In my last rant blog post I vented my frustration on feeling stuck between wanting to attempt incarnational ministry and the obligations of my busy student life. In the second to last paragraph I noted that our class was about to take a trip in which we would be encouraged to put our new enthusiasm into practice.

When I woke up Tuesday morning I was so excited for an opportunity to head out into Spokane and talk with non-Whitworth individuals. However, I was also super nervous. I like to consider myself a friendly, outgoing person, and I normally don’t feel awkward in social settings. But I’ve never spent a lot of time walking up to complete strangers and asking them to describe the joys and laments of their communities. Rob also challenged us to sow shalom in our newly acquainted environments if possible. I wasn’t sure what that meant at the time, but I knew it would probably take a little courage.

I tend to overthink things. I always tend to overthink what other people are thinking, especially when it involves me. I often think before I speak and I pre-judge conversations and am pretty accurate at interacting with someone in a way that is non-threatening or intrusive. So, needless to say during our drive to the Garland district I was thinking of ways to interact with strangers that would be non-threatening, but would also be probing.

I learned something that day. I learned that at least in that context people can be nice. I was expecting everyone to look at us weird, snap questions at us like “why do you care? How is that your business?” I expected some, if not all, of our conversations to be awkward and stilted.

But they weren’t.

The barista was happy to casually chat about the neighborhood and the people who came in and out. She mentioned a little about herself and where she’s from. The bookstore owner and his employees were happy to share the success story of their shop and field our questions about what it was like owning over 300,000 books. The men and women on the street willingly took a couple of minutes out of their day to share pieces of their story.

I was too cynical. I know that not everyone I meet will be open and friendly, but maybe that’s where we have to heed the words of Christ and imitate the disciples, shaking the dust off our feet and moving on to seek the person of Shalom in another context.

I’m thankful that during my first “breaking out” exercise God tore down some of my cynical walls and allowed me see the open, honest faces of the Garland district.

God Bless. Ashley S