I (Tim) currently serve as a Chaplain on a 26-acre care facility.  Yep.  You read that right.  600 residents and almost as many staff make up a vast labyrinth of independent living, healthcare, memory units, assisted living, and adult day care.  It’s somewhat like being on a small college campus.  I do a lot of things – Bible studies, programs, presentations, visits, sacramental stuff, and lots of conversations.  But the best discussions I have with people, whether residents or employees, is when walking the sprawling buildings from one place to another.  Which gets me to the point:

It’s not the destination that’s important; it’s the journey.

Reading the Bible is important.  Typically, we read to acquire knowledge, find answers to our questions, or connect with God.  Those are laudable goals.  Yet, the process of discovery, the following of evidence and engaging the hunt is the real gem.  What’s more, if the end is disconnected from loving, helping, and being with others, we have truncated the process to get to our end game.

Bob (the bloodhound) totally gets this.  The hunt is as important as the acquisition.  Sniffing and smelling is Bob’s thing – the process of using his nose and the journey along the trail needs as much attention as the outcome.  When Bob isn’t sleeping (which is most of the time) he wants to go outside so he can pick up a scent and run with it, wherever it may take him.  Bob doesn’t have a set plan where he goes.  Nope.  He allows the journey to be determined by the evidence of where the wind takes him with the detection of the odor.  The movement and unfolding drama of the hunt is invigorating for him – and me by his side is as much his joy as treeing some raccoon.

While I completely understand the need to get from Point A to Point B as quickly and as efficiently as possible, I have come to embrace a different approach.  The process of getting from one place to another is the very opportunity needed to effectively connect with another human being.

I haven’t always lived this way.  For example, I’m the kind of guy that has historically looked at grocery shopping as conquering the list.  Get in, get the needed food as fast and with as little effort as possible, then get out quickly by prudently assessing the best line to get through in as little time as possible.  Unloading the bags of groceries has a similar approach.  A well-oiled system of unpacking and putting away is maximized to increase efficiency and save time.

What can get lost in the race to become ever more streamlined and productive are individual people.  Let’s turn all this on its head.  If relationships, human connection, and individual love and respect of others is our highest value (notice how many businesses, corporations, and organizations have some sort of written statement on helping people… and it just sits in a three-ring binder) then we really need to pay a lot more attention to the process of what we’re doing, and not just the product and outcomes.

When we focus solely on final outcomes, then: factory workers are no longer people but only extensions of the machines they are using to churn out a quality product; families at church are not individual souls, but giving units with potential to support all the programs and ministries; hard circumstances are just something to get through as quickly as possible so as to get back to being a high achiever; a job is merely a means to acquire a paycheck and live for the weekend; driving from one place to another is to be done as fast as possible with all other drivers as idiots who need to get out of the way so I can get to where I’m going; and, a mentality of just getting through the teenage years with kids becomes the norm so that they can stop being an annoyance and get on with being productive adult citizens.

The process matters… a lot.  More than you know.  That’s why, at the end of our lives, folks don’t talk about how much they produced, how many places they’ve been and how many fish they caught, or how much money they made.  Nope.  They talk about people – and if production and acquisition was the sine qua non of their lives, then there is a boat load of regrets expressed for not having lived attuned to the process of relating to and helping others.  People are only treated as people when we embrace the process of doing our jobs, raising our kids, and accomplishing our given responsibilities with grace, patience, love, and compassion for others.

I have chosen to operate with the process in mind.  Ambulating from one room to another at the care facility is now done with a slow gait, aware of others, and taking the time to greet, connect, and even enjoy a sit-down conversation with another person – all on the way to doing something else.  Methinks the residents of the large care complex don’t want to be lost as just another bed occupier so as to increase the building’s capacity; the staff don’t want to be a cog in a massive healthcare structure with faceless names on an insurance form; and, the families of both don’t want their loved one(s) gasping for spiritual air in a sea of outcomes-based operations.

When it comes to the Bible, all the knowledge in the world about its contents means nothing if the message isn’t put into practice with faith, hope, and love directed toward the people in our lives.

Humanity is our business.  It doesn’t matter what we do for a living, or where we live.  Relationships are the only reality we take with us in the end.  When dead with ball and chain, the ghost of Jacob Marley responded to Ebeneezer Scrooge’s accolade that he was such a good man of business in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol:

“Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!” 

Marley had discovered this insight too late.

All of life is a gift given by God, meant for us to be stewards toward the benefit and welfare of humanity.  All our abilities, skills, intellectual acumen, possessions, and even the lack thereof – literally everything – is meant to be used in the betterment of our fellow human beings.  We all share the common human condition of needing our stories told and heard by another.  Will we be there to hear? Will another be there to hear us?

If you think about it, Jesus was perhaps the most productive person to ever walk this earth.  In just three short years his ministry completely changed the world and continues to do so.  Perhaps Christ’s “secret” was no secret at all.  He was fully present to the people right in front of him – never hurried, and never capitulating to the anxiety of others who wanted him to pick up the pace of being a kickass Messiah.  Nope.  Humanity was his business, and he did a Masterful job of it.

So, may you slow down just enough to observe, see, hear, smell, and witness the incredible and deep humanity that is present next door to you, down the hall from you, and sitting across the table with you.  May you experience the wide mercy of God and graciously extend the same love to others.  May you savor the reading, observation, and application of the Bible.  May you embrace the process of whatever you are doing to include the space of others and their unique humanity.