Oneness

The air smells like rain. It rained much earlier today, but ironically, in the heat of summer, the air seems frozen in time. It is warm, but not hot. Evening. On a Tuesday... my last Tuesday of summer break. 

Something was drawing me outside tonight... the way the sun's rays were entering our home and dancing on the piano made me wonder what the sky must look like from our front porch. I caught glimpses of what I had imagined it must look like outside... on our now-pink tinted walls, through warm, orange cracks in the curtains. I had to see what the sky looked like, in all of its full glory. The tiny glimpses I caught through the glass pieces in our door just weren't cutting it.

And so, I opened the door, breathed in the rain-air, and stepped outside. 

I've been sitting out here for about twenty minutes now, and it's already dark. I caught the last look at the orange-pink sky setting behind the houses across the street. There's heat lightening flashing across the neighborhood every couple of minutes or so.

It is so quiet.

My breaths feel deeper-- more dense with all the humidity. I am taking time to just look around and notice things... the neighbor's sunflowers growing in front of their porch are nearly in full-bloom. The anticipation made me smile. My dog is standing proudly on our stoop, sniffing the night air like some kind of statue, or the mermaid on the front of a boat. I hear all sorts of bugs, but don't see (or feel) any mosquitoes. Yet.

But enough ambiance. Hopefully you get the gist of it. 

I've been reflecting on a really nebulous topic as of late... and I know it's going to be really "out there." I'm grateful for these quiet summer nights because I think in the busyness of everyday life (you know, when I actually have a day-job), it's too noisy and frantic to think about such things. So... here goes. 

I've been thinking about the oneness of the Body of Christ, and how everyone and everything is so vastly different that it seems nearly impossible for Jesus to reconcile us all to Himself when He comes back. And yet, I eagerly await this miraculous act, because I believe that if anyone can bring that kind of unity, it's Jesus. 

My thoughts are interrupted by the howling of a dog in the distance. I look over to my own dog, who is sprawled out on the top of our steps like a porch dog from the Appalachian mountains. And I'm not trying to be quirky or poetic... he actually reminds me of a dog I met when I was doing work in rural Tennessee, helping a widow and her porch dog fix their broken steps. The parallel brings me back to that moment in time. I feel out of body for a moment... it's all so similar to right now.

Oneness. 

The houses in my neighborhood are old-- like over 100 years old. My house was built in 1905, and it's still standing strong. I think for a moment about the way our neighborhood must have felt to the first owners of this home. Did they sit on this porch like I am sitting? Did they think nebulous thoughts? Did they watch the sun setting over the houses across the street?

The oldness is speckled with strangely future-looking items. Cars line the streets. My bicycle is chained to our porch railing. Its ridiculous gadgets and iPhone holders look too sterile for this old, quiet house. I'm typing on a wireless keyboard, for Heaven's sake. Someone's balcony has rainbow Christmas lights strung up. (It's August.)

How can Jesus feel so close when He lived so, so long ago? How can I be part of this neighborhood's history, when my story is so incredibly different than the generations of folks that have lived here before me? Times are different, but they're also the same. My porch also has a sleepy dog laying on it, and the same sky that called me outside tonight is the same one that someone saw more than a century ago, from this same exact spot.

I'm told that God's concept of time is very different than ours, which is why He's omni-present and able to be the same good God that He was back in the times of Abraham, or of Paul. He's the same God and Scriptures tell me that the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is the very same Spirit that lives in me. Which is crazy. (See Romans 6:10).

I guess it all started in the Garden of Eden. (I hate to be that person and go back that far, but everything starts somewhere, right?) Can you imagine walking around a garden with God? Or a shopping mall? Or anywhere, for that matter? The closeness they experienced must have felt so insane and so natural at the same time. We were created to be in right relationship with Him, after all.

And then sin came, and broke off that tie. Thankfully, Jesus restored what was broken, and through Him, we have access to the Father once again through the Holy Spirit. But even today, something feels like I felt about an hour ago when I was still inside. I know there's an amazing day coming where the Glory of God will shine brightly and marvelously and we'll be face to face with the One who created us and it'll be beyond anything we could ever dream. I am confident of this.

But it still feels like we're inside, catching little glimpses of the sunlight peering through our front windows.

I want to be on the front porch with God, right now.

There's an empty seat next to me that I want Him to sit in. I want to share a glass of wine with the One who turned water into wine, and laugh with the One who created laughter.

I want Him to merge the life I'm living now with the way more beautiful world He's restoring, and I want to invite him over for some porch time. I long to be close to Him and to feel Him near me the way Adam and Eve got to feel Him in the garden. 

For now, I sit and marvel at His creation and contrast it with the brokenness I experience around me. I hear horns honking and engines revving on the highway. I smell cigarettes. Someone is walking home from work, keys jangling, only to have to knock on their front door for someone to let them inside. 

Our neighborhood is lush with diverse experiences, stories, and cultures. As a white woman, it sometimes feels strange to try and relate to my elderly Black neighbor. I brought him some tomatoes from my garden yesterday in a plastic grocery bag. That felt weird, too... the plastic bag rustling up against the red, plump fruit. Something that represented waste, consumerism, and landfills in my brain was holding what I had carefully planted, pruned, picked, washed, and dried for my neighbor. Contrasts, differences, and opposites were so closely touching, but not "one." It's how I feel sometimes in my neighborhood. 

Another interruption. A police siren rang one time several blocks away. I am once again reminded of how different my experiences are from those of my Black neighbors. How are we "one" in Christ? How are we ever going to become "one?"

I turned to the Word of God by Googling, "that there may be no division among you Bible verse." Then, I clicked on 1 Corinthians 12 and started reading. 

And you guys - I cannot make this up - it started pouring down rain. 

It's still raining as I ravenously type out these words... I feel that God is close to me. I feel Him all around me, as rain mists off the railings and onto my bear skin. I am overcome with awe and wonder. Here are the Words I read:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit...

For the body does not consist of one member but of many... As it is, there are many parts, yet one body... But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

-1 Corinthians 12, 12-26 NIV

I don't want to point out the ways I can divide this world. 

Old, new, white, Black. Male, female. Young, old. Inside, outside. Tennessee, Ohio. Plastic, organic.

Instead, I want to be reconciled to God through His Spirit and experience the One body we read about in the Scriptures. I know there's more verses out there that talk about oneness in the Spirit, and I'm determined to find them, read them, and add them below as time passes.

For now, I will leave you with a call to Oneness... one Body that Christ will one day draw even nearer to Himself. I am ready.