In which I brag about my brother

Warning: Love Burst to follow.

I have a wonderful brother.  Like, ridiculously wonderful.  The kind of brother that allowed his boisterous little sister to use him as a jungle gym as a baby, who let me hold low-grade hostage negotiations for the toys of his I stole as a kid, and who told me I looked beautiful before my first dance as a teenager.  That is one cool brother.

But there's something about him I find even cooler.  My brother is the kind of guy who became aware of his white, educated, male privilege at about, I'm guessing, three years old.  And he started his work to dismantle that privilege at about three and a half.  All hyperbole aside, my brother is someone who I see working on the front lines to deconstruct the unjust systems of power which are pervasive in our culture and in our history.  I hope I can be like him in that way.

He can do all that because he's brilliant.  But he can also do that work because he is one of the most sensitive, compassionate people I have ever met--I'm serious when I say that, oftentimes, I think he would be a much better chaplain than me.  He has the brains and the heart to do incredible things in this world, and he already is.  He certainly taught me a lot as a kid--through all the deep theological exploration and discernment I've done in seminary, I'm constantly aware that I am able to employ the the concepts of postmodernism, feminism, deconstruction, and liberation because my brother taught me about them first.

All this to say: I love my brother.  He is one cool guy.

An unexpected hero

I was "that girl" in the airport yesterday.  I blame it on my pastor.  He had lent me a copy of "Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure," a short movie about the explorer Ernest Shackleton and his (to say the least) harrowing 2 year journey to survive disaster after disaster in his failed Trans-Antarctic journey.  Shackleton is a personal hero of my pastor's, and I thought it would be interesting to learn more about him.  Also, I thought, wouldn't that be a great movie to pass the time with while sitting in the San Diego airport?

Wrong.

You see, I wasn't expecting to be as moved as I was.  I also wasn't expecting Shackleton's journey to be as intense as it was.  Nor did I expect it to move me to tears.  Thus, I was that girl sitting in the airport, alternately gasping and sniffling as I watched the short 40 minute film.

My pastor had expressed admiration for Shackleton as a leader, and I have to say Shackleton's leadership is what moved me most profoundly.  As I mentioned before, Shackleton's journey was a failed one--due to various unforeseen disasters, he and his 28 person crew did not succeed in their goal of being the first to  cross the Antarctic continent by foot.  What I found inspiring, though, was Shackleton's willingness as their leader to sacrifice his dream for the sake of human life.  When the situation went horribly awry for reasons beyond their control, Shackleton did not push his crew further into danger for the sake of his dream--he changed his dream to be that of preserving the lives of his crew.  

He also made it fun.  According to the movie, many of the crew reported situations of fun and downright levity initiated by Shackleton in even the most harrowing of circumstances.  Shackleton had a way, apparently, of looking at what seemed and felt like failure in the face and turning that into an opportunity for hope.

I mentioned to someone the other day that I think God is a poet, and our lives are His poetry.  I see reflections of that in my own life, but I also see it in Shackleton's.  I think only a poetic God, a God of supreme artistry, could turn a journey like Shackleton's into what it was.  Shackleton embarked on his journey so that he could set a record--to be the first to cross the uncharted Antarctic continent.  He failed at that goal, but in the end accomplished so much more--after 2 years of being lost in the Antarctic, he and his crew survived.  How's that for a record?

It's fitting that the name of Shackleton's ship was Endurance.  I'm on the brink of becoming a leader myself, and I think one of the calls of that leadership is to endure with people.  It's to value human life in it's infinite artistry and worth more than loftier, abstract goals.  It's to look the disasters of life squarely in the face, and try to make meaning of them without dismissing their significance.  That, for me, is how to hope. 

The Good Shepherd?

Teaching Godly Play to 9/1o year olds has been an incredible joy.  They never cease to challenge and amaze me.  Take, for example, what happened yesterday.  I was telling the story of the Good Shepherd--in comparison to the Ordinary Shepherd, the Good Shepherd leads his sheep to food and water, guides them through places of danger, and would give his life for them if they are lost or in trouble.  Then I got this question:

"So when the sheep come to places of danger, the good shepherd leads them through, right?"

"That's what I think, yes," I said.

"Well," the student went on, "why does the good shepherd even lead the sheep to the dangerous places at all?  If he was really good, wouldn't he help the sheep avoid the dangerous places entirely?  Also, if he's so good, how did that other sheep get lost in the first place?"

That, friends, is why I had to find a way to talk about theodicy in my sunday school class.  Way to go, little dude.

Of course, in true Godly Play style, I directed the question back at the class (a pedagogical technique that really served me well as I was struggling to speak).  This group of 9 and 1o yr. olds decided that it wasn't so important whether or not the good shepherd brought the sheep to the place of danger to begin with; what matters is that the good shepherd goes back to carry you out, where the ordinary shepherd just leaves.  From the mouth of babes, right?

I got a phone call today with some news about two people in my life.  Both are young fathers.  The first part of the call was good news: one young father, a family friend, had his near-terminal diagnosis reversed, and while he's not out of the woods yet, he is miraculously beating all the medical odds that were set against him.  The other young father, my cousin, who was suffering from the same illness with the same odds set against him, died today.  

So who is God?  The ordinary shepherd, or the good shepherd?  And if he's good, how does he let us get "lost" in the first place?  On behalf of the wife and kids of my friend who is surviving, I rejoice in my good shepherd God.  I am in awe of the loving God who can rescue people from the thicket of illness and carry them back on His shoulders safely home.  But where was the good shepherd for my cousin?  Do his wife, children, and family see God as the ordinary shepherd who saw danger, and left his sheep behind?

One of the things I found most poignant about the question my little friends asked in class yesterday is that, I imagine, that will be the first of many times they ask that question in their lives.  And I imagine that, each time, it will be harder and more painful to see the good shepherd God when life, grief, and loss invade their consciousness in new ways.  

In the end, I know that the resolution to these questions are not mine to find--those decisions  always belongs to that person and God.  So my only prayer now is that, somehow, the Good Shepherd God might meet my friends and family who are left speechless in the wake of their loss.  I pray that, even though I may not be able to wrap my mind around it, they would feel God not as the one who abandoned them, but as the one who is carrying them in His arms safely home.

Ascending the Staircase

Wrestling with God has its perks.  It can be hard, certainly.  Downright painful.  Throwing out the hard questions of life, death, pain, and salvation never feels fun, while it's happening.  But there are perks.  Because there always comes a turning point, where I suddenly realize God isn't wrestling back--He's embracing me.  While I'm throwing punches, He's simply holding.  I like that God is big enough to do that.

There are times, of course, where God feels too far away for me to even go to the mat with him.  Those are hard times.  I still don't know why they happen--and I don't think it's always because of lack of clarity, piety, or effort on my part.  Sometimes, and in some situations, God feels (and maybe is) devastatingly far away.

I feel grateful that for this season, at least, I have felt God surrounding me as I throw out all the questions, complaints, and flat out doubts I have.  I feel grateful that, sometimes, I feel God hovering so tangibly around me I am sure that I might physically see Him.  

Karen Armstrong in her memoir "The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness" uses the T.S. Eliot poem "Ash Wednesday" as the framework for describing her journey.  You can read it here--it's a beautiful poem.  What Armstrong latches onto in that poem is the idea that we are constantly vacillating between hope and despair, as if we're ascending a spiral staircase.  I've experienced my faith in God like that--a constant twisting in turning between belief and doubt, confusion and understanding, ecstatic joy and, sometimes, lingering emptiness.  What is constant always, though, is that God is at the center.  Think of a spiral staircase--the stairs twirl around  a central pillar.  So twirl as I might from hope to despair, God remains assuredly at the center, keeping the whole structure upright.

So for now, there is hope.  For now,  I am able to be unafraid of the cross--I am re-understanding what it means to take up my cross and follow Christ.  I am seeing it as a symbol of freedom, not a symbol of victimization.  For now, I anticipate with cheerful hope the opportunities for new ministry, new life, and new experience that lie ahead.  For now, I am undaunted by my degree, my future, and this crazy thing we call ordination.

And in the end, what I am grateful for is that when I inevitably take my next step up the staircase, when I start wrestling again, I trust that God will be there to meet me.