Life at the Intersection
Because I claim to be at the corner of the everyday and the religious, many of my readers wonder where exactly this corner is. What is the address? How busy is this intersection? Are there traffic jams? Accidents? Crosswalks?
Some visit the intersection more often than others. Some live their lives there, in fact, like I do. But all of us, at some point or another, will be involved with the intersection of the everyday and religious. I am here to help us realize when we stop at this crossroads so we can take everything in, process it, and help others on the great car trip of life.
When we hear President Bush demand that God bless America, we have arrived at the intersection. When a Muslim cleric tells his suicide bombers that God will reward them in paradise, we are in the middle of the intersection. We pull up to the light when we read a newspaper article about a group of high school students praying for their friend’s fight with cancer. The everyday and the religious meet when our grocer tells us he has been seeing a psychic and recommends that we do the same. The intersection is ever-present. So what do we do with this?
It seems like the traffic light at the intersection is always yellow. Thus, we have a decision to make: Do we rev our engines and barely escape the mayhem, beating the light so we’re not stuck there? Or do we use caution, hit the brakes and stop to soak in everything the intersection might offer us? Some days we drive, and some days we stop. Such is life at the intersection: beautifully inconsistent but always available.
We scan newspaper articles and ignore grocers on Mondays, but listen to Peter Jennings and a coworker on Tuesday. The intersection does not go away just because we spend little time there. It is not a gallon of milk that expires or a houseplant that we can easily ignore. The intersection is the locus of change and action, demanding that we play a part if we are to be responsible humans.
This does not simply mean that we change our religious awareness. Counting the number of religious articles in the USA Today or seeing how many churches are within five miles of our home will not make the intersection a place of stoppage for us. Going into those churches, reading those articles and speaking with others about these experiences brings the intersection to life by bringing other lives to the intersection.
Religious violence is readily seen but religious proactivism is rarely praised. Life at the intersection could change this. Religious workers are highly visible, but religious believers are seldom shown. Life at the intersection allows us to see the pure quantity of events that have spiritual undertones and motivation, letting us play a part in either their continuation or demise. These events will continue without our recognition; our awareness merely makes us richer in the meantime.
Human beings are highly religious creatures. Ever since man and woman were first made, ever since the first shaman performed or the first seer predicted, humans have searched both their inner depths and the outer depths of the world for meaning. But our desire to achieve and segregate has pushed this most fundamental of all searches to the background, making this journey a random exit in the middle of nowhere on the freeway of life. Time at the intersection shows us all that the search for meaning, the search that determines our identity as humans, takes many forms today. These forms make up the news, the movies, the music, the people, the conversations and the time we all enjoy. So hit the brakes. Take your time. Enjoy the intersection. Even if you blow on by, just over the hill is another intersection, and there’s no way you’re going to make that light.
Some visit the intersection more often than others. Some live their lives there, in fact, like I do. But all of us, at some point or another, will be involved with the intersection of the everyday and religious. I am here to help us realize when we stop at this crossroads so we can take everything in, process it, and help others on the great car trip of life.
When we hear President Bush demand that God bless America, we have arrived at the intersection. When a Muslim cleric tells his suicide bombers that God will reward them in paradise, we are in the middle of the intersection. We pull up to the light when we read a newspaper article about a group of high school students praying for their friend’s fight with cancer. The everyday and the religious meet when our grocer tells us he has been seeing a psychic and recommends that we do the same. The intersection is ever-present. So what do we do with this?
It seems like the traffic light at the intersection is always yellow. Thus, we have a decision to make: Do we rev our engines and barely escape the mayhem, beating the light so we’re not stuck there? Or do we use caution, hit the brakes and stop to soak in everything the intersection might offer us? Some days we drive, and some days we stop. Such is life at the intersection: beautifully inconsistent but always available.
We scan newspaper articles and ignore grocers on Mondays, but listen to Peter Jennings and a coworker on Tuesday. The intersection does not go away just because we spend little time there. It is not a gallon of milk that expires or a houseplant that we can easily ignore. The intersection is the locus of change and action, demanding that we play a part if we are to be responsible humans.
This does not simply mean that we change our religious awareness. Counting the number of religious articles in the USA Today or seeing how many churches are within five miles of our home will not make the intersection a place of stoppage for us. Going into those churches, reading those articles and speaking with others about these experiences brings the intersection to life by bringing other lives to the intersection.
Religious violence is readily seen but religious proactivism is rarely praised. Life at the intersection could change this. Religious workers are highly visible, but religious believers are seldom shown. Life at the intersection allows us to see the pure quantity of events that have spiritual undertones and motivation, letting us play a part in either their continuation or demise. These events will continue without our recognition; our awareness merely makes us richer in the meantime.
Human beings are highly religious creatures. Ever since man and woman were first made, ever since the first shaman performed or the first seer predicted, humans have searched both their inner depths and the outer depths of the world for meaning. But our desire to achieve and segregate has pushed this most fundamental of all searches to the background, making this journey a random exit in the middle of nowhere on the freeway of life. Time at the intersection shows us all that the search for meaning, the search that determines our identity as humans, takes many forms today. These forms make up the news, the movies, the music, the people, the conversations and the time we all enjoy. So hit the brakes. Take your time. Enjoy the intersection. Even if you blow on by, just over the hill is another intersection, and there’s no way you’re going to make that light.
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