During the week, there has been this image that keeps inhabiting the outer edges of my imagination…
It is evening and Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus is agitated and overwhelmed with the reality of what’s coming. His disciples, with their stomachs filled with food & wine, are blissfully dozing nearby. Scripture describes Jesus being so anxious, that his sweat is becoming like great drops of blood falling down onto the ground. Three times Jesus tries to alert his disciples to what’s coming. He tries to rouse them to the sense of urgency and each time they descend back into slumber.
What has disturbed me about this image is that it is all too uncomfortably familiar. How easy it is for me to get distracted and not see – to not perceive the main thing. So often, when change comes near, I know I am not paying attention.
Also during the week, I have been out riding bikes with my kids. Usually they are only allowed to ride in the cul-de-sac next to our house. However, the last few days I have been taking them for rides out beyond our street and the world has suddenly opened up to them. They have been filled with all the wonder that sparkles in children of that age. We’ll be riding by some house and I’ll hear behind me, “Hey Dad, can you smell that nice dinner ?”… “Hey Dad, there’s that monster 4WD we saw the other day”… “Hey Dad, did you see me do that wheelie ?”
Yet despite their wonder and inquisitiveness, my kids don’t seem to have the same sensitivity to all the traffic that keeps rushing by us. In so many ways, an awareness of what the other cars are doing, is so much more important. However, it is nothing for the little cherubim to get so caught up in a cycling moment that they begin drifting off into the middle of the road. And there I am the ever vigilant father – calling them back to the curbside.
You know, being found distracted, self-absorbed or dozing is not good enough for me anymore. I want to be awake and alert and attending to the main thing. I don’t to wake up and find that Jesus has moved on somewhere else and left me behind.
