Lent 2014 – Devotion 9

“. . .mobile home parks, ‘senior living’ complexes, golf courses and strip malls.” What is this a description of? Apparently this is how a recent article in the Economist describes Pinellas County. So, how would you describe Pinellas County?

Pinellas County is the most densely populated county in Florida. It has world class beaches. It is the home of the Dali Museum and the Bay Rays. A fantastic progressive Christian church, Lakewood United Church of Christ, is in Pinellas County. These are some additional ways to describe Pinellas County. These are things I think of when I think of Pinellas. What do you think of?

I will say, that when asked to describe Pinellas County, mobile home parks, senior living communities, golf courses, and strip malls would not come to my mind. Were any of those on your list of features of Pinellas County? But, there are mobile home parks in Pinellas. Probably a lot of them compared with other places, especially “up north” where more insulated, substantial dwellings are needed given the climate conditions. There are senior living complexes in Pinellas. My mom lives in one. Quite a few of our church members live in such communities. Yes, there are probably more here than in some other comparable US locations. Golf courses? I don’t play golf, but when I think about it, my daily rounds do take me past golf courses on a regular basis. The community around the church, Lakewood Estates, incorporates a golf course. I regularly pass the municipal course on 18th Ave. S. and our son’s girlfriend lives in a golf course community. And strip malls? They are everywhere even though we may prefer to call them shopping centers. So, we really can’t accuse the Economist of being inaccurate. There are mobile home parks, senior living complexes, golf courses, and strip malls in Pinellas County. But that is probably not how we who live here would describe our home territory.

This Lenten season, we are encouraged to look at ourselves and our lives with intentional scrutiny and honesty. So, how might an “outsider”, someone who does not know you (a clerk in a store, for instance) describe you? What traits and characteristics might be mentioned? What about someone who knows you better, perhaps from a work or volunteer setting, say about you? What adjectives might be used by a colleague to describe you? What about a family member? How might a family member describe you? What might be notable as your salient features, your distinguishing characteristics? You may also want to consider how you would describe yourself. What things would you say to describe yourself? Would you mention likes or dislikes? Character traits? Physical characteristics? Relationships? Roles? It is interesting to think about what overlap, if any, there would be between our description of ourselves and what others say about us.

We may also think about who we are from the God’s eye view. What might God say about us? How might God describe us? How different is that from how we think of ourselves?

There may be many divergences in how we can be described, but, as with the Economist view of Pinellas County, there may be truth in all of the descriptions. Humans are quite multifaceted and different people may see us in different capacities and so may see different views of who we are. Thinking about all of these perspectives may help us to see ourselves more clearly, more honestly, and may be an invitation for us to grow in new ways.

Prayer: People are complex and it is hard to know another well let alone to know ourselves fully. In this Lenten season, may we engage in honest reflection about who we are so that we may more fully become who God intends for us to be. Amen.