Don't Just Do Something! Stand There!

The massive peaceful rebellion in Egypt has me wondering if the familiar aphorism, "Don't just stand there, do something!" has spooked us into activity-driven lives bereft of character. The Egyptian people, of course, did something. Yet the key to their action, powerful as it was, emerged from their character as a people--their weariness with despotism and their hunger for freedom.

Ought that be a lesson to us, frenetic as we have become in American social, political, and religious life? Questions of character, one often feels, are being trumped by half-truths spewed out to succeed, to gain advantage and power--often under the guise of defending character!

Were I to be stripped of all my activities for a day--or you, for that matter--what would others see in us just standing there? Is there more to us than our personal accomplishments or the programs and activities that consume our time and social life?

Sometimes it takes crises in our lives to wake us up to who we are created and called to be. Might what is now happening in Egypt represent a call to the renewal of our own character as Christians?

If so, as I believe it does, we would each do well to ponder what it means for us as believers, individually and communally, to be more intently--as John Weborg has put it in his thoughtful book--both, "Alive in Christ" and "Alert to Life" (Covenant Publications, 1985).

Kyrie eleison! Christe eleison!