A Startling Encounter

I was completely startled on my way to work one morning this week when what I thought was dropped clothes on the floor turned out to be a homeless man sleeping in our stairwell.

The elevator has been on the fritz for a week or so, with buttons spontaneously lighting up or going out, and if I don't have anything heavy to carry it's simpler to just take the stairs. This morning I was heading out to work but noticed the stairwell door was propped open with a hat, just a crack, and when I opened the door further I saw a tshirt on the floor. Matt brought laundry up last night, so my please-make-sense-of-this brain filled in the blanks - Matt dropped some clean shirts out of the basket and forget to turn back to pick them up. But then I saw that the tshirt had arms. And a long white beard. And an open mouth, because the tshirt was on a sleeping man. And I smelled that he was probably homeless.

So I went back into our apartment and told Matt - not that I wanted him to do anything about it, but just so that if the man was still there, Matt didn't barge through the door down the stairs and step on him or something. And I took the elevator downstairs - stopping on four or five floors for no reason.

I don't know why I was so flabbergasted by this experience - other than that it was completely unexpected. Why on earth would a homeless man go up to the 11th floor to sleep in a stairwell? Did he take the stairs up or go through the hall from the elevator?

And I'm curious what kind of person he is - if Matt had gone out and woken him up to offer our couch would he have accepted? Or thought we were weirdos who kill vagrants? Would he have stolen from us?

I am extra disturbed because of an idea I read from Dietrich Bonhoeffer this weekend - "...we are faced with the shocking reality: Jesus stands at the door and knocks, in complete reality. He asks you for help in the form of a beggar, in the form of a ruined human being in torn clothing. He confronts you in every person that you meet. Christ walks on the earth as your neighbor as long as there are people... This is the greatest seriousness and the greatest blessedness of the Advent message."

As I was thinking about why I so quickly backed away, and would I have done the same if I knew it was Jesus sleeping there, I realized it was because I didn't know what would happen if he woke up. And then I realized how often I'm not afraid of Jesus and his message, and it isn't because I'm really spiritual and we're just tight like that. It's because I don't think of Jesus as a real person who is beyond my control; I assume he wants everything I want, and he wants it how I want it too. I never worry that I would get yelled at or stabbed or robbed not only because I trust that he is good but because I assume we would never ever be in conflict.

No tidy conclusion yet, just food for thought and a reminder that when I'm 100% comfortable with my faith I'm probably focused a lot more on myself than on God.

Trying Old Things

Nimoy peed on the bottom shelf of a bookcase this week, which triggered a domino effect that ended in me looking over old school work from university deciding what to continue to store.

The thing that struck me most was how much I have forgotten. Example: old worksheets and tests from my two semesters of Biblical Hebrew. I used to be able to translate passages! I used to know what qal perfect and imperfect tense meant and identify verbs that had been parsed! I aced vocab tests that now mean nothing more to me than the wingdings font in Word.

While I am not interested in getting back into Hebrew, I was also inspired by notes I have from courses on Biblical books. I have been in somewhat of a rut lately for reading the Bible and praying, and it occurred to me earlier this week that committing to studying something specific might help me be more motivated and focused. As long as I don't let my perfectionism get in the way and sabotage everything! So we'll see. I am hoping that the more I write, the more I will want to write.

Time will tell :)

A Gift of Service

Last weekend was our church Christmas dinner. It was much more formal this year than in past years, so rather than simply having all the food arranged as a buffet for people to serve themselves, the youth (and Matt) were recruited to all wear ties and serve food and pour drinks right at the tables. I arrived at the church that night feeling not too sociable and definitely not eager to squeeze in at a table while Matt co-ordinated the youth, so instead I hung out in the kitchen and washed dishes with my friend Joyce. All night. And it was great!

It struck me that this was probably one of those moments of spiritual gifting, where what needs to be done is exactly what you want to do! I'm sure if I had made myself find a seat at the dinner I could have had a very nice night, but instead I was all dressed up with one friend (have I ever mentioned HOW much better I am with small groups than big groups?) and an endless stream of dirty plates. We listened to Christmas music and perfected a system for pre-washing, rinsing, loading, and unloading racks of dishes. It was very simple, very tiring by the end of the night, and exactly what I would have wished for if I had a choice. PLUS because we jumped in right after the first course was finished, the clean up took way less time than if the dishes had piled up all night, so everybody got to go home sooner. It might have been my favourite church Christmas dinner yet!