Unstoppable

This year at camp, the kids prove themselves unstoppable.

Prove themselves, gentle, thoughtful, brave, ridiculous, magnificent. Heroes who understand, instinctively, the sanctity of an open grasp.

And, so, after a week of quests and tears and courage, we knight them.

One by one, under the cover of a brilliant net of stars, their cabins watch as we call them out by name and meaning, read a verse, tap their shoulders with a sword that is longer than many of their growing selves, and quote a benediction.

It's early morning by the time we wake the last cabin, trail them in a single file line behind a silent, sword wielding man, call them forward to kneel before they quite understand what is happening. Read the verses that were picked out especially for them. Send them back to their cabins clutching the cards that will make their way onto the bus with us, the words that they will go over and compare.

Because, this is who they are.

Half asleep, and under the cover of darkness, they are ready to believe the things that our leader hearts would tell them about the truth of their identity. When daylight returns and we fall into the rhythm of packing bags and taking pictures, of stopping for snacks and twisting ponytails into the boys' hair, we can do our best to let our actions match our words, and to pray that they remember.

Remember who they were this week.

Because, this week, they were unstoppable.

When spider bites swell up like golf balls, when they are throwing up or fighting headaches, when anxiety refuses to let them sleep, and when we lock them out of their cabin to deal with bed bugs. Unstoppable.

When we give them a new cabin leader 80% through the week, skip the things that they thought were going to happen, wake them up in the middle of the night, or delay the start of games by forty long wait-in-the-foyer minutes, unflappable, unstoppable.

When they are dealing with emotions and realities that middle schoolers shouldn't have to handle, when the lies in their heads and the fears in their hearts fight against them every step of the way, unstoppable.

My sixth grade girls barely pause to blink when we tell them that we can't go back to the cabin, simply gather up their Bibles and lead the way to the "fairy house" that they helped to build for a night game that didn't actually happen. Change into their swimsuits before games, and then stay in them through lunch, low ropes, free time, dinner, chapel, cabin time. Night hike in flip flops and the clothes that our heroes of staff members have brought back from the laundromat and the store. Curl up into freshly cleaned sleeping bags in a room that still smells like heat but is now free of unwelcome guests.

Let the anxiety and the uncertainty be soothed by a steady stream of instructions, by the knowledge that we are doing this together, by the presence of the One who is bigger than our unexpected adventures, and by the steely determination that runs through their bones.

And, somewhere in the midst of that, they start to ask questions, questions about hearing God and about who this Jesus character actually was. Questions about time and space and the sorts of theology that we boil down into sound effects before they break into ridiculous giggles. Because, the best sorts of theology occur in this middle space between laughter and tears, between joy and sorrow, where we're too busy running to catch up with the Divine to stop and build an idol, enraptured by the one who is pulling us along, "Further up and further in."

This week, they were capable.

Capable of finding leaders in the dark and bringing back "pearls" to earn points for their team, capable of doing things that they thought that they were too afraid to accomplish, jumping from the blob, lifting their hands during music, becoming part of a team filled with virtual strangers, and folding new friends into their existing family clusters.

Water wars take far longer to set up than what we had planned for, but a couple of kids catch the vision and continue to work without me, solving problems and running their tails off while I work with a few leaders on a separate situation, slipping into their swimsuits at the last moment without murmuring a word of complaint.

They give up portions of their free time to carry (and test) a giant catapult, to track points and help me with the endless math that comes with not having a standard scoring system for competitive games. To cluster up and hold space for each other when someone is hurting. To pull out the orbeez and bury their hands, because they are capable of being grown up this week, but also of being little enough to spend an hour on sensory play, tension melting from their shoulders the way that it does when they fish a fidget spinner or koosh ball out of my bag.

Capable of throwing themselves from the zipline tower and completing the high ropes course, so proud of themselves afterwards that they tremble with the excitement of it. And, capable of honoring their own boundaries and keeping both feet firmly on the ground.

Capable of sword fighting with leaders and solving riddles and memorizing Bible verses for the first times in their lives.

We canoe and swim and have dance parties in the cabin, set them loose to run through the darkened woods with pool noodle swords and cardboard shields, and dress up their leaders in goofy costumes, because, really, we're playing just as much as the kids are.

They pour everything that they have into music and prayer, bury each other in hugs and hand holds and the physical sorts of affection that middle schoolers speak like language. Pull leaders aside to talk about their triumphs and their sorrows. Watch each other like hawks. Trust us for hugs and bandaids and remembered promises and practice asking for help when they need it.

Because, these kids, these ones who lick rocks and blast worship music on the bus ride home. These ones who would rather sit and play with glow sticks through a movie that never actually works than try to play a night game when their friends are too sick or tired to join in. These kids are unstoppable.

Unstoppable. Capable. Gentle.

Gentle when the 6th grade girls are still talking on the chapel floor and the 8th grade boys tiptoe past, silently closing the doors so that the littler ones can have the space that they need.

When the same 6th grade girls are so bothered by the boys' lack of door decorations that they plot and scheme and count heads out on the volleyball court until they are sure that the coast is clear to put up lights and a welcome sign -- only to be caught by a leader and have their plans fizzle out on the spot.

Gentle when we split into teams for capture the flag and their greatest excitement is that, this time, we aren't competing. This time, they get to arrange things so that friends are together. This time you can't get out, can't lose, don't have to worry about anything but running through the woods like a goofball. And, if we spend a few minutes the next morning collecting swords and shields that were left scattered in the bushes, no one complains, because, last night, they were Percy Jackson.

Heroes to the younger ones who come to them for hugs and comfort and constant encouragement. Heroes to to the older ones who borrow their leaders and puff up with pride at their accomplishments.

They open up circles to accommodate new bodies and skip their favorite activities in order to be present with friends. Lift each other through low ropes courses like it's the most natural thing in the world. Analyze games based on their accessibility to each of the unique kids that we have brought with us, and somehow manage to be gentle even as they plow each other over in giant inflatable bumper balls. Sassy. Sarcastic. Stubborn. Gentle.

And, unstoppable.

RFKC 2017

This year at Royal Family, we have a farewell ceremony for many dozens of caterpillars, tally our bug bites, turn the floor into lava a hundred times over, and participate in the sort of Zumba that involves creeping up on imaginary squirrels.

And, then we wonder why camp is hard to describe to people who weren't there.

Camp is making an utter fool out of yourself for kids who still remember who their counselor was last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. It is fancy dinner and birthday party, and a dozen kids leaping onto tree roots by the wobbly bridge because, "The floor is lava!"

Camp is running back to the break room for paper cups, because, somehow, we weren't the only cabin that managed to put the caterpillar collecting before the bug barn building, and holding a dozen bugs while trying to help with woodworking is a whole new level of multitasking.

Camp is CITs who learn which colors of face paint wash off with soap and water and which colors...don't.

Camp is polar bear plunges and shivering girls and hurrying back out of the bathrooms afterwards, because they want to see the CITs do the chicken dance. It is braiding wet hair in the middle of a grassy field and counselors who ignore the rest of the schedule when a little one agrees to take her first shower all week.

Camp is celebrating how far some of these kids have come and strategizing to help the new ones feel successful.

Camp is a room full of adults trying to figure out a solution to a caterpillar problem, because, in this moment, it is, in all seriousness, the most important thing on the agenda. And, camp is those same adults standing on the lakeshore with our campers waving goodbye to the caterpillars, while Coach reads a poem and a carefully selected CIT rows them back to their island home.

Camp is eleven year old boys who go on hikes in ninja costumes, because, why would you not?

Camp is letter writing and loom weaving, side hugs and sharpies on t-shirts before we pile into an overheated bus with thirsty children who manage to share eight ounces of water between six of them but still find an extra bottle to pour down a leader's back.

Camp is face paint and magic wands and a fanny pack full of fidgets and granola bars. It is kids who show up afterwards for middle school ministry and a week of crazy, blueberry colored family.

Camp is messy and exhausting and oh-so-very beautiful.

Camp is worth it.

Adventure Time: Part Two

You learn a lot about people when you are together for unexpected events.

This weekend, I learned that I have the types of confident, resilient, courageous sorts of human beings who take on the weirdest things that the weekend has to throw at us with good humor and grace.

These girls are star dust and magic and all of those overly gushing leader things that are actually 100% true. True on their good days and their bad days and on every sort of day in between, and, this weekend, true in a way that is on display for the entire world to see. Or, at least, for the couple of dozen people who happened to be looking.

We leave for our newest adventure after they get off of work and make a pit stop at an abandoned church just as dusk begins to fall.

They make friends with a little boy while we're hiking in a cave, because, of course they do, and then stand close together to turn off their flashlights, just to see what the world really looks like when it's dark.

They wash dishes and fill water jugs and swim in a reservoir when the temperature outside hits approximately 5,000 degrees, and rearrange the van for the dozenth time as we get ready to bounce down another dusty road.

They wake up to cows and pancakes and tell stories around a campfire after the sun finally sets.

It's simple and it's easy, and we have approximately enough food to feed an army, but we all have real life to get back to, so we break camp before it gets too hot and proceed to do what all sensible humans do on the first triple digit day of the season.

We hike up a cliff.

 Dip our heads and our shirts in the river, check the map a dozen times, and huff and puff our way up switchbacks that, for a few long moments, seem like they are never going to end.

But, we are playing off of that potent mixture of that Bethel kid loyalty that only calls a win when it is a win for everyone and the Tri-Cities stubborn that refuses to be the first one to tap out, and, so, they push each other to the top. Wobbly legged. Breathless. Sweating. And, victorious.

Because, this is what a small group is for. It is for talking about everything and nothing and continually tying together the threads of memory. For standing together when the lights go out and for pushing each other higher, farther, one step closer to our goal.

For being there when we are slipping our way back into the valley, and for making peanut butter sandwiches on the side of the road when we suddenly discover that nothing is going as expected.

When lug nuts break and the tire falls off and not everywhere in Oregon has cell reception, and not every roadside assistance agent is able to find your account.

When there are problems that even this stubborn, self sufficient group of humans can't tackle on our own. There is Grace to cover. Grace in the form of strangers who offer the use of their shop, their landline, their couch. Grace in family members who offer half a dozen different options for getting the two hours back to town. And, grace in sunburnt, tired girls who keep moving forwards, even when, for a few long moments, it seems like the switchbacks will never end.

Because, these kinds of girls, the kind who can handle too hot, too cold, too late, too early; who can laugh when they realize that parts of our car are strewn across this rural road; who can climb down into and up onto things that scare them and come out stronger. These kinds of girls can change the world.

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Inhale

The closer we get to summer, the louder and more rambunctious we get around here. But, also, in some impossible way, the quieter and closer we get, as well. 

 5th grade girls jostle for spots on the cushioned pews that have recently shown up in the first of our many spaces, curling up close and playfully refusing to give way when other people try to squeeze their way in. Instead, they compare fidget spinner tricks and run off to grab my bag for an additional spinner and fidget cube, trading them down the line during story, so that, even if our fingers are distracted, our mouths are finally silent. The little one who can't stand to sit still for this long drops her head onto my shoulder, but only asks once to slip out to the bathroom. And, with the transition jitters nipping at our heals, I'll every win that we can get.

 It’s been an everyone-talking-at-once sort of a morning, more interested in being heard than in the Snapchat filters that so often distract them or even than in rifling through the bag of lifesavers that we give out as rewards for bringing their Bibles. So, we cram the seventy odd minutes with as many of their favorite traditions as we can possibly fit and pour out grace to cover the wiggles and the swirls of anticipation and anxiety. 

One chair added to our row for a late arrival becomes two and three and four, until the row of five has become a line of ten, stretching out across both aisles and butting up against the 3rd and 4th graders space, but they barely blink at the intrusion, and there is Grace in that.

Grace in the number of girls who are here on a holiday weekend, in the careful way that they listen to each other, and in the fine line between encouraging reluctant ones to join in the game and honoring the boundary of a simple "no." Grace for rolling down hills and going over the transition plan for the dozenth time. Grace for taking pictures to remember. For girls who leave early and for the ones who stay late. Grace to take a deep lungful of the chaos and savor it, because we only have two more weeks.

And, because, His Grace always seems to show up when we are at our messiest and most uncertain.

Adventure Time

When you give these girls paintbrushes and an abandoned bus, truth spills off of their fingers.

So, we load a few of these art loving, adventure seeking girls into a borrowed minivan and spend a few hours letting them loose on the world.

Fill the drive up with confession and grace, with theology questions and plans for summer missions trips. Pull up the "highlight verses" and quotes that we would have shared at cluster and mark them onto this giant canvas instead.

And, at first, they don't quite believe me. Really, we can paint it? Won't someone care? But, this is the Pacific Northwest, where we happen to keep abandoned school buses in the middle of the desert until they are covered with layers of words upon words upon words.

So, paint brushes are pulled out and old spray cans are co-opted as pallets, and they fall into a comfortable silence as they work. Words about peace and courage and doing small things with great love. About light and life and the quirky ways that they have been created. Truth that is no less true for the fact that, a month from now, you might never know that we were here.

Because, today, they live it as well as paint it.

On narrow, well worn trails, and steep paths where we pull ourselves, hand over hand, along a rope that someone laid out before us, they are courageous and they are gentle, they are fierce and they are fearless and they are kind.

And, I pray that they are learning to see themselves the way that their leaders see them, the way that their Creator sees them. Because, these precious lives were not by accident.

And, that is the magic of it.

That, when the waters were first carving these rocks, when these rocks were first starting to cool, when the universe was still too small and too hot to measure or grasp, before time began, there was a Creator who put this spark in them.

This spark that we pour out out on bus that is twice as old as any of them, and on a path that has been worn by hundreds and thousands of feet. This spark of Grace and Light and Love, these hearts that want nothing more than for everyone to be invited to the party. This was put into these kids on purpose.

Into these girls who are already talking about who we could invite "next time," who are wishing that the boys were here, who have never quite been able to wrap their heads around the lines that we draw between small groups, between clusters, between genders; who only know that there is time to be spent and adventures to be had, and shouldn't everyone be invited to come along?

Into these girls who do hard things, even when they are scared, and who love deeply, even when they know that it will hurt.

Into these girls who know that the Holy Spirit in them means that they can breathe Grace and Mercy from the very core of their beings.

And, into these girls who can come back with tired legs and hungry stomachs, who have washed theirs hands in the spray of a waterfall and then dirtied them again scrambling up a shale covered slope.

Because, when you give these girls paintbrushes, truth comes spilling out.

Empty

All weekend, the youth pastor makes coffee on stage in front of the kids, good pour over coffee, black or with liquid flavorings, distributed in some of his favorite mugs, and, all weekend, a few of my girls sit on the floor to be able to see.

Listening, watching, thinking things through. Climbing up onto top bunks for conversation and filling the time largely with the sound of crickets. 

Our first cabin time is silent and forced, but, in the few words that come, the other leader notices how quick they are to disagree with one another, how comfortable they are with holding different opinions, how it is done without vitriol or tension. And, it is good to have fresh eyes, because, I might not have even noticed.

This has become so much a part of what we do, of who they are, of how they process. Wrestling through questions and doubts, holding space for never being certain of the answers.

(And, we do figure out how to have cabin times that are a little more natural conversation and a whole lot less silence -- although perhaps no less disagreement.)

"Love God. Love people," one of the girls sums it up afterwards. "The end."

They are loved. Loved enough to think nothing of voicing their frustrations, because they don't have to be perfect. Loved enough to ask wild questions and circle back to familiar conversations, and loved enough to opt out when they feel like they have heard it all before.

Loved enough to sit and talk on these couches until a more conscientious leader reminds us of curfew, and loved enough to gather back here before the sun comes up to watch as the weather cycles through rain and snow, sunshine and fog, all in the long hours before breakfast.

Loved enough to do this thing in a different way than we have ever had cause to in the past.

Middle school ministry is without a full time director, and, so, there are smaller people running around all weekend, holding their own camp alongside and intertwined with the high schoolers', bouncing by for hugs and hip bumps every time that we see each other. Making my older ones smile with off beat singing and dancing on the sidelines of worship.

Trying to carve out their own space, teasing each other, laughing, playing, and a little off kilter, because this new way of being means that not all of "their" leaders who are at camp are actually their leaders for the weekend. Instead, we are there as high school leaders and students, trying to find balance without sacrificing one retreat for the other.

Holding space for different groups at different times, building patterns and rhythms in that compressed sort of family time that camp creates.

Mealtime lines become sacred spaces, my phone travels, as it always does, and a little person tucks herself shamelessly under my arm during worship, ready to curl up on the floor and fall asleep at about the same time that the high schoolers are ramping up for the night.

Little cousins are flipped upside down in the breakfast line, and there is this blurry space where "ladies first" gives way to this mixed gender, mixed age, group that somehow finds itself often together. Sixth grade, twelfth grade, adult; leader, student, all of the above. Family groups overlapping with family groups, overlapping with family groups.

They play their own games, have their own snowball fights and prayer times, but discover that you can crowd surf, when there are high schoolers waiting to catch your tiny, flying self, and that, sometimes, those same high schoolers will let you steal the chips off their plate and squeeze into the tiny space left at an already overcrowded table.

Sunday morning, we forget about the divisions for a little while and fall into easy, middle school leader patterns: fly up, photo sharing, phone stealing, being jumped on, tackled, and dragged from one end of the room to the other. Twenty minutes of every middle school language that we can think of to reassure them that they are loved.

So loved that one of my high schoolers complains early on in the weekend that, "Jessica, I think that you love them more than you love us."

And, I am 99.9% certain that she doesn't actually want me to roughhouse with her after chapel the way that she has just caught me doing with one of the 7th grade boys. But, she does start asking for the hugs that the middle schoolers assume are theirs for the taking, learning from their easy freedom the same way that they learn from the high schoolers steady grace.

Grace for when we cross the line from the slightly ridiculous to the utterly absurd. Grace for when our outdoor game becomes an indoor one. Grace for when the things that they have been talking about for a year don't turn out like they had planned. Grace for moving cabins and loud corn hole games that drown out conversation. And, grace for when our familiar patterns give way a little to make room for everyone at once.

Because, we're more Venn diagram than cohesive whole, this year, overlapping circles of stories and habits that all center on this God thing, this Jesus thing, this business of being poured out and filled to overflowing with Grace.

Haiti kids who ask for a morning wake-up, even as they hold a phone in their hand; recognize my water bottle when I leave it sitting places that it shouldn't be; use the snack bin in our cabin as an illustration for the dozenth Haiti story; and come looking for lotion and EmergenC, cough drops and melatonin, already confident in the contents of my bag.

Haiti kids who can identify the arc of a familiar conversation by a single overheard word or phrase, who know each other's triggers, who talk about team members who aren't here almost as often as they tell stories about the ones who are, and who are only mostly joking when they ask to spend the night on the couches in the cafe, rather than splitting back off to our cabins.

Cluster girls who lay hands on each person in turn, voices falling over each other in a prayer shower, as the leaders take turns washing feet; who revel in this place where Bridgetown and Haiti collide, even if it isn't the way that we are supposed to be doing it at all. Girls who wash our feet in return.

Girls who pack up on Saturday night and spend the extra time on Sunday morning throwing out trash and cleaning up the random bits of this and that that have left our mark on this place; haul things out to the trailer before we tromp through the snow and jump over puddles in order to get a cabin picture; make a point to meet my middle schoolers; claim the longest table for our cabin and then fill in the gaps with every extra person they can find.

Underclassmen with their own history and stories and expectations. Old youtube videos, vines, and random conversations; a crouton given in celebration of a facebook-friendship anniversary; the counting of years that I have been one of their many leaders; memories gone over and over and over again.

Clapping games and card games; boys who come to tell me when they feel like the youth pastor has said something particularly brilliant during cabin time; and a seat for Jessica on the bus ride home, saved by the same child who has been doing so since he was a tiny sixth grader who had yet to decide whether girls or kaleidoscopes were a more interesting thing to talk about.

This time, we talk about slightly more weighty things, God things, life things, draw the youth pastor into yet another theology conversation that is deftly flipped back on them. And, even still, I know that there are things that he is thinking and feeling that we haven't had the time to say.

Bridgetown kids, breakout group kids, college kids who appear on Sunday morning, new ones who somehow still fall into these ever shifting groups. Middle schoolers with their own layers of history and complexity.

We could use at least another six retreats just to begin to sort through the surface layers of it all.

It's a little bit like a giant family reunion, where everyone is mostly certain that they are related, but no one is 100% sure how.

So, instead, we stretch out every moment of every hour for as long as the clock will allow, jump up and down like crazy people, lift our hands in the air, and crowd surf through what might have been cabin time.

"Grace that brought me to the throne of God!"

They've turned the song into an anthem, a party, a celebration, and I'm not sure that they realize how right they are. There is Grace here. Grace that weaves together our complexity and our mess. Grace that walks the balance line between the instinct to wear a leprechaun hat all weekend and the instinct to stay up for "real talk" until all hours of the night.

Grace for kids who gather for quiet times far earlier and longer than what the schedule asks of them, for encounters with the Divine, and for the practical questions of living life like Jesus. Grace for throwing together a wildly disparate group, and Grace for learning to live a little more like family.

Grace for kicking coffee mugs and trying not to slip on the ice. Grace for tromping through knee deep snow by way of a "hike," and Grace for a cabin of strangers who learned to be a cluster.

This is the God who comes in tenderness and love. The master who washes the servants' feet. The one who was filled to be poured out. And, as these overlapping circles join together to take communion, this is Grace that draws us to the throne of God.

Transitions

There are a lot of things happen in the middle school group today.

The only youth pastor that they have known is moving on, and this is both their first chance to process as a group and also their week to say goodbye.

They've been deciding all week how to process this, texting each other, texting leaders, talking, thinking, talking. But, it doesn't ease the tension on a circle of worried sixth grade faces that already know exactly what I am going to tell them. They still don't like it.

For some of them, the reaction comes with greater force than others. The girls who have known Julie as a discipleship group leader are teary eyed, and the questions come quick and quiet. Where are Chris and Julie going next? What are they going to do? Who is going to take Julie's discipleship group? Her job at the school?

This is familiar but also different. So very, very different from what the high schoolers walked through before them. Quicker, cleaner, more certain. A change from one familiar couple leading the ministry to another, perhaps not forever, but for right now. And, for the kids, this nebulous sense of "now" seems to be enough.

Enough to make cards and eat cookies and watch a slide show. Enough to say their thank you's and their goodbye's and to step out into the falling snow.

Because, the transition also means that the change in youth pastors wasn't the only thing that they learned about in their parent letters.

There is a winter camp that I wasn't going to be at, because I have yet to learn the art of being in two places at once. Transition has moved them to the same campus as the high school retreat. They will be joining the older group for meals and chapel.

And, they are a well earned mixture of thrilled and terrified.

By text, they were moans and groans about the change, certain that they didn't want their siblings around, dismissive of the idea that this could be something good.

In person they are close and excited, bouncing off of my hip and standing just within reach, spilling over with half stories, and coming back again just as often as they leave. One moment there because they are nervous, the next grieving, the next there because they are excited.

Falling into camp habits without any appearance of conscious thought.

The girls help me to set up the game, scattering the floor with hula hoops and familiar manila tags.

No one is sure anymore which of the "standing in the middle of the woods" handwriting is theirs, or even which of the dozens of words they would have used to describe God. How, after all, do you begin to contain the Divine onto the space of a single card?

Some of them went with the sorts of words that Christians have been parsing through for centuries, "immutable," "omniscient." Others chose words that were less pretentious but no less powerful, "grace," "love," "faithfulness."

Today, instead, they talk about bus rides and ridiculous games, and who played with which app on my phone when they were too sun kissed and dirty and exhausted to string together another sentence. And, maybe, in this case, it isn't so different. These are the things that we know, not about God, but about each other -- and, through each other, the things that we know about God.

We know that God is present in our joy, present in our hurt, a soft place to fall back on when we have moved past our ability to do anything else.

Grace. Love. Faithfulness. Steady knowing. The things that they see of God are the things that they have seen in human lives.

In the high schoolers who play truth or dare with them and in the leaders and friends who climb aboard these noisy, smelly busses and commit the time to doing life together. Sure, we're a mess. Put a dozen humans together in any sort of a situation, and there will be mess. But, in the midst of the mess, they are learning how to be human.

So, today, when things are just a little messier than normal, they fall back on those patterns. Drop the barriers of grade or gender; pull in a little closer; circle up a little more often, sit a little more in each other's space. Remind each other with stories of the past, present, and future, that our God is present and patient, that, in all of it, we are never alone.

They can say goodbye to two leaders who they love. They can handle changes with grace. They can move forwards even when they don't know what happens next.

For today, they can run a mutant form of a relay race while the leaders throw dodge balls at them from the balcony. They can collect these familiar cards. They can eat gluten free cookies and deliver cards and pray out loud. They can do everything in their power to honor two people who have been serving in this ministry since they were in preschool.

Because, just like at camp, there are patterns of faithfulness in the midst of the chaos.

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Advent: Joy

 

Snow is magic in the desert. Our kids are giddy at the thought of it, scooping their bare fingers deep into the powdered crystals, sledding long after the thin layer has given way to packed and frozen grass. Playing every moment that they can, because you never know how long it is going to last, how fleeting this blanket is going to be.

Long enough to give us a two hour delay on Friday, to stay for Sunday.

"That's right! When it snows," one of my eighth graders turns to the sixth grade girl who is his frequent shadow, spilling over with suddenly remembered excitement, "we always...!" And, I don't think that either of them even realize that it isn't a sentence. Because, snow at church means snowball fights. It means sliding in the parking lot and stomping our way back into the building, shaking off ice crystals as we go.

It means fifth grade girls who see the shoes on my feet and slip theirs back on without a question. Music that is a little bit of a mess, until we sit down, and it is just the sound of their voices, and the mess is Holy too.

Whispers through the Bible story, as if they have yet to realize that sitting in the front row means that the presenter can hear every word that they are saying. Pens that stray from a piece of paper to the pages of my Bible. Wiggly girls who are doing their best to listen.

We've been practicing, this year, highlighting things in their Bibles. But, this is my Bible, and she doesn't have permission, and she knows she shouldn't, and something in me wants to rise up that is terribly un-grace filled. Something that wants to be less than lavish with this Joy that we are celebrating with verse cards and candy canes at the front doors. I almost stop her before I have the chance to see what she's marking.

Luke 15:1

"Then all the tax collectors and sinners drew near to Him to hear Him."

We're about to move from this space to tuck ourselves under the stairs, light candles, color ornaments for our Jesse tree, wait for the one who brought ultimate reconciliation, and I am reminded to take a breath. Where there is lavish, ridiculous, out of control Grace, Joy seems to follow.

So, our cardboard tree dripping with stories and color, we blow out the candles and slip our way across the parking lot. Take pictures. Toss snow. Laugh and shiver and slide down the hill where we often play games. Duck back into the building just after service ends and pile ourselves and our belongings back into the 4th and 5th grade room. Circle up on the floor and play clapping games until the parents arrive.

Gather middle schoolers between services and throw snow until our fingers are numb and there is ice melting down our backs and our socks and we have to shake like dogs before we come in the door. Because, they know that snow on a Sunday means the best (and worst) kind of a snowball fight. One with no teams or preparation. No gloves or hats or jackets. Just powder clinging to our sweatshirts and our hair. Laughter. The easiest kind of joy.

They pull other leaders out of the building to join us or chase them across the parking lot, faces and fingers flush with cold. "What is your persuasion," the leader who is speaking pulls up a scene from The Polar Express, "on the big man?"

The kids just finished leading a worship set all on their own, and we're settled down on the driest patches of the floor. (Because, a hundred people who have just come in from taking pictures in the snow leave a lot of puddles.) And, this is a different kind of Grace, a different kind of Joy. 

Grittier. Needing a little more time and space to be wrestled through.

"Doubt," she tells them, "can be the beginning of growth, or even the beginning of faith."

Because, life isn't linear, and neither is faith. Some of these ones who have spent the morning laughing and teasing each other will spend the afternoon in petty drama, and no one's family is quite what it appears to be on Sunday mornings. There are rough edges and raw wounds that an hour and a half doesn't begin to cover. But, every once in a while -- more often when we are looking for it -- it snows, and we find ourselves surprised by joy.

Sixth graders who curl up close during the lesson and breakout groups. High schoolers who spend their evening watching Charlie Brown and decorating hundreds of cookies to pass out at their schools. Sweep off tables. Shop vac popcorn off the floor. Sing along to Santa Clause is Coming to Town and Let it Go. Laugh and then stress out and then laugh some more. (And, probably stress a little more afterwards.)

Watch out for each other. Pray for each other. Sass each other. Wrestle with frustration and apathy and fear. Eat from a bowl of colored frosting with a plastic knife, and go straight to Dairy Queen afterwards, the way that they always do.

For today, Joy is loud and messy and a little bit goofy, tinged with the hurt and the reality that give it depth, completely ridiculous as a reaction...except for these two things: it snowed, and we are here to celebrate the One Who Restores All Things. 

God With Us in this explosive, absurd, hopeful sort of a Joy.

Advent: Hope

The first Sunday of Advent surprises us a little, sneaks up on us before the calendar can change over to December, before we have quite had a chance to clean the Thanksgiving leftovers out of the fridge. And, there's something perfect about that.

Surprised by Hope.

My 5th graders lit the first flickering candle this morning, and there is a giant piece of string art in the sanctuary that spells out the word in endless loops of thin white thread.

The littles help me to draw a swirling Jesse Tree onto the back of a cardboard collage of "God's Heart," and we spend the last of our small group time coloring and cutting two dimensional ornaments for our two dimensional tree.

One by one, they point out their piece and take it in turns to tell these familiar stories. Genesis stories. Exodus stories. Beginnings and in betweens and no-one-quite-knows-what-is-happening-yet's. Messy humanity surprised, over and over again, by Hope.

Hope that turned out to be a baby, a rescue, a victory. A long and restless waiting for the One who would be all of those things and more.

"By faith Abraham..."

The youth pastor talks to the high schoolers about faith forged through trials, talks about the hard things in his own story with greater transparency than he ever has before. Challenges them to do business with God about the hard things in theirs. Challenges them to trust. To be open, to be honest, to tell the stories of when brokenness gave way to Hope. The mountains that were moved after they came to the end of themselves. The broken pieces that make them real. Make them human.

And, they do. They have those God moments that ripple from one to another until it settles over the room, a blanket of Holy presence that would be stifling if it weren't lit by that same flickering candle of Hope. Hope that changes their attitudes and puts a spark in their eyes.

They pray and they sing and we split off into conversation groups where my few trace the carpet with thoughtful fingers and promise to find someone, this week, to tell their story. Not here. Not now. Not in this room that seems to swallow their words and muffle them into silence. But, sometime.

Here, we are stories just by being, their past and their present tangled up together in the messiness of knowing that who they are here, tonight, may not who they appear to be tomorrow, or even a few hours from now. Hopefully, knowing that it doesn't matter. Hopefully, knowing that they are loved. Strong or weak. On top of the world or being crushed beneath it. This is the sort of place where we just keep picking up one rock and then another and another and another. Until, eventually, we look behind us and discover that the mountain has shifted.

Surprised by Hope.

These few are hesitant to close our time in prayer, worried about stuttering or using the wrong words, knowing full well that I won't let them out of this room until someone does. They avoid eye contact, barely moving, as if that will help them blend in with the couch.

"It can be super short." The stubborn in me keeps pushing, "Just, 'Jesus, help us to find someone to tell our stories to this week.'"
"Oh!" one of my sophomores lights up with sudden confidence, "I know what to say."

Surprised by Hope.

The tension melts from his shoulders, and we bow our heads to pray.

And, we come back together talking about ministry trips, Bridgetown kids near the wall, Haiti ones near the pews, spilling over with memories and plans and the powerful sense that, the last time that they felt this sort of Holy, they were somewhere else. Somewhere where it was okay to be broken. Somewhere where God's people worked together to heal.

Something deep in these kids has built a connection between service and the Holy. Between hard stories and the Holy. Learned to see God in the eyes of a person who is homeless, in shooting stars and giggling littles.

Discovered that they can find that same God here.

When you don't have all of the answers and you can't work hard enough to solve all of the problems. When there aren't enough hours in the day, and when you fall asleep not knowing what comes next -- except that you are surrounded by family that is walking this same path. When God shows up anyways.

These are the stories we tell.

Washing feet under an overpass. Cramming into a room filled with sweaty volunteers. Bouncing along in a bus. Wiping down dusty floors. Twining together orthodoxy and orthopraxy into a worship that is as simple as breathing.

Sometimes they have to find the Holy in the unfamiliar before they can have the eyes to see it here. Before they can dig through the mess of our broken humanity and find themselves surprised by the audacity of Hope.

Upside Down Grace

No matter how many times I remind them otherwise, the fifth graders collage from their own frame of reference. Whatever side of the cardboard that they are sitting on is "down," and the side opposite from them is "up."

Things are sideways and topsy turvy, cartwheeling across the space in layers of paper and marker and quotes. These are nature kids and words kids and kids who are fascinated by the thought of a world that is bigger than just themselves. There is an astronaut head floating sideways, at least one landscape flipped completely upside down, and a cow smiling at us with a set of human lips.

And, I kind of love it.

I love the long string of question marks that fill in an empty space and the silent reminder that, whatever we see of God, we see from our own point of view. That things are wild and messy whichever way you look at it. That there is truth written in the upside down bits. And, that, sometimes, when gravity seems to have let loose and sent rolling hills floating on top of a pale blue sky, it is an invitation to see God from a different angle.

Because, it hasn't been an easy week for our kids, and, yet, I watch Grace tumble over us, in wave after stinging, healing wave.

Church lets out early, slowly, gently, and my fifth graders continue their quiet work in the hallway, barely speaking past the music that we are playing, unperturbed by the steady stream of adults who circumvent them without comment. It's a 'feed treats to a couple thousand people' week, and they dig their teeth into whole apples as we finally start to clean up and move our things back into the space where we are "supposed" to be.

They've learned to kick their shoes off under the stairs, to bring their paper Bibles, and to underline verses while we talk about Justice and Power. Learned to weave quiet prayers into the frame and form a long, snaking line of seats during story.

And, when their little hearts fight for attention, for any attention, when something inside of them whispers that they need to have more of whatever thing they're looking at, that they need to be in control in order to feel safe. When it takes some extra time to settle. When the power point doesn't quite work right. When we go over Bridgetown verses in elementary Sunday school. When church lets out early.

There is Grace to cover.

For when I have completely forgotten that I was supposed to come up with a game for middle school, even though it's been on my to do list since Monday. For when I ask some kids who have come over for hugs, and we come up with something anyways. And, it works.

Grace for playing in the octagon and singing loud to camp songs and sending a hip bump down a long line of girls who simply need the contact to remember that they are loved. Because, I give out more hugs than usual this Sunday, stand around and talk for a little bit longer, pull in a little closer and a little tighter, because, this is Grace when there is hurt in the air.

Littles who drink from my water bottle and pull gum from my backpack and carry my phone around without actually using it for anything. And, the crickets at the end of breakout groups, because no one is in a particular hurry to leave and no one particularly wants to offer to pray. Because, they are feeling vulnerable enough already without putting it on display, thank you very much.

But, finally, someone does, and there is Grace.

Pushing us. Sheltering us. Present with us.

Grace.

Kingdom Come

The fifth graders are a mess of glue and scissors, sharpies and paper scraps, sprawled out across the hallway with a piece of cardboard that is nearly bigger than they are.

"Make a collage of things that show God's heart."

They quickly overflow the tiny space that I gave them to fill, and I spend part of my morning rummaging through a recycling dumpster for something large enough to contain the truth that is spilling off of their scissors. Favorite Bible verses, quotes, images of children and animals, adults, and nature. They create a pile of sunrises and question marks and decorate the top of the piece in metallic marker.

It isn't finished yet, but we tuck it away into a corner for next week, give them a chance to weave their prayers into the loom, circle up on the floor for a speed version of our Books of the Bible game, gather up the pillows and highlighting pencils and Kenyan scarves that make up our space, and send them off with their parents.

We're practicing abundance here. Practicing what it looks like not to worry about someone else getting your favorite color of pen or finding the Bible verse before you. Practicing putting socks in the donation bin and celebrating those few who managed to get their brains, and their paper Bibles,  together despite this rainy morning, without worrying when we will be celebrated in return.

Because, when our world is bigger than ourselves, when we can trust that there is "enough," the justice that we are studying comes like breathing, prayer comes naturally, and there is space to ask the questions that bubble at the lips of these little Ravenclaw girls with their brains that are constantly spinning, trying to "figure it out."

Space for my 6th graders to begin to shift their loyalty to people over process. To decide that they don't really care about collecting name tags as much as they care about having the leaders who belong with these pieces of fabric and nylon. To become, for a few minutes each Sunday, the things that a strong, healthy Slytherin class should be.

Loyal. Ambitious. Digging up details that no one else knew existed. Passionate. Bold. Stubbornly self reliant, but fiercely protective of anyone they consider their own. They are constantly playing the angles, moving the pieces, discarding the things that they deem to be extraneous, and trying on new ones for size. And, it's just about as much of a whirlwind as it sounds like.

This crew is constant movement and words and physical contact, always trying to "do it right," sorting through unspoken rules and relationships and unconsciously forcing us to put words to them. Slytherins guard our traditions, Gryffindors our stories, and Ravenclaws our ideas.

These three classes that twine together in a dizzying web of social media contacts and real life friendships don't have scissors or glue on hand this morning, but they are making their own sort of a collage, their own sort of a living picture of the heart of the Creator.

Unique. Gifted. Imperfect. With abundant space at the table for anyone who wants to come.

It doesn't solve the problems of the world, but it may just bring the Kingdom a little closer.

When high schoolers share their testimonies at athletic events, I am reminded of how far we have come in one year, in two years. Of the hurt and healing and honest conversations, of the questions that they are asking and the questions that they will continue to ask.

Of worries over friends and family in Haiti and the constant prayers that form as I spend my weekend driving and hiking through the Olympic National Forest, where, predictably, there is rain. But, rain that is so much gentler than that which has flooded churches and houses and fields.

Here, I hike for a few minutes alongside a woman who is well into her seventies, umbrella held confidently in one hand and trekking pole in the other, tisking over her "young" friends who have sped on ahead of her and in awe of a waterfall that surges with brown flood water, the bridge that we stand on swimming with fallen rain.

Here I am reminded by the Makah permit that hangs in my window that I am a guest on someone else's land. Here, I am reminded of the constant, unrelenting power of the ocean and the faithfulness of a God who sees. Who sees the twisting tangled mess of human history and chooses to enter in. Chooses to walk alongside us. Chooses to Love.

"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."
- Arundhati Roy

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