Human Jukeboxes

Okay, so I was watching Six Degrees of Separation this afternoon. As you might remember, this was one of Will Smith's first movies. It was based on a Broadway play, and you can tell because there are few real set changes and there is a lot of very deep dialogue. The thesis of the play was that all people on earth are only six degrees away from everyone else on the planet. So, I know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone else on the other side of the world.

Toward the end of the movie, Ouisa, who was played by Stockard Channing (Are you making fun of me Riz?) is at a large dinner party talking about her experience with this trickster of a young man who entered her life and ran amok with her emotions in a way she was never prepared to experience. Here is what she said:

"But it was an experience. I will not turn him into an anecdote. How do we keep what happens to us? How do we fit it into life without turning it into an anecdote, with no teeth, and a punch line you'll mouth over and over, years to come: "Oh, that reminds me of the time that impostor came into our lives. Oh, tell the one about that boy." And we become these human jukeboxes, spilling out these anecdotes. But it was an experience. How do we keep the experience?"

How do we as Christians keep what happens to us without turning it into an anecdote. "Do you remember that time the Lord really moved in our service?" How sad it is when that is all the presence of God is to us, an anecdote, something to remember pleasantly. The truth in Ouisa's statement was that she did not want this experience to be lost. It was important to her. She did not want to become a mere human jukebox, spewing out witty stories that were interesting but not really life changing. If our experiences with God are truly significant, then they will be life changing and worthy of more than a tidy little story. I think she really did not want to go back to a time when everything made sense, everything fit into its box. She wanted to live in the change that this person brought to her life.

I want to live in the change that God has brought to my life. As much as I miss the life before, I have come to realize that by pandering to the humanity of missing the past, I am actually in effect telling God that what He has planned for me is not as good as what I had planned for myself. I cannot live like that anymore. As I continue in my quest to be ordained in the United Methodist Church, I continue to become more at home with my new church and with myself. These are all works in progress, but at the very least I feel I am making progress. And sometimes, progress is enough.