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Message from Pastor Michelson

The needs to vent

By Pastor Lowell Michelson

Minnesota. The word can bring happy memories of lazy days lakeside at the cabin in the warm heat of the summer. The name can also chill you to the bone if you’ve experienced a Minnesota winter — a frigid time where temperatures plummet enough for trucks to drive on those same lakes. Whatever your response, the Land of 10,000 Lakes annually draws folks from around the country to savor the amazing outdoor activities that come with the lakes and pristine Boundary Waters and/or the excitement of a thriving urban experience in the Twin Cities.

Did I mention that some also come for the Mall?

I was painting houses in the Minneapolis area when the Mall of America opened in 1992. There were many interesting facts about this 4.2-million-square- foot consumer mecca that dominated the media frenzy throughout the summer. Boasting over 520 stores and 50 restaurants, 12,550 parking spaces, and 11,000 employees wasn’t nearly as impressive to me as the details about heating the place, though.

“We don’t heat the mall,” said Anna Long, a spokesperson for the Mall of America in an interview with WCCO. “There’s no central heating system.” Shoppers are heating up the mall. The body heat of 40 million visitors each year is one of three heating sources. Sunshine from the skylights, which are seven and a half acres of glass, and miles of artificial lights help too. While individual stores and entryways have their own heat, it’s up to people to battle the sub-zero temperatures during the winter months in the bulk of the mall.

Wouldn’t it be great to always be able to count on the warmth of humanity as a given? Not so much to heat buildings, but to melt the frigid and frozen parts of our lives. An engaging smile. A kind act. An outstretched hand. Each has the possibility of transforming a place and a life, warming someone’s day and sharing a whole bunch of human energy that would otherwise be wasted.

Last month, while the weather was still cold in the Quad Cities, our furnace stopped working. The fan would kick on fine, but as the furnace attempted to ignite, the whole system would shut down. It took a few hours of this cycle before we noticed what was happening and turned the furnace off. We had a hunch what was the problem.

Naaman

The next day, when a repair person came to our home, our hunch was confirmed. Our furnace vents right next to our swingset in the backyard. While our two oldest kiddos are happy to hop from swing to swing and scamper around the yard playing various games, our youngest prefers to entertain himself in wonderful two-year-old ways. For Naaman, the little white vent pipe coming out of the house was a perfect receptacle for pebbles from the flower bed. This little guy must have spent weeks of backyard playtimes depositing these little rocks into his new toy, the exhaust pipe tunnel.

The technician, after disconnecting the pipe from the furnace and dumping out two cups full of rocks, said that we were lucky to have a sensor which shut down the furnace. A furnace needs to vent and when it couldn’t, the sensor shut it off. It saved our lives.

There are times when it feels like my mouth, ears, and heart are full of rocks. The pebbles of busyness, self-absorption, and wearyness may be small but add up to one mighty clog, triggering the sensor to shut down the whole system. Nothing is getting through. Any warmth for humanity is gone.

Did you know we are created to vent? We are created in love for love. Last month around church, we heard the story about the disciples walking with Jesus as their hearts were burning within them (Luke 24.13-35). They needed to vent. This weekend, we’ll hear about the Holy Spirit coming and filling the disciples so they could vent to the world. And we’re part of this ongoing Story — God is in the business of clearing away, filling, using, and sharing. May the Holy Spirit flow out of you to warm and transform the world.

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