that room of flames and wind and familiar tongues coming forth from strange people on the Day of Pentecost. Then again, in the storytelling of the Church enough stayed and listened and were amazed. Those who stayed found the great joy of life that is handed to us from our God. It is a joy that moves like a brush fire that fills the spaces and times of our lives - a now that is full of wind and fire and life.
We live in a day not unlike others. Too often differences among us become that which creates the separation that so quickly moves toward violence directed at those who we identify as other. It is not easy to live alongside the strangeness that can be our neighbors. Many times I find that we can be quick to label this strangeness in negative terms. Rather than being drawn toward those who are different from us, this can easily become our reason to stay off to ourselves and never come close to the rest of our humanity. It becomes easy to label and even easier to make the labels stick. We can do this labeling no matter where we live. Part of urban spirituality is to give ourselves the breathing space to ask questions. These questions may be those which we direct toward ourselves so that we become critical of our need to label. At other times it means taking on the discipline of asking questions when we do not understand what the Spirit is whipping up around us.
It may sound like urban spirituality demands that we all be extroverts who are able and ready to strike up conversations with everyone we meet. I must say that I admire people who are gifted with the ability to readily engage strangers and do so with a sense of grace and amazement. For some people, the wind of the Spirit quite literally comes to shape in words and conversation and real dialogue. For others, the simple experience of walking alongside others and within rooms and streets and neighborhoods presents an opportunity to be lifted up and to take notice of the bountiful strangeness that is a portrait of our humanity. Being present in places where the many facets of God's image are readily available can draw us out of ourselves and into a moment of fiery insight that begins to open up our world view.
Urban spirituality has a place for the extroverts and the introverts to be transformed. If my wife would have been with me at that Whole Foods and we would have sat at that same winding table, she – the extrovert – would have engaged everyone in conversation. Within that conversation, she would have experienced the wonder that is intended to take place when God's children step onto common ground for just a moment in time. There is a good chance that we would have both found that experience delightfully filled with joy. And yet, we would have uncovered that joy in different ways. Joy-filled, we would have been swept up by this incidental revelation of the wholeness of God‟s Reign.
I would be neglectful if I did not mention the fact that such adventures among the diversity of God’s people will also uncover the sides of life we would rather not experience. Sometimes, we must face violence in the presence of others. Sometimes, we will be frightened to be near others. Sometimes, stereotypes that have found a resting place in the cracks of our lives will come alive and show themselves to be quite real. Sometimes, we will want to turn away and stay to ourselves and leave this diversity and variety to others. And yet, it is within those moments that we are handed a time for contemplation that is vital to our spiritual growth. For in those moments, we must come to grips with the power that seeks to divide. This power is very real and it permeates all of our lives. Within the sacred wholeness of God’s Reign the powers of our sin – our brokenness – will find ways to pervert that which is “good.” We must not walk away from such truthfulness.
If God created humankind in God’s own image, then it is within the full span of our humanity that we will come to understand a bit more of whose we are and who we are able to become. We all know that it takes less effort to be with those who are like us. We all know that those who share our values or our goals or our opinions are those with whom we find ourselves spending the days of our lives. And yet, each time we are pushed by a spirited wind into a situation that is not at all like we would like it to be, we are being pushed to see more of ourselves – that which is acceptable to us and that which we would sooner reject. Urban spirituality becomes a life of pushing and pulling that is available to us even as we are simply sitting down for a quick lunch.
TRRR
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