Surprised by Community

During our July summer vacation, after my wife, daughter and I drove over 1,200 miles to visit my parents, they told us a wonderful story of hospitality and community.

Over the Fourth of July weekend, they were taking a few days away and staying together at what people in Michigan call a “cottage.”  People in Texas would call it a “vacation home.”  A small town nearby was advertising a community-wide pig roast on the 4^th.  My parents thought it would be fun to attend. So they did, knowing no one there.

After they got their food and looked for a seat, they saw a table with some open seating. They sat down to eat and noticed a young 20-something couple sitting nearby. Judging by their dress, my parents could see they were Old Order Amish. They, too, seemed to know no one.  After a bit, my parents struck up a conversation with them and learned that the couple lived a couple hundred miles away. How, my parents wondered, does an Old Order Amish couple who use only horse and buggy for transportation get to a pig roast a three-hour drive from home?

The young couple explained that they had never had a vacation since they were married, not even a honeymoon. So this was their first vacation ever. With their three children staying with their parents, they paid a driver to drive them to this area for their “vacation.” After three days, the driver would pick them up and return them home.

The conversation flowed easily, with my parents asking some not-too- intrusive questions about their way of life.  My parents, strangers themselves, were practicing hospitality in a strange place, reaching out to another pair of strangers. Returning the hospitality, the Amish couple then invited my parents to their home for an Amish meal.

On the agreed-upon date, my parents made three-hour trip to the home of their newly-found acquaintances. They shared a wonderful meal together, while my parents continued to learn more about the Amish lifestyle—complete with a buggy ride. What my parents experienced on these occasions, in addition to delicious meals, was community. These Christians of very different flavors, both strangers in a strange place, reached out to each other and made room in their lives for each other. They each blessed each other and were blessed in the process. That is the kind of community we envision in our recent book Community; Making Room for Relationship. Practicing hospitality is just one of the habits that Jesus practiced during his time on earth – and one that he desires us to continue developing and practicing until he returns.

What kind of busyness do you have?

At one of our recent “Leading People from Busy to Engaged” workshops one pastor interjected with the question: “Are you too busy?” I believe I responded something like: “I am often on the extended side of busy, and lately I have been a little too busy.”

 Now that I’ve had more time to think about that exchange, I would suggest that the right question is: “Are you too busy for spiritual growth and passionate service?” To that I can answer, “rarely.”

My passion is growing people of Christ-like character. I want to spread character development across the breadth of the church. More often than I would like, I’m so engrossed in the details involved in tending to this toddling nonprofit that I lose sight of the vision that drives my passion and I find myself  drained, physically and emotionally. Yet, my busyness is still about moving forward that for which God has me on this earth.

On most days I am still journaling, practicing a private lectio divina and examen of consciousness. Those disciplines have become the bedrock of my spiritual practices. Yet, here too I could thrive and do much better. I have had the same spiritual director for over 15 years. She has been getting quite old. I am saddened and embarrassed to say that it has been a long time since I have met with her. Recently I attempted to make an appointment only to find that she had fallen ill and died suddenly a year ago.  I will never forget her reminder to “find God in all things.” I am still making time for spiritual growth, not too busy for that--though I would like to reinvest effort into it.

Are you too busy? Remember, the question is not simply are you busy or not? The real question ist whether busyness is distracting you from your spiritual growth and passionate service. In the current culture, busyness is inevitable.. But busyness with a purpose is enriching and fulfilling. One person said it well in their evaluation of a “Leading People from Busy to Engaged” workshop. The right kind of busyness is about “transforming ordinary busyness to kingdom busyness.”

The experience I had a key role in creating,  Charting Your Course often helps people be busy about the best things for them. It moves them away from ordinary busyness, toward kingdom busyness.

Clothes that last 40 years!

Yet the LORD says, “During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness,

your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet."

Deuteronomy 29:5

Last month, I attended a niece’s wedding with our 28-year-old son. Sitting with one foot across his knee as we waited to be ushered out of the ceremony, he pointed out that he had just recently bought a new pair of black dress shoes—replacing the ones we’d bought him for his 8th grade graduation eleven years ago! Not only that, he says he is still wearing the same black trousers that he wore for that occasion. I can hardly believe it!

“Seriously,” I asked, “your shoe size hasn’t changed since 8th grade?

“No,” he laughed.

And while his waist is still as slight as a barely teenager, I can’t believe he hasn’t added at least an inch or two to his height in the last decade. He insists it’s true.

I’m more surprised that those shoes still fit him than that they lasted as long as they did, after all, he probably only wore them once a week, max, for most of those years. Honestly, all I remember him wearing to church during his high school years was a favorite pair of soccer shoes. He is a cabinet maker/furniture craftsman, so dress shoes are not his everyday footwear. Still—eleven years!

“They just sort of fell apart one day,” he explained. “I was walking and felt something squishy. The soles were completely disintegrating.”

I’m delighted with him and for him that those shoes lasted so long. He and his wife are just getting started in life. Avoiding or delaying unnecessary expenses is a big part of their life. They are happy to make do with what they have. I’m thrilled those shoes made do as long as they did.

I think about God’s reminder to the Israelites—in forty years of wondering in the wilderness, neither their clothes nor sandals wore out. Not for lack of wear or tear. Surely, 40 years of desert wandering would take its toll on footwear. But, God didn’t allow it – and in his mercy and faithfulness brought them through the wilderness intact – shoes and all.

Sometimes I speak pretty glibly of God’s faithfulness. His mercies are new every morning—and I tend to take them for granted. I expect to greet the new day with a modicum of health, food in the pantry and a plan for the day. It’s good to be reminded that God is interested – and does something—about even the seemingly most insignificant details of our life—like making shoes last.

By Judy Hagey, Director of Writing Projects with Ascending Leaders and freelance writer and editor