Come Dine With Me....Not

So, I am outside today mowing the lawn and pondering about how none of it really matters. Yes, the lawn does need to be taken care of but no one is ever going to remark about how nice my yard was after I'm gone. I'm still mulling over my friend's death and unsure how to go forward from here. I'm numb and sad. It's not as if one says, "Oh, well, that is over with now, back to regular programming." I'm torn between two realities. Nothing will ever be the same again and yet everything will return to some semblance of normal. I mean, after two weeks of either being at the hospital seeing my friend or planning the funeral or being on the phone about the funeral or being in the hospital myself, I was out mowing the lawn you know?

Who I am as a person is what matters in the end. At least that is the conclusion I have come to at this point. And for the most part I am comfortable with who I am. My periods of self loathing are less frequent. I can be honest about either side of me - the shadow or the light without overt condemnation or angst. Pride still sits there and waves its wand when I don't give God credit for the light but even at that, I can live with myself. I'm not always willing to lift the dark up to the light and be changed. I can get comfortable with my pissyness. It all just means I am human. It doesn't mean I don't ask God to change me. But it also means there are times when I don't ask God to change me.

I have over 100 blogs bookmarked on my desktop. That can be a dangerous thing when you don't want to change something and then find it staring you in the face in an innocent blog post. Today I was reading one of those kind of posts and it kind of got me in the gut. It showed me part of who I am. You're going to have to read the link to get the rest of this post. Here is my comment on it:

This hits me in a raw place. There were lots of people in the church I used to go to that I would never consider inviting over for a meal because I just didn’t want to have to put up with them in my own home. I have thought lots about what an intimate encounter it really is having someone share a meal. If I was indiscriminate about who I had in my home for a meal it would force me to treat them as equals or at least stop kidding myself about how lacking I am in this area and how unwilling I am to change.

I used to reason that my diningroom was too small to have people over. That is what I told myself when I thought about those people I didn't want to have over for a meal. The ones I felt convicted to invite over but didn't want to bother with. The rest of the time we made do just fine. And then I told myself it took too many spoons to have certain company but I seemed to manage when I wanted to. I just want like minded company. I like good conversations. I don't want uncomfortable ones around my dinner table unless I am the one talking. I don't mind making others uncomfortable but I don't want it the other way around in my house.

I have thought about what it means to me to invite someone over for a meal. It means I acknowledge them as my equal - that I believe we really are equal in God's eyes. I can talk about grace and love with the best of them. But this is one area where I don't walk the talk. And it's not because I don't invite them over, it's because of my heart attitude about it. I could invite them over and soothe my conscious but it wouldn't necessarily mean I had any change of heart.

When I read the post about Jesus and meals today I thought, "Oh shit - this is begging to be held up to the light."