Convicted in the depths of a snowstorm

As you probably know, DC has been under attack by a snowstorm (alternatively named everything from Snowmegeddon to Snowtorious B.I.G.) since Friday. As a result, we're nearing a week with no classes, no work, and little to no means of transportation.

This morning at about 8 a.m. the real blizzard hit, with freezing cold winds and swirling snow. My roommates and I were all off work, talking and laughing over breakfast, when my roommate Kris got quiet.

As we cleaned up breakfast, he started bundling up to go outside. He packed a backpack with a thermos of coffee and with food. I jokingly asked him if he was so sick of us that he was leaving.

"No," he said. "I'm going to church. I have to go let Miguel and Manuel in."

A little background: my roommates Kris and Kristine (husband and wife) have been in DC for 2 1/2 years. They hadn't been to church in ages when they came, but they started coming to my church soon after they arrived. Over the last two years, they've discovered faith, joined the church, and become two of the most active and encouraging members. Kris works at the White House; Kristine teaches ESL at a community college. And they challenge me every day in the ways they live out their faith.

Miguel and Manuel are two men who live on the steps of our church. Kris befriended them soon after they arrived and regularly does things with them. He eats with them, he lets them into the church to shower, he helps them find a free clinic when one of them has a cut. Now that Kris and Kristine are purchasing a home (into which they, my other roommate Rosalyn and, once they're married, her fiance Ben, and I will move), Kris is looking for ways for Manuel and Miguel to move in with us, too. It's not a matter of mercy or of guilt for Kris; it's simply his way of looking at what could be and finding ways to live into the Kingdom of God.

So this morning Kris set out in the snowstorm to do what he could do: trek a little over a mile to the church, open the doors, and sit with his two friends somewhere out of the cold. He's still gone, and I'm guessing that he will be all day. For Kris, people are more important than time, and he's amazing at being fully present with anyone.

Meanwhile, I've been catching up on work, doing laundry, calling prospective students...and being really convicted as I think about Kris, vocation, and call. Kris has a great job, and he's great at it. He has no desire and no call to leave that. But he also knows that he is called to love God and neighbor, and he does that in amazing ways.

I'm wrestling with my own call, particularly as it relates to ordination. Yet in that process, I too often forget the very basics - that we are all called, as followers of Jesus Christ, to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. To love God and to love neighbor as ourselves. To preach the Kingdom of God come to earth - and to live into that new reality. And whether or not I am ordained, that means that the ways I spend my money, speak to people on the streets, and use my time, yes, even during a snowstorm should be affected.

God, may my questions about vocation and my attention to learning and ministry NEVER get distract me from your primary call to love You and serve my neighbors throughout the world and on my front steps.