Category: Michael D
Friday at Sea
This is the second year that I’ve been at sea when Christendom remembers, celebrates, what we call Good Friday. It’s an odd experience to be away from Church life and particularly so during the significant ritual times. Advent, Christmas Eve, Holy week and Easter. This morning my companion and I watched one of the cable news channels talk with a Rabbi, and Catholic representatives of Christianity. It is the northeast so an awareness of whom would speak for Protestantism probably does not register because, in fact, there is not one voice that speaks with the authority of a Catholic Bishop within common Protestantism however one might define it. I’m thankful they didn’t call Franklin Graham, Falwell Jr, or some other TV evangelists to represent the Protestant point of view in a conversation about Passover and Easter being at the same time.
Here at sea, a day from land and returning to the busy nature of our existence, it was again odd to watch the sunrise over a Friday that our rituals call “good.” The sunrise was beautiful, breath taking, and blinding as it broke the horizon of another day on this side of the world. If anything in Christianity, this is Passion Friday or injustice Friday or imperial execution Friday, but those are too harsh for the dominant theology and they do not fit neatly into the sacrificial atonement theology at the heart of traditional and even “emerging” Christendom.
Breath taking, beautiful, and blinding. I think back to a day when we descended into the depths of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to a room where there is a drawing of a boat and inscription on a rock. The inscription says something like, “Lord, we were here.” It is believed that this was a sight where the first believes and followers of Jesus gathered to remember his death. Some theorize that the pilgrims must have traveled by boat to Jerusalem or maybe the boat represented the one that contained disciples that is storm tossed, frightening, with one or two persons willing to step out into the sea. No one really knows.
Right now, Friday is blinding and more significant for me than Easter morning. There are many living through the same conditions that Jesus of Nazareth lived through in his time. There are plenty of “apostles” providing the definition to what that suffering and injustice means . I’m seeing the room stewards, waiters, and maintenance staff differently today. Down there in the crew quarters is where Jesus is shouting for a different economic system while the folks working on this ship are simply trying to make a better life for their families by “serving” those of us that can afford to be here. It would have been more symbolic for the 12 to 15 foot seas to have been today rather than yesterday, but maybe that represents Christendom well. We come to the Maundy Thursday table with mixed feelings of grief and gratitude. Our emotions pitch and roll about what we know is going to happen and our participation in those systems. Our wondering, “Will I betray or deny you?” It is that sick feeling in the stomach when God asks, “Where are you?” Alas, we are soothed by the smooth waters of what has become “good” Friday rushing to meet a risen Christ. Some call it the mystery of our faith. This Friday at sea I’m wondering, “Where is God?”, and how I might join my voice with the ancients in the room so long ago and proclaim, “Lord, I was here.”
Interesting Questions About Parenting
I’ve been participating in Christian ministry with children and youth since 1985. Those first years I was a college student and then seminarian on a journey to the vocation of ordained ministry. I’ve reached an age when those that were once in the youth group, as youth, are now adults having their own children. I’ve served congregations in six states, my expression of Christian witness calls them Regions, and a question I’m often asked is, “Do you have children of your own?” The answer is no. My companion and I are childless by choice, but it does not mean that I don’t know something about parenting and how to parent. We who serve in youth ministry are often called on to be mirrors for parents and I’m convinced that the cutting edge of ministry with children and youth will be focused on the parents rather than on the children and youth themselves. As youth ministry circles back to a relational model, back to intentional theological reflection, back to a spirituality based in practice, it is necessary to help parents learn effective parenting skills and this includes a comfort with their own questions and answers about Christian faith. It is how what we do at youth group or children’s church will be “sticky” in the lives of the Church, young and older. Here is a good reflection on parenting from a blog called, “in the Meantime.”
Who Shovels Your Kids’ Rink?
by DJL | March 5, 2012Helicopter parents. We’ve been hearing about them for a few years now. These are the parents that “swoop in” – hence the name – to check in on, and take care of, their kids even after they go to college and, more recently, enter the workforce. They have become the new norm for colleges to contend with – checking up on their kids’ food, dorm conditions, performance, and more. Indeed, the term “in loco parentis” (Latin for “in the place of parents”) seems all but obsolete as part of the description of college officials, as the parents never seem to be absent for long. Except that by and large these parents aren’t there check in to see if their kids are making a good transition to independent life or working hard enough to make good grades, but rather to see if they’re being treated well. Administrators have reported the incessant pressure for better food, dorm facilities, and social opportunities coming not from students but from their parents. And some of my colleagues teaching at colleges have even told me stories of irate parents calling them to challenge grades they’ve assigned.
When do kids ever learn to do anything for themselves?” It’s a great question. I have to admit that I spend a lot more time carting my kids around to various activities than my parents ever dreamed of doing.