Vision Enhanced: My Life as a Bridge

I offer my life as a bridge between diverse people and places...

It was in college that I was first introduced to the concept of being a "bridge person."  We initially talked about it in the context of racial reconciliation, where there is a tremendous need for people who can see from multiple perspectives.  Without individuals who can serve as bridges, you would simply end up with segregated groups unable to have a conversation-- usually because white people got indignant and/ or confused when Blacks, Latinos, or Asian Americans expressed pain or hardship.  You needed people who could process the pain and interpret it for others.  You needed people who could translate confusion, anger, fear and a whole host of loaded emotions without getting caught up in them.  I came to realize that I am one of those people.

For there to be reconciliation, there has to be a place where people can meet, with their differences.  Yes, we can be idealistic and say that as brothers and sisters in Christ, we meet at the cross or in the presence of God -- but in reality we know that is rarely true.  People from different economic classes will most likely not go to the same sanctuary.  People with slightly different doctrines on eschatology don't even share prayer meetings.  Rather, we meet through relationship.  We meet by introduction and happenstance and by paths that cross unexpectedly.


I offer my life as a place where people meet.  I don't plan it or orchestrate it (most of the time), but I offer it, should God choose to use it in that way for His good.  I intentionally know lots of people-- lots of different people-- and I hope and pray that they know come to know each other in ways that look like God's kingdom coming.  Jesus ate with tax collectors, had his feet washed by sinners, touched unclean people, and talked with poor outsiders-- and he gave many of them a chance to know one another.  I could hammer the point from my previous "Vision" post-- Jesus created one new humanity.  No long in or out, holy or unclean, there was just in Jesus - a new creation.


I certainly tread carefully here.  I don't want to get confused and think that I am the one thing, the important thing, or the reconciling thing in the equation.  I am not Jesus.  But I do follow in the way of Jesus.  I offer my life for the things that will bring glory to God, and one of my greatest hopes of heaven is to have all God's people bridged - connected - reconciled and in proper relationship with their creator and one another.  Therefore I look for that here and now.  I offer to be that person who knows what is going on at the Lutheran soup kitchen and among teens in City Heights.  I am always game for a connection, because I never know how God will use it-- or how God might use me in it.