The Mundane Into The Glorious

Author’s Note:

I want to express my sincerest gratitude to those of you who read along with my blog stories and musings. I am often encouraged by the replies that I receive. Your comments serve to reinforce and further bless me in my own spiritual convictions.

Emily has been kind enough to allow me to share an excerpt from an email with me relating how our day-to-day humble service is important. The work that we might be tempted to consider dull or inconsequential or trivial is sacred

(*As usual: names, locations, identifying data have been altered)

Email Excerpt:

“Our small, insignificant mundane acts can still be sacred acts to God. Perhaps?"

Yes - definitely!

After my youngest started school, I was feeling a bit useless. I remember, after perhaps drinking a bit too much wine at home one time, bemoaning that I felt like a "waste of space".  I was missing the status of having a career and being needed 24/7 by small children. I didn't know what to do next with my life now that I was no longer “needed”.

Finally I got a job doing the bookkeeping in a little office next to a small joiners workshop with the wood dust and loud machines and loud blokes hollering and swearing. It felt like a big step down from what I was used to do, but the hours were convenient so I took the job, working for a lovely lady called Helen (*). The record books were in a terrible mess at the workshop. Helen hadn't balanced the bank accounts in over a year and I wondered how she could continue to operate. I slowly starting unpicking the figures and bringing things up to date.

So I worked at the joiners two days a week and spent the rest of the time helping my friend Miriam dig her garden allotment and chatting to my neighbour, Sandra, over her fence.

One week I sat in church and asked God what I was supposed to be doing. I asked Him what He saw in me and what was my purpose in life. The vicar was talking, but I wasn't really listening. I just stared at the pale figure of Christ in the stained glass.

Suddenly a question popped up. "Can you be a servant?" The question seemed to come from the stained-glass window I was staring at.

"But I don't want to be a servant,” I replied, without thinking it was just a little strange to be having a conversation with a stained glass window.

Then I remembered the words in the Methodist Covenant Prayer: Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee, exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

As I sat staring at the figure of Christ in the stained glass, I began to realise that the reason Helen hadn't been looking after the bank accounts for her workshop was that she was so busy attending to the needs of a sickly friend. Helen was unable to manage the accounts because she was spending her time, instead, taking her friend with cancer to chemotherapy appointments and looking after her friend’s children.  But now Helen had a bookkeeper (me). Now she could continue to care for her cancer friend without worrying over her business affairs. My humble tallying of mathematical figures in the joiner’s business accounts was a worthy occupation and was necessary for the smooth running of the business but also blessed others in ways I did not initially realise. Helen had peace of mind and her sick cancer friend benefited through my careful booking efforts as well. My “insignificant” efforts in balancing the business books blessed others in ways I never imagined.

As I let that first realisation sink into my consciousness, a second awareness dawned. Miriam, the neighbour that I helped dig in her garden, actually spent those long hours cultivating her allotment because it took her mind off a series of miscarriages. I couldn't fix these, but I could relate, and I could sit out in the sun and the rain with her while she grieved. To ‘weep with those who weep’ was an act of love that was within my capacity to give Miriam.

And then, as I continued to sit in church and absorb the full impact of this second act, a third thought struck me. (It was becoming a very fruitful ‘conversation’ with a stained-glass window).  I realised that the reason Sandra sat out in her garden by her fence, hour after hour, was that she was lonely. Her husband had recently died leaving her all alone but she was reluctant to go and knock on anyone's door for fear of being an "imposition". Instead she sat outside by her fence, hoping for someone to come by and talk with her. I couldn't fix the death of Sandra’s husband but I could listen and chat with her.

So, there I was in church, still staring at the pale figure of Christ in the glass window without listening to the Vicar’s message but hearing a message from God nonetheless. I’d been thinking about Solomon in the Bible when he built the temple mentioned in Chronicles. It took thirteen years with the craftsman having to make all sorts of paraphernalia out of wood and metal. Their work must have been quite boring and tedious, detailed workmanship to create such intricate temple ornaments according to the tight specifications. (In fact, just reading the story in Chronicles is rather mind numbing and a good treatment for insomnia!) Perhaps the craftsmen as they carved out yet another silver embellishment wondered why they were doing it; but, God honoured their work. When all was finished, His glory descended upon the temple and it was, well, glorious. So, too, God was being honoured by my own faithfulness to the small acts of day-to-day service opportunities. I was like the craftsmen in Chronicles with my attention to the details of my accounting, my digging, and my chatting. They were important sacred acts of loving service to God. The mundane made glorious in Christ.

“That our sanctification did not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for GOD’s sake, which we commonly do for our own. …That the most excellent method he had found of going to GOD, was that of doing our common business without any view of pleasing men, and (as far as we are capable) purely for the love of GOD.”

― Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

Don't Welcome Me Back Home

Photo: Natasha Kanji 2011

A/N: Thoughts after attending the Institute of World Mission Welcome Home Family Re-entry Seminar 2015. I'd rather have a mission than welcome home accolades. 

Don’t Welcome Me Back Home

“My desire is to depart ... But to remain in the flesh is more necessary .... Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again…”

Philippians 1:24-26

I don’t want your welcome back greetings.

Please don’t think me ungrateful. Obviously, I won’t tell you to stop since I know you mean well. Your motives are pure.

But the greeting is erroneous. I am not  back home. Not by my definition of ‘home’ anyway.  Home doesn’t represent a permanent place on earth for me. Yes, there are pockets of space where I am best adapted, places I feel safe and abide within a relatively congenial community. These locations are familiar to me. They are a domicile where I sleep and eat my meals and where I am most relaxed and at ease. But they are not home. Instead, my heart yearns for a deeper home.

As C.S. Lewis so eloquently penned in the following quote:

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”      ― C.S. Lewis

Living for any significant period in another country, another culture changes you. Whether you were an accountant, a nurse, or a pastor, you cannot leave without permanent scars. The simple act of surviving in a foreign environment spoils naïve ideas about a cohesive, simplistic worldview.  The world is a messy place to live where chaos thrives. Submerged under the colours of a strange and different culture, you emerge with multicoloured lenses. Unlike real glasses though, you can’t remove them. There is no returning to your virgin views.

Even as your heart aches for home, a permanent resting place, travelling around the world proves there is no place completely safe, completely perfect. Heaven is not yet; it is still a hope; your heart’s anticipated future. You may have citizenship in your passport country but real homage belongs to the Lord of heaven and earth. We are citizens of another world as Paul outlines in Philippians chapter 1, verse 20: “…But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ…”

And so… I remind you, there’s no need to welcome me back home. No adulations, please. Don’t put me on a pestle and treat me like a hero. Don’t try to reacclimatise me to a life of mundane mediocrity with wrappings of cultural adaptation. Instead, remind me that there is a reason for reverse culture shock.  Acknowledge that there’s a basis for why I don’t feel at home. Tell me there is value in my brokenness. Comfort me with words that give meaning to the bleeding of my wounds.

Don’t tell me everything will be ok.

Don’t tell me to ‘give it time’.

Instead, remind me I’m part of a bigger picture. These tears that flow without warning from deep recesses of my soul are reminders that the process of homecoming isn’t finished. The grand universal cosmic conflict is still ongoing and I have a part to play in it.  The epic isn’t complete. The novel hasn’t come to the last page.

When I am overwhelmed by yet another teary-eyed patient in my office with problems beyond medical solutions, remind me that I’m still God’s hands to comfort the suffering.  

When the sun has set and I’m putting in prescription renewals and answering messages while completing a hectic days worth of charting, all the while tired and hungry because I’ve missed lunch and now supper, tell me that the sacrifice is worth it.

When I fear I cannot face another unsatisfied patient seeking easy fixes for unsolvable circumstances, remind me I’m an ambassador of love and not of miracles. And when he gets angry and storms out of the room because I suggest changes in diet and weight loss to ease his aching arthritic knees or bring his diabetes under control, remind me again that I can still love without expectation or reciprocity.

I don’t need a hero’s welcome home. I don’t want a hero’s welcome.

I want a hero’s mission.

Remind me I’m part of a higher calling. I’m still part of a mission. I still have a job to do on this earth to represent Christ’s love to those I come in contact with each day.

Remind me that my mission service is not over. I am not coming home. I survived five years in Cameroon as a naïve and inexperienced physician. Through threats, thefts, fire, and tragedies, I survived and came through changed for the better. When I am tempted to forget, remind me of those valuable lessons I learned through people management, administrative duties, intercultural communication, adaptation, and flexibility. I am stronger than before. I survived adversities and adulations in Cameroon. Surely I can endure the challenges of today.

When I sigh and complain that home is tedious and dull, don’t tell me to appreciate my blessed abode. . Instead, remind me that I’m not home. I remain God’s ambassador to the world, whether here or in Africa. He hasn’t called it quits on my mission yet. There is a purpose in the pain that imbues meaning in the suffering. I can accept the frustrations, disappointments, disillusionments, and fatigue when I remember that this isn’t the end. The mission continues.

“ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.”

2 Corinthians 5: 18-20

The Flight

Some of you may be familiar with this little story but I like it and felt it was worth retelling. Nice reminders about listening to God’s prompts and caring about others.

The Flight

“The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.”

― Wilhelm Stekel

The tall slender man scanned the seats on the airline. The flight was overbooked. The attendant had been kind enough to squeeze him into the last available spot. At least, that’s what she’d claimed.

John smiled to himself. Rows and rows of cramped airline seats with hairy (and not so hairy) heads lined each side of the aisle. And yet, at his row, no telltale scrap of fluff appeared. Score -- an empty seat! He heaved a sigh of relief.

It wasn’t that the young man was opposed to conversation. In fact, on the flight East he’d spent an enjoyable few hours flirting with the attractive female flight attendant. At the end, they’d even exchanged phone numbers. But today, John felt the twinges of a higher calling.

Before the day began, John usually offered up a short prayer to God. “God, lead me to the people you want me to meet today.” Somehow, without trying, the conversations would end up touching another person’s spiritual soul.

“What kind of work are you in? Have you read any good books recently? What was that like?” John was interested in people. He exuded a genuine interest in other people that they responded to and in return, opened up about their own problems. Witnessing wasn’t about preaching; it was about having a sincere concern for another human being – viewing them with the same value as God.

But today John wasn’t feeling particularly interested in selfless conversation. His ego was rather proud of how he’d charmed the lovely flight attendant on the last flight.

“Come, on, John. Ask me.” God whispered quietly yet insistently as he boarded the plane. “Ask me to lead you to those people who need a hint of My love through you today.”

John shook his head. “Not today, God.”

“John,” God’s whisper was a bit sterner, “ask me.”

“No,” he persisted and dug his hands deeper into his pockets.

Now he breathed a sigh of relief. He wouldn’t have to sit next to someone trying to ignore his inner conscious, reminded by his seatmate of God’s earlier request. God couldn’t blame him for not reaching out to a non-existent seatmate, after all.

Relief turned to momentary panic though when John reached his row. There was a little girl sitting next to window! A small, blond-haired thing, definitely under the age of ten. Visions of kicking, screaming, wiggling children swept, mockingly, through his mind. He groaned inwardly. He didn’t like children. Children got into mischief. They were unpredictable. They scared him sometimes. John wondered if this was God’s comedic cosmic karma from God for his earlier refusal.  

As he buckled his seat belt, he noticed the girl seemed absorbed in a rather thick novel.  “Awfully thick book for such a little girl but, at least it’ll keep her occupied and quiet during the entire flight,” he thought. He closed his eyes without greeting her.

The engines churned and the familiar roar of the powerful machinery began. The plane rumbled along the runway and finally shook off it’s earthly shackles as it’s nose shivered into the air. John felt his body cemented to the back of his seat. He liked the tangible defiance of gravity that lift-off entailed.

Abruptly, his sacred reverie was brutally halted by the awful retching sounds of his blond-haired seat-mate being violently sick. The formally inspirational upward path of the plane against gravity and the tilting gyration as the aircraft manoeuvred along its flight pattern only made the situation worse. Vomit flew in every direction. Shoes. Seats. Floor. The girl. And, heaven help him, even John!

Frantically, John stood up and waved his arms. “Help! Help! Emergency.” He pushed the call button repeatedly. (Thankfully this was before 9-11 or he’d have been promptly arrested as a suspected mad terrorist).

The flight attendants were not impressed. “You could help us, Sir,” one of the stewards said with a hint of accusation as she attempted to clean up the mess.

“But, she’s not mine!” It was all he could do to keep his own cookies down.

At last the attendants dragged the poor girl off to the bathroom and managed to wipe her down to a socially acceptable level again. With damp cloths they cleaned the seats and window and floor, at last pouring coffee grounds on the floor and seat to help absorb lingering odours.

They deposited the damp, bedraggled girl into her seat that was covered in a blanket now. The terse nod by the flight attendant assured John that any hope of a seat transfer was not going to happen. John sighed and made sure the cloth covered his entire seat, trying gingerly to avoid stepping on the coffee grounds. So much for a quiet uneventful flight!

“So, what’s your name?” He turned to the damp creature next to him.

“Amy,” she said, turning to answer him with solemn blue eyes.

“How old are you?” He noticed that her breath still had that telltale acrid odour of bile. Too bad the flight attendants hadn’t brushed her teeth too. He steeled his stomach against the less-than-ideal aroma.

“Seven,” she gave a shy smile now.

“How come you’re travelling all by yourself?”

“My parents are divorced,” she explained in a matter of fact tone. “My dad and step-mom live in Philadelphia. My mom lives in L.A.”

“You must do a lot of flying then?”

“Yep.” She nodded emphatically. “I’ve been back and forth twelve times.”

“Does reading when you’re flying sometimes make you sick?”

“Oh no! I always bring a book along. This is the first time, ever, that I got sick.” She looked down at her lap, embarrassed a bit.

John sat back and absorbed this information. The only flight she gets sick on and I happen to be her seatmate at the time.  What are you trying to say, God? He was now pretty confident God had an offbeat sense of humour. He also found himself feeling sympathy for the girl’s plight.

Resigning himself to his fate, and her vomit-tinged breath, he read the author of Amy’s book. Piers Anthony. “Wow, do you always read such large books?”

“I like Piers Anthony. He has a whole series of books….” She chattered happily about her favourite stories.

John asked more questions. Self and ego were left behind. It was about helping to alleviate the girl’s travelling travails. No ulterior motives. No expectations. Friendly conversation without thought of reciprocity. He simply wanted to help make this girl’s flight a bit more pleasant after her earlier illness.

“Where are you flying?” Amy put her book down and looked up at her seatmate with curiosity.

“I’m flying home from a high school reunion.”

“Oh.” She nodded politely.

“Would you like to see some photos?” John brought out his photo book that mercifully had been in the overhead bin, spared from the catastrophic events some minutes ago.

She flipped through the album, studying the photos. “You must love your truck,” the blond child noted astutely.

“Mmm…yes,” John nodded. “It’s an Isuzu Trooper. I like to take it off road in the desert.”

The miles flew by, literally. It was over Utah that Amy suddenly turned to her seatmate and tilted her head up at him, studying his face. “You’re my most favourite person I’ve ever flown with….”

John’s heart went pitter-patter and promptly melted into a puddle of sentiment.

Then she straightened up in her chair. “….well, except for that nine year old boy.”

As they neared their destination, the two passengers buckled their seat belts. Pleasant memories filled both their heads. “You know,” Amy adjusted her lap belt, “every kid should have someone like you to fly with.” She smiled up at John.

John felt his ideas about children slipping away, at least for this one.  John thought, “God if anyone ever hurts this girl they’ll have me to answer to.” 

To which God replied, “They are all my girls, John.” 

John turned his attention back to his seatmate.  Amy held her hands up to her face, forming a frame with her fingers and clicked her pretend camera. “So I can remember you,” she informed him.

John smiled at his new friend. He probably would never see her again. He’d reached out to this seven-year-old girl in her hour of distress, putting aside any thought to himself. He shook his head imperceptibly. In spite of his earlier protests, God still found a way to reach him. By keeping his heart open to unselfish love, John had seamlessly reached out and blessed another child of God. And, in return, he’d been blessed in so many other intangible ways. It was a lesson to remember.

The plane landed and taxied to a stop. John stood up to grab his bag from the overhead bin. Before he’d finished collecting his bags, he felt a tap on his shoulder. The greying male passenger seated behind them on the flight looked at John, a bemused smile on his lips. “Young man, you have quite a way with children. Did you know that?” His eyes twinkled.

What could John say in return? He nodded silently. Not been told that before. Gratitude for the lessons from above filled his heart as he made his way to baggage claim. And, under the watchful eye of the flight attendants who held her back until everyone had unloaded, Amy watched John disappear into the masses of people disembarking. I have it on good authority that she talked enthusiastically about that nice man on flight 356 for quite some time after. A double blessing.

 ~oooo~

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death even death on a cross!”      Philippians 2: 3-8