A Beginning

Many times I’ve sat around and wondered if expressing my thoughts out loud would do amount to anything of significance.  And when I do feel like writing anything, by the time I sit down, I write it out and it sounds so bad that I just gave up after a while.

But here’s to an experiement in blogging.  Maybe this time, I won’t worry about how this sounds, because unless you’re pretty keen, you don’t know who I am.  Futility?  Maybe.  But I can deal with that.

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It’s tough to keep things in perspective.  Today was one of those days when I was reminded why spending saturday at homeless ministry was worth it.  I didn’t really want to go at first, with all this work building up and thinking that the whole process isn’t very efficient, where we waste so much time sitting around waiting for people to come.  But I went anyway, and once again had my heart and mind humbled.  We met three men, Merril, Wink and Rick, who were in the woods building a shelter for Rick.  As we went up to talk to them, I could tell they were pretty suspicious at first, and I’ve got to admit that more than once I was thinking that it was about time to get out of there.  But we stayed and ended up talking to them, and before long they were enthusiastically describing how they were building this new shetler for Rick, and how somebody’s who’s not a Steelers fan has no place being in Pittsburgh.  It’s too easy to get jaded and think that we’re too good for the people around us, that just because we have a home and money and security, that others that God loves just as much as we do aren’t worth talking to or spending time with.  Jesus didn’t tell us to feed the hungry or love the lonely because we’re so great and are in a position to be a provider, but because we’re just like them in God’s eyes.  There’s something jarring about realizing that when you’re looking into the face of a homeless man who’s trying to hide a bottle of alcophol from you, but if you really do agree with the way that God sees you, you’ll realize that He sees you as equal to this man right in front of you.

And this is one of the reasons why I believe that following Jesus is worth it and meaningful.  Just because I was born into a good family with good opportunity doesn’t mean I should be inherently worth more than somebody who’s been through some rough patches in life and doesn’t have a place to live.  Christianity strikes me as being a faith that rejects the idea that a person is worth more because of all that he has or has accomplished, and instead we are all sinners in front of a perfect God.  Sincere humility is inherently more attractive than overbearing egotism, and living out a faith like this will naturally produce the former.  Why not strive to live a life that produces that which is most beautiful?