Seperate & Together

It’s about 8 am and the sun is streaming in through the window that spans across like a wall at an unmentioned corporate coffee shop. Well-made vanilla lattes, big windows and wispy rolling clouds make for a clear mind, something that has been a rarity as of late.

The orchestra of daily human interaction plays out around me, a soundtrack of barista’s shouting orders and “have a great day!” A Hispanic couple behind me chatting away seriously. A girl of about ten in a private school uniform drinking from a cup, matching her frame, dainty and white. Men, hunched over from years with beards and thinning hair white swirled with gray read the paper, occasionally commenting to each other.

The world is awake. Going to school, to work, trying to make it, trying to make something of themselves, provide for there families, come up with the great new idea, feel successful, find meaning.

There is a life flow in this: the day to day.

I center myself around this: coffee shops, people watching, imagining the hidden stories of others lives, and occasionally getting to hear and even participate in them.
It is a beautiful mess, people everywhere tangled up in struggles and triumphs, death and birth, sadness and joy.
I feel here, this morning, on this unassuming Thursday, that I am a part of all this.

The times I feel the worst about life, are the times I chose to separate myself- not necessarily physically, that is actually necessary at times.

It’s the mental sequestering that drowns me slowly.

Because it’s nearly impossible to let the light inside when I refuse to acknowledge I am but a small piece of the world, a speck in the universe, a corner of God’s heart.

We were talking about the tower of babel this week in devotions, and the imagery that plays out in my head of one of the earliest stories of our existence is almost disturbing.

The world, coming together, and God scattering.
Why?
Why does God scatter?
How many times in my life I have I felt this.
Broken.
In pieces.
Scattered.
It’s all the same metaphor.
Disconnected, like I am on the outside, banished to wander with nothing but my own sinking emotions.

When I think of hell, this is it.

I look around at the conversations happening and I know that everything we do, everything we strive for, is all because in the deepest part of who we are; we have this inherent itch, this nag, this need to be a part of the whole, something more then our small lives, our short eighty something year span.

The tower didn’t last, because our own attempts never do.

Relationships void of real, selfless love.
Groups that use and abuse instead of serve and care for each other.
Unity under anything but the Spirit of God and His plans and purposes for the world.
It all comes crashing down, blocks knocked over with one shove, we all scream and babble like preschoolers.
Wreckage.
Pieces.
It’s funny that out of this weird story, culture and diversity was birthed.
It was as if God knew man would always be attempting to play-act like they were Him, and so He split Himself into pieces in such a way that in order to find Him, we would have to actually interact with Him.
Go on this crazy treasure hunt and seek out the unknown.
Spend a lifetime piecing (for lack of a better metaphor) puzzle pieces back in place.

In the picture that emerges, we find what we didn’t know we were searching for.

We thought we would find some utopian version of life, society, the perfect mate, fame, and glory.

Instead, we see Him.

We see each person: the young school girl, the distant couple, the life long chums, all under the light of who He is,
Of what He has already done.

And so, as I finish my drink and get ready to head for another day of work, I am filled with a lightness, a sense of completion that is rare and often fleeting in the mess of my mind, of a flaw-filled world, of my own failed attempts at connection.

But I know, this is real.

I know in our yearning for connectedness, for intimacy, to feel a part, what we really long for is God.
And we will find Him when we seek Him.
When we honestly and humbly look for him, no barriers, no agenda,
That’s when we will be swept up into Love.
That’s when our scattered lives will begin to make sense.
That’s when we will come together, under His Spirit.
And slowly but surely, that’s how He will build his church.

And one day, the day when all will be revealed
we will finally all be together.