MaryBeth LaMont

Stop! Whatever you are doing right now, just stop and freeze for a moment. Now, imagine 2,000 years from now someone finds you just as you are sitting or standing there in a frozen posture. What might they learn from you?

Now, look around. What surrounds you right now? A computer? A desk? Or are you using a laptop in the family room or on a kitchen table? What else is in the room? A lamp? Photos? A defrosting roast? Imagine once more someone finds this room 2,000 years hence. What might they glean from their discovery about American life in 2022?

I wondered such things while watching a documentary concerning recent excavations in the ruins of Pompey, an Italian city destroyed by an eruption from Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE. People and animals were found just as they were. Archeologists used to think the eruption was in summer. Now seeing the clothing worn by those entrapped in volcanic ash they think it most likely was fall as the clothing was a bit heavier than that worn in a hot, humid, Italian, summer.

A chariot was unearthed along with a horse hitched to it. Other horses were discovered. A hasty attempt to flea? Caught in the midst of being harnessed or unharnessed? It’s amazing what has been discovered. Even graffiti was found scribbled on exterior wall artwork.

I wonder if the biggest discovery was that we in 2022 are not that much different than those of 79 CE. People were just going about their day-to-day life when the monstrous volcano let loose. Some, like those refusing to make life safer for themselves and others during our pandemic, refused to leave. “They weren’t afraid of no stinkin’ volcano!” Or, on the other hand, some seemed to be running around looking for loved ones they didn’t want to be left behind, sacrificing themselves. We have seen similar responses in crisis of denial, great and heroic love, and common sense that made them decide to flee to safety.

So, it might be what someone might learn from you and I two millennia hence is that we were not so different from them and their time. We might be caught with smart phone in hand, looking down at it, or typing away on a keyboard. Perhaps one might be found loading or unloading the dishwasher or another slicing bread. Day to day tasks might differ over the centuries, but day to day tasks always seem to be around.

To my knowledge no one has yet to dig up God from the caked plaster of Pompey. But God was there. God was there buried in ash, choking out the dust and being crushed by its weight. God was where God’s people were. God always has been. God always will be. God chooses to be there with God’s people. God wants to be there and willingly takes on even the suffocating mantle of volcanic ash.

I am not sure what people might learn from any discovery of us in a distant future. I doubt they will even wonder about God much less find God in our kitchens, living rooms, or offices. It doesn’t really matter, does it? No, because find God or not, God is there. God is in our day to day, our high points and our low times. God is there when we recognize God’s presence or feel God to be absent. God is willing to choke or laugh, cry or rejoice. God is there when we are at our computers, checking texts on our phone, slicing bread, defrosting roasts, and emptying the dishwasher. The only freedom God seems to lack is that of abandoning God’s people.