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In our world faith is viewed as a non-essential. It is seen as something
that doesn't have much value, not something that you really need. Very few
people write books on how to build it or offer classes on how to grow it.
Why bother. It's not something that you need to have.
And yet people are beginning to wonder if that is really true. Is faith a
non-essential or is it one of the basic ingredients for a life well lived?
Many people have discovered that it's the latter. Without faith life becomes
no more than a string of experiences that you get through. Faith breaks the
chains and gives rich meaning and color to the fabric of life.
Take some time to read the stories that are posted every two weeks. They
are real life examples of what I mean. Then ask yourself "How's my faith doing?"
and, "How do I get more?". If you need some help with the answers drop
us a line, or better yet, come and see us at St. Philip's.
A Little Child Shall Lead Them
Many years ago when I was still in seminary my kids taught me a lesson about people. It was my turn to watch the kids for the night, while my wife was getting a break and enjoying some time with her friends. I decided the best thing to do was to get out of the house and take them down to the school. On that cold winter Pittsburgh evening I was glad to finally get the kids and all their toys into the main building.
Feeling old and a bit cranky, I was glad to find a seat, someplace I could rest while the kids had their fun. As I sat they ran up and down the hall playing with the action figures someone had given them.
That night the building was empty. Most of the students had the sense to stay at home. But after about ten minutes a homeless man came in to get warm. He sat down on the other end of the hall and began to watch the kids. I noticed him immediately and began to be suspicious. Was he dangerous? I watched this disheveled stranger with wariness, trying to figure out if I should round up the kids and leave.
Before I could retreat, the kids noticed him too, but they saw something different.
They knew he was a stranger, but Dad was here. That meant he could be a stranger they could play with. So they showed him their toys and they began to explain the “official rules” of superhero engagement. Five-year old Joshua even lent him one of his superheroes and invited him to play.
At that the man began to cry. Tears streamed down his face, and play he did. It was quite a sight – a homeless man playing superheroes with a couple of simple kids.
Later I got a chance to sit with him and listen to his story. His name was Richard. He lived on the streets but he did have a family. He told us that he had a son somewhere, who wouldn’t talk with him. In fact, the son was ashamed of him. And then he said, “Your kids treated me like a regular person. Nobody has done that for a long time. Thanks.”
My children taught me something that night. It wasn’t to entertain strangers – though the scripture seems to say we should. Instead, it was about the attitudes and judgments of my heart.
hen I looked at this man – he was a threat – nothing more. Through the eyes of children, safely watched over by Dad, he was just another person to play with. They treated him like a regular person. And that touched his heart far more than any sermon or handout ever could.
Maybe that was part of what made Jesus so special. Perhaps Jesus walked the hills of Galilee with the eyes of a child. Seeing the outcast, the discarded, and the homeless. Seeing them as people. People who could be loved and who could be touched, people who could be invited into the grandest play of all – His Kingdom.
That’d be like God, wouldn’t it? To see people with the eyes of a child and from there make all the difference in the world. That winter night I glimpsed for a moment how a little child could lead them and change the world.
Ordinary Faith
It seems odd but I'm sitting here writing the introduction to this section
in Salisbury, England. It's odd because these stories are all about faith
found in ordinary life, in ordinary surroundings. It's about the reality of
faith that can be found in your backyard or around your kitchen table.
I say it's odd because looking out my window at the great tower of Salisbury
Cathedral is not an ordinary setting. It's hardly my backyard in Texas.
And yet I am discovering that it's really more like home than I might think.
Sure the streets and buildings are older but the people are like people the
world around.
There's Harold, an organist all his life, living here in the Cathedral Close
with one of the finest organs in the land and he's never played it. Like a
man who wants to fly living near an airport and never getting on a plane.
Or there's Phil, up from the Jersey islands to restart his ministry, wondering
about how to faithfully serve where he's called.
And there's Paul, the RAF engineer from Scotland, who waxes on and on about
the cultural dangers of TV and the lack of real home cooked foods in the pubs
now days. Problems that hardly rank up there with global warming or world
peace, yet problems enough for Paul.
Sitting here looking out on buildings rooted in centuries of history the
oddness seems appropriate somehow. Here I am in an exotic land and I am discovering
very ordinary people. Change the accent and you could meet Harold in Omaha,
or Phil in LA, or Paul around the corner from your house. In even the most
exotic of places we discover that the people there are like us. They are worrying
about jobs and families and the changes that occur around them. They have
unfulfilled dreams and longings for something more.
It's made me realize in a new way why these stories are so important to me.
It doesn't matter the where - Salisbury or St. Louis or Bakersfield - we live
ordinary lives and it's here in our ordinary lives that we need to discover
real faith. If we don't find it down the street or in a child's bedroom then
how will we ever recognize it in a cathedral or a cloister. We won't. And
it'd be our loss because I've discovered that our most precious treasure is
our faith.
My hope is that you will be blessed by the stories you read here. I wrote
them for myself, exercises in finding faith in the ordinary. I pray that your
reading them may exercise your own eyes to see the wonder of faith in the
world around you. Then you'll see something far more amazing than a cathedral
tower, you'll see the hand of God.
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