Life is Fine

 Recently I've been reminded that friendships, even if they are well established, require time.  I’d been slacking in the amount of time I’d given my relationships with my Edmonton friends.  With that in mind I decided to make a greater effort to hang out with them.  They are friendships I valued, and longed to sustain.  I made trips to Edmonton to see and hang out with them. 

When I was in Edmonton I spent a quantity of time with my friends.  The one is getting married, the other has a job which could be her career, and the third just bought a house.  They are doing life.  One evening we played Ultimate Frisbee together on a team, and went out for a beer and free pizza after.  It struck me how similar their friends were to them, and how different they were from many of my newer (since high school) friends.  All the same.  All playing the same game of getting ahead and leaving others behind. It's the American dream.

I thought about James:  “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”  There was no telling at the Frisbee game who had faith and who did not.  We were all the same.  We were playing Frisbee after all, not healing the sick.  It made me wonder if there was something different we should be doing, if there was some far different way we should be living.

Playing Frisbee was great, going out after was fun, but is that it?  Is that the end of the story?  I won’t be satisfied living my life for Frisbee games and free pizza.  I want more.

I’m just not sure what more would look like.  I feel that for two reasons.  First is quite simply that I feel like I don’t have time for more.  The other is this:  in my efforts to help this world, my steps so far have been in causing less harm. Rather than doing helpful things I have been not doing harmful things.  I've been stepping out and saying "I don't want to be part of the problem," but that doesn't make me part of the solution.  I'm not sure about my next steps.

What are your thoughts?  Does faith make people different?  How is faith shown through works?

Edit, Oct 08, 2013:
Sorry friends who play Frisbee, buy houses, start careers and get married.  Those things are not bad.  They by no means exclude the possibility of doing a lot of good with ones life.  Also, I realise I've mentioned just a sliver of your life.  You do a whole lot more than just play Frisbee.  I get that.  I'm just hoping for something different.  I wanna make every moment count towards changing global systems for the better.  Yes, that is overwhelming, and probably impossible, but I want to try.  The questions of faith are ones I've been asking for a while now.  My friend gets kicked out of her house.  Does Patricia the Christian have anything more to offer that person than Patricia the non-Christian?  I'm not sure she does.  I guess I'm trying to say the questions of faith are reflective of my journey and are not intended as judgments upon yours.  I'm sorry that you got used as the example of what I do not want.  I'm sorry I created a straw-man out of your lives, making it something easy to critique.  I realise that your lives are way more complex and beautiful than this post conveys.  I'm sorry for broken trust and hurt feelings that resulted from this post. Sorry.