DAY 21 | Faith Hacks
Finding the Sacred in Unexpected Places
I only knew Laurie peripherally as Worth's older, annoying sister. The Coggins lived way the heck out in Austin Lake Estates, I think on San Luis Trail, which back then seemed like it was ten miles from nowhere. But still it was worth the trip. Worth and I would often spend the day fishing over at his grandparent's house on Lake Austin, meticulously laying out jugs with different bait, noting what worked, what didn't, and adjusting accordingly. If the season was right, we might throw a lure in the water and fish for bass. Worth was an avid fisherman, serious about the task, but I just liked the catching. It was a bucolic existence filled with warm summer days and cold watermelon evenings.
Laurie was a few years older, way cooler than we were, and she never let us forget it. One night Worth and I tried to have some sort of seance in his bedroom to see if anything would happen, but Laurie came in, turned on the lights, declared that we were idiots (we were) and told us to "stop this foolish nonsense right now!" I think we annoyed her every bit as much as she annoyed us. It wasn't long after that that Laurie was killed on December 26th, 1972, in the Woodlawn Baptist Church bus crash. The tragedy was heart-wrenching: Nineteen victims, sixteen of them teenagers, died in a head-on collision with a tractor trailer the day after Christmas. Austin was a small town in 1972, and everyone knew someone who was affected. Walter Cronkite covered the event on the CBS Evening News, and 5000 people, including Lyndon and Ladybird Johnson, attended the funeral at Municipal Auditorium. The entire town stood still as fourteen caskets lined the stage. No one could make sense of it, we certainly couldn't.
Not long after the funeral I went to visit my friend Worth. I really didn't know what to say to him, I was young and immature, unable to grasp the depth of his pain. What can you say in those moments anyway? When someone is in profound pain, words are often more tone deaf than helpful. But the silence felt awkward, so I said, "let's go fishing." And we did. It was mid-winter, cold and rainy, and we didn't catch much, but we fished all day, silently, introspectively, together, and God was there. God was in that connection of shared humanity. He was with us in the pain, and it was in that moment I learned that sacred things don't fit in neat little boxes. This fishing trip was one of the most sacred days of my life.
When I was young, I thought there were sacred things, which were few, and then there was everything else. I thought church was sacred, Christmas was sacred, Easter was sacred, October 31st was definitely not sacred, and most other days, things and events weren't either. My Baptist pastor said that Rock and Roll music was evil, which was a bummer because I had just gotten my first drum set. I didn't think it was evil, but still I learned to play "That's the Way of the World" with a bit of a guilt trip over my head. The unfortunate thing, the thing that has caused so much unnecessary grief in the body of Christ, is the sacred/secular divide. It isn't real, or perhaps it's better to say that it's not objectively real. Paul addresses this in one of the most liberating passages of scripture, Romans chapter 14. I'd like to challenge you to read and contemplate the entire chapter, but here's a snippet of Paul's idea:
Romans 14: 5-6 "One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God."
There's much to unpack in Romans 14, but one of Paul's big ideas, one of his "faith hacks" is that all of life is sacred if you have faith for it to be. God can be found in the mundane, the wonderful, the pain, the triumphs, the losses, and yes, even fishing trips.
Affirmation
Today, I choose to see the sacred in the seemingly mundane.
Reflection
Have you ever had an unexpected sacred moment, day, or event? What was it about it that made it sacred to you? Would it be possible for you to break down the sacred/secular divide in your own life and see all of life as a sacred adventure? Why or why not? Contemplate what Paul wrote in Romans 14:22-23. What is the key to living life this way? "So, whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin."
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