Acolyte

And now, in a flagrant violation of word count "rules" for blogs, I am sharing a writing exercise.
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There is a stand-out moment from my childhood when I learned my lesson well. The scene with my mother was brief, difficult, important, and unforgettable.

I was one of those kids who are terribly shy and yet possessed of a strong desire to perform in front of people. I watched the annual television airing of The Sound of Music and saw myself twirling on an alpine mountain top and falling in love with the handsome Captain. I didn’t want to be Maria, I wanted to play Maria – the plain dresses and cropped hair, on location in Europe, the director yelling “CUT!”

Living in a small, blue-collar steel town in southeastern Ohio, apart from the occasional school play or church Christmas pageant there was not much opportunity to practice my imagined craft. I used to organize friends and neighbor children into plays and dance performances, throwing myself into planning, costuming, and rehearsing, until finally it was “show time” for a small group of patient relatives.

This penchant to be on stage, my inclination to be a bit of a show off, resulted in my mother teaching me one of the most important lessons I ever learned.

I was about 10 years old and about to become an acolyte at church. An acolyte’s job is to process in at the beginning of the service, walk up onto the altar, extend a long brass staff high into the air, and light the altar candles. For me, this job involved many appealing dramatic elements: a flowing robe, a procession down the aisle, fire, and a captive audience who would see me perform this role with angelic reverence.

I knew exactly how to play it.

I asked my mother if perhaps any of my grandparents or aunts and uncles might like to come to our church and see me do it. It was so important to me and I was going to do it so perfectly, they would certainly be proud, I thought to myself. In response, my mother asked me a life-altering question: “Who are you doing this for?”

It shook me. I felt many things in that moment, a moment when my childhood center of gravity shifted perceptibly and I was not at the center of it any longer. “Aren’t you doing it for God? Isn’t the important thing that He sees you?” she asked. I felt deeply ashamed. Of course it was not a performance! I hadn’t intended to make it about me, but… I had done exactly that.

My mother taught me with three simple questions an unforgettable lesson about humility – what it feels like and where it comes from. She taught me about service – how important it is to take the opportunities you are given and make them about something greater than yourself and what you might get out of an experience. She taught me to look beyond myself.

She gave me something else in this 2 minute exchange between us: a personal God. I loved God, I loved learning about Him in church, and I said my prayers with belief and trust. But when I heard these questions God was suddenly in my life. He became someone I had an actual relationship with, and He was interested not only in my actions (watching from on high / don’t do bad things), but in my motivations (residing in my heart / go and do good things for others).

That fleeting moment with my mother was truly formational. I’ve been very consistent since then in failing to live out what I learned that day. I’ve tried to ignore God with a fair measure of success. Many times I’ve not been anything resembling humble. But try as I might to put myself at the center again, I eventually come back around, however slowly or reluctantly, and remember this childhood lesson and its simple truth. Who am I doing this for?

As parents, we wonder if any of the things we try so hard to teach gets into those small, thick skulls. For me, it was a very simple and uncomfortable thing left hanging there for me to grab that made the biggest impression. (And now my mom doesn’t have to wonder any more.)