Responsibility.

Just because I feel that Jack Schmitt may not be going to heaven,
is it my responsibility as a Christian to do all I can to ensure
that Jack Schmitt will get to heaven?  Is it my responsibility to
lead him, cajole him, into doing the right things?

This is a question of boundaries.  Just who am I responsible for?

The question of boundaries is one of the most important problems
in religion.  Why?  Because God is boundless.  And, therefore, God
is boundaryless.  I think sometimes that people of God confuse God's
boundarylessness with their own finitenesses, assuming that because
God would want something, that it is their responsibility to make
sure that that thing that God would want happens.

God's boundaries know no end.  Or do they?  Is there a boundary be-
tween God and myself?  Is it right that I should make myself "a
simple, separate person," as the poet Walt Whitman says?  Separate,
yes, but from what?  From other humans?  From nature?  From God?

When, then, do our well-meaning and loving efforts, done on behalf
of God as we know Him/Her, become intrusions?  Just who are we, as
self-proclaimed "People of God," or as "Converted Christians," or
"Born Again" individuals, to enforce our spirituality on other people
in our families, or neighborhoods, or our circle of friends?

Who are we to be right and make others wrong?  Are we humble?  Are
we servants?  Are we taking Jesus' example and washing others' feet,
symbolically debasing ourselves to serve the others' needs?  Or are
we filled with pride, the pride of our joy, the joy of our own par-
ticular heartfelt spiritual, religious, or doctrinal beliefs?  Beliefs
that are so filled with light that it cannot be hidden under the 
bushel basket, that it has to be let out to illuminate the dark cor-
ners of others' souls ... and so filled with self-deification that
it subordinates and extinguishes the very light of those others'
souls?

The quiet light of Christian joy is a flame that encourages and brings
out the flames of light and love in others whose flames may be weak,
may be flickering, perhaps nearly extinguished.  The brassy, timbral
light of Christian joy may not have that property.  The quiet light
educates, edifies, helps others, with the Help of God, raise them-
selves (within their own prides and prejudices or lack thereof) to 
find a spiritual center from which they may live more fully, as was 
Jesus' intent.  "The" spiritual center is reserved for God.  And as 
each invididual is different, each knows God in a different way.

The quiet light of Christian joy encourages those differences.  The
brassy, timbral light of Christian joy encourages samenesses.  One
is a prayer closet.  The other is worship with others.  And both
help reinforce the other, as long as neither are abused.

We all have light to offer.  May we be, as Christians, able not only
to offer our light in great tumults of praise and joy, but also in
the quiet listening that comes from practicing our art of living
with responsibility and awareness of all of creation, and its
boundaries and humilities.