Twenty-year Crisis

continued

And so we'd drive out to Jean's, park among the pickup trucks, walk past the stools at the counter, and sit at a formica-topped table. John and I would sit, that is. It took Herb a long time to exchange news and greetings with fellow regulars. At last he'd remember that he had a breakfast date with off-islanders, join us at the table, and light a cigarette.

It was across the ketchup bottle at Jean's one morning that we brought up the isolation we were feeling. "Its not that our faith means any less to us," John said. "Speaking for myself, it's never meant more."

I nodded agreement.

"Its just that in groups of Christians," John went on, "we feel like outsiders. I guess the word for us is lonely."

Herb signaled the waitress with his empty coffee mug. "John," he said, "if you told me anything else, I'd be worried about you. "Don't you know," he went on, "that each Christian life has its own pattern, different from any other? The longer we walk with God, the more closely we conform to the blueprint he's laid out for us alone, and the less like anyone else we become."

The fried eggs arrived.

"The only problem I have with what you say," Herb said, "is the word you used. You don't have the right one at all. I don't see you as lonely, John and Tib. I see you as unique."

What a freedom-giving word! Freedom to stop comparing our pilgrim's progress with anyone else's. Freedom to delight in reports of other journeys without devaluing our own or trying to make someone else walk our way.

Like most truths, it was so obvious, once spoken, that we wondered how we'd missed it. God who courts each of us so individually - who made a churchful of people icily aloof one September Sunday because a couple in the last row needed this - will he then turn around and blot out the differences he seemed to respect? Is the respect merely a ploy to get us through the door, behind which a divine cookie cutter goes to work turning out identical little Christians?

Of course not. Yet this was precisely the image I'd had, growing up outside that door. All Christians, I'd believed, though I didn't actually know any, were alike. What a releasing thing it's been, since that breakfast at Jean's, to recognize that the Christian walk means just the opposite!

The longer the walk, the more our individuality emerges. Longtime Christians in fact are the least conforming people I know! For God, who doesn't make duplicates even of snowflakes, is filling his heaven with millions upon millions of unique creations.