Snow in the Kingdom of God
On New Year's Day in 1978, I witnessed what I consider a miracle of Biblical proportions. I was living in the inner city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Snow began to fall at dawn. The following evening I stepped outside. I looked up to see a star spangled sky. Illuminated by the silver white light of the moon, it was almost bright as day. The houses, the trees, the whole earth was transformed under two feet of brilliant white crystal snow. It was silent - not one sound of a car, truck, train, no barking dogs, no blasting radios, TV's, no human voices!
The power went out. The next morning the mayor and the governor declared a state of emergency. No one was allowed to travel by car. The bus service stopped. schools, factories, stores were all closed. No one was allowed to go anywhere unless it was an emergency.
By nine o'clock in the morning the whole neighborhood was alive. Men were out shoveling snow for the neighbors. Women with gas stoves were cooking soup to share with the families next door. Children were out making snowmen and sledding down the hill in the street. There was talking and laughter everywhere.
That evening the bar on the corner fired up its generator and opened it's doors to the neighborhood. Food and drink were served for free. I decided to take my guitar and go see what was happening. The place was buzzing. When I stepped in the door I saw another guitarist, a fiddler, and an accordion player all jamming with each other. People were singing along. What a night!
After the power had been restored, the streets cleared, and the state of emergency lifted, the neighborhood returned to its former rhythm of life. A rhythm in which each person went about his or her daily business, without talking to neighbors, or showing kindnesses to one another. But ever since that day I have always said that the Kingdom of God is only a natural disaster away!
As the season of Lent begins, let us remember that Jesus's primary proclamation was that the Kingdom of God is at hand. All of his teachings, his parables, and his healings were illustrations of this "new world order". Jesus died on the cross not just for your own individual sins, but to give birth to God's peaceable Kingdom in the world.
What keeps this Kingdom from fully manifesting itself? Why is peace, justice, and love so hard to find in our world? Perhaps we are all locked into "the system" in such a way that we can not get out. Perhaps we are so locked into our own way of surviving each day and pursuing the American dream that it takes "an act of God" or a natural disaster to stop us in our tracks and focus in on the welfare of our neighbors. On these snow days, why not meditate on what it might mean to truly repent, liberate ourselves from the daily grind and become human beings.
Dr. Greene is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ and a resident of Richmond, IN. He is also the author of
Benjamin's Dog Joseph, Feeling Better: The Wisdom of the Doc, You Can Feel Better: How to cope with chronic pain and physical disabilities, and co-author of Walking Free: the Nellie Zimmerman Story.
For further information about his books, please visit www.densmorereid.com
To return to the column list, Click Here