Urban Idealist

Tonight I stood in an empty apartment that I called home for almost a year. As Jen wrote, we get a bit sentimental when life takes us from one place to another. I walked through the different rooms and thought of the memories that were made in that place…I could imagine seeing Maisie as a little baby in her Moses basket laying in the middle of the living room. I could see the places where my friends have sat as we talked about life and following Jesus. I looked into the kitchen and could picture Jen discovering how to make new foods for us to enjoy…and I started to get a welling up as I knew that this chapter was nearly over.

Earlier in the day I had to quickly get rid of some things that I forgot to pack…mostly clothes. It’s funny how clothes, like places, bring certain memories or events to mind. After learning that the Salvation Army around the corner from our house doesn’t accept clothes I had to resort to putting my things in a box on the street. As I left it there I really felt that I was leaving a part of me behind on the curb! How lame…But within minutes some of the homeless and down and out people were going through the box….taking my clothes to use as their own.Between these two things I feel like God has been trying to say something to me: Don’t get too attached to the places and things that hold your memories…Let the good things of the past live in your heart, not in objects.

Something like a switch being turned on happened inside of me. I started praying that God would give me a divine divorce from being sentimentally attached to places. I prayed that I would discover a spiritual separation from things that I had held too tightly to.For some reason, while standing in the apartment tonight, I felt like I could walk away knowing that God has nothing less than His best waiting for us. As I locked the door behind me I had a peace about the future. I was ready to close the door and confident that the things that I need for the future will always be provided.

Here are some random thoughts on moving and how it can teach us about living in community and with ourselves…

So, we are moved out of our apartment. We’ve been packing boxes and getting ready (and stressed) to get our stuff into storage for the next few months. Yesterday some friends came over and we loaded up the truck and drove an hour to put our stuff at a friends place…on the way out there it hit me that it’s because of my stuff that these friends of mine are going all this way to help me out. It’s my baggage that they are moving…

This was a clear picture to me of what community is like. We are all going through life helping each other carry our ‘baggage’…I’m not really a fan of this played out word, but it works…so bear with me!

I saw my friends ache, sweat, and moan carrying our stuff down stairs and into a truck…they do this because they are friends, not to be paid back at a later date and certainly not for the fun of it! When we are in a ‘good’ and life-giving community of people this is a good picture of how we interact with each other…we carry each others burdens, we ache for our friends, we do the hard work of being there when anothers’ burdens seem too much to carry….this is the giving side.

The receiving side is also hard…it made me feel bad that my friends were hurting, aching, and moaning to move the products of an often-over-consumeristic life. It was quite humbling for these people to see the dust bunnies behind furniture, and the sheer amount of needless things we’ve collected over our time here! Nobody complained about a thing…except my big white armoire that I gave to one of friends in the end! Our friends’ willing generosity made me look at my stuff in a new way…I despised how much they had to work on my behalf…and it made me want to live a simpler life…

To me, this is a picture of grace in community…when we get a clear picture of how our faults affect the people around us we take a closer look at our faults. When I saw how my friends willingly carried my burdens, because of love, I wanted to lighten my load…on their behalf. There really is something living in a community where we are close enough to others to let them be hurt by us….and be hurt by others. We learn this way. We all grow in grace and forgiveness this way. When we choose to hide and walk through life alone we, and others, miss out on many lessons God wants to teach us through each other.

Another thought on this is that we often don’t see the excess in our lives until we have to move it…if we stay in the same place, in the same space, doing the same things, we often don’t gain any new perspective on ourselves or life. Moving is a way to be exposed for what you really have…and change in our own life often exposes us for who we really are.

I’m grateful for good friends, who love us enough to move our junk around…both figuratively and literally.