Open to the Elements - Part 2

The rat didn't show today.  Or yesterday. Or the day before.

Shocking, really.

He was so faithful.

And yet, living open to the elements means preparing oneself for the shock.

I remember the day when I heard God gently urge me to open myself up to the elements.  This was a time long before Honduras.

At that time, opening up meant reading about poverty, exploring what loving others really meant and then flinging the doors wide for babies whose mamas had made some hard choices.  

The opening itself was painful.   Excruciating, if I am honest.

How does one begin to acknowledge that she has walked through much of life with closed-eyes, simultaneously naming herself as 'following Jesus'?

Sometimes awakening happens instantaneously.

Sometimes awakening happens in pieces.

In my case, the eye opening began in the moment I opened our front door to see a beautiful baby girl in a car seat carried by a caseworker.   She was found alone, in an unspeakable place, wrapped in nothing but toilet paper.

My eyes opened-wide to easily see her beauty.  And then, over time, God asked me to see the beauty in her mother;  the very one who had left her.   And then, He asked me to name beauty in more mothers who birthed children who later became my very own.  My eyes squinted and tried hard to shut.

The elements may mean different things to different people.  For some, elements may refer to physical aspect of sharing a house on stilts with tropical insects and rodents.    Or, elements may be the spiritual discomfort of sharing the ugly mess of sin with a trusted friend without making yourself look better or turning to flee.

I find it easy to live closed in the United States.   We have garages and hermetically-sealed houses.  We have hand sanitizer and wipes and Kleenex.   An entire lifetime can be lived in the US without ever, once, having to truly confront the seedier elements, the dirty stuff.   We can close our eyes, squeeze them so tight and laugh ourselves into the grave of indifference.

Living open to the elements means I fight my own indifference.  Instead of complaining constantly about roaches and rats, I sleep under a mosquito net and try to be more careful about food.   It means accepting that my Miskito neighbor's life is much more open to the elements than mine will ever be - yet, I remain the poor one.

When I am tender, teachable and open to the elements, God has my full attention.   I am more fragile and my heart listens.

Being open also means that I have to tolerate the creepy-crawly pests, actual and metaphorical, that come with a life lived fully-aware.  

I can no longer ignore the underbelly of the world, because in truth, the underbelly is the majority.

Untouchables, the majority.  

I always heard God's Kingdom was open.  The first shall be last.  The last, first.