Posts Tagged ‘human’

“Anybody doing anything tonight?”

It’s a phrase we frequently use when we’re bored. Or maybe we’re just looking for something to do. Something to entertain us. Or we need some people to hang out with.

Why?

Why do we always have to be with someone? Why do we always have to be doing something? Well… I suppose by the nature of being human we are always doing something – eating, sleeping, sitting, playing. But we fail to recognize that “doing nothing” is actually doing something – for good or bad.

I walked into my home yesterday evening after a day of working with MVNU students doing some home repair work for a family in our community. There were well over 30 different people in and out of the home where we were working. Hammers were banging. Circular saws were screaming. Drills were… drilling. Though it was quite fulfilling to be actively engaged in serving a family who needed a little help, the silence I encountered upon arriving home was beautiful. I needed to sit and think. I needed to decompress. I needed to do nothing.

As I was installing some electrical wiring with a friend earlier that day we were talking about the home makeover project and the students who initiated it. In the midst of our discussion my friend stated, “It just makes sense. This is what the church should be doing.”  Simultaneously we looked at each other and said, “All the time.” I realized once I got home that the statement was a bit hyperbolic. I needed the silence. I needed solitude for meditation and prayer. I needed to rest in the presence of God – Alone. Quiet. Listening. Thinking.

We can default to either extreme – doing something all the time or doing nothing. Do you find yourself doing nothing? It could be that in the moments of doing nothing you really are doing nothing – nothing but sitting around hoping to be entertained or complaining about the church doing nothing. Or you could really be doing nothing as a healthy form of Sabbath and rest.

How do we go about doing something while still doing nothing? How do we avoid doing nothing in order to actually do something?

Do you ever find yourself thinking about how lost you are?

Maybe you recognize intellectually that there are some things we just can’t know. Maybe you hear someone talking about religious things and think to yourself… “Whaaaaat?” Maybe you feel like the things you do directly contradict your identity. Maybe you don’t know which way to turn next – if there is a right way, right?

For me, I recognize seasons in life when I stop just long enough to reflect on who I am and rediscover the real me – my identity. I realize that there are many things that are contributing to possessing a sense of being lost.

Sarah and I have been watching all the seasons of the television series LOST. I was hoping or am just now at least recognizing that I should have blogged as we watched. We have been so consumed by continuing to view more episodes that I have not had nearly adequate time to process all my thoughts in writing. I was able to predict relatively early in the show’s narrative that there is an element of shifting and moving through the quite fluid spacial and chronological dimensions of reality. The questions for the characters continue to be not only, “Where are we?” but also, “When are we?” and “Who are we?” I find myself empathizing with the characters’ understanding that being stranded on an island is not the greatest of problems compared to being internally lost and in need of searching to find ourselves. We are enslaved to realities that are that alter perception and skew a clear vision of self-discovery.

How can I avoid season after season after season of sensing a continuous state of being lost? How do I sift through all the competing voices that suggest how I should speak and act? How do I rediscover who I am?

A designer.
A mourner.
A creator.
A questioner.
A lover.
A thinker.
A writer.
A consumer.
A teacher.
A failure.
A mentor.
A peacemaker.

A human.
Intricately created to be who I am.

A final season of LOST may provide some plot and character closure but we, the viewer – the real subject of the narrative, continue struggling, season after season, to accept that we once were lost but may be found – by ourselves.

Found.
As is.
As me.

Are you lost?