Learning to Attend

My life has been a whirlwind of travel lately.

In the last three weeks I’ve been to Houston, Central Oregon, Detroit, Los Angeles and Dallas. Tonight I’m at gate C17 in Portland waiting for the red-eye to Chicago. This is an uncommon lot of travel even for me, and I’m not liking it very much. I don’t like being away from the kids, I don’t like being away from Joie. I miss running my regular route with Jack at my heels, I miss playing my bass. I've felt lonely and overworked.

I knew these trips were coming. As they began to line up a few months ago I wondered how I could use them to ready myself for the trip to Mhlosheni this fall. Other than learning, finally, how to sleep in an airplane seat I thought it might also be a good time to learn how to attend.

Grace is all around us, in even the poorest and most trying of circumstances. But we rarely pay attention to it. We rarely open ourselves to it, put ourselves into the role of observer and try to absorb it. We don’t attend to it.

This is probably because we’re equally surrounded by noise and rudeness and sorrow and tragedy, and it’s easier to stay in our own shell. I’m much happier in my shell than out of it. Where the impersonal world is concerned, I’ve always been much better off in a state of detachment than in one of engagement.

But to be a follower of Jesus is to be engaged. In fact, it may be that an honest and caring engagement with the world is more important than maintaining commandments or evangelizing or professing faith. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true. By engaging, by paying attention, we open ourselves to glimpses of grace.

So on these trips I kept my eyes and heart open for glimpses of grace. Here’s what I found:

j On a late night run down by Houston’s Buffalo Bayou I came upon the restored St John’s church. Peering in the windows I felt strangely connected to the narrow worn pews, the unadorned cross, and the simple altar. Where in the past I’d have felt distanced from the worshippers who had prayed there a hundred years ago, I felt like I was finally beginning to surrender my doubts and enter the river of grace they knew.

jDriving on the shallow eastern slopes of Mount Hood Joie and I saw a chestnut horse racing at full speed along a path parallel to the highway. Its shoulders and flanks shimmered and its mane flew straight back from its surging neck. It wasn’t running to or from anything that we could see, it was simply running. It was a spirit-inspired thing, a flowing testament to the beauty of God, living grace.

j On a flight to Los Angeles I chatted with a passenger who was a guitar player, and I found myself explaining—for the first time to any stranger—how I’d discovered participation in worship as a singer and bass player to be the most powerful and moving expression of thanks to God that I could ever imagine giving. He was a non-Christian and I could see, I think, new ideas forming in him of what the Christian life might be made of.

j On a late-night flight to Dallas I sat across the aisle from a young woman traveling with her seven-month old daughter. At one point they fell asleep, baby clutched to mother’s chest, and I was given a glimpse of shalom, of Paul’s “peace that passes all understanding,” of God’s perfect love working in mankind.

j I saw young wives and girlfriends weeping as they said good bye to their men at the security gates. I overheard fathers with cell phones assuring their children they’d be home soon, and I talked to an older couple heading west to meet their first grandchild.

j I’ve seen sunrise and sunsets from all over the country, and really noticed for the first time how easy it is to make a stranger smile when you smile at them first.

j (I’m posting this from my plane change at Las Vegas. I’ve been through here three times in the last three weeks, and I haven’t discovered muh grace. I'm sure it's here somewhere. In fact, if Jesus were around today I think he'd be preahcing and healing and saving in a plce very much like this one.)

I’ve made no secret of the fact that these last three weeks have been arduous, exhausting, and disruptive. I’ve whined about it quite a bit. But as much as I can’t wait for it to be over—one more flight home from Chicago tomorrow!—I think I’m getting closer to be able to attend.

When we fly to Mhlosheni I may be a little better at opening my heart and reaching out to take part in the lives we’ll encounter.