Homecoming :
Stories of Living in God's Way
Karen Garrett: The Practice of Listening to God's Call
I am on a mission. I’m on a mission to make an impact on the world during my very short lifetime (after all, 100 years on this planet really isn’t a lot) and leave it a better place, having touched lives and made a difference. This is quite a religious mission, actually. I wasn’t really sure what on earth God had put me on the planet for – one out of 6.6 billion current residents and who knows how many other trillions to have preceeded or followed me – but I felt like there had to be a reason for it. I’m still trying to figure out how my life will reflect this mission at the end of it (I may very well be 99 before I answer that question), but I know that part of this mission, living in God’s Way and following His path for my life is reflected in my work with and for the Pilgrimage.
For those of you who don’t know, Pilgrims has this great youth hostel in its basement. And every week of every year we welcome teens of all ages to stay there – maybe for a few nights or for a whole week – and go out into the city to work against poverty and injustice by serving in soup kitchens, food banks, homeless shelters and the like. And a few years ago, I was asked to serve on its board, and after being assured that the time requirements would be limited, I decided to give it a shot. Three years later, I’m the chair of the board, and my work with the Pilgrimage has become part of the way I practice my faith and live in God’s Way. It’s also changed my view of the city when I walk down the street. No longer do I just see masses under blankets, or only hear change rattling in paper cups. Instead, I see real people, with real problems, who have been really ignored by a “Christian” culture that shut them out instead of opening their arms as Jesus has taught us.
I think living in God’s Way is really hard. In our self-centered society that values possessions above all else, it’s really hard to drown out the commercials and the e-mail and the chores to focus on where God is calling you to be …. On what God is calling you to do. And working with the Pilgrimage enables me to do that, practicing the values that are important to us as Christians – love, hope, charity – while fulfilling my mission to impact the world around me … specifically the people around me.
And working with the Pilgrimage is completely about the people. It’s about getting to know the church members who serve with me on the board and knowing that they care about the cause as much as I do. And it’s about looking at a room full of teenagers eager to put their energy into a week of service, knowing that they have no idea what they’re about to give witness to, or how it will change their lives. And it’s about the city full of impoverished and homeless people we help through that work, knowing that they’ve – for whatever reason – been abandoned and cast out of the network of neighbors caring for each as God has called us to do.
And for me, all of this is about knowing that even though I don’t have a big checkbook and can’t just wish away our cities’ ills with the flourish of a pen to paper, I can work in a small way to reverse the trends of poverty by educating others about the homeless and the hungry, volunteering to serve and supporting the Pilgrimage in its mission to encourage participants in its program to act on their calling to be God’s hand here on earth. After all, at its essence, that’s what my life’s mission is really about.
God has called us to love and care for each other and my practice of living in God’s Way not only enables me to fulfill that calling in my own small fashion, but also focuses my attention on my faith and drives my mission for my life in ways that I never anticipated. Living in God’s Way is hard, but having a cause bigger than myself that drives it, and supporting my life’s mission through it, makes it easier to turn off the TV, push the chores to tomorrow and focus on the life God is calling me to lead.
