The Sacred History of our Everyday Life

by Carl Mazza

Though there are very many nations all over the earth, ...there are no more than two kinds of human society, which we may justly call two cities, ...one consisting of those who live according to man, the other of those who live according to God .... Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord.
- Augustine, The City of God

Between two worlds life hovers like a star,
'Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge
How little do we know that which we are!
Of time and tide rolls on and bears afar
Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge,
Lash'd from the foam of ages; while the graves
Of empires heave but like some passing waves.
- Byron Don Juan 15, XCIX

My kingdom is from another place. - Jesus, John 18:36


A strong argument can be made that the Christian religion is mostly about actions and deeds, and only a little about words. The Bible may fairly be described as a document reporting the intervention of God in human affairs, and the daily lives of women and men who looked for God and observed God in the world of events and daily happenings around them.

Even the New Testament is more about what Jesus did than what he said, and Paul, the most philosophical of the writers develops his thoughts mostly adapted to solving practical problems of churches and individual believers; usually conflict resolution.

St. Augustine, the 4th century North African bishop whose writings exerted a powerful influence on Christian thought, decided that everyone really has two histories: The first is of all things pertaining to economic, social, and political life on earth; the second, and most important, is the sacred history of the intervention of God in our lives and actions in the world which are motivated by our highest, most godlike impulses. When we take the time to see it, we can understand a reality of thinking and doing which is beyond the understanding of our ordinary experience. The first trajectory is the human history of wars, government, authority, taxes, and laws; the second trajectory is the sacred history of human relationships, and the intervention of God within and among these. These two histories are absolutely independent of one another, but it is sacred history that is the key to our real purpose on earth and the true meaning of life.

Whatever may be said about the influence of Augustine over the next millennium, for better or worse, he was right in saying that life is an arena of works and insight that dramatically opens us to a dazzling new world of reality.

Summer is our active mission trip season at Meeting Ground. Of the 25 to 30 groups we host every year, the majority are young persons from church and school groups who come for week-long work camps. These usually conclude with an evening campfire or discussion circle where the young people share the week's experiences.

This story happened at one of these Clairvaux Farm gatherings on a hot night in July a few years ago. I will not soon forget the intensity of the meeting, nor the lesson we were all taught that evening.

We sat in a circle in the chapel, quietly sharing the meaning of the week's experiences. It was relatively ordinary and unexceptional gathering, however, until a high school boy slowly stood up during a break in the conversation. Sam was a serious-minded young man with a handsome, intelligent face and calm manner. He fit into the group well, was popular, and in every other way seemed to be an ordinary teenager from a suburban church background.

He drew us with a quiet, intense energy to listen. He started speaking slowly, almost reluctantly, as he recounted the story of how his consciousness had been turned inside-out between Sunday and Friday. The change came as a result of a struggle - with himself, the meaning of service, and above all - in his relationship with an older man experiencing homelessness.

As the week began, his foremost thought was wondering what he was doing here. He didn't have any special work skills, he couldn't even operate a lawnmower or a weed trimmer - and that was the task to which he had been assigned . He was paired up to work with an older man named John, a farm resident. They were to start at our westside fence and trim all the growth which was engulfing it.

The two had never met before and were worlds apart in their life experiences and outlooks. The young man was privileged, proud, self-assured, and optimistic about his chances for a great future. The older man, down on his luck, suffering from a mental illness and a lifetime of being stigmatized because of his race, looked on life with a lot of apprehension and fear. His future was bleak, and his efforts and hard work had often seemed to amount to nothing. Homelessness was more the end result for him, the product of a losing battle against his illness, his battered childhood, even his own skin.

They began their relationship that warm summer morning with a problem neither could solve. They couldn't get the weed trimmer working. Neither one had used it before, and they grew increasingly frustrated just trying to get to the point where they could start working. The young man assumed the older man ought to know about such things at his age, so he began to look down on him with a quiet contempt for his inadequacy as a person.

"I was thinking to myself how stupid he was, and that was probably why he was homeless," the boy related in his story that Friday evening, "I figured he couldn't do anything right, and I was angry that I had been assigned to work with him. It made me wish I hadn't even come on the trip."

Finally, with help, they got it started and set to work. As they worked together in the growing heat of the day, the boy woke up to something he hadn't expected. The old man was working hard beside him, keeping up, and more than holding his own. As the day wore on, the young man had to struggle really hard to keep up with him.
It was a surprise. He thought that the "homeless man" would not have kept at the task, working awhile, then giving up. He expected someone lazy. He was taken unawares, puzzled, and as he later related - this unexpected turn jump-started his thinking.

Late in the day, as they both wore out, they started to talk. The older man asked questions about the boy's life and his hopes and dreams for the future. The younger surprised himself by his own eagerness to talk and share things, including his personal problems. He began to realize that the conversation was easy because the older man seemed to really care about him and his life - as different as they were.

They worked together the next three days, learning from and about each other, and finally mastering their weed-whacking assignment. By Thursday, when the trimmer wouldn't start, they laughed about all they had experienced together since the same thing had happened just three days before. Three days, but a universe of revolutionary understanding.

The chapel was almost dark as he spoke in the last light of a summer's day, but even so it was clear to see his eyes were swelling with tears and his voice was choked with emotion. He began to cry outright when he told us how wrong he had been to misjudge his friend in the beginning, how he looked down on him and resented his having to work with such an incompetent person. He had wanted to be matched with someone he could look up to and really learn from, and this disappointing start only stoked his resentment and disgust.

"How wrong I was," he continued, "John has taught me so much these last three days, and helped me so much as a person. I will never be the same..." The room was crowed, but completely still; the story was riveting. After he spoke there was a long, lingering silence and then a strong sense of realization. We were in the presence of something profound, a rare moment when the life Spirit moved among us so strongly that all felt connected, fully alive and aware of the depth and simple beauty of the human soul.

John was also sitting in the circle, and he also remained quiet. We looked at each other with new eyes. How is it that two persons, so different in background, parentage, age, experience and destiny - could be so very much alike, friends and kindred souls?

Maybe the great Augustine meant that the true measure of life is the activity of its love. Churches, as all communities of faith, are to be less about dividing the issues and philosophies of society, and much more about creating action and work which uncovers the mystery of human love. In that activity, the godhead, heretofore hidden, is understood at last.

When we are captivated by our ideals, it is easy to say that we must lose our life in order to find it. But more difficult is to understand this meaning. In the preface to the Presbyterian Book of Order we read:

The Church is called to undertake this mission even at the risk of losing its life, trusting in God alone as the author and giver of life, sharing the gospel, and doing those deeds in the world that point beyond themselves to the new reality in Christ.
Presbyterian Church (USA),
Book of Order, G-3.0400

What can all this possibly mean except that, in our deepest understanding, we know absolutely that our redemption requires that we be wide open to the unexpected, confounding, and dazzling new reality which before was inconceivable, but now is altogether true.

The persons, relationships, and circumstances which force us to lose our former certainties and prejudices are heaven-sent mentors of what Dorothy Day once described as, "a revolution of the heart." Even as we are lost in the tangle of our own words debating the mystery, such prophets appear to slice through the Gordian Knot and give us new eyes to see a horizon which stretches to the limits of our imagination.

Here is where Augustine's insight is keen: To measure all by that which we see, hear and touch in our political, economic, and social experience is only one city of understanding, and the lesser one at that. On the other side, there is a city of paradox and mystery, in which the impossible is granted and creative vision comes to life. The history of that community is written in new beginnings as the book of the sacred history of our everyday lives and actions.