We wrapped up our experiments this last week and finished our (what ended up being 10 week) series on the Kingdom Experiment.  I had set up this reflection exercise since it was the last week, and I had everyone answer a series of questions on a sheet of paper while I blared some Sunsets and Sushi.  The first question was something along the lines of “How do you see the Kingdom now and how does that differ from before we started this series?”  And I have to say that when you write questions, you kind of know how you’re going to answer them.  Most people that do something like this wouldn’t even fill the sheet out themselves, but I was compelled, so I wrote down my answers.  I though it was going to be very straight forward, but my first sentence ended up throwing me for a loop.  This is what I wrote:

The Kingdom is more prevalent than I had imagined.

After writing that sentence, I sort of sat back, and looked at my paper, and wished I had an eraser, and sort of just mumbled to myself in a slightly-higher-pitch-than-normal voice, “Was I just imagining the Kingdom?”

It took me a little while to come to grips with it, but it’s true.  I could tell you what I thought the Kingdom was like, but I couldn’t have told you this story.  Check it out after the break.Without getting too into the details,  I’ll just walk you through what went through my mind.  So I’m making a quick trip to the dollar store.  It’s lunch hour.  There are 2 check stands open and about 8 people in each.  I get to where there is one person being checked out, one more person in front of me, and then me.  The lady in the front has her daughter in the cart, and she is buying all these toys that looked like they would be the contents of a party bag at the little girl’s birthday party.  She tells the clerk that she only has a certain amount of money in her account, so can she put some on her debit card and the rest on her credit card.  The clerk says ok, so they run the debit card, then they go to run the American Express card, but the dollar tree doesn’t take AmEx.  So she’s stuck.  She owes $15, and her daughter is restless/crying/not sitting down in the cart, and they call a manager.  So there are roughly 8 people looking at the back of this lady’s head because she doesn’t want to turn to look at us.

For the first time ever, this is the thought that comes to me.  “That sucks.  I would hate to be in that situation.  But since I’m here, the Kingdom is here, so it doesn’t have to be like this.”

I won’t tell you the rest of the story.  I’ll let you finish it on your own.  What would you do?  Is the Kingdom something that you imagine, or does it show up wherever you happen to be?