Jesus is Coming

"Advent means coming." 

We used to read through the children's liturgy by candlelight, long before any of our Catholic baptized, Protestant raised ears had begun to process the word 'liturgy.' "Jesus is coming!"

"Prepare the way of the LORD."

Call and response. In the midst of this broken world, prepare the way of the LORD.

When the boys in my classroom at the middle school sing made up songs about Ebola the way that children must have sung Ring Around the Rosie during the Black Death.

When we huddle on the floor during lockdown drills with silent kids who desperately want to joke to relieve the tension.

When Syria and ISIS and a dozen other "issues" float in and out of the national conversation.

Jesus is coming.

The Kingdom has come, is come, will come.

And, I hear voices reminding us to #StayWoke. To watch. To hold vigil. To remember. To speak the truth that this isn't the way that things are meant to be.

Because, I know what it is to hold privilege in the palms of my hands, to be straight and educated and mostly white, to be employed and clothed and warm and safe, to have clean water coming out of my faucets and food on my shelves.

It is privilege to sit and talk to a thirteen year old whose only frustration in leaving the house revolves around crashing his penny board, who knows that the only thing out for his blood is the pavement.

To carelessly litter our feeds with photos of firearms.

To step into the midst of their dislikes and prejudices with intermittent reminders that, if we only knew, we would understand. To postulate that our lens is not the only one.

Privilege to watch my kids flounder through the messy mistakes of adolescence and know that, while they might be taken for punk teenagers, they will rarely be assumed to be thugs.

I live in a world where their hearts are more likely to be wounded than their bodies.

And, I don't know.

Even on the other end of town. Where Spanish comes as often as English and my school kids are ensconced in a life that my church kids will only ever dance on the periphery of. It isn't the same.

I know what it is to sit with middle schoolers who keep track in that way that only the young can, who mutter their convictions that this teacher or that administrator are racist, who up the ante simply because they refuse to bow to felt injustice. 

To carry the tension of knowing that their protests will be seen as rebellion, of seeing the necessity, but also of breathing the prayer to, "Please, bud. Just this one time. Let it go."

Nothing feels like 'just this one time,' though. Not when your heart is already raw and bleeding at eleven.

But, I still don't know.

I know what it is to fear alcohol in their lives, or drugs, or gangs, or the neglect of parents.

But, I don't know.

I don't know what it is to fear a system that responds with violence. To worry that a brush with law enforcement could end their lives. I don't know, and that would make it so easy to say that it isn't true.

But, it would be more honest to check my privilege. To listen to the witness of Scripture. To hear the voices calling out, making a plain of these rugged places in our nation's history.

"Advent means coming. Jesus is coming!" 

In the midst of whatever comes, prepare the way of the LORD.

Shoebox Kids

There is something about this space, where the work of our hands is worship, where grace smells like fresh cookies and homemade dinner, and where the everyday becomes a space for the miraculous.

In the midst of a crazy world, there are moments where this is Church as it is meant to be. Just as it is whenever God's people come together around a common goal, put in the hours, and simply exist - together.

And, I love, as I have mentioned before, that there are children growing up in this.

Upper middle class American children who are learning what it is to trust for simple provision. To have "stuff" problems that can't, or won't, be solved by their parents' wallets.

When the Build a Box room is sparsely empty and we talk about closing it down, they understand that we pray. That we wait to see what God will do. And, that, sometimes, we come in the next morning to find that someone has been in the building ahead of us and filled it back up.

Provision. Faithfulness. Trust.

A simple picture of what it looks like to give without fanfare.

When a carton goes flying off the back of a truck and it seems like carefully packed boxes are lost to the side of the freeway, they have seen that we extend grace, even if it is given from a hurting heart - and that we pray.

That, sometimes, strangers call the church the next morning to say that they were driving into town and noticed a familiar red and green on the side of the highway. That they stopped to pick them up. That some of the boxes that state patrol said were gone were actually still there, still coming in, still wrapped in rubber bands that never should have held. But, did.

Sometimes, friends go back out and scour through tumbleweeds and dead grasses along the sides of the highway to recover checks and shipping payments.

All the time, God is bigger than our mistakes.

Forgiveness. Mercy. Community.

They clean and bake and pack and sort alongside adults. Probably work harder than we do, because they simply never stop.

But, they do stop, because they have learned the balance of pouring out everything. The inhale and exhale of this. The heartbeat of quiet days and leaving things for others to do. The time in the prayer room and running silly errands. And, the always giddy joy that, "Sunday's coming."

Sunday.

When churches pour in with thousands of boxes and my hands fly in rhythm with an eleven year old's, filling carton after carton. Together. Red and green Go Boxes face this way. This kind of plastic fits that way. That kind goes this way.

The final two boxes drop in together, waiting to use 'the trick' that we have taught them since they were little. "The trick is..." "Do you remember the trick?"

And, I love that 'the trick' we remind each other of daily is simply that two boxes, working together, turned just the right way to complement each other, can fit into a space that they couldn't on their own. Because, as our two sets of hands work together to settle them into their place, what a beautiful picture it is.

Two are better than one. A team, a body, that works together to complement each other. To accomplish together what we could never manage alone.

Sunday.

Monday.

Monday, where we use a different set of gifts. Where I stand in a truck with middle schoolers who joyfully lift and haul and push cartons that just barely fit within their arm span. With adults who take time off of work simply to come to move heavy things.

Where we laugh and tease and call numbers and move with a steady efficiency.

Where paperwork is just as important as muscle, and the littles practice astounding grace when we tell them "no" or "not today."

Rapid movement interrupted by long stretches of waiting. Talking. Praying. Playing. Talking some more. Praying again. Because, somehow, even in the midst of it.

People still come first.

And, they know it. Just like they know that we pray and we trust and we work, they know that we rest and that we enjoy one another and that we talk, over and over and over again, about the things that God has done.

That we let our nine year olds learn about forgiveness and hope and reconciliation in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. That we fill their heads with stories of the moments that Love broke through. That you don't have to turn eighteen to do astounding things.

These are our shoebox kids.

Taking a week to practice how you do Church.

(16,814 times.)

Repetition

It's the second week of November, but it feels a little like Advent has already passed us by. Epiphany in the rearview mirror. January fully upon us.

Until I look back and remember that, year after year after year, there has been this slightly quirky intensity to the second week of November. Something more in the air than the hint of coming snow that the kids are buzzing with the possibilities of.

And, I don't pretend to understand this corporate repetition, the way that the same kids seem to engage in slightly-more-grown-up versions of the same behaviors that they used fifty-two weeks before.

But, it helps my pattern seeking brain to make a little more sense of the world.

Especially, when I am a part of it too. I ask *nn* to set something in our breakout room, and it isn't a box of pencils or a stack of index cards - some pieces of butcher paper to lay out and a bag of markers instead - but, her shoulders lift with the same pride, and it becomes so much more than simply a task completed well.

This is second week of November. This is connection.

The kid who walks in ahead of me, spots his friends, but then stops in the middle of the floor until I catch up. Waiting for me

The extra games of gaga ball.

The clumps of middle schoolers who sit together in a mixed up hodge podge of friends and families, more concerned with being together than anything else.

One girl holding her space in a group of boys. Eighth graders who want proof that I will separate them when they start kicking and punching at each other during the message.

An alter call and quiet prayers with quiet kids.

There are differences. We're not stuck in Groundhog Day, and I don't even register the similarities until I am looking for them.

But, as we split off into breakout groups and M*dd** and I glance over the edge of the balcony, checking on the boys, trying to figure out what's going on inside their heads, there are echoes, echoes of whatever this day is.

Echoes and precious time.

Because, the fifth grade girls feel brilliant when they figure out the connection between our activity and our verse; drop two packs of noodles into the donation barrel with quiet confidence; help with skits; play duck, duck goose; and don't bat an eye when I am busy helping littles find their small groups during music. But, complain emphatically when I leave right at the edge of service to help with shoeboxes.

They help me clean up our space, return my phone, and I slip away.

Carve out some margin that ends up being used for conversations with high schoolers in the hallway, as if a river of humanity isn't pressing past us as we talk about past, present, and future.

Skip the middle school leaders' meeting when the clock declares how late I am running, and just hang out with middle schoolers instead. Get in those extra games of gaga ball. Play a large game of something that involves testing the endurance of our crab walking skills.

Talk, as always, about past present and future. Enjoy my growing kids who still whisper vaguely connected stories during the talk and have to draw Crush the turtle beside the word "righteous" on our island hopping page, the girls responding in colored ink to the things that other people have written or drawn until we quickly overrun our allotted time.

Eat. Sleep. Pray.

Head back to the church for the youth pastor's final Sunday.

And, it is hoedown dancing to "Oh, Happy Day;" pulling in close to pray for the transition, for the old youth pastor, for whoever is coming next; gifts; stories; cake and ice cream; and leaders who linger through the clean-up, talking about used to be's and where they are now's

Because, there's not a script to this. But, the God who kept us before will surely keep us now.

We have the patterns to prove His faithfulness.

Honest

We're in an interesting spot this Sunday. Maybe it's the time change or the change in seasons. Maybe it's the sunshine after a rainy week. 

 Light. Goofy. Tangibly aware of the Grace that surrounds us. 

And, it's honest, but it isn't the entire truth. 

 Because, it slips sometimes. And, then, there is a different kind of honest. 

Silent. Unspoken. Dealt with as gently as we possibly can. 

 A thousand things going on under the surface, these remnants of a long week that we can't seem to shake. Perhaps aren't meant to shake. 

 If there was any place that we ought to bring ourselves broken and tired and joyful and transparent, this is it. This community designed to look like Christ. 

Church is the place where we come honest. 

And, it's odd, this sense that we can come honest without necessarily using words. Odd, but, for today, true. 

 When our silence and our presence are the most true things that we can offer in the quiet moments. When even in our play, the silent connection of a laughing glance is of highest importance. 

 We play Duck, Duck, Goose at their own impetus, listing off the books of the Bible with each tap on the head. Interrupting the litany of the Old Testament with a, "Jesus!" before running, laughing to a new spot. 

 Build shapes out of groups of middle schoolers. Circles and squares. Vehicles and Thanksgiving dinner. The color blue and the Eiffle Tower. 

 Let them slide across the floor like rockets and collect a stack of half a dozen name tags. 

 Shoot rubber bands at empty pop cans and play the drums on empty tables. 

Sing with unguarded hearts. 

 Noisily quiet. But, honest.

Island Hopping

There are a few conversations that we keep circling back to these days, all for their own very unique reasons.

Winter retreat. The coming youth pastor. And, the identity of this eighth grade class.

"I feel like we've always been the 'other' class." 

One of the Gryffindor girls air quotes it in the midst of sharing sixth grade memories, her gaze flicking around the room to take stock of the people she is talking about. Make sure that they haven't changed in the last few days. That she she has the right to say it. That she is still speaking the truth.

Truth about these eight graders who are spinning on the floor in the gag pit. Curled up against the wall to talk. Making stories. Telling stories. Always telling stories.

We've told a dozen stories in the last five minutes. Jumping intuitively from the last set of stories to this abstract line of thought.

This idea that her class has never been the ones to sit down and have a long and focused cabin time. Always been sound and movement and hours spent together.

So, we talk about it.

I talk about it with another leader on Saturday. And, H*l*y brings up again the next Sunday.

We're sitting on the floor, just myself and half of the group of girls. Discussion questions asked and answered. But, stalled out before we could get anywhere deep.

"Jessica says that our class is -- oh!"

She finds a sticky name tag on her elbow and the sentence ends abruptly. But, yes. They're already pretty sure that they understand.

"We were talking last week," we laugh; I pick up the train of conversation, "about how your class is either discussing the meaning of the universe in some strange place or just totally everywhere."

They nod. Taking just long enough to picture their friends. Decide whether it could be true.

And then, we're off. Island hopping from one concept to the next. Telling about the junior class that is so much like they are. Understanding that "they" encompasses the twice as many guys sitting downstairs just as much as it describes the girls who are sitting here.

"They'll be your guys' seniors next year. You'll feel right at home."

I share snippets: boomerangs brought to church, bean bags broken open in the parking lot, roofs climbed, late night conversations under Haitian skies. Watch a little of the tension release at this idea of being no longer alone.

"That makes it every third class."

The girl who started the conversation makes the leap from point A to point X. Goes back and forth with me for a few sentences, at the same time that another girl in the corner has gone from W to H. And, within moments we're talking about camp and ministry trips.

John Day. Haiti. Belize.

What they're going to do with their freshman summer.

We stalled out on a question about purpose in a dark world. Took a detour through class identity. Touched briefly on winter retreat. And, ended up here.

This is what it looks like to pile twenty intuitive thinkers in the same room. The tiniest bit of what makes them who they are.

And, it fills my head with all sorts of ideas for next week. For the weeks after. Ways of making this small group thing something that their brains and hearts can understand. Ways of doing better by my Gryffindor girls.

My very non-linear island hoppers.