A Teacup in Kansas

This weekend I was gladly reduced.

This is a term that I came across this past week, and it runs counter to much of society and any semblance of common sense in my head. Much of what is inside of us begs that we be made much of, that we be put on a pedestal and valued and recognized as important. Something inside of us wants the spotlight. We want to be first in thoughts and minds.

Instead, sitting in church on Sunday morning, I recognized the feeling of being gladly reduced. In a building full of people, as one of hundreds of voices, I smiled as I embraced the reality of my place in the world.

In a speech in his series on Vertical Church, James McDonald makes the statement that if our galaxy were the size of North America, our solar system would essentially be the size of a teacup in Kansas. There are over one hundred billion galaxies in the universe. We are, indeed, a very small piece of the puzzle.

Most Sundays I drive to church with my own concerns firmly entrenched: the necessary tasks for the day, the schedule for the upcoming week, the frustrations of the past week, my own mistakes. In church on Sunday, though, my cares for self drifted. I still had cares and concerns, but they were for issues much larger than my own. They were part of a collective concern, a shared burden as part of a joint vision and worldview. And I was glad.

To be gladly reduced is to recognize that you are not at the center of the universe, that you are not God, that you cannot and will not make it all happen or be okay on your own. To be gladly reduced is to lose yourself and your needs, and replace that consciousness and concern with connection and the understanding that you are a part of something bigger, something gloriously bigger and better, something that is far better than anything you can do on your own.

We all want to matter in this world, but what we want even more is to matter to someone. To matter to their needs. To matter to their joy. Personal fulfillment will not come when someone says, "Look at you and all that you've done! You're spectacular!" Rather, fulfillment will come when they say, "Look at me because of you."

This is the anti-I-am-too-busy-to-be-bothered way of life. To be gladly reduced is to live with the understanding that what you are doing today has no significance unless you are working for something larger than yourself. It asks you to take stock of your place in your family, in your community, in eternity. It asks you to serve.

The most unhappy people I know are talking about themselves. These are not selfish people; they are, however, self-focused people. And their self-focus is not serving them well. They speak of being wronged, or of their immediate wants/desires, or how the events of today have effected them personally. And they're right. They have been mistreated and inconvenienced, and they don't have that which they want. But acknowledging and sharing and focusing on these things has not brought them any joy. Rather than being gladly reduced, they are sadly enlarged. They have shined a spotlight on themselves and found that they have been let down. And I foolishly join them from time to time.

Being reminded that I am small, however, highlights my inability to be self-reliant.That is a freeing place to be. It is to rest in a truth rather than a desperate illusion fueling personal grandeur.

Be gladly reduced in your community, whatever that community might be. Realize that you are one citizen, but that you belong to a much larger citizenry. You are connected. You are in on some grand secret, and you are free to take a guilty pleasure in sharing it with the others who are with you.

In that congregation on Sundays I am a teacup in Kansas among a continent of other fine china. And it is there that I feel like I have found exactly where I belong.