Life and unplanned landings

It seems there is a toxic lake caused by open pit copper mining in Butte Montana. It is one of the largest lakes in the country, but for all intents and purposes: dead.

The water is red, green, brown and even black in many places.

One day a group of snow geese, aware of the lake's toxic nature, made an emergency landing in its poison water.

The next day, all the geese were dead.

It was sad, but had to be chalked up to the cost of doing open pit copper mining. Kind of an environmental version of living in a fallen world caused by our sinfulness.

Some time later an interesting discovery was made by scientists studying the lake.

Life.

A colony of microorganism was found living on a bit of organic matter in the lake.

And these microorganisms were feeding on the toxins in the lake. They were eliminating the deadly contaminants.

And even more interesting: The microorganisms are unique to one known environment.

The digestive system of geese.

The kind of geese that landed and died in the lake that day.

The first thing I thought of when I heard this story was:

Atonement.

Taking on the toxic nature of a system or of a person or group of people so that something in my nature can change it and bring life to it.

That's atonement I can understand. (The good news.)

That's atonement I am called to be a part of (The bad news- realistically for me) and to act out in the world as opposed to just watching from a distance as Jesus takes on the sins of the world in a cosmic act of sacrifice for all humanity. (The good news)

In relationship focused ministry, it seems the people skilled at relationships- the ones that have something within them that can change and even bring life are at relationship capacity. There's just no way to add any more authentic relationships.

The people so desperate for relationships seem incapable of engaging in them.

Most often it seems it's in the random, unplanned landings on the lakes of brokenness and emptiness that life and change come.

It's hard to build a program around that.

Maybe it starts with a couple of people willing to care for each other and to find ways to create life and change toxic situations a little at a time.

And then proceed to die together.