10 Seconds Small Christian Communities Meetings

This is an apartment block (the middle one) in Kraków, on Sądowa Street, where we have our flat on ninth floor (in Poland it counts as eight floor, since the first floor is called a ground floor).

There are 44 flats in this building - 22 'large' ones (three rooms, kitchenette, bathroom and restroom with connecting anteroom) and 22 'small' ones (with two rooms and the rest is more or less the same).

Down there at the entrance to the building there is a panel with names of all 'inmates' inhabiting those 44 flats inside. At the side of every name there is this intercom button to call those people so they can open the main door and let the guest inside.

I've been living in this building for almost thirty years (excluding years spent in Tanzania, but still - I go home every other year or more frequently, these years especially) and I must admit that I barely know those people living around me in the same edifice, sharing the same place in universe, as everyone is living in her/his flat,, on her/his floor, and I would continue to live in oblivion, unaware of their presence just a few walls away from me, if not the elevator...the only place we meet on daily basis...

I love our elevator.

We have only one elevator, and it is not a very modern one. But I love it.

This is our community room, the place to put adverts, messages, a notice board to vent someone's anger at things that are not to someone's liking in his understanding of life, to share wonderful news that a young boy fell in love with a beautiful girl next door and now he announces his feeling with marker pen on the wall), the only place to meet and share 10 seconds of our lives as we go up or down together, elevating us to the experience of others, forming Small Christian Communities randomly each time, particularly in mornings and afternoons, as we set off to work or school and come back...

We barely converse during those 10 Second Meetings. Just some standard greetings, small talk about health, weather, family, work...But this is such a wonderful time where I feel community vibe, our sympathy and interest in someone else's life, when we cross the boundaries of our loneliness and reach out to other person...

I like to offer a simple prayer for neighbors and guests I meet in our elevator and to think about them...each one of us is a whole world...Some fascinating travels into people's lives...my favorites ones...we can spend our life going around the world visiting interesting places, but we may miss big time on wonderful worlds that our neighbors are...I just visualize my neighbors at this very moment and am truly amazed at who is living in our building!  Oh, our building is a like a galaxy of fascinating worlds! And the elevator gives me an opportunity to touch those worlds, even if only for a few seconds...but still I can enrich myself with them...

I love our elevator.

It keeps teaching me humility which helps me to understand myself and my worthiness and to appreciate the uniqueness and inner wealth and beauty of my fellow humans I share the same tiny space in a flash of time...

I like the way we feel tense and embarrassed standing together in the moving elevator, sharing quick glances appreciating each other looks, hairstyle, this day's fashion display, checking body language, facial expressions, inhaling variety of fragrances neighbors - especially ladies - chose to wear this day as their personal daily statements of intent and attitude (oh, I love this perfume! hmmm, nah, this one is awful!),  pretending we are deep in our thoughts, pretending we do not look at each other and that we are not willing too much to switch to a talkative mode...

I love our elevator.

A tiny, but sacred space for feeling and experiencing our community, ourselves, acknowledging our very presence in our neighbors' lives and theirs in ours...A short - ten second at most - time, barely a flash of time, to feel togetherness and sense of sharing the same direction in life...so important...

What an amazing invention this elevator is....

I may offer a prayer for those who invented elevators - Small Christian Community short meetings generating devices.

Have a nice week! And enjoy your elevator ride, if you have any in the area you live or happen to be at this time...

By the way, talking about elevators, check this link (a website created around the idea of an elevator) and enjoy this YouTube video. Smile and laugh even if it is supposedly blue Monday!



















Once you are done with this funny video clip, you may also like to read these Ten Commandments of Elevator Etiquette. It is not funny though.

These commandments apply universally.

1. Thou shalt not fart.
2. Thou shalt not attempt to board elevator before previous passengers have disembarked. The universe does not revolve around you.
3. Thou shalt not press button for wrong floor without acting appropriately ashamed as elevator stops and doors open then shut without anyone leaving.
4. Thou shall take the stairs if traveling between one or two floors, barring personal injury, lest incur the wrath of those traveling to the 32nd floor whose trips are delayed due to your laziness. (Justifying taking the elevator one floor because "they don't know if I'm sick--I could have some horrible disease, for all they know" is a supreme form of laziness, and using this logic risks incurring said horrible disease in the interest of serving you right. Certainly, some otherwise healthy-looking people have problems preventing them from using stairs, but surely not everyone in the building is afflicted with such illnesses.)
5. Thou shall hold the door for others running to catch the carriage. A plague on those who watch idly by as they slide shut in someone’s face.
6. However, thou shalt not hold the door indefinitely and delay travel for other passengers. In a busy building, one could potentially hold the door for several minutes waiting for the carriage to fill. Unless someone is clearly attempting to catch that particular elevator, adopt the adage “thy snoozes, thy loses.”
7. Thou shall wait for empty carriage if thou is sick. If that proves impossible, thou shall refrain from coughing/sneezing/etc. for duration of ride, even if this means thou’s face turns bright red and thou feels like dying.
8. Thou shall give others their personal space in an uncrowded elevator.
9. Thou shalt not call out their floor to the person standing nearest the buttons as if that person is the lift operator. If there is space to do so, thou shalt press button thyself.
10. Thou shalt not carry on personal conversations, be they person-to-person or via cellular phone. Thine elevator is not thine phone booth.