FAITH TALKING AT THE NEW YORK GRILL John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Today, I sat in the New York Grill, a favorite place to visit when I am in Toronto, and I enjoyed my usual pick of the menu: breakfast. The Grill is famous for its poached eggs, hollandaise sauce, sausage and crisp rye toast and all of the wonderful grease and fat and artery clogging, delicious good/badness a man could want on a plate. My small table was against the forward wall that contains a huge picture window and though I had set up my space with a book to read (poems by e.e. cummings), I just stared out at the busy Tuesday morning streets of Toronto's culturally diverse Danforth district and took in the frigid, blowing, uncomfortable winter day. The restaurant was filling up with an early lunch crowd. As I began to eat, two young men seated themselves at the table directly to my right. The man closest to me had moved his chair so far back to accommodate his frame I felt cramped; my personal space was violated and I was annoyed. But their discussion was far too interesting to interrupt with my requests for a little more girth to my proximity zone. They had begun to talk, rather loudly, about religion. I thought it was an odd topic selection for two late twenty-somethings but I was also impressed that cars, computers, sex, drugs, or gadgets was not paramount on their minds. For some reason, these young men managed to emancipate themselves from the obvious masculine stereotypes of their generation to talk about, of all things…. God. "My wife has encouraged me to pursue my spiritual side so I have started going to church," said the young man to his metrosexual friend seated across from him, the space hog limiting my movement. "Really," replied his companion. "Church?.. huh.” He paused and sighed, “I had no idea things were that bad between you.” He laughed, so did his friend. The conversation proceeded to unveil these two things: one man began attending church but was not sure why other than it made his wife happy however he was beginning to enjoy it but continued to have many questions about the possibility of such a thing as a God. The other man made it clear that he could not wrap his brain around the whole faith thing and a concept that had basically remained unproven since it began thousands of years ago. I could see me swinging around my chair any moment to engage in the discussion. An opportunity had presented itself to unload or upload my unique theories about Christianity. I knew I could, at the very least, make them think differently if not completely turn them around but intrusive evangelizing is not my style. And so I remained in my cramped, invaded little space by the big picture window, eating a huge, tasty plate of cholesterol and truly wishing I could help these young men to understand Christ a little better as they exchanged difficulties in believing things like resurrection, turning water into wine, curing the blind, etcetera. I wanted to say, forget about 2000 years ago, guys. Your big 21st century brains can't handle that right now. Pause and look around you on this cold Canadian Tuesday morning. Embrace your sensitivity and awareness. Forget about water and wine and raising the dead for the moment and look at that man on the street, crouched in a corner by the coffee shop, his hand extended for spare change from strangers. It is minus twenty five degrees out today with the wind chill. Feel what you feel in your heart. Feel that empathy, compassion, that sense of responsibility and desire to provide care, that sense of a greater community, of love and helping our neighbors - it is all the presence of God in your doubting lives. The Bible teaches us: ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’ Deuteronomy 15:7-11 I wanted to tell the two young men to take a hard look at each other, at that very moment, and ask themselves why the subject of their interest was so vocally focused on God, faith - religion, in such a wide open public space. Clearly they both wanted to know more, to explore their feelings that were seeking validation but they just kept getting stuck on bible details from the past that some, perhaps most people, find difficult to initially accept as real and true. But that doesn’t mean Christianity is not real and true. Christ is all around us; all the time. I wanted to tell them that the earth, humanity, dinosaurs, the entire history of the planet has never experienced a resource of goodness so prolonged and powerful as Christianity. Jesus Christ has been the greatest source of goodness we have ever known. And his acts of goodness happen all around us, by us, threw our belief in him all across the world, every minute of every day. I wanted to tell them to just open their minds, their eyes and their hearts to the physical, mental and spiritual world at play right in front of them in churches, homeless shelters, countless charities, goodwill gestures by ordinary people, missions bringing peace and love throughout the world – all inspired by Christ. I wanted them to see that today, right now, is more relevant and there is plenty of evidence of God in our lives in the twenty first century. I am an impassioned believer in the NOW of Jesus Christ. I am a student of the gospel, a believer, and I have read and continue to read the bible; that's all good; it is a Christian foundation. But, for most people, particularly the younger generation, living as a Christian today is not the same as it was for my generation and it wasn’t the same for the generation before that. Our faith evolves as our brains have evolved and advanced and it is a struggle to liberate the mind to accept what the heart is seeking, needing, and to truly believe biblical events from over two thousand years ago that, to great big over-evolved brains, seem illogical. When I do engage in conversations on this topic my simple suggestion to people is: stop overthinking God. If you can’t wrap your head around God then try wrapping God around your head. Raise your spiritual sensitivity and look around you. A man begging on the street is a chance to be charitable, to feed your soul with goodness, to fulfill a request from God to love your brother, your neighbor. If everyone on earth committed just one loving, charitable act every single day wouldn’t this world transform to an entirely different, better place? Think about it. That is a challenge thrown to us by Christ and such acts are committed by those acknowledging not just the Christ of old, but the Christ of today still inspiring us toward goodness. I just wish I could have spoken to the two young men. They'd be thinking differently today. If not on the road to being true believers, they would at least be thinking about God with liberated minds, free to believe what they see around them as the presence of God and to not be hung up on the history of two thousand years ago. They would still be asking questions but perhaps receiving better answers to ponder and explore which would bring them closer to the bible and events that their big brains were wrestling with. And that's really all it takes: liberating the mind, engaging the spirit in the moment and paying attention to the presence of God around us. Because I suspect that he is around us more today than he has ever been. And that is a very good thing for a middle aged man who just ate 5,000 calories of purely delicious culinary goodbadness. (That’s my newest new word; I like to invent them). Goodbadness: something possessing the qualities of both good and bad characteristics. Comments are closed.
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