Advent: Love Candle

 

"Four more days until Christmas!"

The kids say it over and over and over again, giddy with an excitement that still keeps careful track of one another. Tracks presence and movement and mood like a whirlwind of a barometer.

Christmas is coming, but I don't hear a single set of lips spill over with wishes or gift lists or plans for new belongings. Instead, they watch each other - carefully. Make time and space for seeing and being seen. For taking care of each other.

And, they remind me, in their constant shadowing of these lessons that we try to teach them, what it means to love in a way that prefers others.

Agapé.

My 5th graders keep eagle eyes on the door to make sure that I catch each new arrival. Stuff three little girl bodies into every two chairs. Send off the phone case with a boy who loves the R2D2-ness of it, while they cradle the vulnerable electronic in their hands, passing it between them, taking turns at games.

Laugh as we discover that our *shl*y's share all three initials, born on the same day but different months. Jump in and out of conversations as we cross the parking lot, graciously giving each other the space to speak. Listen to stories about Brucho and rotate through drawing and filming in a two-directions-at-once pattern that ought to be completely confusing but somehow isn't.

This is how they know to love.

A 7th grader who pops in with an uncertain, "Jessica, watch me win!" glad to be back, but not quite sure where he fits in this motion filled room that is just like he remembers it - but also so very different.

The quiet 8th grader who leaves his normal place to come sit down, to sandwich the returner between us and declare that he was missed. Pulls him into a group for the game and keeps him close for the rest of the morning. Gives him a place to belong.

Girls who vocalize the parallels between what they're learning at school and what they're learning at church. Books that they're reading. Papers that they've written. Class discussions that have been had.

We talk about The Outsiders with middle schoolers in the morning and The Lord of the Rings with high schoolers in the evening. A wildly goofy group of kids who are bursting with this need to laugh, to connect, to simply be together in the midst of the holidays, they race through the assigned questions with the half answers and blunt sarcasm of a group of Gryffindors whose brains are anywhere but where we're trying to take them. The silence of Ravenclaws who are feeling the same.

And, I remember the flame that my eagle eyed littles watched this morning, tempting each other to run their fingers through the heat, the way that the curious have for centuries and millennia.

Love. Agapé. Others preferred.

Reason enough to let the questions slid. Drop the leader "should's." Follow the conversation to wherever they need to take it. To Tolkien and Lewis. War and creation. Faith and competition. And, the stories that change us.

Because, they are at that perfect age. Knee deep in the process of sorting through childhood stories. Deciding what is true. What is true enough. What is worth keeping.

Let them learn to step forward in the defense of Hobbits, and they might begin to see the value in shepherds. Might begin to believe that the powerless have worth. That a small act is enough. That there is good, Glory that shines brighter than any light they have ever seen.

That there is reason to love.

These are story kids on their way out of a roller coaster year, and I have to think that there is a reason this is the second Inklings conversation that I have had in the past week with separate but overlapping groups of teenagers. The second time today that we are tying stories to Scripture and Scripture to stories.

A reason for blending theology and imagination, as if the two are ever truly separate.

Perhaps, is has something to do with the idea that every story is about Love.

And, so every story is about God.

"Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage."
- CS Lewis

Advent: Joy Candle

"I get to light the Joy Candle, today!"

The girls come into Sunday school already certain of this one thing. They don't yet remember the word "Advent," but, they know what it means. They know that these flames mean Hope and Peace. That today we are adding Joy.

So, they circle up in our space under the arc of the stairs, and we do.

Sit for a moment around three flickering lights. Explain how we are going to spend the rest of the morning. Blow them out. And, start working on a project.

They draw and film and talk and laugh, and I treasure the casual intensity of these moments, where they are filled with a joyful purpose, and we don't have to separate the relationship building from the "go out and change the world." This is open ended work, unhurried, go however far you happen to get. The story of David and Goliath isn't going to change between now and whenever we happen to finish it.

These stories are written down. Unchanging.

David won. The angels came. The Messiah was made flesh.

Joy.

The Greek suggests "joy because of grace" or "grace recognized," as if our joy is tied, not to the circumstances around us, but to our eyes to see those circumstances. We take the time to look for Grace, and Joy is there waiting for us just around the corner, like a faithful sunrise, alternately bright and gentle in morning tired eyes.

Today, we are looking. 

Carving out time. Or, perhaps, simply noticing when time is carved out for us.

For M*t** to run up behind me on our way into the gallery and to take a few stray moments just before he has to leave. 

"I hit you [with the playground ball]. That means that you're it."

We pick up another kid along the way, and barely get started before their families are ready to head home, but this is grace recognized. This is conversation in an athletic language that I fumble through with a thick accent and terrible grammar but hopefully communicate in anyways. This is a simple spending of intentional time, which is a language that I speak more fluently. Chara.

Grace.

Grace when another group of them is wild and goofy during music, each of them for their own reasons and in their own way. Acting out until they can get a leader's hands to settle heavily on their shoulders, prove that they are seen and known and understood.

"Get[ting my] kids under control" would easily take hours of real talk that they aren't yet ready to have, so we do our messy best instead, one of the boys physically skittering away from me when I ask a seemingly simple question that pushes too far. Hands on shoulders. Eye rolls. Laughter. Intentionality about letting them use behaviors to draw closer.

Even, occasionally, letting things play out when they manage to attract not-quite-the-kind-of-attention-they-were-looking-for from other leaders.

They glance at me, and I know that it isn't what they intended. Didn't mean to get in in trouble. Didn't have the words to simply ask for the things that they needed. They're eighth graders this year. Sometimes grown up. Sometimes still little.

Always honest with their behaviors, even when they are not always truthful with their words. Because, today, a lie during the game communicates more openly than anything else that they could think to do.

Today, we need to run full tilt into this Charis. Body slam to see if it will hold us.

And, we make it through, standing on the edge of Grace. Recognizing it. Rejoicing in the moments where it rushes over us.

I bite down on the questions that are burning on my tongue and simply let them be. Shoot hoops with M*tt** when he hangs back after Ignite. With K*r*n and J*s**h and D*n**l before we get started. Pour in before holiday travel pulls them across oceans and state lines, as if we can somehow build up a stockpile for the moments when they are going to need it.

Joy in the fact that they are asking, making needs known in the best way that they know how. In the odd sense of trust and community to this mess. In the fact that God is bigger. Great. Gracious. Glorious. Good.

Old lessons remembered. Grace found in these ever changing eyes and restless bodies.

Grace in the stance of the high schoolers as they crowd around a table to read through question cards with joking seriousness, and it becomes clear that they really did miss each other last week when part of the crew was gone for a performance. Missed being together in a way that, really, has very little to do with us as leaders.

There is a balance of personalities and peer groups that they thrive off of, and I think how lucky the next youth pastor is going to be, to inherit these kids.

Sit in a circle as we fiddle with the rug and talk about anxiety and the ways that we combat it. Tell the truth that is also a promise, "I pray for you guys at 8:45 and 2:45 every day [as I drive past a local high school]." Help a stray phone find it's owner, and pray for them for easily the dozenth time today.

Prayer like breathing as they catch on my thoughts or tug at my heart.

Because, somehow, in the midst of all this, in the ups and downs of everyday moments, this is where we find Grace. This is where we find Joy, waiting, close, just around the corner.

Advent: Peace Candle

 

We lit the Peace candle yesterday, watched yellow flames dance near the fingers of fifth grade girls who struggled to listen to directions. Sat with a heart that wanted to whisper to me of anything but peace.

Four white emergency candles in an empty cake pan. A borrowed lighter. Fumbled explanations.

Peace.

When I don't have my stuff together. When I'm tired and my heart hurts for my kids. When my head is foggy with the disconnect of too much information all at once. It is still December, and the Christ is still coming, and I still remind myself in the simple act of lighting these flames of Hope and Peace. Because. He. Is. Still. Coming.

Because, He came.

And, He promised to leave us with a peace that passes understanding, a wholeness to stand in contrast to the brokenness of the world around us. To stand in contrast to our own brokenness.

Eiréné.

Wholeness. Peace. Quiet. Rest.

All of the things that we feel the absence of so acutely in this second week of Advent, as if life itself is a reminder of the things that are to come, a shaking until we settle into this rhythm of prayer like breathing.

And, maybe that is what we are doing. Maybe we are smoothing out the wrinkles that a year of life has put into us. Straightening out the four corners of Shalom. Peace with God. Peace with self. Peace with others. Peace with Creation. I think of a talk from the Justice Conference in 2012, and I see the hints in the ways that we do this jumbled up day.

Like the slow process of untangling the Christmas lights and deciding which bulbs are broken or burned out, we do the slow work of sorting through our own brokenness as we prepare for the creation of something beautiful.

For the coming of Light.

"Prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. The glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all the people will see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

Isaiah 40:3-6

These may not be mountains or valleys that we are struggling with today. There are brothers and sisters around the world - and around the country - who are receiving that distinction. But, this rough ground shall become level too.

I think of summer camp three years ago, stepping out of the hubbub of a game to stand by one of my sixth graders. Stand by a puddle. In silence. Dropping in rocks, bits of gravel, one by one. Slowly finding the words that needed to be said. Until the hole was filled.

And, one by one, all too often in silence, we are dropping pebbles into these low places. Stepping out of the hubbub of the "game" to stand together and fill in the gaps that need to be filled.

Pray through with the one who isn't there but wishes he was.

Drop.

Settle on the floor with three from very different groups, who are all here to be honest. To be raw one moment and laughing the next. To be wide eyed exhilarated and drooping framed exhausted. To maybe not be doing this thing right, but to be intentionally doing it.

Drip.

Listen as one, who was long convinced that no other leader cared to learn his name, sings the praises of the man who invited them over for pizza and Fellowship of the Ring, swords and shields and helmets. Watch as, for one of the first times in three years, he sits away from me for music and lesson - with that very same leader and group of boys.

Drop. Drip. Ping!

Do youth group, once again, without a youth pastor, without a dozen of the kids who are out of town for a gig. Come. Hearts raw. Ready to sing when we don't know the words. Talk when we don't know the answers. Be silent when there is nothing to say. Wonder at this church in the second chapter of Acts. Listen to the uniqueness in each of them that connects with different aspects of the early Way. Pray like breathing.

Splish. Drip. Drop.

Because, this peace candle has a second name. Some traditions call it the candle of preparation. Prepare the way of the LORD.

So, we'll align ourselves with creation, with the heat and smoke that comes from these simple flames. With the Divine, through these unspeakable reachings of our hearts. With ourselves, as we take the time to admit that today is a struggle. And, with each other.

Fill in the gaps. Raise the empty places.

Shalom.

ID Night

The high schoolers plan a pre-retreat night, and I am not sure how to capture the everythingness of it in this concrete form that we call words. Because, it wasn't perfect. And, they weren't perfect. And, we weren't perfect.

But, it was good.

It was good to come together in the midst of Advent, to remind each other of the Holy that is coming, the Grace that surrounds us now.

To bring what are essentially three different youth groups together and find the tension - and hopefully the Divine - in our unique ways of existing and overlapping. Because, we each know the feel of our own version of this thing, and it is good, for a moment, to step into anothers' shoes. To hear the stories that come out of it. The ways that we strive, as a story telling people, to make sense of it all.

The kids in the back of my vehicle laugh at crowded spaces as they double buckle to fit an entire team, "This is just like Haiti! At least no one is sitting on any soccer cleats this time!"

It is cold. December. We're wearing ugly Christmas sweaters and jeans. Running a scavenger hunt that they put together. Shuttling less than five minutes from the church to a coffee house.

But, it is just like Haiti.

Sort of, in that story telling way that draws out connections and meanings. A crowded van. Packed full with energy and trepidation, frustration and excitement. People they knew and those they had just met. Working together. A team.

Unexpected plot twists and community despite it all. Protests on the edges of our consciousness. Hope and pain carried with us like precious cargo. Uncertain footing but a certain God. Parallels that we feel, even if we couldn't put the words to them.

In some strange sense, this is "just like" Haiti.

The Gryffindor kids in the back of my van tell stories, draw connections, let each other in. The Ravenclaws go back over the scavenger hunt, what they've done, what they have yet to do, how they can best finish quickly.

Several of the Slytherin boys give up on waiting for the shuttles altogether and simply run the short distance instead.

Fearless. Grace filled. Brave.

They started planning this thing with the youth pastor, finished it without him, and this brave is a stubborn choice that they are making. A choice to jump into the jumble and the mess together, to keep moving forwards even when things don't go quite according to plan. To tell stories and to trust that there is a bigger picture.

And, as the room clears out from these eighty-five teenaged bodies, the leaders linger to tell our own stories. Stories that stretch back through youth pastors and well over a dozen sets of kids. Years of doing this, loving this way, watching them grow and learn and stumble and hopefully get back up again.

Unspoken, it is a promise.

A stubborn choice that we are making to stick it out through this thing too. To join the kids in the midst of their brave and hurt, their energy and trepidation, frustration and excitement. To do our level best to ensure that, no one has to do this on their own.

Because, we're getting ready for retreat. Looking to the other side of Advent. Preparing for moments where we paint community in bold strokes that they can look back on all year. Living out stories as we get ready to create dozens more. And, the theme is a steady reminder that, although we might not know who is going to be coming we with us, we do know Who will be there.

We know that we have an identity that can not be shaken, an unchanging Creator, a shelter in the midst of any storm.

We know that this is Just. Like. Haiti.

And, just like Haiti is good.

Advent: Hope Candle

November 30th.

The first Sunday of Advent is an interesting one, and I am reminded with a sort of gentle force that there are no easy answers. That we are waiting. Lighting the Hope candle, even while we read passages of prophecy - confession and lament.

Looking to a better day to come.

Reminded that it is okay to be mixed up and muddled and watching grief play in their eyes, to create a safe space and allow them to begin to name it. That actions sometimes communicate louder than words. And, that time is precious.

Because, one of my fifth graders comes spilling over with half formed words about a family hurt. One of them whispers questions about sin and grace and mental illness that I can't help but answer, even while the presenter continues to talk. All of them clasp hands and elbows - and occasionally fall full to the ground - working through team building challenges while we read the verse.

"For I am convinced that...nothing has the power to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Over and over again. Until church is suddenly out 10-15 minutes early. And, we're weaving through bodies to find a lost Bible. And, it doesn't matter what else we had planned. Because, time is up.

But, time is also a gift.

An in between services that stretches long and gives us precious time to connect. To watch them play in the octagon until they are stumbling with exhaustion. To verbally pull in the ones who have been hesitant lately, too busy trying to find the fuzzy eighth grade line between grown-up and still-little. To laugh with them and have nonsensical conversations and make sure that they are seen. To talk and be and let them slip my spare name tag around their neck, where it will stay for the rest of the service.

Because, when my name is on one side and theirs is stuck to the other, it doesn't matter so much who is claiming who. It's Advent, and we're doing this together.

Slipping into leaders' meetings and back out again. Sitting behind the octagon to talk. Jumping in to play. Being body slammed by a slight seventh grader who hasn't been here for months, his everything coming a hundred miles an hour, and my name tag almost instantly over his head.

So that there are two extras of "me" wandering around this crowd of middle schoolers and a half dozen stray tags littering my actual back.

Game time, where we Google on someone else's phone, because one of the sixth grade girls is playing with mine. Where we take turns following the ones most likely to know the answer, and the girls who spent so many hours notebooking with me last year clump up during the Bible questions, instinctively sure that someone has the answer buried in their heads. That I know, even if they don't.

Music. Lesson. Filtering back to the places where we 'always' sit, as if there was a magnetic pull to this habit, a silent need to be close. Together.

Goofy at first, in that manic sort of way that means trying to forget, trying not to think about it, like an over tired two year old running wild lest they find themselves suddenly asleep. 

Sometimes, they don't need words to say what they want to say. Sometimes I am paying enough attention to do goofy when they need to. To know when to make eye contact and when to acknowledge their sassy comments. To let them peel the extra names off my back and to sit quietly when the talk gets hard and there are silent tears that don't quite fall from eighth grade eyes.

Because, there is unspoken grief here, even when the girls use breakout groups to begin to put words to it.

"Hold on, it get's better."

"Hold On Pain Ends: H.O.P.E."

"Jesus went through greater suffering than we have, and He knows what it's like."

They stay close when they need to feel safe. Wear my tags and chase each other across the giant room. Relax a little every time someone teasingly calls them by my name. Body slam and then slow until I can catch them. Stay until little sisters are fidgeting with impatience to go home.

Not because I am magic or because this place is, but because this is what we do with our heavenly Father.

We pull close. Slip the identity of Christ around our necks. Call each other by this name, 'Christian,' a thousand times over, until we begin to remember. Throw ourselves into Divine Grace and slow just enough to see it slip into the in betweens. Stay and wait, even when the world around us fidgets with the impatience to just 'make it better already.'

Wait for the already, not yet coming of the Christ. The Redeemer. Rescuer.

Hope in the midst of lament.