Living Stones - Exiles and Aliens

One morning in October, I witnessed a blind man crossing a busy street in Port-au-Prince. Truck beds carting dozens of men and women approached and passed him with alarming speed. His walking stick was held out in front of him. It was warm out. The palm trees swayed. There was burning in the air. I watched from my car up the road. The man took a couple steps forward, and then another couple back, and repeated himself-- when suddenly, he plunged forward. My heart skipped two beats, but he had crossed the street safely as we passed him by. It struck me, how much I saw myself through the eyes of his blindness: I hadn't a clue what tomorrow would look like, but had gathered enough indication or evidence (and courage) to make a run for it. At the close of this chapter, I was moving back home to California.

That same morning in a small church in a sleepy town just across the Hudson River, Delimar rose to read a text and passed the mic to a minister. It was 1 Peter 2:4-10. I had lived in the net of their love for almost two years. A few days later, I was sitting with the verses on the tarmac at JFK asking myself, "Physically, practically, what does this spiritual house look like?" Last week, the same text resurfaced at the church I am currently attending, and I think I have seen a glimpse of what it means.

On one of the last Sunday mornings before I came back to California, I walked to the communion table to discover that there was no bread left in the basket. Everyone laughed (subdued in that peculiarly Baptist form of gentility) because for a young church plant this was an unexpected, tangible indication of growth. A quiet joy covered the congregation and new pieces of bread came from the kitchen. Elaine and I were the last ones to partake, and I remember taking that bread with her and thinking that this was probably the last time I would be sharing this meal with her. Elaine (and her husband, Phil) had given me a place to live, had fed me and even clothed me that year. We talked until the wee hours of the morning. We hiked to the tops of mountains and watched mindless TV shows and went out on the town. We bought groceries together. Phil advised me on men (as I was hopeless in that regard) and took me under his wing when I was at the end of my weariness. He salted the stairs of the front porch, pulled all the weeds from the garden, and killed all the spiders. I thought, "Though I know I'll visit, I know we won't have this life together again. Until we see You face to face, Lord. Maranatha." We took of the bread and the wine.

There came a good break in the Haiti project to pass it on, and I found myself in a car with all of my belongings at the airport. I embraced three ladies that had changed my life. A couple of weeks later, I was sitting in a prayer meeting surrounded by complete strangers. The pastor was talking about Myanmar, and looking straight into my soul. I left knowing that this was it, the next stomping ground. In high spirits, three days later, I received a devastating call. It shook my confidence in my ability to make decisions, to know right from wrong.

Had I made a mistake? Why had I left the home that I loved, the people that I loved? Because I was so convinced in obeying some intangible feeling? Had I moved in the wrong direction? I had never known so much doubt.

I sat in service on Sunday, feeling detached from my body. Thousands of miles away, I saw a hundred living stones laid in a far-away tower. They were going about in their apartments and with their families, sharing meals and laughing and crying together. Rob, one of my greatest mentors, once explained to me his native sense of saudades, and I can't say that my friends were lost to me-- but that grave aching was ever present as I sat there weeping.

The girl sitting in front of me turned around and saw me in my helpless state. It was Kira, a girl I had prayed with at the prayer meeting the week before. She asked if we could take communion together. I sat next to her, just as I had with Elaine those weeks prior. I saw Elaine smiling from the other end, seated those thousands of miles away. Hadn't her prayers been answered? Kira and I took of the bread and the wine.

The next couple of months progressed with some discomfort but ultimate wonder as I traveled further down the road with my new life. I was glad to be with my parents again, and glad to remember all the things that I had once loved as a child. Life was progressing. I was fashioned into a new part of the greater spiritual house, and was enjoying the process overall. Until last week, when through the pulpit came the voice of my old ministers. Hundreds of living souls shone from all the corners of the globe. I missed them all, all at once.

Gloria was feeding her son in a hippie high chair in Seattle. Kelicia was learning French in Bretagne. How long ago had we wandered the streets of 이태원 with her now husband? David bought a house in London! Rachel was already six-months old? Sarah was rocking her new job in Manhattan. Mihye was laying on her bed, contemplating the meaning of suffering. Little Yasmin in Mexico, was she still alive? Jenny! A living, answered prayer. Njeri. Wilton was macking on girls, Cindy's bun was growing, Joanna was dating, John was dating! Daniel was mourning and in wonder, Bobby was fighting through, Grace was fighting through, Marabishi was treating a psych patient, Samuél was feeding the children at his school. And here.... in Orange County, the souls around me glowed-- I was amazed, and so, so weary. I pled, "If eventually you want me to leave this place too, after all that You will build, after all that You have taught me to carry, to lay at Your feet-- I can't do it again. My heart lives in hundreds of different hearts and in a year, or two with these new, wonderful souls-- I will break if you tell me to leave them too."

I cried for a night, on the edge of loss and convinced that I knew the way God moved. Or maybe other people knew the way God moved. "More will come?" That's what some old man had said to me a couple of weeks ago. "More will come." I couldn't deal. I was drowning in the lives I had left behind. Two more had already come. I hadn't asked them to. Doesn't it always begin like this? I needed the presence of God, like heroin to a drug addict. This was ridiculous: desperate, deep and cavernous. I returned to what I knew. Test everything. Hold fast what is good. I was tired, and like the regular idiot I am, I fell fast asleep.

Then this morning, I woke up. Sometime later, Rachael and Brent from church texted. I had left a group chat the night before, but didn't realize it would announce my departure. When it did, Rachael and Brent had thought something was wrong. "I'm just messed up," I told Rachael. "Community is important," was the obvious response from them both. So, I turned my face upward in the only way that I knew how and was reminded:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated at the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new."

He is building us into a house that is more beautiful than we ever imagined. I thought of Babel, and our limited scope of sight. How He must have looked down and pitied the small vision of man. How He has transmuted it for His glory. He has and will continue to give us more than we need until that day when we can sit and live together again, all together, face-to-face with our living, gracious, and loving God. There is a completeness in the interconnected symphony of our individual souls. He has laid us as singular sounds to join in with a chorus that loves cities and nations, constantly being perfected by our dear Jesus Christ, despite our broken generations and corporate history. I cannot wait. I miss every soul I have left. I am moved to tears every time I think of each of them. I long for the day when I will sit at that table with all of you living souls. As glorious as these earthly experiences are, we are not home yet.

"As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."