Posted by haakon, Jenny and I have been talking a bit about the fact that we are really good about sitting on the fence. By that I mean that we talk big about what we believe, about what is important to us without letting it affect our lives in any significant way. We are quite adept at maintaining this division between “belief” and action. We would like to do something about this. On Saturday we had a good conversation in which we threw out some thoughts:
1. Just Do Something
Part of the problem is that we are looking for “the big thing” that we should be doing. What should we be spending all our effort on? What drastic life change to we need to make? We are coming to the realization that we need to just start, do something small and go from there. This thought is echoed in a few things we have read recently. “We are called not to be successful but to be faithful” (Mother Theresa). Or, this gem, “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly” (G. K. Chesterton).
For us, we are beginning to think more about poverty and justice. I just finished reading the book “Irresistible Revolution, living as an ordinary radical” by Shane Claiborne. He writes, “I had come to see that the great tragedy in the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor” (113). This hits home to us. We think we would like to be about hospitality, giving food to people who don’t have it, sharing our home, etc. But in reality we don’t even know anyone who has needs like this. So, for us the first step is to get to know those people. Fortunately we have a connection through church to Edinburgh City Mission and we hope to get involved there and begin meeting people that we can be in community with.
2. Living in Scotland has been a good opportunity to get off the fence.
In many ways life in Seattle was a fast track towards the American Dream. When we were first married, both of us were working, earning good money, enjoying a comfortable life in up and coming Ballard. Our first chance to deviate from normal was Jenny stopping her work as a teacher. This decision flew a bit in the face of the American Dream. Yes, it meant we would not be able to buy a house anytime soon. Couldn’t have two sweet cars, can only buy so many books / cds. But, it also meant more time to spend together, more time to spend with others. That our house was free to invite people over. We continue to be really happy with that decision.
In the same way moving to Edinburgh has been another detachment from the American Dream. We have again traded progress financially for experience, learning, and growth. What we fear is that we might not make enough of this opportunity. As we discuss how long we should be here, how much we miss family and friends, one thing we talk about things like “Why we are here? What we are supposed to be learning. Have we accomplished what we came here for?” Jenny put it more strongly yesterday, saying that we can’t leave Scotland until we have learned / changed enough (begs the question, ‘how do you define enough?’). And even then, should we return to our Seattle life? By then we will have three people in our family, and it would be even more natural to follow the normal way of things. Who knows? But we do think we have more to learn here.
3. At some point, we need to try out life that is 100% other / God focused.
While point 1 is true (just do something, however small), sometimes it is necessary to make more drastic changes. Again quoting from The Irresistible Revolution “If you ask most people what Christians believe, they can tell you, ‘Christians believe that Jesus is God’s Son and that Jesus rose from the dead.’ But if you ask the average person how Christians live, they are struck silent. We have not shown the world another way of doing life. Christians pretty much live like everybody else; they just sprinkle a little Jesus in along the way” (117). If we only ever make small changes we risk having lives just like everyone else, with a little bit of Jesus sprinkled here and there. So we find ourselves thinking that at some point we are going to need to try something a bit more radical, and that it won’t lend itself nicely to the life we have right now.
This is a all a bit nebulous right now. What does it mean? How would we do it? What is “it”? For how long? Where? I suppose the closest thing we could describe it to is missions work, or community living, or something of that sort. There are lots of logistical challenges, but we are keeping this in the back of our heads.
So, these are our thoughts while we sit on the fence. Meanwhile, we will try to get started with something small!
~haakon
