Clergy from left, The Rev. Mary Ann Hill, Pastor Nicolé Ferry, Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, retired, Associate Priest Lynn Finnegan and Pastor Deb Church. Photo by Nate Limback/ladailypost.com
By The Rev. Mary Ann Hill
Rector
Trinity on the Hill Episcopal Church
One my biggest frustrations where I used to live was the evening traffic. There were many stoplights and traffic often backed up for miles. Consequently, I spent years of frustration, wondering why NOBODY in that town knew how to “zipper merge”.
What is zipper merging? It’s simply taking turns. Theoretically, if drivers use both lanes and take turns merging, more cars will make it through an intersection before the light changes.
So imagine my delight when I got to Los Alamos and saw the sign that said “Alternate Merge”. But as with traffic circles, people often don’t understand alternate merging. Most of us learned to take turns as children, but it doesn’t always come naturally. We are more wired to compete than to cooperate.
It’s human nature to want to win, to want to beat others to the finish line, to come out on top. That’s written in our DNA. Looking out for number one comes much more naturally than looking out for others. But guess what? God wants us to ‘alternate merge’. The whole history of our interactions with God have to do with being more or less reconciled to him. And that’s been a hard lesson for us to learn.
God created us to be with God, but we humans have found every conceivable way to avoid reconciliation. It started at the very beginning of this relationship, when we did the one thing we were asked not to do, and then hid from God because of it. And thus from the get-go, we were separated from the One who loves us more than we can ask or imagine.
After so many attempts to help us bridge the distance, God took pity on us, and sent his only Son to bring us home. God never quit on us, and in that last-ditch effort, we were given a cosmic do-over. That is meant by grace.
The gracious response to grace received is to pay it forward, to help others find reconciliation. Christians are meant to be ambassadors and to reconcile people to God and to one another.
How do we do that? We follow the Gospel imperative of how to alternate merge: to love our neighbors as ourselves. When someone asked Jesus “Who is my neighbor?”, the answer was, simply, everyone.
Granted, loving everyone is a TALL order, but there are ways we can begin to move in that direction. We can moderate our exposure to things that make us despise others. We can learn to be curious, not judgmental (credit: Ted Lasso). We can listen in order to understand, not just respond. We can start to reimagine a different outcome than one of winners and losers. We can be agents of change for good, for a better world, for merging people together rather than deepening divisions.
There is choice on the road ahead of us. We can sit in traffic and stew, or we can alternate merge. Only one way will get us home sooner and with less frustration.
Editor’s note: ‘All Shall Be Well’ is a column written by local women clergy including ELCA Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, M.Div., retired (czoebidd@gmail.com); Pastor Nicolé Ferry, Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church (pastornicole@bethluth.com); Associate Priest Lynn Finnegan, The Episcopal Church of the Holy Faith, Santa Fe (rev.lynn@holyfaithchurchsf.org); Pastor Deb Church, White Rock Presbyterian Church (pastor@wrpchurch.com) and The Rev. Mary Ann Hill, Rector, Trinity on the Hill Episcopal Church (momaryannhill@gmail.com).
