Monday Meditations: What My Best Friend Taught Me About God
Or: My Wife Can't Never Leave Nothin' Alone... and I Love It
One of the bigger sources of comical tension between my wife and me is the difference in degrees to which we feel compelled to immerse ourself in other people’s affairs.
This difference in mindset manifested again last week when her mother answered a call on her father’s phone on speaker, and what looked like it was supposed to be a quick update between a couple of people turned into a whole conference.
The way I see it: life is stressful enough with the hand I’ve been dealt. I will answer calls for help, but I do not look for situations to insert myself into. I am more than happy to play my role and meditate on how to play my role better without taking steps to expand my role by trying to factor in whatever it is other people got goin’ on. I have a common refrain on Twitter: All I do is mind my business and crack jokes.
My wife on the other hand? She is a helper. If she identifies a problem or something that could be run more efficiently, she springs into action. You don’t even have to ask. Her mind gets to turning and her feet get to moving and, before I can tell her that we should consider minding our business, she’s off to make the world a better place.
When I reflect back on these situations, I think about how she looks like Jesus in those moments and I just look like… me.
There is something sacred about the compulsion—even the duty—to help people sort through problems you did not create. Often, the problems my wife seems committed to helping people work through are not of their creation either. Sometimes, people find themselves dealing with inherited problems. Some of those problems are imposed on them. And, yes, some of those problems are the result of decisions they’ve made and actions they’ve taken. But that doesn’t always mean that the rest of their earthly existence should be defined by one decision or action.
It’s easy for me to make these connections with a relatively clear mind and a blank page in front of me, but when I’m back in the regular flow of life? My reasonable mind is going to tell me to mind my business. But back here—in the moment with my clear mind and this blank page—I recognize that my reasonable mind can sometimes stand in the way of making me the best neighbor I can be. Pragmatically, I’m a machine. I can’t think of a time where I’ve put me or my family in a worse position by minding my business. But what if my position ain’t the main thing?
I spend a lot of time thinking about and talking about God. There is literally not a day that goes by without me engaging in a healthy dose of theologizin'. Even with all of that time spent doin’ God-talk, there are times when things don’t come into focus and someone has to show me what God looks like.
Yesterday was Easter. (Resurrection Sunday if you holy like that.) It’s a day that Christians of all sort celebrate Jesus defeating death by escaping the tomb after his crucifixion. But today, I’m thinking about how Jesus got on that cross in the first place. And he got there by solving problems he didn’t create. He got there by helping people work through problems that weren't entirely of their own creation either. Jesus was crucified because he found himself helping people fix problems they’d inherited. And that problem was, in part, a mindset that was sorta like mine. An unwavering commitment to minding their own business—even at the expense of tending to all of creation. It’s hard for us to experience the fullness of God that way.
One problem with everyone minding their business like I do is that, eventually, some people will make it their business to amass power at the expense of others. Eventually, some other people will lose the capacity to thrive because other people’s business is predicated on turning thriving into a zero-sum game.
Minding our business is natural for a whole lot of us, but the story of Jesus is one in which a transcendent God enters the human story. The story of Jesus is one where the Creator consistently enters the problem-solving business on behalf of others. Lots of people met Jesus with reactions like mine. Things are easier if we just mind our own business. Peter and Jesus have almost that exact conversation at one point! In Matthew 16 (and in Mark 8), Jesus (a rural preacher from the Galilean countryside) tells his disciples that he’s heading to the big city of Jerusalem, and that things will get pretty sticky for him there. Peter tells Jesus that, not only does it not have to go down like that, it ain’t goin’ down like that. And Jesus famously replies get behind me, Satan.
In that reply, Jesus tells Peter that the love of God is not passive. The love of God moves to address the problems that stand between us and wholeness. Jesus is in the business of making problem solving his business, even at the cost of enduring pain and suffering. And that’s the life he invites us into.
That’s what the love of God looks like.
The Resurrection reminds us that whatever pain and suffering we endure for choosing the love of God is not the end.
But the story of Jesus reminds us that the love of God is active, and that it will not leave us to sort through problems on our own.
I’m grateful I get to spend life around people who show me what the love of God looks like. To all the people who, like my wife, ain’t too content to mind their business as other people struggle: thank you.
I've been thinking a lot about the continuum of creation and how everything works together. Heaven & earth, light & darkness, land and sea, day & night, male and female. In each of these dichotomies, I see a continuum. When I think about all the people I know, I see a rainbow of personality types and skill sets, and they all play an important role in the world - the firefighter who acts without hesitation in a moment of danger; the surgeon who plans and rehearses a surgery over and over; the musician who expresses emotions through music that words cannot express; the farmer who is in tune with nature, tends the land, and grows our food. I see God in the tapestry of it all, weaving all these different types of threads into a beautiful picture.
For me, the tension is honouring who I am (foot vs hand, eye vs ear), but not allowing who I am to stand in the way of acting when I should. As always, your writing gives me much food for thought.
My beloved is very much a do-her-own-thing-and-mind-her-own-business type of person, but she also does stuff like paying for a chosen brother’s rent and signing his lease because he needed said things to keep living. I’m very much a guardian cat type that goes in and out of different worlds as he pleases and support said worlds if able. Idk maybe you’re able to fight for another’s wholeness in a way that your wife can’t. I know your words definitely have for mine.