A Christian? Already?
Day 15
Buechner begins a new chapter: The Laughing Room of Maya Angelou. He explains how he came to meet Maya Angelou and then tells several stories about his time with her.
“One thing she said was that every once in a while as she moved around the world she would meet somebody who would say with considerable pride, “I’m a Christian.” And whenever she heard that she would say, ‘I try very hard to be a Christian. It’s very difficult for me to be a Christian. I work at it. A lot of things are working against it in me, though.’ But what she was really thinking when she would hear someone say, ‘I’m a Christian,’ is, ‘Already?’ It’s a good thing to remember. Already a Christian . . . Wow.”
Frederick Buechner, The Remarkable Ordinary: How to Stop, Look, and Listen to Life, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, pp49-50.
To help you reflect…
Sit with the idea that being a Christian is something that people need to work at instead of simply being. Is that challenging or freeing for you?
I love this too ! It’s exactly how I feel . Sometimes my inner dialogue when doing something being a Christian requires me to do , is not necessarily sweetness and light . By that I mean my own biases and initial judgmental thoughts arise, even though my actions are Christian. Most times the positive impact of this action is shared not just by the recipient but also in the way I now feel about that person and myself . A bit convoluted I know but that’s me trying to be Christian - a bit fake it til you make it !! And it’s always a process .
I’m trying to follow Jesus and I’m very aware of how I fail to “love one another as I have loved you.” Love means showing active good will toward everyone. I also think it means to work for justice, because love in action is correcting injustices. It’s not only the interpersonal love of others with whom I come into contact. Sometimes it is overwhelming to read the news and see so much injustice. I have to ask, “What is mine to do?” What area should I focus upon? I cannot focus everywhere. I probably need to rejoin the Friends Committee on National Legislation.