Our Lives in the Open

Why do we hide our light under a bushel?

My apartment doorway opens to a little patio area under the main stairs
to the building I live in. I often sit out there in the late afternoon
and read. It's protected from the hot afternoon sun and the rain, and
there is always a slight cooling breeze. It's a wonderfully pleasant
place to pass an hour or few reading late in the day.

I was
reading out there yesterday afternoon when I realized that I was
running late for an appointment. I ran in the apartment, grabbed my
keys and took off.

When I came back a neighbor, a construction
worker who lives in a nearby building, was sitting in one of my chairs
reading the book I had, in my haste, left out. "This guy, Keats," he
said. "He's good."

That would John Keats, the romantic poet. I
am sure that he would never have thought to read Keats. But the book,
lying out in the open like that with it's rich leather binding of
maroon and gold caught his eye and he could not help reaching down and
looking, then reading, then at last settling down in one of my chairs
and reading (according to him) for nearly an hour.

It makes you
wonder, doesn't it? Maybe we try too hard to push things down people's
throats. Maybe we should simply wear our lives and our faith and our
passions out in the open, and trust people's natural curiosity to make
them want to look. If who and what we are is intriguing enough, or
attractive enough, we'll draw people to us, like the volume of Keats
drew my neighbor.

When I was in college, I used to get the
newspaper. I was the only kid in the dorm who got a newspaper. As I
read, I'd find things that I thought were interesting and tape them to
the door out in the hall. Comics, stories, odd facts, and a quote of
the week (yes, that's when I started the quote of the week that I still
do, now on my e-mails instead of the doorway.) You cannot imagine how
often I opened my dorm room door to leave and would find someone
standing there, reading. When I run into old college buddies, now some
thirty plus years later, they still comment about it.

But what
we seem to do is live internal lives, and an internal faith, not open ones. We're too busy, or
to afraid to share, or something. But what would happen if we lived our
lives and faith more openly, more sharingly, if we weren't afraid to leave our
hearts out in the open? What might people find? What might they
discover in themselves, just by their natural curiosity? What new
friends might enter our lives? What new joys could come of it?Talking
to my neighbor, it turns out that my archway under the stairs is a
passage way everyone around here uses when they go from building to
building. "I'm not the first person to read your book today." he said.
"I saw…"Hmmm. Two people exposed to Keats in one day. People
for whom if I had suggested they read some dead nineteenth century poet
would have laughed at the thought. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? I am
already thinking about what I am going to leave out later today when I
leave…

In
a small way, this site is an opportunity for us to do just that, wear
our faith and our concerns in the open. By sharing, we are exposing
ourselves to a larger community, but we are also exposing that
community to our own hearts. And that is what we are called to do – not
keep our faith like a candle under the basket, but hold it up high. not
in pride, or in anger, but in hope that we will draw others to sit,
consider and join us.