A couple of weeks ago, as I was driving to pick up my kids from school, I came across an unusual scene.

Well, not that unusual – most of us have done it at one time or another.  Somewhat lost in my thoughts, enjoying the tunes playing on the radio, I caught something out of the corner of my eye.  There, about four lanes of traffic away, and waiting on the adjacent light to turn green, was a man in a car.  That may not seem that interesting, but what caught my attention was the gallon of milk on his roof.   My instinct was to laugh and say, “What an idiot.”  Then I noticed something happening.

People in cars on all four sides of the intersection were trying to get this guy’s attention.  Motioning with their hands, rolling down windows and yelling – you name it, they were doing it.  I still just chuckled to myself.  Then I realized I was in the man’s view and may be able to get his attention.  I began motioning by pointing at my roof.  He saw me and began looking.   I pointed up and he looked up.  He wasn’t getting it.  Finally, at the last minute, the man in the car behind him, jumped out of his car, grabbed the gallon of milk and handed it through the window to the unaware man.

Oh, we all felt good.  People drove through that light with smiles on their faces, as if we had solved a major crisis.  The rest of the drive to pick up my kids had me thinking about what I just experienced.

How many of us have “milk cartons” on the roofs of our lives?

As the school year closes out for those of us who work in Campus Ministries, often there is a void that is left when the students pack up and finally vacate the premises.  At last, we have a chance to look back over the year and ask ourselves some questions.  Usually, those questions deal with how successful we were, our programming, our impact in our community and the changed lives that have developed because of our ministry.

Yet, a question we need to be asking is, “What has happened to ME over this past year?”

Lent is always a season of personal reflection for me.  I like to focus on spiritual disciplines, finding time to sit with my struggles, and reflecting on the things I need to change.  This past Lent, I found myself stuck as I was using Lectio Divina with the words of Christ from the cross.   It was Jesus’ words, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing” that caught my attention.  As I read it over and over, I kept asking myself, “What in my life was I doing that I did not know?”  Anthony De Mello translated this passage simply, “They are not aware of what they do.”  So back in Lent, I began asking myself, “Am I aware?”  This awareness was illustrated so beautifully for me the other day at that intersection.

Do I have a “milk carton” issue on the roof of my life?

To help us examine our year, I developed some questions that I would encourage you to seek answers to over the coming days and months.  I believe these questions help us become more aware of the “milk cartons” in our lives.

• What have I assumed this year?
• What have I kept to myself that I should have let others know?
• What did I nurture and coddle this year a bit too much, that I should have instead, let die?
• How often did I let laziness or procrastination win the day?
• How often this year was I selfish – more concerned about my looks, my successes, my abilities/skills to the neglect of others?
• When did I have to be right, but found myself all alone?
• When should I have sought out counsel or a mentor, but instead tried to figure it out for myself?
• What was something this year I thought was great, but it ended up hurting me?
• Is there anything I am noticing as I reflect on these questions that I need to deal with immediately?
• What may I need to change, do, or begin working on this summer so I don’t have the same “milk carton” issues next year?

After you spend some time examining your own awareness, then it is time to take that “milk carton off your roof.”  In seeking help for my own “milk carton” issues, I have found some solace in the words of Romans 12:1-8 from Eugene Peterson’s The Message:

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.

If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.