by Matthew Clark | One Thousand Words

It was a chilly day in the Northeast, and I was bundled up and out for a walk on a narrow town road with a couple of friends. We walked past the houses and little fields of this small town, as they told me about the history of the area and their recent move there from the other side of the country. Winter was longer here, the temperatures lower for longer, and the culture was different as well from the warmer climate where they’d raised their children. It was such a joy to hear their stories and get to know these friends better. In fact, the Lord gave me the wonderful gift of discovering that these folks I had only known as acquaintances until now, shared some significant common experiences with me, but were further along in their journey of joy and hope. 

Somewhere in the midst of our walk, we could hear a big pickup truck approaching. Soon enough, there it was and even sooner there it wasn’t, as it zoomed past us on the narrow road. It was a little startling, as the driver didn’t seem to slow as he barreled past us. My friend signaled gently with his hands for the driver to be careful, but now the truck was out of sight. We kept walking, resumed our conversation, and after a time, turned around to head back towards the house.  

On the way back, we veered off onto a side road to look at a few things, when the big truck was apparently returning from wherever he had gone. He saw us and turned down the side road where we were standing. He stopped, rolled down the window, and called us over. He asked whether we had been trying to signal for him to slow down earlier when he had passed us on the road. Yes, my friend said kindly. What happened next startled me. The man quickly and angrily replied, “Well, next time mind your own business!” Then he sped off.  

The shock of unkindness was just that, shocking. However, my friends didn’t seem too surprised and took it in stride. They said that they had been noticing that the culture of the region, in general, seemed to carry a lot of hurt and harshness like that. Their prayer was that their presence in the area might carry some of the hope and kindness of Christ in this place where they had chosen to make their new home. Their compassion opened my heart to imagine more generous responses than I was inclined to have. 

The more I thought about it, there was such an irony in the man demanding that we “mind our own business.” We were sharing a public road, after all. If he had run over us, I don’t think a judge would dismiss our deaths as entirely unconnected, since really us getting run over by him was none of our business. To go one step further, the fact that the man stopped to involve us in his frustration shows that he couldn’t escape the fact of our mutuality. In a way, by kicking against it, he was acknowledging the inextricability of our lives. Why bother about it, if he actually believed our presence and his had nothing whatsoever to do with each other? 

Our lives and his, our choices and his, whether either of us are willing to admit it, are inextricable from the other. My life is the angry stranger in the truck’s business, and his life is my business. To think otherwise is to be out of touch with reality.  

If there’s a spectrum of responsibility toward others, and on one end there’s strict individualism and on the other is strict interdependence, where would you say you fall? Look, I’m an introvert, and I can be very selfish. But I have to admit that I need other people, and I’ve learned that our lives, even when we wish it weren’t the case, deeply affect one another. Strict individualism just doesn’t seem to reflect the reality of my experience in the world. 

There’s a story early in Joshua that caught my eye this week. The context is that Moses has died, Joshua has been given the mantle of leadership, Israel has crossed the Jordan River and begun to claim the promised land, beginning with Jericho. But, in secret, one guy (Achan is his name) disobeys the clear instructions of the Lord by taking some of the forbidden plunder. This causes a disaster in Israel—their next battle should have been easy-peasy, but instead it goes terribly and thirty-six men are needlessly killed. Achan may not be directly responsible for those deaths, but he is culpable. The Lord tells Joshua about Achan’s secret, and Achan and his family, who seemed to have known about the treasure, since it was buried in the floor of their tent, are called out in front of the community and killed. The curse is lifted from the community and things are back on track. 

I wonder whether at least one thing that’s going on here is that Achan is thinking selfishly, and individualistically. He’s fallen out of touch with the corporate, interdependent nature of reality, and God is trying to protect the larger community from thinking that any one family’s actions are “no one else’s business.” Achan’s secret disobedience sure was the business of those thirty-six men who should not have died, and by extension the fear and discouragement sown across the whole community at the very outset of this difficult mission to claim the Promised Land. The valley where Achan and his family are buried is named The Valley of Achor, which means the Valley of Trouble or Disaster. 

Can you see how God is trying to get us in touch with the way things actually work? Our selfishness never hurts only us. Whether we like it or not, “mind your own business” won’t hold up in the final analysis. Maybe we don’t like the vulnerability of admitting that other people’s choices affect us, or maybe we don’t like the responsibility of admitting that our choices affect others. Either way, we are bound up in one another’s lives, and the Lord is working to educate us on how to live well and wisely in a world that requires of us both responsibility and vulnerability.  

The flipside of saying your bad choices matter to others is to say that your choices really matter! If your selfish choices inevitably affect the lives of others, so do your charitable choices. The reality God has placed us in comes with high stakes, since hurt is possible, but it’s the cost of living in a world where we can be sources of real kindness and blessing. We can be death-dealers or life-givers. It’s our choice. 

And God sets the example for us to follow, since he, too, is a choice-maker whose choices matter. In fact, remember that valley where Achan was buried? Disaster Valley? It shows up again in Isaiah and Hosea. But guess what, God is stepping into Disaster Valley to reclaim and rename it. What does he name this place that for centuries has represented nothing but trouble? He calls it a Doorway to Hope. What!? Disaster Valley is going to become a Doorway to Hope? Yep. This is just the kind of thing God loves to do. This is the cross, the empty tomb. Potentially, this is every grief and trauma we’ve ever suffered at the hands of hurtful humans, if we let God accompany us in that disastrous place. 

One last fun connection along these lines this week came just last night. I was watching a youtube channel called Veritasium with my buddy, and I saw this same pattern of reality at work as the host talked about the science of Network Dynamics. I’ll put a link to the video on the podcast homepage (matthewclark.net/podcast), but the gist is that we’re so much more connected than we might imagine, and our choices, research shows, reach so much further than we’d think. Not only that, but both hurtful and kind choices have a sort of domino effect. Surprisingly large numbers of people can be influenced toward harmful choice-making by a surprisingly small number of hurtful people. But the opposite is also true; if someone is brave enough or stubborn enough to make a choice like, say, forgiving the angry guy in the big fast truck, forfeiting the treasure for the sake of the larger community, or, if we want to get really crazy, going silently like a lamb to the slaughter, they might just change the world for the better. Maybe this burnt out world of disaster could be transformed into a doorway to heavenly hope, like the darkness of a torture-filled tomb opened and emptied by the light of resurrection. 

The Nighttime Windowsill

There is a droplet on a petal;  

In the droplet the whole forest curves 

Like a child curled up with and in a book, 

The big trees sway in the little clearing, 

In the nighttime windowsill. 

I have not seen the droplet, 

I have not seen the forest, or that flower.  

In fact, no one has. Well, no one 

But the Lord who, because he sees all, 

Sees all into blessed being.  

But I love the petal and the droplet, 

And the forest I have not seen.

I live and pray along that same curve, 

Tracing the lines in the storybook, 

In the nighttime windowsill. 

I am seen, therefore I am, 

And I see the little thing that I can’t see— 

A furling world of stories whose tracings 

Intertwine, curving along the lines 

Of the story of all that is seen, 

Which (almost) no one sees.  

And so, in the nighttime windowsill, 

I push or pull a ragged pen 

And shape from ragged breath 

A drop of nectar—guessed-at rest— 

Or a blotch of bitter, darkening the dark. 

I can’t see where either goes, 

And yet, the whole world knows 

Such stories either go to the bitter end, 

Or the lost garden, where 

A forest of kindness grows. 

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