Remember

"D won't give me back your phone, and I have a prayer request." One of the fifth grade girls crouches down beside me where I am sorting out their take home papers at the end of the hour.

Both are announced in the same matter of fact tone of voice, as if praying for sick grandparents was just as simple as walking over to the next small group to get my phone from the boy who is more interested in the rubber R2D2 case than in the electronics themselves. Because, in this Kingdom, it is. And, somehow, they know it.

We've been hearing lessons about God's love and faithfulness and sovereignty. Hosea, last week, their faces wrinkling with that 5th grade almost understanding of what the presenter was trying to not quite say in front of a room of elementary schoolers. Joseph, this week, as they confidently retell a story they have heard a dozen times before. A coat of many colors. Wild dreams. Jealous brothers. Fathers who play favorites. Slavery. Freedom. Forgiveness.

A children's story that is anything but.

We transition to small group time and sunshine. "Genesis," they scramble down the hill in search of the marked card, half of them certain that I'm not actually making it up when I say words like 'Obadiah,' the other half still giving me a curious sort of side eye.

We've combined with another group today, and it's the first time in years that I've had these familiar puppy piles of fifth grade boys to add to the mix. They block each other and circle, wrestle on the grass to stop the other one from getting a card that neither of them have actually located yet. But, eventually, we do find all of them, the books of the Old Testament clenched tight in sweaty hands, and I am reminded that Scripture is meant to be a joy and a blessing. Reminded of the way that the Rabbis used to children to the Torah by putting honey over the letters on their slate.

Reminded that the Scriptures are Holy, even the bits that we can't quite wrap our tongues or our minds (or our hearts) around, by the deft little fingers that carefully smooth the papers flat again and tuck them into our folder before we move on to the Gifts game.

Fully bizarre, in the way that only an ancient book can be - the high schooler's lesson includes a flaming pot and a burning torch that move on their own to seal a covenant - but Holy, Joyful, Blessing.

"For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light."

The Psalms whisper over us as we create memories with this class of 8th graders, pull them close and laughing, hold them precious in these last weeks before their transition. As they are full of light, as they have always been. Drawn together in fear and joy and celebration, this huddle of minds and hearts that want nothing more than to spend time.

Pizza lunch. Potluck dinner. Why not plan for all of it? Why not make good on these things that we have spent fourteen years teaching them about God and church and community? This mix matched group of them stands around to plan endings and beginnings, certain that they are stronger together, that they are part of a single story, that things that worked before have the potential to work again.

So they stay here, stay close, follow these lights. And, I am reminded of summer camp moments, these same kids plunging headlong into the darkness, guided only by a flicker of light in their hand or a glow stick in the distance. Of light switches, on and off, up and down, revealing anything that might think to hide. Reminded that these kids seek light.

Together.

The way that we are heading back to Haiti, together.

Twenty kids and five leaders preparing for whatever wild ride August has to offer. Standing in this long horseshoe in front of nervous parents and proud staff who do nothing to try to hide the fact that six months without a youth pastor have taught them to fall in love with these kids who they have taken responsibility for.

We are first time together, signatures, paperwork, faces and names. Impatiently eager for something that the calendar says is still so far away.

Because, Haiti touches everything. Changes the way we interact. The way we talk. The way that we navigate through awkward conversations, the kids weaving late night roof talks into gracefully reworded questions that cover for the places where I am stumbling.

The already promise of voices shrouded in starlight and music while we wander through whatever conversations they can think of having, watching for shooting streaks of light and wisps of cloud that seem close enough to touch.

Slow sunrises and hot afternoons with the close and closer bodies of sweaty children. Spice that comes out your pores and words that twist our tongues and minds and ears, even while our hearts are already certain that they understand.

We are made more through the remembering. Through the stories that they tell by eye contact and pantomime. Those windows where the past bleeds through into the present and colors us brave. The steady determination to avoid old mistakes, and the quiet acknowledgement that we will probably make new ones. Time tested confidence in the few constants that we can offer: their leaders, each other, the faces that they are traveling across a continent to reconnect with.

And, the remembering that, when we get quiet, God shows up.

Because They Love

 

Sunday.

The 5th grade girls have written "Nepal" on one side of their rocks, uncharacteristically quiet as they draw on the other side. This morning, the silent scrape of marker on stone is the rhythm of our prayer. Safety. Courage. Comfort. Healing. I don't know what their hearts are lifting up before the one who hears, but I know that they are heard.

Rocks go into pockets. Markers back into the bag. And, they request to play, "that one game." Our mutant version of Shipwreck that has them running up and down the hill, calling out the names of spiritual gifts and scrambling to complete the proper actions. Because, I have a thing about covering spiritual gifts with outgoing 5th graders.

Notebooking, treasure hunting in the storage room, telling stories, running up and down this hill.

Late spring comes, and we talk about Spiritual Gifts.

One of my 8th graders is down the hill and across the parking lot, running slow circles in the play area as he is chased by laughing tinies. The girls confuse him for one of the senior guys an older sister used to date, and, for a moment, we're talking about relationships and dating, and pet rocks and Nepal all at the same time, and then they remember that it's entirely possible that boys still have cooties, and we're back to getting ready to play our game.

They aren't giggly today. Thoughtful, perhaps. Too full of earthquakes and protests and grandma's with cancer. Joyful still. Looking to the end of the school year. Content in this community. Competitive, but with no bite behind the competition. There is something underneath. So, they smile, and they talk big and bright the way that Gryffindor classes do, but they don't giggle.

The 8th graders are full of endings, full of questions about dates and events and changes that are staring them straight in the face.

And, it's the sort of strange, irreverent, passing conversations about Jesus' humanity and language and wearing masks at church that only fourteen-year-old boys could get us into and out of in three sentences or less. The rambling 'problem solving that borders on gossip' of fourteen-year-old girls with a protective need to not leave messes for younger siblings to walk into at their respective schools.

There's hurt here. Raw and just under the surface. Present for a hundred different reasons. But, they are trying so hard.

And, I can't help but be proud of these rapidly growing humans. These ones who live out memories with their actions just as often as their words.

I'm back with them again in the evening to fill in for a missing leader, playing a game that is glowsticks and running and proof that teamwork is one of their more well developed instincts. Talking about anything and everything. Wandering through the grass. Climbing trees.

Watching as they watch these high schoolers who have come to visit, weigh options, listen for the truth behind words.

They clamber up into branches, high and close to the high school gathering, as if the perspective will grant understanding, the way that it used to, back when I would sneak their whisper quiet selves into the balcony to peer down on what the middle schoolers were doing, all fifth grade ninja skills and nervous energy.

They're more grown up than that tonight.

We post pictures afterwards, as if proving to ourselves things that are real, and they confidently declare that they are going to kick butt in high school.

And, they will.

If they stick together like this, these kids will be a force to be reckoned with. If they learn to work with the soon to be seniors, who are so much like them, I am fully confident that they could find the stubborn grit and courage to move mountains - even if they have to do it spoonful by tiny spoonful. They'll wrap a few more leaders around their finger on the way, and, they will move mountains.

Not because they are bigger, stronger, faster, smarter. But, because they are convinced of a Grace that covers. Because they have the eyes to see Beauty and Light and Joy in the midst of Pain. Because they climb trees and create and learn and listen when the universe plays her Creator's song.

These kids will kick butt because they Love.

Faithful

(different set of kids on a different night of the week)

"Line up in front of the teachers."

I barely have to give the instruction before little feet are scrambling into place, pushing, jostling, counting each other into equal-ish groups with all the authority of small dictators. It's Monday afternoon Bible club at one of the public elementary schools. We practice the verse over and over again. "He who called you is faithful; He will surely do it."

They fall backwards into our arms on the emphasized word, one after another, a giggling picture of a God who will aways catch them when they fall.
Faithful.
To the dark haired one who came with worried eyes today and leaves his small group to show me how he can rap the fast part of a song by L*crae, intentionally shutting out anything or anyone but this moment, right here, right now, pulling my attention until it is on him like a laser.
Faithful.
To his step brother whose 5th grade fingers will spend the lesson time twisting my hair into whatever shapes his imagination can come up with, over and over and over again, as if his mouth can only be silent when his hands are moving, when that touch is physically tethering him to this place.
Faithful.
To the second grader whose braids click together gently as she falls into the arms of the teacher next to me and the kindergartener who might stay awake and fidgeting with my watch or my bracelet or my wrist for the whole story or might pillow his head on his arms and fall fast asleep instead.
Faithful.

The littlest ones take a faltering step backwards when their brain begins to scream that they are falling, "Falling!"  wanting to trust, but not quite certain. And, I am reminded for the thousandth time how much this Jesus thing is all about relationship. Because, some of them fall without question.

The 5th graders who were once tiny 2nd graders, eating their lunch behind trash cans to avoid other people and circling up in the sunshine to beg bracelets and leather and string; 3rd graders with their playground drama and increasingly complex projects; 4th graders who would pull me into their classroom just to eat lunch and listen to their stories. They line up right in front of me and wait for their turn to fall back into waiting arms.

There is trust here. Long, slow, marked by a hundred outside hurts. But, trust.

Because, this is church.

This stretching out long so that there is space for three little bodies each side, tucked up close to the hip to ankle line of my blue jeans. Two or three behind me with whisper touches to my hands or my hair.

These too often hungry bellies that we fill with animal crackers and apple slices.

Music and trinkets to form memories. Tiny toys that are scooped back into their bag when we are waved over to the center of the room. Rhythm.

The liturgy of this thing.

Because, maybe pockets full of animal crackers and apple juice that crunches out between your teeth are communion. Community. God with us. Emmanuel. Resurrection in our blood stream, these words that cling like crumbs to their lips.

"Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do," they lisp it back to me around mouthfuls of crackers, last week's verse that they will into each other, as if this Christianity thing is no good if it doesn't make space for everyone, "do it all to the glory of God!"

We punch tickets and give hugs, and their heads already know these answers.

"Who will always, always catch you when you fall?"

Their hands shoot up into the air, even the dark haired one.
"God!"

Later, when I brush that hair out of just lighter eyes and tip up his chin to get a better look at the truth that hides there, he will tell me that he didn't hear much of the story, because he was distracted by worries from "real life." I won't ask for an explanation, and he won't offer one. But, he will melt a little just the same.

They will circle around before the official start of club for Heads Up on my phone or to sing along to Fix My Eyes in this tight clump of little bodies and voices, and, somehow, they will tell us that they know that God is here. Right here in the midst of our mess and our beauty and the moments where the adults manage to make the Divine sound much more boring than it ever ought to be.

The little first grader who wrinkled her nose last week at the allergen free cookies that were offered for snack will break into a smile at the pile of slender apple slices that they devour before club and the bag of C*rn Nuts that they bring home afterwards.

"I can eat those!" She curls in a little tighter and makes this space just a little more her own.

A kindergartener will cradle my compass in his hands, dutifully spending the story time staring down north, as if he can burn it into his memory for a day when he might ever forget.

They will fall into our arms. We'll catch them. Repeat truth. Live truth.

He who called you is faithful; He will surely do it.

God on the Road

(Friday game night)

Traditionally, the second Sunday after Easter is a day where the Divine breaks through into the mundane.

Eastern Orthodox readings focus on Thomas, Roman Catholic readings on conversations along the road, Protestant readings on the blinding of the apostle Paul and fish for breakfast by the sea shore. 

Emmaus. Damascus. 

Doubts soothed. Bellies filled. Eyes opened. Eyes closed. Pathways and water. Glory that comes unexpected. In the midst of life and travel and work. And, sometimes, right in the middle of our huddled fear.

"Courage, dear heart."

Lion's breath is warm in my ear, in the memory that is pure imagination. Because, there is sunshine here, climbing temperatures and summer kissed faces on desert kids who don't know how to do anything but soak up the light while it lasts. And, Glory comes unexpected.

"The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."

And, I think that forever might be a little bit like this, a little bit like the thing that we call church. Surely we will run up and down hills, laughing and goofy as we learn about the gifts that we have been given. It might be a bit less slippery, because, maybe, in the New Earth, grass won't die over the winter. But, maybe it will, and we will still laugh anyways, because God is there, and even these strands leaching nutrients back into the soil can be bright in the light of glory.

Surely we will sit afterwards, with our bodies pleasantly tired, and share around whatever happens to come into our hands. Because, in a kingdom of plenty, why would we not?

Because, already, not yet, God is here.

God is in the little ones who watch carefully to ensure that I mark off each blonde head on the dog eared check in sheet. In the overtired attempts at a pout. In the worried watching and tracking and keeping the time. In the almost complaints before they realize that they have nothing to complain about.

God is here when they wrap Kenyan scarves around their shoulders and when they tell me about the bake sale they are planning to help an older sibling raise money for Haiti. When one who wasn't here pops in between services just because. When middle schoolers make their slow way from one end of the church to the other, God is here.

This is church. These are the called out ones.

This rainbow of 8th graders who seem to have collectively decided that this is the week to show the persistence of their courage. That this is a week for stories with endings. Because, in the irony of faith, endings help us to grasp the idea of an end that isn't. Eternity somehow makes sense against the temporal-ness of the mundane. Fish. Fire. Late night work. Early morning feast. Long walks and the screeching voices of kids who are staring high school straight in the face.

They have been called to a purpose and a passion that is greater than any of us. Greater than the watching of this careful dance that we do, words and actions that circle round and round until we finally intersect, find the places where, for a moment, everything is right. And, there are echoes of it in everything that we do. Stories are held, carefully, gently, as if the past were a living thing, a tiny heartbeat inside of our cupped hands. "I saw you," Grace whispers into the silent spaces between words, "I see you," "I remember who you are."

I remember that time that you...broke your collar bone just before the last event; crawled under the obstacle course to hide; ran wild playing tag; came as a 4th grader. I'll hold those stories for as long as you want, pass them back to you in the moments where you need a little extra courage. I know when you are here, and I miss you when you are not. Let me remind you. Remind you that you are known. You are seen. You are loved.

Eternally.

They are proud of themselves and full of energy and bright with sunlight, and I can't help but smile. Because sunshine around here is contagious.

It leads to high schoolers up trees and just inside the door, phone in one hand and chalk in the other as they carefully mark the wall in Circular Gallifreyan. Games go a little sideways and teenagers somersault across the grass. "My Redeemer lives," they sing the lyrics that are older than half of them, but, this week, we don't just sing. Instead, they link elbows, skip and twirl, hoe down to the chorus. And, it's chaotic and noisy and always just a little lopsided, off kilter. Our Redeemer lives. We are a people who believe in the impossibility that is Resurrection. Why shouldn't we dance?

Dance and laugh and talk about the tangled concepts of non-linear time as we try to wrap our minds around the sovereignty of God. Listen as they tell stories of the times that God stepped into their lives in the messy, everyday ways that the Divine often does. Washed passports. Injured shoulders. Changed schools.

It's the second Sunday after Easter. This is Christ broken into the mundane. This is Aslan on the move.

Resurrection

"He is risen."

"He is risen indeed."

"Why do we have to say that?"

Two hours in a row I hear the questioning response to this phrase that is so deeply engrained in our version of Christianity. Why do we have to say that? Why, on this day where we have given more press time to the cross than the resurrection, do we declare over and over again that He is risen indeed?

The first time, it is one of my fifth graders who asks her question of the air as we make our way into another song that they don't remember ever hearing before - quite possibly because they never have - and I answer with small group time spent hiding and searching for paper eggs with results of the resurrection scrawled across them in washable marker.

"Peace, hope, freedom, fellowship...[...]...equality??"

They stumble over the word, look at me funny when I pronounce it for them, wheels spinning as they try to come up with a definition for the word 'equal.'

"Half and half?"

"No..." The one who asked her question of the air shakes her head, fingering the edges of the Kenyan fabrics that we throw onto the ground for color and warmth.

"The same as!" A third girl sits up a little straighter against the pillow that she has claimed.

"Good. Look up Galatians 3:28 for me."

They flip through their Bibles a little haphazardly, this one starting in Genesis, that one starting in Psalms, but we get there quickly enough.

There is no longer Jew or gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.

After a little explanation they get it, but in the same disjointed way that one would understand Pluto's fluctuating planetary status. It's there, but it doesn't really mean anything.

"Why do we have to say that?"

The second time is one of the eighth graders sitting behind me as the response echoes out from the entire congregation. And, I have to admit that I was a little distracted by the red lights on the wall as we're singing about the blood. They might be flowers? Clouds? But, they look an awful lot like platelets.

Do fancy light show lights come preprogramed with an option for platelets, or is that something special that you download for Good Friday services and Easter morning?

His question, though, pulls me a little closer back to focus. Why the Resurrection? Why this day, when we mix up rabbits and crosses and graphics of clean, pale hands with a tidy mark no bigger than the head of a construction nail? If Jesus died for our sins on the cross, if it was finished, then why does Easter matter?

Why?

Because, holy cow, do we ever need the Resurrection.

When my twitter feed is littered with #reclaimholyweek at the same time that these ten-year-olds are first twisting their tongues around the word equality, I need to know that the Resurrection is real. I need to know that the humanity that was crucified on the cross did more than lie on the pavement while people took video to post on YouT*be in hopes of justice.

If my Jesus was lynched, crucified, killed by the state, killed by my hands, then I also need to know that He rose again, conquering sin and death and giving us victory as well. I need to know that we struggle against death, not because we fear it, but because it has already been defeated.

We need the Resurrection. I need the Resurrection. When throwing rocks escalates to a killing not too many miles from my current home. When 147 university students die just a few kilometers from a previous one and a nation spends Good Friday grieving. When the grave seems to be winning every time that we turn around, there is power in being a people who declare that the story isn't over yet.

Because, a story that ends today, tomorrow, fifty years from now, isn't one worth giving everything for. And, no, that isn't heresy, the apostle Paul said the same thing.

But, our God is big, bigger even than we have thought to imagine when we talk about the vastness of the universe or the wonder of a God who exists outside of time and space. Divinity did not allow humanity to be bested by the chaos of the universe. In the Resurrection, entropy runs backwards, time turns sideways, and we are reminded of the More that is already and still to come.

The question isn't, "Why do we have to say that?" but, "Why don't we say that every day?"

He is risen.

He is risen indeed.

Sunshine and Seeing Through

Palm Sunday.

Bright, warm sun that lures the 4th and 5th grade leaders outside, small groups trailing out in front of us as we give them tasks to illustrate the idea of perseverance. One group is playing football, another trying to hit a target with a frisbee. My girls are scattered on a hillside, taking it in turns to run barefoot circles around the gym.

We move to the edge of the property, and they twirl through the long row of trees. Faster. Slower. Stopping to pull sharp things out of tender feet.

Palm Sunday, we take the time to play, even those of us who are all misplaced limbs and awkward timing. Because, I never have learned the art of making round things travel in the direction that I intend, but that doesn't seem to stop the kids. Not today, at least.

The 6th grade girls pull out an inflatable ball for volleyball before middle school starts. 8th grade boys the octagon. 6th grade boys for monkey in the middle after service. High schoolers for frisbee and four square before youth group.

And, perhaps, these are our palm branches, or mine, at least, this spring time laughter the cloaks that we throw under the feet of the approaching king.

A king on a colt.

All misplaced limbs and awkward, excited gait. The disciples must have shuffled through the branches, high stepping over sharp edges and kicking at things, now and again, the way that high schoolers so often do. Let themselves ignore the nagging hints of wrongness, because, today was a day for celebration.

And, I see them in these kids. In the one who throws things at me: tennis ball, chalk, wadded up bits of paper that ping off my cheek as we settle into breakout groups; see the teenaged disciples walking, playful along the road; wonder if, when the first one fell asleep in the garden, the others thought of throwing something at him to wake him up, or if it was the sort of slow falling where rooftop talks fade into blackness and then sunrise.

In the group that freezes in hesitation when someone suggests that we break apart and the halting conversation that follows, as if we're learning to walk with a missing limb; see how the two on the road to Emmaus could have missed it, been so caught up in their own heads, their own grief, that they didn't see their rabbi walking beside them.

In the way that we start to head towards the corner we've been pointed to, but they veer back to the red dot, the indicative rug where we always meet; see the disciples returned to their nets, back to the known and the familiar.

We're talking about the concept of Trinity tonight. They're more comfortable with the Holy Spirit than with this distinction between Son and Father, and I make a note to talk more about Jesus. More about Jesus than Paul. More about Jesus than the nuances of trinitarian heresy. More about Jesus to these ones who make me think so much of His very first followers.

Calvary Night

High schoolers.

Bonfires. Banana splits. Bodies every direction that you turn.

There are either 130 of them here or 140, a tightly packed crowd of heads that we count, instinctively and with varying levels of success, as if there might be a point in the night where we were asked to give a reckoning. A moment where the Divine might step down and require a roster, a list of what we've done with these precious lives.

It's a children's ministry habit, not a high school one, this always knowing how many you are responsible for. This counting of bodies and souls before you even realize that you are counting. Because, not all of these are even "ours." We've combined with another youth group tonight. But, we count them anyways.

So long as they are here, they are ours.

So long as their faces echo in our prayers; so long as their voices fill this space with truth and laughter and music; so long as they are here to pour out and be poured into, they are ours.

Some of it is simple Grace, boys still young enough to come at me with a lowered shoulder or a gentle kick to the back of the knee, to laughingly acknowledge that I could no longer take them down -- but that it no longer seems to matter. The physicality of draping a scarf around a freshman neck while we talk. You are seen. You are known. Even in the midst of all of this. Let me use the solidness of our beings to prove it.

The smell of 120 shoes thrown into the middle of the room for a mixer that might be suited to better ventilated spaces. AC that can't quite seem to kick in and decorations that flutter loudly when the kids prop open the doors for air flow.

Ice cream. Wood smoke. Soccer balls and name tags.

Not because of the things themselves, but because of the sense memories that follow them, the grounding-ness of food and warmth and wind and sunshine. The relationships that they make a space for, the layers of reality.

Because, Divinity hovers over and in this place, Grace and Love and Mercy that would comfort these kids. See them as messengers of healing and wholeness. See them healed and whole.

So, we come, months into this process, this transition, messy and beautiful and hurting. "Calvary Night" we have been calling it, after the name of the church that has joined us. Calvary Night. Calvary. Where the Christ came, messy and beautiful and hurting. Where Divinity hovered in and over and, somehow, incomprehensibly, turned its back, so that we might be healed.

Calvary night. It would have been Good Friday. Mourning marked by a broken, impatient hope. Sorrow interrupted by Sabbath.

And, I wonder if we aren't so much the same.

We hold the match to these Sabbath lights that flicker in the parking lot. Offer food, community, music, tradition. And, underneath the consistency of it, some of our kids grieve.

They carry some of the same questions that the first disciples must have, the 'why's' and the 'how long's' and the 'what next's.' A milder set of the unmet expectations that must have sent Jesus' young followers reeling, knocked them from their feet as the world around them consumed an all too familiar meal of bread and wine.

These kids are excited by the possibility of what is going on here, awed by it, overwhelmed by it. Using the novelty of it to propel themselves through. But, a little lost in this sea of unfamiliar bodies. A little befuddled by what they have created.

It washes over their faces in honest moments. The loneliness of being one in a crowd. The uncertainty when we split up small groups not-quite-the-way-they-expected without warning them, because we didn't know ourselves. The wishing and the reminders of what isn't.

"It was nice," they tell us afterwards, child after child repeating the same words that must have been shared over post-youth group frozen yogurt, "having a youth pastor. Even if he wan't ours."

Because, we're still searching. Five and a half months later, we're still looking for someone to meet the sky high list of expectations we have for the one who will be allowed to shepherd our kids. Searching. Waiting. Watching to see God move.

Because, all of Jerusalem had been in an uproar about This Man, and, surely, surely as they lit small flames in the darkness, broke bread, and sang ancient prayers. Surely there were echoes fresh in their minds.
"...neither does one light a candle and hide it under a basket..."
"...collect the pieces that are left over..."
"...beware the leaven of the pharisees..."
"...do this in remembrance of me..."
"...this, then, is how you should pray..."

"What are you doing, God?" These teenaged disciples must have wanted to scream it at the sky. Wild flutters of hope mixed with desperate grief. "What have you done?"

And, yet.

Sunday came.

Resurrection.

God be praised.

Sunday changes the story, lights a fire that changes the world. Sunday brings joy and healing and disbelief. Triumph and victory like the world has never seen. Sunday makes Friday worth it. But, Sunday also gives us reason to remember.

Our Calvary night is on a Sunday, echoes of this older story, deep in the center of Lent, pulled between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Already. Not yet.

So, they hurt. But, we also celebrate.

In the Middle

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace."

My 5th graders stand on a hillside in bright sunshine and shout the words, playing with an app that superimposes their playful squeals with special effects - rock slides and flying cars. And, I am caught in the tension of it.

These beautiful words, and the realities that they are echoing, unknowing.

Missile strikes that are as unreal to them as the giant spider effect or the USS Enterprise flying across the screen. A conflict in Syria that has been going on since they were six or seven years old. South Sudan. The Gaza Strip. Refugees returning to rebuild in the Ukraine. Ferguson. The list goes on and on and on.

And, yet, we are here, running, laughing, playing, building these beautiful words into them, so that, when they start to know, they will have something to stand under, something to hold on to.

"In this world you will have trouble. But, take heart! I have overcome the world."
John 16:33

Because, if these words were true in the midst of Jesus' upper room discourse: occupied Palestine, Roman brutality, a soon to be crucified Christ, soon to be scattered disciples, then, they are certainly true now.

True for our 5th graders who are growing up into a messy world. True for the 8th graders, about to feel themselves scattered to new schools and new challenges. True for our high schoolers, far more aware of current events, walking forwards without a youth pastor even as we find ourselves with more and more children.

There is peace here.

In the midst of this tension.

Middle schoolers who sit, enthralled, watching stories of people who were unafraid to step out and do big things - small things, with great faith. We talk about it a little in breakout groups, and I bite my tongue, try not to push them too hard, try to let this be a thing that they come up with on their own. Because, they already have ideas. They simply need a space to let them grow.

Because, these 8th graders are firmly caught in a tension of their own, deciding, each week, what skin they are going to try on for the day. Chameleon like, testing to see what feels safest for this transition up to high school. This group or that group? Familiar or new? And, of course, whether or not to let any of these strangely zealous adults along for the ride.

So, we dance.

In the midst of the phone borrowing and video taking and game playing happening around us, we dance with emotion and expectation and responsibility. Steps that I half remember from my own 8th grade year. Movements that the mama bear in me wishes I could shield them from, and others that I wish I could capture, let them hold on to.

Remember this, guys. Remember that brief moment of certainty, of belonging, of knowing that the God of the universe thinks you enough.

Remember that you are never alone.

Because, I would gather them all up if I thought it would help, these 8th graders and these juniors who are so alike. Climb with them to the Top of the World - climb, not drive, because their bodies need to move to listen. Tip their heads back to the stars. And, tell them again and again.

You. Are. Not. Alone.

Not when you have my full attention in the hallway, and not when our small group is too big but you give it your best anyways. When church is long over and the emotions come bigger than you ever wanted to handle. When there are people everywhere and you think that you're excited about it, but you're also pretty sure of the frustration that must have led that man's friends to dig a hole in the roof. Even then, you are not alone.

And, you are loved.

More than the words that catch in my throat would ever be able to express. You are loved with an infinite, restless, unceasing Love. You are precious. Treasured. Held in the palm of one who is captivated by the details of your being.

The God big enough to contain an ever expanding universe loves you with a love that never ends.

We love you with as much of that echo as we can fit into our finite souls.

You are never alone.

Our course, I'm pretty sure that there is a chapter in the leaders' handbook about NOT totally freaking kids out. So, we'll go with icebreaker questions and high fives instead and let them go out star tripping after youth group on their own. Because, even when we aren't very good at saying it, holy cow, do we ever love these kids.

It is Lent. The tension of waiting. Waiting for the beautiful. The Resurrection. Knowing that the Passion and the Crucifixion come first.

Searching for Peace in the midst of a world full of troubles.

"But, take heart! I have overcome the world."

iNTERSECT

We take our post camp numbers-high and seem to keep running with it, adding a few kids every week, until the ones who have been here faithfully for years turn to me with a bright light in their eyes to report what they have carefully counted, none of us sure where on earth we're getting these numbers from.

None of us sure of anything except that God is doing something in and around us. That new kids are signing up for clusters. That the Haiti applications are gone before we can blink. That we are suddenly faced with the thrill of scrambling for leaders.

Numbers have never been the thing that we are going for, but there is a holy sense to watching new and old faces come through the door, as if we are slowly going over the same picture with another color. Something that was unspoken but missing. A rainbow forming around us. It could so easily be older brother of the Prodigal Son, but, instead, they rejoice over each life like finding a lost coin.

Whoever you are, we've been turning this place upside down looking for you.

We are at 64 high schoolers, and there is a different sort of feel to it these days, skirting on the edges of so many things that could be messy and so much that is inherently beautiful. 

 They are talking about summer opportunities tonight, making each other pancakes and flitting through conversations about Haiti and local-ish ministry trips, about RFKC and clusters and Student Owners. And, they are beautifully confident in their ability to handle these things. 

 Because, it is Haiti season, has been for weeks now, as we talk about what we're going to be doing (we don't know), when we're going (we think we know), and who is going with us (right now it looks like everyone and their uncle). 

 Lent and Haiti, where they are growing like weeds, alternately thriving and struggling, acutely aware of the things in their worlds that are and are not.

And, it is this season that reminds me not to pull the thread to quickly on life, to slow down and breathe. To enjoy the magic that is these kids suddenly sprung to a new kind of life. Because, spring comes early in the desert. A wash of February green that teases us with the idea of summer around the corner.

Here but not now. Already not yet. Eternity in the middle of these everydays.

The slippery sort of eternity that disappears if you look at it straight on for too long, that has to be caught out of the corner of your eye and held onto gently. Eternity that exists in kids who are thoroughly and completely who they are. 

Gryffindors who are making pancakes, washing dishes, and taking attendance with the sort of focused responsibility that is changing the world with every act. Ravenclaws analyzing, questioning, finding their niche and settling into the rhythms of this place. Slytherin kids who are here specifically for pancakes and laughter and the intentionality of community.

Talking about future, past, and present in a giant jumble of bodies and stories and emotions.

There are hints of things rising to the surface. Old hurts that are nearly ready to be dealt with. The sparks that are the rubbing together of so many lives. Anxieties that meet like amber on a cat. But, tonight we are beautifully present. Washed over by Grace. Enough.

Tonight this room is filled with hope, memory, safety, anticipation, and playful grace. Tonight, the light is bright, and it is easy to see.

Snow Blast 2015

Middle school camp comes the weekend after, four of us repacking into bags that still carry marks from high school retreat. But, the kids are ready to go all in. So, all in is how we go.

They help us with name tags and luggage and anything that they can think of to stay close and avoid waiting on the bus. The boys save me a seat just as they have for so many camps before this. I am quietly reprimanded for not being at church last weekend and loudly reminded of the Grace that covers - that these growing ones found the words that so often elude us. That, thirty minutes in, forgiveness has already been asked and offered.

And, then, we do whatever it is that you do on middle school bus rides. We talk. Play cards. Heads up. Mad Libs. Listen to music. Walk and stand and officially prove our bus driver the most patient person on earth. Devolve into slapping games until the backs of hands are red skinned and stinging. Watch as the kids slowly become confident that they can do this without ear buds or movies.

Pull into camp and hear them declare, "This is our camp." "[Summer camp] was just a break, but now we're back."

This muddy, slushy, rainy place. This is their camp.

Even when the music is not at all what they were expecting or we mark our first cabin time with not-the-kind-of-tears-that-you-hope-for-at-camp, they are happy to be here. So, we spend another weekend spoiling our kids.

Mini marshmallows roasted over tea lights. Basketball games with made up rules that somehow allow for dog piles of 7th and 8th grade boys. Time and space to just relax, to be young, to trust that their leaders have their backs.

That we'll spend our early mornings plotting and planning and moving pieces of stage and furniture so that they have a place to come up front during music, and an angle to see the screen. That we'll block off entire sections of chairs so that they have a place to sit before they've even thought about crawling out of a warm sleeping bag. That our instinct is defense rather than reprimand. That we'll warn them ahead of time of the things that might throw them off and call out the good whenever we happen to see it. Because, we see so much good in these kids.

They've grown up so much, these 8th grade girls who quote back to me the things that I told their 6th grade selves, who find a Saturday night space to ask questions and listen to me answer in my raspy voice. Still young enough to let us explain the world, but old enough that I can watch the gears turning in their heads as they weigh our words and the testimony of our lives.

They're brave and quirky, and they know that we think they are marvelous because of it. But, we spend the time to go back over what they are, to talk about what's coming, to give them tools and hope and salve for these anxious hearts.

Our 8th graders fight with fear, and it makes them brave.

Our 7th graders fight inadequacy, and it makes them strong.

Our 6th graders fight ignorance, and it makes them wise.

Brave enough to pull close to leaders and let us help to sort out the messy and the beautiful. Strong enough to laugh and mourn and create safety like a bubble around them. Wise enough to watch and learn, to mimic the Christ-likeness that they see, encourage it by their careful attention.

Yes, we see good in these kids.

In the midst of the ups and downs, we see kids who are allowing the Spirit of God to shape and mold and change them. And, I love it. I love that I have spent five years watching these 8th graders learn to trust. Trust God. Trust us. Trust each other. Five year watching them learn to recognize peace.

I don't have to carefully introduce the boys to their counselors anymore. Don't have to give those constant reassurances that, yes, this man is safe, and, yes, that one is too. They roughhouse with their leaders without stopping to read my reaction at every catch. And, I am slowly learning the art of being available anyways.

The one who has always been so sensitive to worship music no longer surges with discomfort when hands in the room begin to raise. They stay up until 4:00 in the morning talking about anything and everything. Or, some of them do, even while mine fall into an early sleep, exhausted with this business of growing up and learning Love.

The girls shrug when they don't have an answer or tell us they don't know, rather than fighting us off with nonsense statements or desperately grasped at distractions. They pull each other into doing things. Separate for long hours and then come back with a confident ease, no longer the littles who told us every time that they were going to use the bathroom - in our cabin.

Instead, for this short weekend, at least, they simply are. In the midst of the missteps and the new counts of getting older, they prove themselves valiantly up for the task. Things that would have thrown them for hours take minutes, and I watch, again and again, as they rely on the strengths of their classmates, the strengths of the classes that surround them, to fill in the places where they are uncertain.

Because, growing up so often means growing into the idea of interdependent community. (And, learning to give grace for adults who are still trying to learn what it looks like to do community.)

Together. Washed in Grace.

When we've barely gotten started and my name tag is already around a 7th grade neck.

When I make a comment about having "lost my children," and 7th and 8th grader of the not-in-my-cabin variety both look at me with a mostly mocking, "Umm. We're right here."

Be careful with your tongue. They are paying attention. They remember.

Kid from school who follows like a shadow during free time.

The ones who come to stand close during music, this one still, those ones squirming, that one watching carefully. Always watching. Slowly putting words to the way that we do this thing.

Dodge ball games that drive the staff camp nuts with their constant questions and burning drive to prove themselves. Not winning. Disappointed. But, better able to handle it than last year.

Girls jumping in to help the boys in dodge ball. Boys jumping in to help the girls in volleyball. Teamwork encouraged by fiercely protective leaders. "We'll talk to them. But, there was no purple."

Cookies frosted and eaten. Wanders taken through muddy fields and slippery paths. Long stretches sat by an almost unnecessary fire. A kid who comes silently close after our final breakfast, testing my resolve to push us towards this "packing up and going home" phenomena that is supposed to happen next.

Another bus ride. Eking out final moments while we wait for parents.

Missteps and missed connections but also old habits and familiar patterns.

It was an interesting year. A raw 'just under the surface' kind of a year. A 'not what we were expecting' year. A year to run headlong into Grace and prove that it is still strong enough to hold us. That, even when the whole world is topsy turvy around us, there is reason to do this messy thing together.

Reason to spend time looking for beauty.

Reason to learn to trust.

"Identity Theft"

 

We settle with 98 students into an echoing gym, and they are bright with an energy that is ridiculous, hilarious, over the top absurd. Goofy, happy, and so excited to be here.

The boys have made a tradition of hand delivering luggage to the girls' cabins. Camp has made a tradition of nachos and hot chocolate waiting for us. And, even the freshmen settle quickly into these routines.

We are suckers for these kids, falling into ministry trip style habits of spoiling them even while we push them. Trading hats with boys who want a pom pom rather than a plain black beanie. Eye rolls and laughter at behaviors that are so much younger than what they are often allowed to be. So many moments where we follow their lead and let them call the shots.

They are known. And, they are loved.

We tell them, as often as we have cause to, that they are loved. Call them by name. Remember stories. Engage as deeply as we can. As if being without a youth pastor is constant excuse to remind them of value and worth.

Somehow, beyond our planning or our control, the most important thing is that they are together, in the presence of a powerful God.

They are young and light - and occasionally lacking in the prefrontal cortex - but there is Grace here to cover.

Grace for late night talks and midnight adventures in a half frozen lake. Leaders who carry responsibility when there is a chance to lay blame. And, kids who love each other through the ups and downs and sideways of it all.

We don't have a youth pastor. But, we have a team. 122 of us who are here for a common purpose. Fearfully and wonderfully made. Powerfully loved. Uniquely gifted.

Kids who stand on stage and lead worship with amazing confidence and skill. Who play instruments and provide glow sticks for throwing during during the final song. Stack chairs and reset chairs and stack chairs and reset them again.

Throw toilet paper until the air is thick with the taste of floating fiber and sweat. Wander through the woods until our feet are soaking wet and then come back to dry out with s'mores by the fire. Crowd surf and share honestly and laugh until our sides ache.

 

 Pray and allow themselves to be prayed for. Make space for the goofy and the absurd and the constant cogs in motion that is the reality of a team led retreat.

When 75% of the kids are there within ten minutes of the arrival time and we suddenly have almost an hour - because, what, Bethel people are never this early?! -  the Student Owners jump in and come up with something to do.

When the schedule shifts like puzzle pieces, they shrug and move on to whatever we tell them comes next. Where they need to be. When they need to be there. With the things that they need in order to be successful. These kids are quietly, honestly incredible.

They listen to two different speakers and still make the brain space for a 45 minute session on spiritual gifts.

 

My sweet cluster girls come early to stake out a place in the front row during my breakout-that-turned-out-to-be-a-large-group-session-instead. They listen carefully and respond authentically and do everything that we could think to ask them to do. When I run out of words during prayer, one of the boys speaks into the silence and prays for me instead.

Freshmen boys throw their arms around each other in this tight huddle as I pray for one of them and they each pray for him in turn. The girls tuck their heads in just as close. And, no one blinks twice when the toilet paper from the game is reused to care for snot and tears from all ages and genders.

We are together. Early morning, pre coffee time for quiet conversation and clumsy messes. Meals and free time, sessions and games. Bus rides and late nights. Mistakes and Grace.

Mainly, we are running headlong into Grace. Middle school style. Finding the limits. Testing to see if it will still hold us. Praying that they find its endlessness. And, bouncing back to find the hands that formed the universe still reaching out, secure.

Because, of course they are.

But, sometimes we need this reminder. Sometimes we need to play at what it might look like to live a little more like Acts chapter 2. To start conversations that we hope to continue long after camp has finished. Sometimes we need to wash ourselves in charis and eucharisteo.

There is a space at camp for being both a little bit younger and a little bit more mature. A space for imaginary adventures and wandering wild child through the woods after a pack of deer. For trusting each other to be the holders of stories that are shared with a supernatural ease. For photo bombing and play fights in front of the bathroom doors. For songs that echo in my head as I wake up in the middle of the night to pray for these kids.

   

 "Here in you, I find shelter, wrapped within the arms of wonder, Lord of all, so beautiful."

"I'm wide awake, drawing close, stirred by grace."

Over and over and over again I wake up to the words running through my head, to these insistent reminders to pray and pray and pray some more. Pray on the ride up as we follow the buses and the director of children's ministries comments on the strangeness of not knowing what is going on inside. Pray when I watch some of them fight back the way that Bethel kids have always fought back, proving themselves "responsible" and "mature" and "able to carry the world."

Even though the missteps have already been forgiven.

When I wish that Grace was a tangible thing I could throw over them like a blanket. Let them feel the strength of it with their fingers, see it, test it, know that it is real. Wrap them tightly enough to drive out the fear that ties their hearts in knots. That tries to whisper "not enough."

Pray during chapel. During free time. During games. Cabin time. Early mornings. Late nights. I am reminded that the most important thing that I can do is pray.

I've taken my 45 minutes to speak truth about spiritual gifts. Asked for their ears and their hearts and left the rest up to the Spirit. I bounce around, spending nights in different cabins, riding up different than back, but always separate from our girls. And, through it all, I pray.

Because, whether it is an ocean that separates us, or a few hundred yards, prayer is still the lens through which we see Grace. Still the tugging reminder that there is a someday coming. An already, not yet. Eternity to wash our mess in steams of living water, to join in with our hands and our hearts as healing comes.

"And, the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations."

I think of these kids: fearfully and wonderfully made, powerfully loved, and uniquely gifted. And, I can't help but imagine what could be, what will be.

"All fear removed, I breathe you in, I lean into your love."

98 kids. 98 living, breathing reminders of Love and Grace. And, I can only hope, that in our few short hours of weekend, they also have caught a glimpse of that. Have seen their strengths. Seen their giftings. Seen the way that the Body is meant to function together.

Not always smoothly. Far from perfectly. But, together.

Washed in Grace.

I can pray that they will let this be their identity.