Christian Piatt Blog

Nature reminds us what’s in our nature to forget

I was sitting on the porch of our Northside home last week when a nearly solid sheet of rain advanced quickly toward me. I moved inside where my son, Mattias, napped peacefully as the rain began to pound violently on the rooftop. Only minutes before, the air had been cool and placid, and the sky had given no indication of such a downpour. The clouds, now boiling, turned angrily dark.

I ran quickly around the house, shutting storm windows. Just as the last one closed, the power transformer across the street let out an agonizing groan. Our living room went dark just as I heard a crackling I thought was lightning in the front yard.

I glanced out the front window just in time to see a sixty-year-old ash tree split into three pieces. One limb crashed across the width of the street, blocking the path of anyone foolish enough to be driving. Another fell toward our house, thankfully redirected by another tree as it crashed earthward.

A third tree between the neighbor’s house and ours split just as I received a message from the weather service on my phone. It was the third alert in about a minute’s time, but I had been too absorbed in the moment to notice. The warning indicated that a funnel cloud was forming over north-central Pueblo.

My wife, Amy, ran upstairs to gather our son, who never stirred prior to her waking him. The largest of our trees hung ominously over his room, and with two exposed windows, we decided that disturbing his sleep was more desirable than other alternatives.

We lingered in the basement for half an hour, with the pitch dark broken only by an anemic flashlight whose batteries had not been checked since the last monsoon season. When the storm passed our yard was blanketed by the remains of trees, and the gutters swelled beyond their capacity. We were blocked in our driveway by three limbs immovable by human hands, and we remained without power for just over a day.

The entire experience, as well as the days that followed, reminded me of several things which the relative mundanity of life allow me to neglect.

It reminded me of the awesome power of God’s creation, and my relatively humble place in it.

It reminded me that whatever control we think we have is at best fleeting, if not all together illusory.

Despite inconveniences and minor expenses, I was reminded of those along the Gulf Coast and abroad who still suffer the after-effects of nature’s wrath.

The family from our congregation who brought us dinner as we cleaned the debris from our yard reminded me that there’s something more than a church building that binds us together.

Spontaneous neighborhood gatherings, watching as firefighters and power companies restored order, reminded me that, despite our hectic and self-absorbed culture, we are indeed a community.

The double rainbow that arched overhead following the torrents reminded me that God’s universe is a place of chaos, and at the same time, indescribable beauty.

The complaints from a surly handful of folks about blackouts and road closures less than a day after the storm reminded me that we all could use to place our relative wealth, health and safety in a much broader context.

Incessant why’s and how’s issued from my son about the incident reminded me that, hard as I may try, I will leave this world with many more questions than answers.

We still have some cleanup ahead, but there’s a part of me that hopes we won’t sweep away all of the signs of the experience too quickly. I need to be reminded of what’s important, and how blessed I really am, every once in a while.

Without God, does church still matter?

I enjoy the company of atheists and agnostics. Some of my best friends are agnostics.

What’s more curious is that they enjoy my company. As a self-proclaimed churchy guy, you might think they would find me annoying in my faith. However, I spend more time talking about what I believe with those who don’t claim a faith than I do with those who identify themselves as Christians.

Sometimes I feel like these friends of mine are intrigued by what I get out of being a part of church. Our move halfway across the country to start a new ministry in our living room made no sense to them. I’ll be the first to admit it doesn’t make sense; after all, faith itself doesn’t find it’s foundation in logic. It’s faith, after all.

Trying to explain what keeps me committed to church is hard sometimes. I, like many people, have been hurt both by individuals within church, as well as the systems that drive them. But I wouldn’t walk away because of this any more than I think divorce is a reasonable response to a family argument.

Church is flawed because we humans are a part of it. This is not a condemnation of our job as church members, but rather an acknowledgement that we bring all of our baggage with us to church. Sometimes, we screw it up. But sometimes, we get it right.

For me, the first need that church fulfills is worship. This time that is set aside every week helps renew me, and puts my own life – including my own seemingly big problems – in perspective. It helps me remember what really matters, and gives me time to reorient myself toward those efforts that give me life, rather than take it away from me.

The question inevitably arises from my friends about how I would feel if I suddenly realized that there was no God. Am I sure, they ask, that my prayers are not simply mental exercises? How would my church be different if I knew that the Almighty didn’t exist?

Fortunately, church offers more than insight into scripture, time for worship and prayer. At its best, church serves the world of which it is a part. It is an extended family to which we can return that celebrates and mourns with us. It opens itself up as a united but diverse body, breaking itself open and giving itself away to those in need, without fear of not having enough.

Sure, church gets caught up in membership drives, capital campaigns, and novel programs. It also has at its core the most fundamentally redeeming characteristics of humankind: love, compassion, service and humility.

God is at the essence of our individual and collective nature, but these characteristics also serve practical purposes. We’re not the fastest or strongest species on the planet, and so it’s from our social systems that we find our strength. Church helps provide this community for which we long.

At its worst, however, church forgets its obligation to the world around it, and even to the faithful within its walls. It becomes so intent on building itself up that the humble beginnings of our church at Pentecost are forgotten. It becomes an institution rather than a movement. In these moments, the church is no more about God than any other local service organization.

Can the church do good work without God? Yes. Can we serve the community simply as a practical exercise? Sure. But every time we fall into the pattern of placing ourselves, or that which we have accomplished, at the center, rather than keeping our focus on something greater, we risk fulfilling the question, “What would the church be without God?”

There’s freedom in spontaneous generosity

I was taking my son, Mattias, to the train depot recently as a reward for good behavior. Of all the places in the world, he is obsessed with the depot downtown. I hardly discourage him, partly because I love trains as well, and also because it’s free and still makes him happy. Talk about a win-win.

On our way down the street, I was approached by a man asking for some money. I told him I couldn’t help him out because I was out of money. I was out of cash, but I had my check card with me, and we stood less than a hundred yards from a place where I could have easily bought him lunch.

Having grown up in a big city, I experienced requests like these a dozen times a day or more, to the point that I became somewhat inured. I followed in others’ footsteps who assured me the money would only buy drugs or alcohol. This could easily be remedied by buying the person food, but this takes time.

Time being an equally precious commodity, we’re often as reticent to part with it as we are with our money. We especially don’t care to spend time with someone that might smell bad or make us a little uncomfortable. So it’s easier to tell a white lie about our lack of funds, or convince ourselves we’re just too busy.

Generosity is a curious thing. There’s this basic gut-level part of us that hesitates to let go of what we have, and seeks to horde as much as possible to allay the fear that we’ll run out of – well, anything. We can always come up with excuses for why we don’t have enough, and why someone else wouldn’t use our resources as well as we would. When it comes down to it, the motive is protecting our own: a very natural but very un-Christian thing way to think.

We had a car wash and barbecue at our church recently, where we cleaned cars and fed guests from off the street for free. Many tried to pay us, but we simply wanted to do it as a service to the community. By people’s expressions, you’d have thought we were roasting their household pets on the grill, rather than burgers and hot dogs.

“So, what’s the catch?” said one woman.

“What’s wrong with that?” asked another, not quite able to articulate her confusion.

Some in the church were hesitant to pass up a fundraising opportunity, which is understandable since we’re a relatively small and new church. But the more cars we washed and the more food we gave away, the more excited we all got. We’d clap and wave our hands in the air like idiots when someone would pull in the parking lot for a free wash. We got sunburned, wet and filthy, but everyone left excited about the work we’d done.

I learned something that afternoon. I discovered that generosity as a regular discipline, such as tithing, is not enough. There’s a gift to be found in spontaneous generosity, letting loose of something you never intended giving away, just at the moment someone asks for it.

We can’t control what’s done with our resources once we give them away, but in that vulnerability, there is freedom. For one moment, we’re focused not on what we have and how to keep it, but rather on the unexpected joy of being free of our own wants.

As we walked away from the man begging for lunch money, my two-year-old son looked up at me with the trust that only a child can muster and asked, “Daddy, what did that man want?”

I lied and said I didn’t know, to embarrassed to tell him that the man only wanted something to eat. If I had, the next question would have been, “Why?” and I just wasn’t ready to try to answer that.