Introverted Me

College is a perfect laboratory for ministering like Jesus did. It's
the closest you can get in our modern society to living and eating and
playing 24 hours a day with others, incarnating yourself into the
lives and joys and pains of others, watching how other Christians act
in different settings and letting others watch you in different
settings. After all, the Christian faith is meant to be a public and
relational one, contrary to how many Americans view such things as
private and individual matters. And how can you get more communal and
interactive than a campus, a dorm, a bubble.

But while it's easier to form and keep relationships in college, it's
not impossible afterwards. Nevertheless, I must confess I haven't
tried as hard as I ought. A lot of it has to do with being busier,
having home and family responsibilities, and just being older. This
is just part of growing up, for the college lifestyle is for college,
not for thirtysomethings and fortysomethings.

But a lot of it has to do with my own introvertedness, and my
unwillingness to stretch past that natural introvertedness to make
contacts. Some who know me in a work setting might be surprised to
read this, for they might fancy me an able networker. And in fact, in
more formal settings, I can and do network.

It is the spontaneous, casual settings that I am not nearly as
effective. When I take my daughter to the local park, I ought to make
more effort to get to know the names of the other parents and their
kids. In the absence of regular interactions with old and cherished
contacts, I can intentionally reach out to them but too seldom do so.
Even when I walk around the city and spy an old acquaintance, I don't
often make the effort to flag that person down to say hi and engage in
a brief conversation.

God makes some more extroverted than others, I understand. But even
for the introverts, He calls and invites us to make human contact, to
leaven the world and to learn from it, to get our hands and lives
dirty with the pains of others, to have an authentic moment of joy in
the celebration of someone else's happiness. So here's a prod to
myself, to stretch a little out of my introvertedness and do a little
relationshipping.