Just a Pile of Rocks?

August 9, 2015

John 6:35, 41-51

A couple years ago, my family took a trip from Phoenix to Denver.  There were a lot of amazing sights, but also a whole lot of driving.  Before long, my kids were tired of time in the car and tired of being stuck in such close quarters.  By the time we got to the Grand Canyon and parked our car and made our way to a place where we could see the Canyon, my son was incredibly fussy.  It was hot and all he wanted was a pool or a drink of water.  But I knew that would all change as soon as he saw this magnificent sight.  He looked out over the sheer cliff, saw the layers of colors and the magnificent rock formations that stretched as far as the eye can see.  And he said, “That’s it?  This is just a pile of rocks.”

    Jesus says that whoever comes to him will never be hungry, and whoever believes in him will never be thirsty.  This isn’t the first time he’s said this, and it won’t be the last.  No one ever knows quite what he means.  Sometimes, they take him literally, like the Samaritan woman at the well who jumps at the idea of water that never runs out so she doesn’t have to keep going back to the well.  But today’s listeners just get offended.  This is the boy they’ve watched grow up making this ridiculous offer.  They know who he is and they know who his parents are and all this bread of life and living water stuff is absurd.  But in fact, they’ve got it all wrong.  They are so sure they know what is in front of them that they miss God present in front of them.  They are too close to the living water, the bread of life, to realize how hungry and thirsty they are.  

Sometimes we all find ourselves too close to really see what is in front of us.  Who knows what we’re missing out on?

I came across a travel writer recently named Pico Ayer who describes normal life as sitting two inches in front of a busy screen.  You are so close that you can’t make sense of the flashes of light and the movement.  It takes stepping back, and even further back, to get a glimmer of the bigger picture.

I know it’s true for me.  My usual day-to-day involves a sometimes precarious balance of parenting, working, learning, and getting things done around the house with snippets of stolen downtime coming at unpredictable intervals.  The spheres of life tend to blend into each other because of the way email and phone follows you and parenting can’t be contained in certain windows.  Sometimes I feel like I’m in so many places at one time that I’m really no where at all.  It all seems like flashes of light and movement.

Traveling is a great opportunity to step back and start to see the bigger picture, to get a little perspective.

I knew when my family went to Spain this summer it would be wonderful and memorable and fun.  But that picture-enhancing perspective was what I was really hoping for.  I couldn’t wait to find out how my kids would see differently after spending time in a new country, with it’s different sights and sounds and history.  I thought all of our spanish would improve and that we’d learn more about the history and culture of Spain and we’d be so struck by beauty in some places that we’d remember them forever.  And I think all of that is true.  But that didn’t turn out to be the piece of the bigger picture that presented itself when I stepped back.

When the kids and I parked the car in the airport on our way to Spain, the adventure began.  Though I have to be honest; it took a couple days to relax.  It was just me and the three kids for the first week of travel, so at the start I was a little tense with the prospect of the overnight flight, finding our first place to stay, breaking out my rusty spanish, and figuring out how things worked enough to be confident making our way around.  But then I realized how little was actually required.  The kids were happy so long as we found a gelato place periodically and had access to a pool or fountain in the hottest part of the day.  And there were so many more opportunities than I was used to for sitting back and breathing, reveling in the sights and sounds of our new surroundings.  

It gave me time to appreciate what might have seemed very ordinary to me if I hadn’t been a visiting foreigner.  To feel fed by things that I might otherwise not even notice.

Two examples:

As someone who has been continually (if passively) trying to learn spanish for 15 years, some of my favorite moments in Spain were not the amazing sights but my time spent in taxis.  For 15 or twenty minutes, I would get to have simple but interesting conversations in Spanish with real people about their lives.  The men or women were so kind, speaking slowly and encouragingly with me.  It was great language practice, but it was so much more than that.  It was a taste of community, a feeling of welcome and acceptance, that I never felt from the cursory and polite interactions I had at restaurants and hotels and information centers.  It is those 5 or 6 taxi drivers that represent real Spain to me now.  

Another favorite experience was at a playground in the midst of a huge park in Seville.  We walked off the beaten path to escape the midday sun and discovered a shady playground.  Several kids were already playing when my kids arrived.  Before long, using mostly body language and smiles, the kids had organized a game that was half freeze tag/half hide-and-seek.  Easily an hour passed while they played.  A few minor injuries occurred and international empathy was displayed.  The father of the other kids and I exchanged conversation and laughs while we watched them sort out their game.  There wasn’t anything really incredible about the playground itself or the game they played.  And yet my heart was so full watching the kids shyly reach out to each other and find ways to play together.  I loved watching my kids discover (and feeling myself reminded) that what makes us the same is so much more than what makes us different.

Pico Ayer talks about how ideally we don’t travel to move around, but we travel to be moved.  There is something about being in a new place that helps us to see things that are harder to make out when we are “sleepwalking around our lives.”

We’re a couple weeks out of our trip to Spain now, and as I look back what sticks most with me are those connections to people that I made.  The vulnerability and uncertainty of traveling led me to be more open to engaging with new people than I would ordinarily be here in my normal circumstances.  My eyes were more open than usual to seeing God’s hospitality in the welcome and acceptance of strangers.  My heart was more full than usual of awareness of God’s presence in each of God’s creatures.  

So something about my trip to Spain helped me to step back and see a bigger picture that transcends the travel itself.  But Pico Ayer promises that travel isn’t necessary to the kinds of inner discovery he talks about.  He’s learned that sitting in silence on his porch actually works just as well.  

And of course that’s true for discovering our hunger and thirst for God too. Ignatians have their examen, a practice of looking back over their day and finding places where God was present and places where they were least aware of God, a practice that helps them become just a little more attuned to God the next day and the next.  Contemplatives make time to sit in silence, hoping to clear a space to hear and know God, a silence that helps them live more fully in the present moment.  Others walk the labyrinth, or draw, or climb mountains, or meditate on scripture.  There are as many ways to seek God as their are hearts thirsty for God.

But I do think it can be harder to make time for those moments in the midst of our normal life.  I keep coming back to the people listening to Jesus in our story today who, like my son at the Grand Canyon, can’t see past what they think is just a pile of rocks.  They just don’t understand what they are missing or what he is offering.  I wonder how often I mistake my thirst for what Jesus has to offer for something else completely.  I wonder how often I miss God’s provision of refreshment more fulfilling than anything I can find or create on my own.

So now that my summer travel is over and I’m back in the midst of regular life, my quest continues to find ways to step back from the busy screen of life and get a sense of the bigger picture.  I wonder how each of us can set aside the time and space needed to help us recognize our thirst for God and the living water rippling all around us?