I have one question

Mathew smiled with intrigue as he listened to our story. His eyes were glued with enthusiasm and lust. He looked like a ten-year old kid eyeing the Toys-R-Us Christmas catalog. Everything he had ever desired was right there before him, calling his name, yelling you too can have me!

He told me he had always dreamed of taking off, leaving his life behind, and tasting the dust of the American road. He said he felt complacent and wanted a sense of purpose. He whispered he would like to take a pilgrimage of his own.

“But I have one question,” Matthew said, eyebrows raised, his mind teeter-tottering back and forth between fantasy and bag packed defiance. “What is the one thing you have learned?”

I chucked and gave a half-smile. I do this a lot when I am uncomfortable. It is a defense mechanism. And I thought to myself, “What a freak’n stupid question!”

 

Eric and I get asked this question a lot. And I understand why. We are a drive-through nation. We read blogs to grow in our faith–not the Old Testament. We like concise answers–not a grocery list of thoughts, lessons and experiences.

But even with my own love of Cliff Notes, answering this question with only one answer is impossible. It is like buying a lottery ticket for the Select Five and saying “I think I’ll pick just one”. One ping-pong ball never wins and one answer does not give this pilgrimage justice!

It makes me want to scream “we have taken communion with the homeless, crack addicts and Katrina victims; we have sat at the table with Buddhists, skater-punks, and lesbian mothers; we have listened to the faith journey’s of Santa Cruz surfers, NASCAR preachers and single welfare moms; we have broken the fast of Ramadan, sparred e-mails with Christian author heavyweights, and ran laps with a 6 foot 4, 340 pound unemployed African American man; we have gone through a marriage proposal and a relationship breakup, grad school acceptance and rejection, life decisions and the death of a loved one; We have mentored 13 year old kids recruited by gangs, tutored a 40-yearold woman who did not know long division, and taken care of two three and five year old boys alone for a week; we have traveled the country, had no community but each other, and lived below the poverty level; we have met ministers who lie, cheat and walk the slippery slope of right and wrong while being inspired by the relentless conviction of the beat’n and the rundown; we have prayed with the recovering and the addicted, the North and the South, children and the elderly, the rich and the poor, the straight and the gay, the faithful and the undecided–and after all of this you want me to pick the one thing God has taught me!” Oh Lordy, what to say?

 

I have been reading Anne Lamott this past week. She says she has a friend who describes heaven as a new pair of glasses. Funky, new hipster glasses that allow one to not only see the world differently but to also understand why they see the world that way.

I wonder if this is the short and sugary answer. God has taught us to see the world with compassion and understanding, heartache and fervor, confusion and hope. Here is my answer: He has trusted us with a new set of glasses—specs filled with love, beauty and grace. He has given us sight.

Let us all be four-eyed geeks,

Kent