Imagine a world...

Many people tell me I really only about 8 - or act like it many days.  I love to play pretend and color!  Even at work my favorite phrase starts with "Can we... "  I love to rearrange the furniture and change things up to keep it new and fresh.  Color, music, movement, and nothing for too long.  Imagination is a huge part of me.

Yet I am not always stuck in my 8 year old world.  None of us are.  Something makes all of us mature and grow up.  Sometimes we want it... sometimes we don't.  People say the world ages us.  We have all seen pictures of children who seem much older and wiser than their years.  It's the tough situations in life like poverty, hunger, violence, fear, anger, and injustice that age us.

Yet there are many of us who haven't experienced that side of life.  Imagine the college frat boy whose parents pay for college and spends more time partying than studying.  Now imagine the college boy who's father walked out on his pregnant mother before he was born who is working 4 jobs to support himself and his family as he goes through college.  Who is "older"?  Now imagine a 20 something old boy who is in a refugee camp trying to protect his family and get as much education as possible while being displaced and fighting for his daily needs.  Who is "older"?

It's often hard for me to connect to the stories and parables of Jesus.  I wonder what kind of a world he lived in.  Obviously not a world where he grew up going to public school and had his own personal computer to blog his thoughts out to the world and keep up with his friends on facebook.  The stories he tells relates to his life and the lives of the people similar to him.  The broad concepts relate to my life - struggling with money, struggling with sin, not wanting to love my neighbor.  And these are the ways the church and our church leaders teach us today.  Yet their are significant differences.

Social Justice is a concept many "religious" people grab onto and run with or run from.  For some it is what the gospel is all about.  For some it has nothing to do with the gospel and how dare you try to  make it.  I believe social justice is something Jesus was all about.

Love your neighbor.  Not just the one who lives next door or upstairs, but everyone on the planet.  Get to know people who are different than you.  A different race, culture, gender, religion.  Don't judge.  Share your beliefs and your belongings.  Take care of the widows, the orphans, and the sick.  Not just by throwing some money in a plate or towards a charity.  Go out and do it.  It can and may change your life.     That's what Jesus did.  He didn't give all his money to the synagogue  and work towards becoming the next "Nazareth's Carpenter of the Year".  Jesus went out and walked among God's children and told them that first - they were loved.  Second - they needed to follow him.

I read an amazing book (almost in one day!) by Barbara Kingsolver called "The Bean Trees".  It's an amazing story of a young girl whose goal is to get through high school without getting pregnant and make something of herself somewhere far away from home.  She ends up going from Kentucky to Arizona and along the way "inherits" a small child.  Once in Tucson she starts making a life for herself working at a tire repair shop that just also happens to be a safe house for Central American refugees.  In my eyes, it's a story of how Taylor Greer grows up.

My favorite line is during a conversation with a friend who happens to be a refugee from Guatemala who has experienced some awful things in his life.  After hearing his story Taylor says "I hate to say it, but I really don't know.  I can't even being to think about a world where people have to make choices like that."  Her friend replies - "You live in that world."

I live in that world.  We say it all the time, especially faced with something beyond words difficult, I can't imagine... what that would be like, or I can't imagine a world where that happens.

We don't have to imagine it.  It's here.  The question is what do we do about it.  What does our christian faith move in us to do about it?

Give.
Be there.
Go out and love people.

Not just go out and preach to people about how Jesus saves.  I mean, yes Jesus saves.  But if I was a widow walking to the drug store wondering about how I'm going to afford my medication and you handed me a pamphlet about God I might curse at you.  If you walked with me and became my friend, perhaps helped me with my paperwork for healthcare I would say "God Bless You"  and go to church if you invited me.

If I was a poor young adult struggling to find steady work to pay the bills and wondering what is good in this world and you tried to tell me Jesus was good I would ask you if he was hiring.

Meet basic needs.
Preserve human dignity.
Don't do it through a middle man - go out and make a friend.

The best way I know to not get lost in the imaginative world is to experience the real one.  Don't keep yourself in a pretty imaginative world were everyone has what they need.  Go out and live, love, and share the love of God.

In peace,
your sister in Christ~
Erin