Category: Theological Rant
Friday Words
My companion and I publish a weekly journal for those that prepare the children’s sermon. Our work is based on the Lectionary readings. The journal finds its way to the inbox of those that subscribe each week with a few words in the email. I call these Friday words. Sometimes they are more information than encouragement, more gratefulness than theological. Here are the words from the last two weeks.
June 17
“There’s a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker.” (Charles M. Schulz)
I do not know the context for Mr. Schulz words, but given the work that I do with children, youth and the adults that work with them, it resonated with me. Pop-culture and Pop-Christianity work to reduce living to a bumper sticker size worldview, a cliche, a phrase, but living it is not that simple. Philosophy, theology, and wisdom are lifetime experiences that shift, change, and mature. Sometimes we are the teacher (master) and sometimes we are the student (apprentice). So, don’t rush when you are with children and youth. As best as you can, try to provide questions rather than answers which, I think, is the significant difference between philosophy and most bumper sticker or billboard wisdom that I see these days.
Jesus summarized his religious philosophy this way, LGLNAS.
love God and love neighbor as self
June 10
It is unimaginably hard to do this — to live consciously, adultly, day in and day out.” (David Foster Wallace)
As you work with and serve the children and youth in your midst I trust that you are aware of your own consciousness. The busy nature of post-modern life can distract a person from their own consciousness. People are now beginning to do “mindfulness” exercises. This can take many forms. For some it is prayer, meditation, or simply turning off all your electronic devices and sitting quietly. During the summer I spend a lot of time in my car visiting all the camp experiences that the Oklahoma Region offers. That first 30 minutes in the car after a day of photos, laughter, walking in the heat, problem solving, and conversations is my “mindfulness” time right now. No radio . . . no phone. Just the hum of tires on the road, bouncing off potholes from time to time and the sound of rushing wind past the car. I remember: thankfulness for the adults volunteering their time at camp; and for congregations that found money to help support the children and youth that attend.
I trust you find a quite, mindful, conscious time during the summer months that can help you center: on God, on your discipleship, and on the ministry to which you have been called.
Memorial
Another Memorial Day. I pause to remember former youth group members, all adults now, a second cousin, and a friend in ministry that have all, at one time or another since 2002, been in Iraq or Afghanistan either on the ground or in the airspace. They have all come home alive, but in remembering these I also recall the memory of a silent airplane last year. A flight from Atlanta to Tulsa. A Marine was returning home to his family, flag draped and escorted, by another Marine. In Atlanta military volunteers saluted as his body was loaded on the plane, the last to go into the luggage compartment. Passengers were then allowed to board. In Tulsa, the escort did a quick change in the plane bathroom and emerged in a dress uniform. People did not move when we arrived at the gate. Few cell phones were turned on and only whispered voices were heard asking others to please be quiet. I could see out the window across the plane. A hearse, with flags, and more military personnel approached the plane. A flight attendant announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seats and observe a moment of silence as we honor the service of this fallen soldier.” It was a moment that lasted and lasted. It was at least 10 minutes. The captain echoed the flight attendant, “Ladies and Gentlemen, my thanks on behalf of the entire crew for your silence and respect. We are cleared to deplane.” Few spoke as we left the plane, walked the jet bridge and scattered into the terminal.
Memorial Day Weekend is called the official start of the summer. Many swimming pools will open and there will be sales, flags, and speeches. That is all well and good, but if you have a moment visit a military cemetery and walk the land. Listen, read the headstones and then see if any of what we do feels appropriate. Yes, it can be argued that many have died protecting our freedom to splash, travel, shop, and consume, but is that a fitting memorial? Is that freedom? “The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in a myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom.”(1)
I believe that the many that gave their lives in battles did so for the people serving next to them. Some may have coupled this with freedom or the idea that our Nation can be a light shining on a hill. I come to this belief after having talked to many that came home, burdened by what they saw and how they survived, thankful to be home without the aid of an escort or a letter delivered to family on their behalf. Ours is a Nation that has practiced grace filled moments and shame filled moments both accidental and intentional. Let us, this Memorial Day, remember the fallen of this decade of death, poverty, and multinational greed by lobbying congress for accountability through the rule of law rather than rhetoric. Those that breached the public trust and human decency, no matter their station in life, must be held accountable if our Nation is to move beyond the civic grief that has driven policy, economic and foreign, to embrace a future worthy of the children who were birthed during this first decade of the 21st century, honor the dead, and the living.
So now, I turn to watching the HBO film, “Taking Chance”. It is one way to understand the humanity of our wars and see a bit of a final journey that I witnessed in silence from inside an airplane.
Note
1) David Foster Wallace, This Is Water, p. 102-21.