For most of a week I have been in the Pacific Northwest, day by day thinking aloud about the ways that belief and behavior are twined together in the human heart, and what that means for the way we live together. From the first days in Portland, OR, over the next days in Seattle, WA, I have been with good people who long for a good society. Different kinds of people they were, from twentysomethings to those in the third/third of life, in wonderfully and creatively diverse ways each hoping that vocation and occupation—what we feel we were made to do, the deepest story of who we are, and what we do day by day with life –can be more coherent. University students who are on the edge of the rest of life, visionary young men and women with their educations complete and full of energy for what might be done on the face of the earth, foundation executives with practiced wisdom about individuals and institutions, senior counselors who have lived years in the world whose only desire is to give themselves away in service to God and history, and more. I got up early and went off into different settings with different people who are doing their best to seamlessly connect with what they believe about the world with the way they live in the world. A morning with seminary leaders, pastors, and businesspeople, a lunch with interns in non-profit organizations in the Puget Sound, an afternoon conversation with a university professor who sees into his work with unusual insight, another afternoon conversation with an entrepreneurial business leader who longs to keep at things that matter as long as he has time and life, a dinner with two very wonderful people who love God, each other and the world. Two mornings I spoke to gatherings of businesspeople in the area, one in downtown Seattle and one in downtown Bellevue, each time offering a vision of the way business might be done, the way business ought to be done, if we all are to flourish—a signpost in a strange land, to remember Walker Percy. And I spent some of yesterday morning with someone I have known as long as I have known just about anyone. We were born in the same little town, Monte Vista, CO, and with our families moved to Davis, CA, when we were very young. Each a son in a family of four boys, we spent good times together growing up, but hadn’t seen each other for decades—until he and his wife walked into the room in Bellevue. After the meeting, they took me to the airport, and we talked and talked, could have talked more, and someday I hope we will. But this no longer surprises me. Wherever I go meet people of all ages and backgrounds who want their lives to matter. Stumbling along, longing for grace as we are, we all long for that-- some days groaning at what we don’t see, and some days glad for what we do. And now I am home again, and happy to be. (A salmon in Seattle, of course.)
Posted on: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 13:11:53 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015