Of New Beginnings and Garden Hoses

Here we are, once again, at the beginning of Lent.

Well, technically, Lent started a few days ago, on Ash Wednesday. But I was busy with a family birthday so the day blew by me awfully quickly. This is the first Sunday of Lent so I will call it a good day to begin.

{If you're interested in facts, I'll remind you that the season of Lent is about 40 days long, measured in the weeks  before Easter. In the Lutheran church, where I roll, it's traditionally a time of reflection for believers who want to prepare their hearts for the joy of Easter.} 

{And Easter is the day when Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead to claim eternal life for himself and all who believe in him.}

Many Christians choose to give something up for Lent, like chocolate or Facebook, as a form of fasting or penitence. Nothing wrong with that.

But I like the idea of Lent as a time of digger deeper in my own heart and mind, to think about my faith and what God means to me. And to write about it here.

I hope you will follow along.

I have come to think of Lent as a series of images. And the first image is always water.

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To me, water symbolizes life, survival, refreshment, cleansing, satisfaction, fresh starts, and since our bodies are mostly water, it symbolizes me. Only water can satisfy our physical thirst just as only God can satisfy our longing for love.

To Christians, water also symbolizes baptism. Baptism is the point at which we invite God into our hearts and our lives, not because we deserve him but because He already loves us. 

You know how sometimes you turn on a garden hose, and the water starts blasting out, and no matter which way you turn the faucet handle, you can't turn it off? I think of God's love as that same kind of uncontrollable, fast-flowing outpouring of goodness.

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Baptism is not what turns the hose on. God's love for you started flowing from the moment he formed you in your mother's womb. He has always loved you and will always love you, no matter what you do or don't do.

Baptism is the moment when you put your parched, aching mouth to that hose of free-flowing love from God and begin to drink.

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Of Youth and Chivalry

I am very fond of children. I love kids of all ages, from babies on up. I enjoy playing and talking with them, I marvel at what they share with me and I genuinely appreciate their company. To be honest, I think that children are often closer to God than the rest of us; maybe because they have so recently left heaven to come to earth, they remember more of him than those of us who have been here a while.

Rest on Flight to Egypt (detail) by Caravaggio, 1596-1597

So I sense a special joy when I am with little ones, but I also feel a certain responsibility to them, especially to adolescents, teens and emerging adults. Young people look to the established adults in their world not to boss them around but to gently guide them into their own adulthood. It's a very delicate thing to walk alongside these 12-and-ups and earn their trust so that they will let their walls down and speak to you about the truth of their lives. Yet I seem to find natural bonds with people of this age and I've been honored to earn their trust.

Of course, parents and other family members are naturally positioned to nurture their maturing children. That is unquestionably good and true. But at least in contemporary American culture, parents need back-up. The challenges of raising up a young person to maturity are so many, the risks so huge, and the nature of the parent-teen relationship is often so heated that it's very important for young people to have other adults in their lives as well.

Jacob Blessing the Children of Joseph by Rembrandt, 1656

After much consideration and some trial and error, I've come to the conclusion that the best place for these types of secondary relationships to spring is from within the church (or temple or mosque). I've been involved in youth ministry (translation: hanging out with teens and young adults and talking about faith) for quite a few years. And I've thought a lot about what exactly it is that we are trying to teach them. 

In a nutshell, I'd say that youth ministry is about guiding young people to live as children of God, secure in his love and eager to share that love with others.

That's easy to say, but it's a whole 'nother thing to make that statement tangible and real to a bunch of hormone-crazed, know-it-all teens.

unknown title by John William Waterhouse

For a number of years, I've been looking for a story, a metaphor, a simple set of images that can easily take up residence in a young person's brain and guide them through life's challenges, like the North Star or a beacon in a lighthouse.

Last November, I attended a high school youth event and heard a man named Pastor Dave speak. Too bad I don't recall his full name but I remember pretty much every other word he spoke. Because he laid out that story, that narrative that I had been seeking and I think he totally nailed it. I'll share it with you now.

{There were about 40 kids in a big empty hotel banquet room, along with Pastor Dave, a hulking, no-nonsense 30-something who looked and acted like a former linebacker. The kids had been running around the room for about a half hour, playing a variety of crazy games. With no fuss, Dave asked them to sit on the floor in a circle, girls on one side, boys on the other, and give him their undivided attention for ten minutes. Then he began to speak.}

"First," he said, "I want to speak to all the young women. Ladies, our culture is cruel to you. No matter how you look, or how you dress, or what you eat, or how much you weigh, it's never good enough. You are constantly judged by your outward appearance, and each and every one of you know how much it hurts when you are told that you don't measure up. You look in the mirror and you start to believe what our culture tells you. You doubt your own worth, and you lower your standards - with grades, with sports, with your friends, with guys, with your aspirations for the future -  because you stop believing in yourself.

"But I want to tell you what God sees when he looks at you. He sees a beautiful, perfect princess of God. He sees the kindness of your soul, the beauty of your spirit, the deep, tender feelings of love in your heart, and he cherishes you more than you can ever know. Remember, God is the king of all creation, so if you are his princess, then that means he is your father. And he loves you with all the tenderness and protection that a perfect father gives to his daughter. No matter what our culture tries to tell you, it doesn't matter. You are a holy, beautiful, cherished princess of God, your father the king, and he will treasure you and protect you and believe in your worth forever." 

Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez, 1656

{At this point, most of the girls were visibly shaken and wiping away tears. The emotion from their side of the room was tangible. The boys were stunned into silence.}

"Now, as for you men," he said, turning to face the boys, "our culture tells you that you are just a bunch of doofuses. All anyone expects of you is that you will play meaningless video games, watch sports, eat junk food to your heart's content, and then make some fart jokes. Watch PG-13 movies and the beer commercials during NFL games; they'll tell you that's what it takes to be a man. Act stupid, laze around with your buddies, get some laughs, sleep it off and start again the next day. And after a while, you'll look in the mirror and that is what you'll see - a goofy, unmotivated slacker who cares more for his own amusement and comfort than anything else. And you will stop believing that you are capable of being anything more.

"But that is not God's plan for your life. He created you to be his knight, to defend his honor and his majesty to the world. He has given you gifts of strength, courage, valor and cleverness and he asks - no, he expects - that you will use those gifts on his behalf, because he is your king. Notice that I have not called you a prince of God; that's because princes don't earn their relationship with the king, they are simply born to it. But you, great knights of God, you don't want anything handed to you. You accept your role as God's knight, and God the King grants you your knighthood, because you both know that you are worthy of that great task. 

"And by the way, God also expects you to honor, protect, and defend his daughters, the princesses. Unless your motivations to be close to them will meet with God's high standards for his priceless treasures, you had best respectfully keep your distance." 

Saint George and the Dragon by Raphael

As Pastor Dave finished speaking, the whole room was electrified. Even Pastor Dave, who had certainly given this talk many times before, was obviously touched. His voice shook, he wiped at his sweaty forehead, and he quickly moved us to a closing prayer. 

But I knew, looking at the faces of those kids, that this story of knights and princesses, of the chivalry of God, would stay in their hearts for a long, long time. It certainly has stayed in mine.

Of Cell Towers and Open Invitations

Last month, I began my life as a blogger. Well, to be truthful, I've toyed around with blogs a bit in the past - my blogspot account dates back to 2006. Other than a few isolated fits and starts, it's mostly lain fallow, waiting for my life to catch up with my interest.

But this time I am embracing the process wholeheartedly; I've made a full time commitment to this calling. I've thoroughly mulled over the issue of what I want to write about. Hmm, really, what do I NOT want to write about? If my blogging is meant to be an exploration of who I am today, then I should write about all facets of my life, rather than attempting to edit or restrain certain topics or categories.

So I've been writing about every aspects of my life - food, art, home life, travel, nature, friends, relationships...the list goes on and on. But one very important aspect of who I am has not yet been breached...my faith. Hmm. I'm interested, even excited to talk about my relationship with God. But I'm concerned about two things.

1. First, I don't normally unload faith talk on people who have just walked into my life. Generally, I find it much more natural and comfortable to get better acquainted and let a budding friendship evolve before opening up conversation about God. I understand and respect the convictions that drive some people to talk about God to anyone and everyone, including those they have just met, but that just isn't my style. I have not been able to figure out how to play out those principles in a blog, where my words will be read by established friends and complete strangers, all at the same time.

2. Another issue that bothers me: the problem of sounding like a know-it-all. I enjoy the healthy give-and-take of a conversation about faith but I would never claim to have The Answers about religion or the church or God. All I can say is what I think, what I feel, what I believe. But in the relative monologue that is a blog, my words stand out in a one-sided way that makes me uncomfortable.

My wrestling with those two questions has left me ambivalent about the idea of blogging about my faith and I  had decided that for at least the meantime, I would be better off to avoid it.

{Flash forward to today.}

As I was driving my youngest to school, down a street I have traveled countless times, I noticed (as I have noticed oftentimes before), a huge cell tower that stands near the side of the road.

I've glanced up at the top of that tower many times, but for some reason, today my eye traveled all the way down the pole and to the ground where it stood, smack dab in the middle of someone's small yard. I noticed how it dwarfed the yard of the humble home in which it stood, completely out of proportion to everything nearby. All at once, I felt such pity for the people who lived in that house and put up with that giant tower of ugly right outside their windows and door.

And then, BAM..I was hit with a new thought. Where would I be without that cell tower? How many times have I used my cell phone while driving around in this area, thus benefitting from these homeowners'  sacrifice? Suddenly I saw their tolerance of this tower as a generous gift to the rest of us. By opening a small patch of their yard  in this way, they played a small but vital part to expand this amazing, enourmous network that links us all and creates the miracle of communication that is the cell phone.

Suddenly, my brain grasped an astounding truth. This is exactly how God works. If we will allow him to come into our lives and operate as he chooses, he can use us to expand the network of his love and create connections that we cannot even fathom. All he asks of us is to use a bit of space in our lives - if we let him in, he does all the work. We simply open our lives to him, in whatever way we can, just as these people opened their small, unimpressive yard to the disproportionately massive and powerful cell tower.

That moment is when I realized that I could no longer ignore the queston of faith in my blogging life. God is inviting me to let him build a metaphorical cell tower in my tiny little blogging yard.  He has shown me that if I will simply open my blog up to his power and influence, he will know exactly how to use this opportunity to do good and powerful things that will be wildly disproportionate to who I am and what I write.

So that is what I am doing.

This blog, Synchronicity, captures my thoughts and musings about God, faith, and the ways in which holiness infuses our lives. It is linked to my main blog, Diane Again, but hosted separately to allow new friends to find this conversation and join in at their own pace.