Isolated or Engaged

The research I do at work involves investigating the role that vitamin A plays in the development and function of the cells in the pancreas which secrete insulin. That means that as part of my job, I work with vitamin A (you can ignore all the rest of that first sentence). Vitamin A is a slightly fragile chemical. It is easily degraded by light, oxygen and heat. Part of my job is to protect it from those things which will harm it, so I work with it in the dark (or mainly in the dark), I store it under nitrogen, and I keep it frozen ( -112 F). All of these steps means that my vitamin A is protected from those things which will destroy it -- light, heat, and air.

Hold that thought, and consider this...The four of us were at dinner last night (Logan's). G had his IPod with him, so I reached over and picked it up. I put in his earphones and started a song (Never Been Any Reason by Head East). Listening to this song, with the IPod set at Grant Volume, I noticed something. With earphones in and the music playing, you are in your own little world. I could see those sitting around me, I was still in the restaurant, but I was apart from it. Isolated. Mouths were moving as people talked to me, but it was as if I were watching it all on TV. I was separate from everything around me except for the music, which was filling my head.

What is our calling as Christians? Are we fragile like the vitamin A -- so much so that we need to protect our faith from the light and heat so that it doesn't degrade? Are we called to live life separated, pulled apart from the world? What is our role as a Christian in the world?

Sometimes it's easier to pull back -- to disengage from the world. We isolate ourselves in church, in our homes, in our daily lives -- ignoring the secular world around us. Sometimes that is necessary -- at times it is how we are renewed and strengthened, and that is wonderful. It seems to me, however, that we aren't called to live apart, separated and protected. God equips us to live our lives in the light, and He wants us to have a faith that will survive the reality of daily life, and doesn't need the protection of isolation.

Do we live a life where we pull our children out of public schools to home school them? Do we engage in the world, or do we protect ourselves from it? Are we Christians at work during the week or do we save our faith for Sundays? Do we demonstrate our faith to our neighbors, or do we keep it a secret? Do we even talk to those neighbors who don't meet our definition of Christian?

If we are meant to be salt and light, then how can we do that if we live in a Christian bubble? The bubble already has flavoring -- we are meant to be part of the world at large -- working to change it, not trying to protect ourselves from it.