Comfortable death

American Christianity is an odd religion.

It's a different kind of beast, whose goal is comfort, whose jesus is an accessory, and whose god's interest in our lives doesn't really extend past behavior modification.

And this entire generation of bored kids who live for each next high, like church camp or sex (because we aren't really picky about what keeps us occupied) are under the assumption that this is what following Jesus-life abundant-looks like.

The cardiologist I am shadowing recently took his niece (who was also shadowing him that day) and I to coffee while he was on call and there was a lull in patients. So I'm sipping my frappuchino and the entire time halfway expecting his pager to angrily start buzzing anytime and have to run off to the hospital because someone's heart is trying to exit their chest in a disorderly fashion.

Thankfully, that never happened.

He's pretty open to questions, and my mouth is pretty open to asking, so we're kind've the best shadowing pair ever. He freely talks and I freely talk and together we provide a spectacle that the nurses now chuckle at as we power walk through the hospital halls--me shooting questions at him about endocarditis and pulmonary edema as he rapidly fires back at me with finer points of staph infections and capillary flow.

Anyways, I was questioning he and his niece on Syria (their home country), the current civil war there, and all the messed up politics and confusing power plays that go on. And then my mouth that is so fond of getting me up a creek and wrestling the paddle away from me and swimming away, opened, and I said :
"So how did you guys become Christians?"
Which may or may not be socially appropriate, but I am rarely a good judge on those things anyhow.

A pause. Exchanged looks. One pair of brown eyes widened ever so slightly under slightly arched eyebrows.

"We just never became Muslim." His niece was looking at me as if I were the largest joke in the world that she pitied for being exposed in public. He further clarified her comment, "Our family was of the original church. You do know Christianity began in the middle east, don't you? Jesus wasn't American."

I laughed nervously, thinking to myself that I was quickly becoming the poster child for dumb, white children everywhere. I picked up my drink and awkwardly stirred the whipped cream into the top layer of liquid, trying to think of how to respond. Of course I knew Jesus was from the middle east. I had just forgotten amidst the felt flannel board cut-outs of the benignly smiling white man in a white robe.
Cold began to spread around my navel area---
Oh my gosh was all the heat in my body literally rushing to my face right now??
No, I was spilling the condensation from my drink right down the front of my neatly pressed shirt. The Dr. excused himself to get napkins. For me. Ho-lee cow.

His niece was still staring at me because, apparently, she hasn't met many spastic white kids yet (her time will come) and broke the silence with her first question of the day.

"You seem surprised by all that is going on in the middle east-did you not know? Is all you know is the Twin Tower Attacks?

It wasn't a question meant to insult, or even instruct. It was simple honesty, and the answer rushed out of my mouth without any filter applied
"You know, I really don't know much about the situation in the middle east, because it doesn't really affect my life at all."

It's true. That's pretty much how humans operate.

And it makes me think...

...until comfort is no longer the priority, accessory jesus is no longer used as a statement, and God's interest in our life becomes our life, we'll stay ignorant to what following Jesus really looks like.

And we will not know abundant life.