Just Going About

“I read in a book that a man called Christ went about doing good.  It is very disconcerting to me that I am so easily satisfied with just going about.”    ~Toyohiko Kagawa (Japanese pacifist, Christian reformer, evangelist and labor activist)

In today’s liturgy from Common Prayer:  A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, I read a bit about Toyohiko.  His quote above hit home.  How often don’t I go through the motions of the day – hit snooze on the alarm, shower, breakfast, feed the cats, work, home, dinner, feed the cats,  set the alarm and bed – without thinking about the “doing good” part.  Something to think about.

The refrain in today’s liturgy also struck me:  “Deliver us from ourselves, O God; and bring us home to life with you.” 

Bring us home to life with you.  That could possibly mean take us to heaven to live with you there.  Or, could it mean that home is living with God in the here and now.  Often I use the word “home” in regard to where I live saying things like:  “The kids are coming home.”  My friend simply asks:  “Home?”  My house is not my kids’ home.  They never lived there.  They are all married and have their own homes. 

 Home isn’t really my house to me either.  Home is more of a heart place.  It could be sitting and listening to a concert with someone I know who loves me unconditionally.  The “unconditional love part” is where the “home part” comes in.  It is when I am with someone, or a group of someones, who accept me just as I am - whether I’m happy and upbeat or sad and depressed, whether I have makeup on and nice clothes with matching jewelry or an old pair of jeans and my hair is a mess, whether I’ve lost 4.2 pounds at Weight Watchers this week or gained 2.4. 

When I say to God,  “…bring us home to life with you”  I’m thinking more along the lines of feeling comfortable enough with God to be myself and let my life and God’s flow together so that others see God through me without me even knowing it.  And, in doing that, in living like that, in being at home with God like that, may I not just go about, but go about doing good.  Amen and Amen.