Texts.Water.Seeds: Gaining by Giving Up

Three people. That is the number I witnessed driving cars today while texting. I could tell they were texting by the way their eyes were glued to their lap. And this was just on a short nine-mile drive from our church to our home via Rt. 522.

I’ve watched the awareness-inducing videos. I’ve seen the bumper stickers. I wonder if these people who text and drive have seen them. But it doesn’t matter because those things “will never happen to me.” After all, it’s only for a minute and this is so important. 

My last post about gratitude questioned how the awareness of the giftedness of life leads to creative power.  I thought of that this morning after I cursed the drivers (I feared honking my horn would cause them to swerve). What can I do, with my power, to make a difference?  Do I just need to resign myself to “this is the way it is,” that we are forever tethered to our technological umbilical cords?

Today, March 22 is World Water Day, one of those “awareness days.”  Again, we are right to be grateful for the gift of water. But does this gratitude lead me to take a shorter shower? Eat less meat? Forgo watering my lawn so it no longer looks like the cover of Better Homes and Gardens?

Today the Church marks the Fifth Sunday in Lent when we hear Jesus’s words recorded in John 12: “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” To gain, something is given up. 

Texting. Water. Seeds.  Why mention these three things together? Because at the heart of each Sunday story, I believe, something needs to die so that new life can spring forth.

Texting while driving forgets the neighbor, the neighbor in proximity, the one with whom we share the road. We are not loving neighbor as self because we fear another conversation just can’t wait; we are too important and too busy. Does this need to die before more die on our roadways?

The current American lifestyle requires a tremendous amount of water. According to this NPR report, “the average American, taking a 5-minute shower, uses more water than an average person in the slums of a developing country in a whole day; and a 5-minute shower is on the short end for most people.” For many, we are simply thankful to enjoy this abundance, but we don’t see that our abundance is not sustainable.

“Seed that on earth is dying…rises to bear much fruit” we sang this morning. A seed, a little thing, gives of its life so that something can grow. Denying ourselves may seem so un-American.  And no, I don’t believe that we deny ourselves to win brownie points with God. But if we are indeed grateful for our technology and for our natural resources, how does that gratitude spill over into action on behalf of the neighbor?  

A text, a five-minute shower, a seed. Little things, indeed. But as we know, life is made up of a series of little things that matter. The text can wait. Let’s look up. Or, if so inclined,  go as far as the some drivers in rural Minnesota: give the friendly "finger off the steering wheel" wave to whomever you pass by.