Quaker 2.0

I live in El Monte, California, right next to a fairly massive quarry that has torn away the mountains we live under and dug away the earth below us. One of the biggest holes has been dug away at for decades and is still awe inspiring every time I drive past it (which is every time I leave the house).

The unfortunate thing about this quarry is that because of the digging, and the fact that most of the sites are just left, the dust that fills the air is horrendous. Our house is constantly covered in dust and the air is terrible. Add to that the fact that the quarry is an incredible eye-sore, and you wonder why anyone would ever want to live here.

I was driving to a meeting with some friends a few weeks back and I wondered what it would take to fill in the holes. I imagined a bunch of concerned El Monte citizens all grabbing handfuls of dirt and throwing them into these craters in a fit of concerned rage, and I started to laugh at the silliness of it. The reality is that in order to fill a hole that took decades and millions of dollars to dig, it’s going to take that much effort and more to fill it in. Imagine the resources it would take (not to mention the will) to fill the whole complex in! It’s astounding.

I’m never one to just let a metaphor go, especially when it fits so perfectly. Living in Los Angeles is like living next to the quarry… the problems that surround us (violence, poverty and miserable cultural relations) have taken decades to develop and millions of uninterested people to ignore to the point where we all live with a muck that covers everything we do. Because we’re surrounded every day by these massive “holes,” we tell ourselves that it’s just part of modern life – that there’s nothing much we can do about it.

There are great big holes in life that desperately need filling, but for most people it’s almost impossible to even imagine where to start. Some people suggest grabbing one handful of dirt and throwing it in the hole, hoping that maybe their little effort will make a difference. The obvious example is the person who guiltily hands a dollar or two to a pan-handler and thinks, “Well, at least I did what I could.” But is a difference actually made?

Some groups, like Saddleback Church (just to continue the conversation begun on my previous post) have looked at these holes and decided that in numbers something substantial can be done. They build churches and community groups that are easy to be part of and don’t demand a lot, and in doing so gain access to the kinds of resources most people couldn’t even imagine. But does access to resources make a difference?

Of course, we could always just say, “Oh well” and walk away, finding a new place to start again… and maybe this time it will be different. Or even better: God’s coming back soon, so why bother doing anything at all?

Here’s something from Matthew 4:23-25 (The Message)

From there he went all over Galilee. He used synagogues for meeting places and taught people the truth of God. God’s kingdom was his theme–that beginning right now they were under God’s government, a good government! He also healed people of their diseases and of the bad effects of their bad lives. Word got around the entire Roman province of Syria. People brought anybody with an ailment, whether mental, emotional, or physical. Jesus healed them, one and all. More and more people came, the momentum gathering. Besides those from Galilee, crowds came from the “Ten Towns” across the lake, others up from Jerusalem and Judea, still others from across the Jordan.

Jesus began a project to fill in some holes (or sometimes he used the metaphor of a well: John 4:1-28). He did it through miraculous (not resource driven) events that had a profound impact on entire communities. The Kingdom of God that he talked about wasn’t some self-help book, but was instead a mystical reality where God’s will and hope for our lives punched through our mortality and apathy to give people eyes to see that holes aren’t impossible to fill.

I think that Quakers, at their best moments, have been willing to step into the Kingdom of God and engage God’s will with the sort of abandon that makes them heroes of the faith. With a skeptic’s heart and mind, they leapt off bridges that only God would ask them to jump off of. They made a difference by being part of the miraculous.

I talk to people all the time about what they see going on, that something’s got to give. I see hopefulness amidst darkness. I think people of faith are beginning to sense what’s in the air – the movement of God through his Kingdom. I see the beginnings of a movement willing to follow again. Do you see it too?