A Child shall lead them

I've been struck this week by the maturity, compassion, hope, and wisdom of a group of high schoolers who have gone through unimaginable tragedy, and yet have emerged to the other side of that as leaders who are inspiring more people for their movement than has happened in my memory. 

And yet, these same young people have been targeted by cruel words, innuendo, and political hate speech.

That's the way of prophets though. 

Prophets live in the wilderness always. They sit on the margins of the "inside" and lay bare the tragic flaws of those who sit comfortably there.

Prophets take the more difficult path through the wilderness when it would be so much better for them to go around it or hide from it.

A seventeen year old should be getting ready for college; filling out applications; planning prom and senior week.

But instead, these young people are calling out from the wilderness they've been thrust into to decry a system that has failed them.

They've had to face the glare of the media spotlight and rally the troops to make change that protects the rights - and the safety - of all, rather than keep the status quo that protects the rights of just some.

Who told them to be so bold?

Who guided them into this wilderness to turn them into leaders?

Into prophets?

It is easier to not speak up. There are so many things on any given day that I know I sit in silence about rather than shouting from the rooftops about the injustice of it all.

A groups of young people is showing me that the easy way won't get you out of the wilderness.

They are showing us all.

Isaiah 11:6

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
    the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
    and a little child shall lead them.

Corporate Freedom

Someone recently suggested to me that I read the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Without going into a review or book report, one of the basic premises of the book is how we have learned overtime to sabotage ourselves from true joy and spiritual and mental health.

That's really an oversimplification I suppose, but the book covers four ways we can help get ourselves out of this self-sabotage, by making four agreements with ourselves: be impeccable with your word (tell the truth and use words wisely and kindly); don't take anything personally (something I know I am frequently guilty of); don't make assumptions (again, finger pointing to self!); and always do your best.

I suppose there's a lot of new age-y self help wisdom in these pages, but there is also a lot of Truth (with a capital T). I found myself nodding along until I got the chapter on how to transform by breaking our old habits (or, as the book calls them, our old "agreements").

In reaching these new agreements, Ruiz says that we must learn how to become truly free: free as a child is free. Again, I nodded at first (thinking how Jesus himself lifted up children as a model of faith).

But then Ruiz said something that gave me pause. What he meant by the freedom a child shows is doing what we want and being "completely wild." The real us is the child who doesn't grow up, and in healing ourselves, we are free to live our own personal dream; to live our own truth.

Now, again, there is some oversimplification here and I have not read the entire book yet to see how Ruiz reconciles this idea of freedom to the responsibilities we have to each other.

But this idea of individual freedom seems to me to be one that most of us do understand and know well. We live in a nation where personal and individual freedoms are lifted up as the ideal. In our faith as well, we tend to view the individual elements of it: a personal relationship with Christ; freedom to worship as we as an individual sees fit; private prayer; our individual salvation, etc.

Even in Lent we tend to focus on the individual need for repentance. We have private ways of living our Lenten disciplines.

Yet one of the most central themes of our faith is community. From the moment God told Abraham that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed, the communal nature of God's experience with us has been paramount. Salvation is not simply an individual event. God is out to save the world (or the cosmos as the Greek translation even more fully captures).

And as part of that, our true freedom is always wrapped up with that of our neighbor.

In the music Hamilton in the song My Shot, the character John Laurens puts it this way: "But we'll never be truly free until those in bondage have the same rights as you and me." 

We are not free unless we are all free.

That doesn't mean there is no individual component to our faith. And it doesn't mean that we don't have individual dreams and a need to let our "wild child" out from time to time.

But as Lent leads us into the wilderness, we remember that the journey is not one we take alone.

Genesis 12:2-3 

I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Matthew 22:36-40

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Into the Wilderness

When I began this blog several years ago, I was guided initially by two things. The first was my recent commissioning as an Associate in Ministry for the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America). The second was remembering how helpful and impactful it had been for me in my very first Seminary class - Old Testament I with Dr. Bob Robinson - to write free flowing thoughts and musings on scripture passages in the journal Dr. Robinson had us keep.

Much has changed in the past several years. Now I am no longer an Associate in Ministry, but a Deacon for the ELCA. It is a title and brand I have not fully lived into, and frankly am not sure if I ever will. The Diaconate is a ministry that is still new to me in terms of understanding. It is certainly not one I felt called to when I made the choice to become an AIM rather than a Diakonal Minister, the closest thing to a Deacon the ELCA formerly had.

I was intentional about using the word AIM in the title of this blog, and have decided not to change it. I still feel I am wandering. And I still feel like that wandering is AIMing somewhere. I guess I am still feeling like an AIM, not a Deacon.

Another thing that has changed is that I am no longer in my first call. For a few reasons I left that congregation a few months ago even before I had another call. It was the right time to go.

In the subsequent months I've thought that this time away from a call would be a kind of sabbatical. A sabbath time where I would clear my head and heart and be ready when another call came.

Things haven't turned out that way so far. Instead, the past six months for my family have been frequently stressful and sometimes downright painful for many reasons which aren't really necessary to get into. None of us feel like this is sabbath time. Instead, it's been as if we are three boats bumping up against each other in stormy, rocky waters as we try to find a place to land together.  All three of us have been dealing with things that are trying. And we are all dealing with them individually, as well as communally.

It has felt instead like Wilderness time. Not Sabbath time.

And that brought me back with a thud to why I began this blog. Wandering is something the Israelites did in the Wilderness. And while that wandering felt perhaps aimless for them, for God it was aim-full. That image was one that hit home for me on March 27th, 2013 when I wrote my first post.

Dr. Robinson showed me how to use scripture as something to wrestle with in a purposeful way. To wander AIM-fully though passages to help bring me out of the wilderness.

And nowhere is that image more relevant than in Lent. We remember in Lent Jesus' sojourn to the Wilderness to be faced with temptation. We remember the Israelites sojourn in the Wilderness to wander to the promised land.

I am still wandering. Still in the Wilderness. But Lent offers a time to find purpose in both. Wrestling with scripture as Dr. Robinson taught, brings life and rebirth. It brings creativity and insight.

I've strayed from this blog for a while during the pain of the past months. And staying away hasn't taken away that feeling of wandering or of wilderness. It is time for me to remember that wandering AIM-fully is how I felt called to write to begin with. So as a Lenten discipline, rather than giving up coffee and chocolate or any manner of items that I usually come up with for Lent, it is time to return to wandering with purpose. 

Maybe Sabbath does come in the Wilderness.

Mark 1:9-13 

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Can anything good come out of El Salvador?

Or Haiti?

Or the continent of Africa?

...Or Nazareth

For Phillip, who hailed from Bethsaida, clearly his hometown was a standout compared to the backwater town of Nazareth.

"Can anything good come out of Nazareth" he asked Nathanael, when the other man tells him about this amazing itinerant preacher from that neck of the woods. Nathanael gushed about this Jesus. Moses in the law as well as the prophets all foretold him. Nathanael was convinced of this. Something good had come out of Nazareth.

And Nathanael told Phillip to come and see just what that was.

Something - someone - life changing had come out of Nazareth.

I've not been to El Salvador or Haiti, but I have been to Africa - to the country of Tanzania. And I've seen all the good that comes from there. I've seen the beauty of the land, and the faithfulness and richness of life of the people.  So, so much good from a place that I feel so fortunate to have seen.

Because someone said to me "Come and see." And so I went.

I've seen pictures of Haiti - a gorgeous jewel of a place where suffering has demonstrated courage and hope in a people who have dealt with more than I ever will.

I remember the 80s and the terror that people from El Salvador faced from a Civil War that tore them apart. And when someone might ask "Can anything good come out of El Salvador," I can begin with "Oscar Romero" and go from there.

We live in a time where nationalism is rearing its frightening head and countries are being segregated into worthwhile or shitholes. I don't like to use profanity in my blogging, but that's the word that was used. And glossing over it isn't helpful.

Say that word to yourself. Say it aloud. If it isn't one you like saying or hearing, then ask yourself, is it something that should be used about such beautiful countries from which springs such beautiful people? 

Can anything good come out of Haiti? Or El Salvador? Or Tanzania? Or Iran? Or Syria? Or North Korea?

Yes.

Can anything bad come out of Norway? Or Germany? Or England? Or the United States of America?

Yes.

Something good came out of a forgotten little no-nothing town two millennia ago. And so to imagine that there is a distinction based on the nationalistic, racist ideas of our modern empiric leader is to forget that God so loved this whole entire world - the cosmos. Not one place more than any other.

And if you aren't certain of that, then go and see what beauty there is to behold in all those places that you might least expect it.


The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”