Putting Our Whole Selves In

I love the fact that our service trip to the Diocese of Cuernavaca happened while our national church’s General Convention was meeting in Ohio. While people at the General Convention, along with Anglicans around the world, were debating what it means to be part of the Anglican Communion, we had the good fortune to not just be talking about it, but living and celebrating in our actions what it means to be part of a larger Communion.

The people of La Bendita Virgen Maria hosted a wonderful church service and fiesta for us to both celebrate and thank us for the painting and cleaning that we had all together accomplished. They generously shared wonderful food and games with us and we shared some songs with them. We will never forget their hospitality. Given the language barrier, the songs and games that worked best were those that included actions. So naturally, we taught them the Hokey Pokey and we all thoroughly enjoyed playing it together.

As you probably remember, the song starts slowly by asking each participant to put just a little part of themselves in (your hand, your leg, etc.). The last verse of the song finally asks everyone to “put their wholes selves in.” And that’s just what we all did. And not just in the song. Every one of us who went on this trip will be forever changed because we did just that, we risked putting our whole selves in and … the rewards for us were innumerable. This experience has definitely “turned ourselves around.”

Every one of us can look back over our lives and see that those experiences that were most rewarding and most enriching were those where we gave our whole selves. These major life experiences don’t come along very often. Yet an important part of our spiritual life is discerning where and when God is calling us to give completely of ourselves, every ordinary day. And then we need to pray that we have the courage to do what we are being asked.

And one final lesson from the Hokey Pokey. I can’t ever imagine someone doing the Hokey Pokey by themselves. What fun would that be? It is by definition a communal song and game. And so is the process of putting our whole selves in. It is never done alone. It requires both the support and the reception of loving communities--communities like St. Christopher’s and La Bendita Virgen Maria.

-Scott