WWYouD not WWJD

I (finally) did my laundry today. I went to what seemed to an average, run-of-the-mill laundry facility down Berry. What I saw there was both sadly ordinary and extraordinary.

Today's sermon in "big church" was about seeing God where God meets you everyday. It isn't every day that you meet God on the "mountain top" though of course you meet God there. God appeared to Moses in the desert wasteland at the bottom of Horeb not the top.

Religious literature and conversations are full of this analogy of one's life journey as one large or several mini ventures and struggles with the mountain top. It seems many of us are always reaching and desperately grasping for the top of the mountain. I think the Buddha would explain that you must indeed come down from the mountain, just as you ascended.

The laundromat. She was hunched over her laundry basket which appeared to be full of crumpled up brown paper sacks, some looking empty and others half-empty with who knows what. She picked one up in slow motion, opened it, and stared into it but not seeing. She was clothed in layers of dirty torn-up gray and had some sort of wrap around her head like half a t-shirt. Old, emaciated, and completely unengaged in the world that she was barely surviving in.

No one spoke to her including myself. People scooted around her if they had to get by. She started shuffling towards the bathroom. It took her a while to get there. She stood in the doorway for a bit and if she were more conscious of what she was doing she may have mustered a look of confusion. It's hard to tell what her face was reflecting besides suffering and lackluster.

I'm not sure that she was in pain, though it's likely she was at least starving. Intervention is always tricky. What does she need? What can I provide for her that would give her a better life? Some, many, people wouldn't even bother to question. The homeless and hungry are sometimes just grouped into one rapidly increasing number that the weekly newscasters throw in the mix "things to talk about".

One of the things I have been conditioned to ask myself the last year or so is, "Where is God?" in everyday situations. Here, the bottom of the mountain, the desert wasteland, the Berry Street laundromat on a sweltering hot Sunday afternoon, in the face of this woman... "Where is God?"

I think of God as with us always. That there is the Divine in everyone. For some it is locked up in the box of their soul and difficult to perceive it's presence. For others it gushes out without boundaries. And for the rest of us- well, we have our moments of Grace and our moments of... not-Grace.

I didn't see Grace flowing out of this woman. I saw Suffering. Just as God Jesus suffered on the cross, I saw God Jesus suffering in this woman. What flowed out of her was the suffering. What I saw in her was the Divine as portrayed on the Cross.

In the story of Jesus's crucifixion... how did Jesus get to the cross? The soldiers put him there. What about this woman? If this woman is Jesus Suffering, who is putting her there?

We are all apart of this crazy complex system. We put Jesus on the cross every day and half the time don't realize it. The inevitable sphere of influence is never ending and not comprehensible. We get nailed to the cross, just as we nail others. God is with us as grace and suffering. That's probably why we are commanded to seek justice and love one another, so that we can all experience a little piece of the pie. I still do not know the answer for this woman. What would you have done if you been a spectator at the crucifixion? What do you do now?

God, the elephant in the room.

*This isn't my idea. A close friend of mine told me about this analogy. I'm not sure if it's hers or who's it is. I've added to it a bit for clarity and to extend the metaphor. And it needs some further development*

Imagine you are a fly on the wall, or rather, perhaps out of doors on a tree. An elephant is standing near the tree you're resting on. Along comes a group of five blind people. The first one bumps into the elephant. She begins feeling around to figure out what it is. Three of the friends encircle the unknown (to them) thing and feel around to study, curious... and silent.

One person (touching the elephants front leg) says describes it as a rough yet soft, column-like object. It is still and unmoving.

Another person (touching the trunk) describes a wild, quick moving being, blowing out air. Parts of it are rough, parts are slimy like the bottom of a lake. It is gentle and feels like it is responsive to the person's touch, perhaps reciprocate interested in the person.

Yet another one of the blind people, takes hold of another part of the elephant. He describes it as quick-moving, thin, rough, and hairy. The hairs are course, with grit on them. There is a distinct, earthy smell. The part which he tries to hang onto keeps slipping out of his hands, which makes it a bit more difficult to decipher to feel out what the thing is. He can hear a swish as if it is hitting another object nearby. (It's the tail.)

The fourth friend stumbles underneath the beast and reaches his hands up in the air. He could feel a presence above his head, though he could not feel anything at all. There was warmth, like a nearby body, above him. He made out a slight steady beating, like a hollow drum. It was so slight in fact, that he questioned whether he was hearing something outside and above him... or whether it was his own heartbeat.

The fifth friend had walked around the elephant towards the tree for some shade. She sat down and leaned back against the tree, not knowing that I, a fly, was only a few feet above her observing she and her friends. She had not encountered the elephant in anyway.

The fifth friend called out to the others and announced there was a cool place to rest at the tree. The four friends left the object they had just encountered and explored. They each told each other their experiences as described above.

As we see, none of their descriptions were the same. Each description was different. They had no way of actually knowing if they had encountered the same being, or if they were describing parts of one being. They had all been changed at least in gaining of knowledge by their personal experience, but also were enriched (and perhaps confused) by the difference in each others descriptions of the elephant.

It would be easy for them to argue about what it was they encountered. To compete with each other as to "who was right." Instead they rested for awhile before continuing through the savanna. One wondered if they would encounter the elephant again. One kept the memory of it alive and so close to their heart that they felt as if the elephant was there still. One had a bit of all those, and one never thought of the moment again until 10 years later, as a fleeting thought.