meditation on simple things

This generation is pragmatic: the college life is mostly about getting a job. Time after time, the answer to the question, “Why are you here?” the answer is “to become qualified for a _____ (a job).

Those in IT want to connect the world; those in education want to teach the world; meteorologists want to predict the weather for a living. The list goes on and on.

Wouldn’t it be fine if all of us would become qualified for the job of being faithful? Would we be changed if we did that? How about taking on the tenets of our faith and put them into play for the world?

In the movie, “Ghandi”, the lead character said something like this in commenting to a Christian missionary who come to Southern Africa to be with Ghandi in his struggle for human rights: “I love your Christianity. There is so much to it, especially in the simple phrases: Love your enemies, turn the other cheek. If we could all turn the other cheek, we would take the blows of the police again and again. We will fight them with our unwillingness to give them blows in return. We will break them by taking the blows. The blows they give us will hurt them. They can arrest us and put us in jail if they wish, but they will not have our conscience. We will not bow.”

That’s the kind of comment that makes faith understandable as a very practical matter. Just as students are learning how to put theory into practice, so too should we all be putting the theory of faith into practice. Putting the simple tenets of love into play is the job for which faithful people train. We must become activists in our faith and put it into play in the world. That kind of pragmatism means faith is a lifestyle, not just something to be understood.

Bill Coffin put it succinctly: “…a broken pride does not make for passivity as I had thought. “The world owes me a living”--that’s passive. “I owe the world and God a life”—that’s active.

I encourage us all to take something from ourfaith and put it into play today. We owe the world—and God—a life.