There and Back Again

I have not tried anything remotely like this on this blog yet. Likely I won’t do it often. Let me know waddya think. So, with a little trepidation …

Once upon a time, a young man was selected from those in his parish to go on a mission. He was excited and had some nervousness in the months prior to leaving, and used every waking moment to prepare for his departure. He read some on the customs and languages of the place he was to go. But, as he was assured that he would have excellent guides he mostly worried about his studies and his faith. When he was at worship he tried to remember all of the parts of worship and liturgy. He tried to imagine for everything that he saw, did and observed, that if he was asked he might be called to remember why a thing was done and why it was so. Therefore he asked questions of everyone incessantly and constantly trying to make sure he had it all right. Then came the momentous day.

He was to leave. Departure and his journey passed in a confusing frantic blur, mixed with delay, and dark quiet airline seats and awareness that the sounds and smells and people around him were becoming less and less like those which he was familiar.

For the land in which he was going, people of his faith were rare and unknown. He would indeed be a stranger in a land of strange and unknown customs, patterns and practices. Accordingly, at all times he regarded himself as an ambassador of his faith. That his every fleeting contact, every action would be a chance to connect with these strangers, to show by his love, his charity, his presence what sort of faith and people he represented. At first every act he performed, he did somewhat self-consciously reflecting that each act would be observed, perhaps critically, by strange unloving, judgmental eyes. Those eyes, trying to discern by his actions what sort of man he was … and thereby what sort of a people those of his faith were. Eventually, the self-consciousness faded somewhat as many of his actions and responses became more habitual. But that didn’t help at all. For it really didn’t get easier, those things which became habit exposed all the other things which he was forgetting or didn’t learn as well as he should have during his prior frantic, inadequate, and continuing, but now more careful, study.

Then came the time to return.

How was he changed by his trip? Why did he even have to leave for that change to take place? Why don’t we all always treat our every action as if we are that man representing Christ and his Church here in this strange land here on the hard lonely side of the eschaton?

Filed under: Christianity • Mark O. • Religion • You Cry Out

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