Tag Archives: courageous

Aug 03 2013
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learning to live, poems

so we wait

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so we wait.
even the time we don’t think we’re waiting
we come to find out we were
working while ultimately waiting for work to matter
hoping while ultimately waiting for hope to count for something
dreaming while ultimately waiting for dreams to come true
praying while ultimately waiting to see if praying works somehow.

and every now and then,
we are honest enough with ourselves
and maybe one or two other people
to profess that we are actually
just waiting
while we work, hope and dream
we are really just waiting
with breath tied up tight
in the back of our stomachs or
in the front of our backs
waiting
to see
to feel
to know
to believe

that what we’ve waited for
is true after all.

not even true, sometimes.
just possible.

there’s courage and bravery in waiting.
whether we admit that’s what we’re doing or not.

djordan
Pine Tree

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May 20 2012
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learning to live, what they are teaching me

to the graduates with great expectations

My thoughts today are with yesterday’s graduates for some reason. And not just yesterday’s from college, but those who graduated last weekend from high school as well. These are students I’ve become friends with whether through church, through teaching, through internships or through other friends. You have spent your time working or laughing at my house, working and laughing around the world, and working and laughing in the classroom. We have met for late-night meetings, early morning meetings, lunch meetings, last-minute meetings.

And you fill me with great expectations!

More so than I remember other groups in the past, you are a group who is asking good questions to bad answers, and who are reading beyond the first page of other people’s thoughts and lives and situations. You are eagerly looking into what else it means for you to be a Christian in the world besides living a certain-kind-of-looking life in the middle of an otherwise chase for the American Dream. You are hesitant to gate yourselves in, block yourselves off, and cover your eyes and ears from the world in which you have been placed. You will argue and laugh with one another in the same breath. You will take off on a whim to aid one another. You will stand up to yourselves when one of you is standing on top of another.

And you fill me with great expectations!

Now that you’ve graduated, you will be challenged to move quickly into certain kinds of worlds.

You will be challenged to quickly move into worlds where money and perception and privilege and status quo are fought for, killed for, lied for, settled for.

You will be challenged to quickly move into world where it’s better off not trying and not being disappointed than seeking justice while, of course, being burned in the process as he told us we would be.

You will be challenged to quickly move into worlds where it is, of course, the best thing to do to challenge the status quo, the powers-that-be, the way it’s always been, but reminded that now is not the time, this is not the place, and not if you know what’s good for you and the future of your career.

You will be challenged to quickly move into worlds where you do not associate with that kind of person in those kinds of places with those kinds of thoughts because it’s something of which to be very afraid.

You will be challenged to quickly move into worlds where you read the first page, find a word or name that scares you because you are not familiar with it, and therefore are urged to close your eyes and ears and repeat what you have been told before.

But you fill me with great expectations!

Whether in the classroom, at dinner, in church or at work, I have already seen you move.

I’ve already seen you care nothing about money and perception and privilege and status quo; I’ve even seen you be willing to do lay down your life so that someone else can have something more.

I’ve already seen you choose to join the long defeat because you have decided that it is better to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly in obedience rather than fight for great ambitions or personal success.

I’ve already seen you suggest that now must be the time to pursue justice while challenging the powers-that-be and the status quo, because you know that it is never the right time for those on top to work for the best interests with and for those on the bottom.

I’ve already seen you enter into deep and honest relationships with the wrong kinds of people in the wrong kinds of places, and I’ve already seen God honor your choices by making you and them more like himself in the process.

I’ve already seen you read widely and thoughtfully, ask broad and dangerous questions, and engage in thoughtful and humble dialogue for the sake of seeking the truth. I’ve already seen a God––who needs not be protected––honor your search as you together discover him newly.

Because of what you have already shown yourselves to be, how you have already shown yourselves to move and breath in the world, I am filled with a new kind of courage as to where you will take us, where we will go together, what we will ask together, what we will learn together and what we will see God do together as we seek first his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

You make me incredibly proud, and fill me with great expectations.
Well done.

djordan
Pine Tree

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May 16 2012
1 Comment
learning to live

what we do not know

There’s a fear of what we do not know.

We stand here, looking at what is behind us.
We know clearly what we hope carries into the days ahead,
and what we hope can be left here, in what has already been.

We can speak clearly and eloquently about
what does not belong in the way things should be,
But our tongue becomes tired and slurred with
what it is we hope for in the world and ways ahead.

And it is here
that we realize
we are afraid of what we do not know
we are afraid of where we have not been
we are afraid of what we cannot imagine

And yet, in our deepest gut on our best days
we know that where we are comfortable
is not where we have been called
we know that where we are safe
is not where we engage as we have been made to engage

So we find ourselves praying for courage
So we find ourselves hoping for vision
So we find ourselves putting down ambition

And we hope to find ourselves courageous
And we hope to find ourselves imaginative
And we hope to find ourselves obedient

And we take one step at a time
into the new world
we fear because it is made of things we do not know

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Jan 23 2012
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learning to live, Prayers

best dreams and worst nightmares

I woke up this morning to an email thrown through time-zones from a friend. Its contents immediately made my insides go from quite calm to full-on knots.

Then I put my feet on the floor and got out of bed.

I learned long ago that first thing in the morning is a time when my brain not only doesn’t process well, but it processes into worst possible scenarios. About three years ago, I stopped listening to my thoughts until post-morning shower and first cup of coffee. I forgot the discipline this morning.

Sure enough, after that shower and cup of coffee, the clouds began to part a bit, and the proverbial rainbow was an actual thing arching all the way over Table Mountain on the drive in.

And then in prayer time at The Warehouse, there was this sense for me of the great power that God has to shine on us and beyond us, making our shadows stretch larger, broader, and longer than we think of ourselves being. When standing in his light, we become aware of our strength. In our awareness of what his light does to us, on us, beyond us––we are rightly filled with courage.

In the morning, may we lean into the light with strength and courage.

… When I awoke, I found you still to be God, presiding over the day and the night with serene sovereignty, for dark and light are both alike to you.

At the break of day we submit to you our best dreams and our worst nightmares, asking that your healing mercy should override threats, that your goodness will make our nightmares less toxic and our dreams more real.

Thank you for visiting us with newness that overrides what is old and deathly among us. Come among us this day; dream us toward health and peace, we pray in the real name of Jesus who exposes our fantasies.

+ from Brueggeman’s “Dreams and Nightmares” in Prayers for a Privileged People

djordan
Cape Town

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