I've been visiting my son and daughter in Colorado. They both live with homes all round them with very little interaction with whoever lives near them. They and their neighbors live near ubiquitous 5 lane streets that quickly lead them to strip mall heaven.
To get exercise and my morning coffee at both homes I walk about 5 blocks to either a 7-11 or MacDonald's. This experience is almost surreal because I meet no one else walking. One morning I said hello to the Asian lady who works at the liquor store nearby as she brought her trash container in from the curb, but otherwise I felt that I was somehow perhaps out of sync with the rest of the world by being out there walking.
I do the same routine in Greenfield as well, with the same feeling of being "weird" for being out of my car. I recently read in some novel the opinion that something died when the first Ford car was invented. Somewhat to my surprise I'm finding that I am turning into some kind of reactionary to civilization as we know it. Now I don't want to live back in the woods and grow a beard and not use deodorant you understand, I guess I'm just reacting to the depersonalization and commercialization all around us.
In Henri Nouwen's amazing book, "Reaching Out" he speaks of being able to enjoy a personal sense of solitude even in the midst of this environment. In fact he believes it essential and a gift to those who are trapped without awareness of this for there to be people who can be " in the world but not of it". So I'm realizing that instead of complaining and resisting the culture I am in, I can be in to world really loving anyone I meet and wondering how God is making himself know to that person.
I believe that it doesn't matter how we get into relationship with others, what matters is that we be clear from the start that we know very little or nothing about some one's relationship with God. My assumption is that God is always in some relationship with every person so my task is to effectively come alongside whatever God is doing in that person's life.
Sometimes I wonder if we followers of Christ are more alienated from God than the average person on the street. At least holding that assumption as truth means I enter every encounter with every human from a position of curiosity and respect even to the point of wondering if they might have some healing of the alienation from God that can exist in my life!
It seems that much of what we Christians present to the world is all about our opinions, our judgements, our agendas. If it's the Holy Spirit's responsibility to bring conviction then I'm left with the responsibility to love God and then love my neighbor in whatever way feels like love to them. Even if it means I get over my aversion to strip malls and commercialisation, get out and really be with people.
