Spiritual Training

On my way up to visit Aaron in Bellingham last Friday driving through Mount Vernon suddenly a fast approaching car fills my rear view mirror. He has been weaving through traffic and now is tailing me. I am driving 65 in the left lane, traffic is ahead so that really there is no where to go. I usually leave a space between myself and the car in front of me so he might have imaged that there was room to get ahead – which is a kind of blindness. He then flashed is high beams four times. I was feeling a little…. angry and mischievous so I tapped my brake lights… four times. Then I got out of the way, he passed in a dash only to tailgate the next car, but he did manage to offer me a gesture going by. For the next few miles I analyzed my actions and decided it was really ill-advised to pump the brakes; when I saw the gesture it only made me more angry and that just didn’t feel good. I was reminded that automobiles are an invitation to rage.

This sort of thing doesn’t happen on trains. As many of you know, I took the train down to see my mother in February. One of those sitting near me on the way back, a young woman who is studying design at North Seattle Community College was on the train for the first time – it shouldn’t, but it astonishes me. I first took a train when I was about nine years old all the way to North Carolina and back. Of course, in Japan trains are standard and ubiquitous. The man sitting next to her was a 29 year old Englishman who was just traveling – spontaneously. That is, he went wherever he felt like, without a schedule (shejual) to his heart’s content. The man sitting next to me was traveling up to Everett to film a commercial. He grew up in Southern California, had been living in New York City for some years and had just moved to Beaverton, Oregon weeks ago. He was adjusting to “rural” Beaverton and the weather. We also talked about the Premier League – he is a Tottenham fan and was indignant when I told him that Kenneth liked ManU. “That’s like rooting for the Yankees!” On the way down I sat next to a man who had been up to British Columbia to visit his dying father. He had been going up from Albany, Oregon about every ten days. His father lived without family up there – he was the child living the closest. He said there was a man from the church who came every day to see him, as well as the priest, occasionally. Essentially, he said he didn’t know what he would do without the church. On the other side were two young men who didn’t speak to each other until after Portland, they were totally engrossed in their iPads! When they did they discovered that they were both students at Willamette University in Salem. Not only that, but the one nearest me was a just arriving exchange student from Japan! Well you can imagine how that perked me up. As he was just arriving he was having trouble with his English and I was able, surprisingly to assist a little. He asked me what I “did” and after I told him I was a “bokushi” he looked at me keenly and said, “I want to know about your church.” The best I could do at that point was to invite him to attend the First UMC in Salem. Even then, the connection was significant. Before detraining, in Japanese fashion he wanted to have a picture of us taken together. I can see him skyping home, “You wouldn’t believe I ran into this pastor who spoke Japanese.” That would never have happened if I had driven. And I was more relaxed when I arrived too.

We scarcely realize how isolated we have become in our culture. The automobile has been formed this in us over a century, and now its all those electronic devices that first kept the Willamette students separated. Ear buds say, “I’m not interested” whether we mean them to or not. I am no Luddite, I love email and the Internet, but I am also aware that much, if not most of the connecting via the Internet is with people like us. We increasingly organize our lives into lifestyle enclaves rather than into communities. I believe in the power of community in our world today. I believe that the focus of our evangelizing needs to be our community – not our “message” but who we are. There are so many people who live their lives like they drive, and it’s not very enriching. They are hurt and angry. THE WORLD NEEDS US!

See you in worship. P.Jim