Just As He Was

I’m weary of the labels liberal and conservative. They’ve just become annoying. 

This is going to sound insensitive, but when I hear “liberal” or “conservative” as a way of defining people I immediately think “folks who are so sure of themselves they won’t be much fu

The world would be happier with more front
porch swings

n at a dinner party.” 

If the conversation ends up on guns or abortion or immigration, then we will get a sermon, and I know better than anyone that sermons can be boring. 

Sermons are boring if they are a “moral talk.” I’m pretty sure that any lecture given to people on what they should believe or do will be lovely for the lazy, but everyone else will stop listening and start making grocery lists or dreaming about Hugh Jackman.

I don’t use the term “boring” lightly either. I’d rather say “shit” a million times, than hear the word boring, but there is a certain amount of tedium in the current political atmosphere.

I love conversing about politics, but I’m finding folks tend to lean towards being “hard-hearted” or “open-hearted”. 

I’m not much interested in trying to engage in discussions with folks whose hearts are cemented with certainty, even if I agree with where they end up. Give me some mushy hearts because they tend to have sharp minds. Those who are molded by humble compassion can meet me where I am and help me figure out a faithful way to go.

There was a beautiful line in Sunday’s Gospel reading that I’d never heard before. It was the story of Jesus calming the storm, but it talked about the disciples picking Jesus up in the boat, “just as he was.” That’s a fascinating line. Was Jesus stinky, exhausted, grumpy, overwhelmed . . . ? 

It made me think that maybe meeting folks just as they are with an open heart is the most faithful way to live instead of labeling each other or ourselves with such meaningless categories. 

Hungry

I think I'm normal and then I suddenly rub my head against a strange man's chest. It seemed like the obvious solution to my problem until I looked at the reaction on his face and realized I might have chosen poorly.

So there I am hungry and eating ribs with sauce all over my fingers and the no-see-ums eating my brain, what else could I do?

It was maddening and I didn't want to put the ribs down and he happened to be standing behind me so I used his chest as a scratching post. I apologized once I realized this might have invaded his boundaries and he said it was fine as long as it wasn't lice. Hmm. I just spent the week with over 100 kids hugging and loving on them so I'm going to do a lice check right now.

You'll be happy to know I am lice free; hope that makes you feel better stranger man. 

I also just spent way too long talking about my chickens to the nice man who sells bike helmets in New York. I might even have held the phone up to chickens so he could hear them chatter. 

I think the hard thing for me is I feel really awkward around strangers so my solution is to dig into an intimate relationship immediately. I'm not sure that's overly healthy and I'm far better than I used to be, but still when I show up somewhere new I tend to overshare and ask way too many personal questions.

This is why I love summer lunch and having kids hang out all summer. 

They do the same thing. 

They overshare and ask way too many questions.

Here's a typical day: I sit in the grass while one kid on my right is telling me about his dead brother and the kid on my left is asking a million questions about ants while other kids run up and want me to watch their amazing feats.

One of Jesus' craziest teachings was when he plops a kid down in the middle of an ego battle and says, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs."

Kids are not particularly moral or innocent creatures. I hang out with them too much to romanticize them and try to imitate their ethics.

What kids have going for them that we often lose as we age is their ability to show up hungry and needy without being embarrassed about it. 

The things that unite all the kids who show up at noon at the church are:

1. They show up

2. They are hungry (for food, play, connection, a break from home, something that feels real)

I know that doesn't excuse my strange behavior, but if being faithful has something to do with showing up and being hungry then I'm in pretty decent shape.

Donovan Lee

So a Lutheran youth group walks into a bar . . . 

Not the beginning of a joke, but the reality of trying to find a table for 18 people in Whitehorse, Canada on a Friday night. It truly was the only table open and I didn't know it would be in the bar right in front of the live musician who looked like he walked out of the biker gang and onto the stage.

Teresa told him the music was too loud. That won us points. The musician was already thrilled to have a crew of teenagers sitting right in front of him staring at his two toned beard. He made it PG-13 for us, which meant he didn't drop the f-bomb, but everything else was allowed.

So there we are in the bar and I suddenly imagine that this evening is going to go poorly. It's our last night, we're exhausted and emotionally raw and really hungry. The beatdown on TV was about to become a reality.


That's when we lied.

Because every scary biker, two-tone bearded country musician wants a church group of teenagers as his main audience, Kirt and I told him that they were all our children. 

He liked that, but then we confessed that it was a church group. And he told us we were screwed.

That's when he started to tell us that he and Jesus were not doing so well right now. He had a year when nearly everyone he loved died, including his wife. 

And then he sang us a song that made me cry. 

And then he sang us every song he had about Jesus, which was two. One of them was called The Bible or the Bottle. We fell in love with him and the vulnerability of loss and ache he shared with us was a God moment for many in our group that night.

The final song he sang, 
"You gotta love the ones that you got, one day they're here and the next day they're not, you gotta hold 'em tight and keep them near, keep them close to your heart with the things you love so dear, live each day like it was your last, don't live with hate in your heart, dwelling on the past, you gotta love everyone even the ones that done you wrong, and one day when you have kids of your own, I hope you pass this on."

We're thinking about making it the camp song next year. 

When we wrapped up our wild week with our hodgepodge crew of kids, one of the older ones who will be transitioning soon said something like, "That's what we're doing. We're passing the grace and love down to the next crew of kids." 

Maybe the church should hang out in bars a bit more often.