How would you like to go from being last to being first?

For Christians that is kind of a tricky question because Jesus messes with our minds on this subject. We know that Jesus said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last.” (Mark 9:35). So before we answer the first and last question, we need to know: are you talking about going from last to first in the sense that since I am last, I will be first? Or are you saying that if I say I want to be first, then that will make me last? Are we talking about a hard and fast first here? Is this a legit first? Well, stop overthinking it would ya? Christians, sheesh! It is a simple question: How would you like to go from being last to being first?

Last week Samoa went from being last to first by skipping Friday. For Samoans, Friday December 30th never happened. They went to sleep on Thursday evening and woke up on Saturday morning—all without the aid of Frat party!

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Maybe it’s just that I am getting older, but I feel like I am starting to have a hard time processing change.

To be honest, I haven’t been able to keep up for a long time now, but I am just publicly admitting it now. In fact, the first crack in my “hip-with-it” armour started sometime in the 1990s. That’s when I first became aware that I no longer knew every musical group on the charts. At the time I sloughed it off to the fact that Sheila and I had three baby boys. Who can keep up with anything when you have three kids in diapers? Then I blamed it on the fact that I lived in Prince Edward Island, a world then-dominated by country music.

Then there is the obvious, behind the times ‘tell,’ which is that I still don’t carry a cell phone with me on a regular basis. Sheila and I share one and use it mostly for emergencies and for keeping connected to the kids. I don’t want one on principle really, at least that is what I tell myself. Presently we are without one since the last phone slipped into the dishwater and thus became permanently washed up.

Now you might think: “Perfect opportunity, Grant, to get into the cell game: time to pick up a smart phone of some kind, particularly when it was your wife that destroyed the last phone, time to cash in on that guilt and get something really sweet!”

True, I could justify doing that, but the truth is that I don’t want a smart phone. Dumb phones were hard enough for me to work, why would I want something that only makes me feel dumber? Did you know that smart phones are called smart phones for that very reason: their smartness is inversely proportional to how dumb they make you feel? John, my oldest, just the other day said, “Dad, Nokia makes a phone with big buttons and no features: that would be good for you!” That was the equivalent of him saying, “Dad, maybe you need a first response pager just in case you fall over and need to call for help. You might want to start thinking about a walker while you’re at it!”

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The Handyman’s Shop is gone. I just walked by it the other day, but now it is gone. And by gone I mean, no longer in existence. I don’t mean they moved or I forgot what street they were on. The building itself is gone. It has been razed. (Have you ever wondered why raze sounds the same as raise but means the opposite?) I find this mildly disturbing. I mean I know stores open and close all the time, but buildings don’t come and go quite as often and yet it has become a trend in my neighbourhood lately. In other words, my concern has been raised by all this razing. I am down in the dumps because of all of the dumps that have been downed.

In fact, just in my neighbourhood, I can think of at least three places that have become open spaces. One of them is now on its way to becoming a condo, but another has remained a barren gap in the flow of a commercial block that reminds me of an eight-year-olds’ simile. Missing teeth are cute, in an eight-year-old that is, but missing buildings aren’t. They are just a reminder that something used to be there, until someone comes and fills them in.

Now, I don’t want you to worry about me. I am not going to fall apart because of what has been taken apart. I am sure I can handle all the dismantled. After all, life goes on. But, last year when we were back in PEI, I drove by the location that housed the place in which we lived and the church building in which I served and there was nothing to indicate that either one of them was ever there. The highway has been improved and so the house and the church building no longer exist. What once was an essential part of the community has now made way to an easier exodus out of the community. Apparently all it took was a day to wipe out the one bit of PEI that was most familiar to me.

I couldn’t help but reflect on whether we ever really lived on PEI. I know we did. I know we spent six years there, but at the same time, now with all physical evidence gone, it seemed more of a dream than a reality. That led me to ponder what lasting effect our presence in PEI has had. Since there is no longer any physical evidence, is there any lasting spiritual evidence that we ever lived in PEI? It is a good question, albeit a bit unsettling.

Ultimately I am reminded that our investment in people is by far the most lasting of investments we can make. It is possible to have all physical record of your life removed, razed, and rubbed out, but what you have invested in friends and family and community will remain. One day your own abode will be lowered into a grave and all your investments in the gym will rot and become fast food for worms. But all your investments in people will live on—particularly the Investments of the eternal variety.

One last point—ripping down is part of what is necessary to build up. When you have an established community, the only option you have to build something new is to tear something old down. With that in mind, and as we still see the New Year in our rear view mirrors, what, in your life, has to be razed to raise your spiritual infrastructure? What has to be ripped down so that you can be built up? Often less is definitely more.