Bridgetown 2016

Bridgetown is a lot of things.

Perhaps more so because I remember being here as a high schooler. Remember falling asleep to winged horses on the windows and the shouts and music of life downtown. Remember waking up to brush my teeth with a finger and roll up my sleeping bag, not knowing what came next.

I remember sitting on warm red bricks to offer coffee and sandwiches and walking under the bridge during Night Strike to catch a glimpse of Holy that took my breath away.

Bridgetown is where we go to watch our kids be strong.

Not the earth shattering, news making kind of strong but the kind that it takes to squat down or take a knee and have a conversation with someone that you might not have otherwise. A, stumble through a prayer on an empty street corner, do the thing that you don't want to do, completely uncertain of what happens next, kind of a courage.

Sometimes, traffic is stopped for miles on the freeway, so we climb out of vehicles and share snacks and quickly discover that nearly everything in the desert is prickly. We pause at a rest stop, breathe in the smoke that was blocking the road, and the John Day kids remember last year's fire, watch with anxious eyes, uncurl a little when the mountains turn green and we have left it behind us.

And, it's a little thing. A move too fast and you might miss it, mostly wordless, thing. But, it is there, and they prove themselves strong.

On Bridgetown trips we ask them to be stubborn.

For the, "This is too hard!" to be followed by standing to their feet and making it happen anyways. To sort their way through to the bottom of the clothing pile, and to find a way to keep walking, block after block and mile after mile, even when the only shoes that you brought for the week are cowgirl boots.

For a prayer walk that seems to take place on an endless stream of corners and for waiting awkwardly until someone takes the initiative to offer a coffee or a sandwich.

Two of my boys have their own unique reasons to be thrown into tailspins when they don't know where or when the next meal is coming from, and yet we send them into Urban Plunge with no money or food for breakfast or lunch -- or the knowledge that they will be getting dinner. "How are you going to get breakfast? What are you going to do?"

They give me that look like I am murdering puppies, but they bite their tongues, and none of the fear in their eyes spills off of their lips.

Stubborn. Strong. Courageous.

Do the hard thing. Do it scared. I'm right here. I will keep you safe. But, I won't keep you comfortable.

And, they figure it out, these five kids who can't decide whether they are glad that I am there, or frustrated that I won't simply tell them the answers already. Find breakfast. Find lunch. Find ways to entertain themselves in between.

Basketball with a sleeping bag. Hot potato. Conversations with whoever happens to walk by.

We don't travel far. Drawn like magnets back to a single park, they nap in the shade and sketch tic tac toe boards onto the blacktop with tiny wooden crosses that we picked up along the way. The crosses don't survive the encounter, but I suppose that is rather the point. We are here this week to encounter the Divine, and the cross, as end game, never survives that interaction. The beams are separated, the body taken down, and the grave makes room for new Life.

These are resurrection kids, because they are part of a resurrection people.

Anxiety, fear, discomfort, uncertainty; those things will never be end game, because the grave makes way for new Life.

For Night Strike, where we wash feet and serve meals and hand out clothing. Where hair is cut and nails are painted and conversations are had. Where everything that should be messy and raw is covered with grace and beauty instead, because everyone here has the right to be just as human as everyone else.

"I think that this is my favorite part." We find a breath in the constant whirlwind of clothing distribution, watch the throb of life under this overpass, and two of the boys turn to me with brilliant eyes.

"Mine too." Right now, we aren't being stubborn. In the midst of this noise and the subtle waft of headache inducing smoke, they are more at peace than they have been all day. "This is what church is supposed to look like. This is Holy."

Church is Night Strike. Church is service projects and hand crafted invitations. Love Feast and hours spent listening to and laughing with and learning from some of the ones whom they have been always taught to fear. Because, a good meal can tear down all sorts of barriers.

Church is sometimes getting lost and driving around in circles for a solid hour because no one can quite decide where you should be. Church is fort wars that start out playful and end up messy. Church is kids' club and face paint and water soaked high schoolers. Church is laughter and sweat and checking the rearview mirror every few minutes, because one of the boys managed to smash his head into the concrete moments before we piled back into the vans.

Church is doing it joyful and doing it scared.

For this week, for these kids and these leaders, church is Bridgetown.

Broken bread and coffee at the water front or a park, a soup kitchen or a niche in the sidewalk. Baptism by water bottle from a giggling little girl. Confession that is more than simply stories heard and treasured, but the changes that those stories work in our lives, because, all too often, we, as the Church, also have confessing to do.

The power of touch to heal the things that are sick within us, not forever, but in this Sacred Now.

Confirmation as we learn a new catechism, a new way of hearing, seeing, understanding. And, a house father who teaches us that not every calling is glamorous, but every calling has value.

Church as Love with skin on.