wishing | most hopeful

Mar 11 2013

a ridiculous question

My students on Monday, Wednesday and Friday often have to suffer through whatever kind of mood I am in. They pretend to do so gladly, and fortunate for their sakes, most days this semester have been great. They have a lot to do with that as they have been an incredibly fun group thus far.

Last week, I found myself exhausted from work. I noticed that all the work involved good things with good people pushing for good progress. We had been looking for and living into signs of the kingdom, and it had all been good. But one evening, the evening before this particular class, I found myself wondering what I was doing, and if it is all worth it anyway.

My mind went back to a conversation I once had with someone questioning the pursuit of the kingdom. “Does it ever get better? Does it ever actually make a difference?” The questions, not ridiculous, come to my mind often if I tell myself the truth. The next question was, “And if it doesn’t ever really get better, why work toward it? All we can do is wait for it. Otherwise, we will get terribly depressed and disappointed, right?”

Back in the present, I found in myself after a great long day of different work in the community wondering what in the world I was doing. The notion that maybe things aren’t getting better seemed to push in harder, and with a particular situation in mind, and I wondered what the point was.

Just before arriving to my classroom the next day to talk to students about the history of faith and efforts toward justice, I ran across this video (below). I knew immediately that I was asking a bad question because I had, as I usually do, turned the situation back to myself. Gravity always pulls me inward, and in its doing, had made me wonder about the worthwhileness of it all. But this piece of work reminded me of the names and faces of people who are changing my world as I walk hand in hand with them toward the kingdom. They are my clients and the families I serve and the communities I work in. They can’t afford to wait, and therefore neither can I. We are the same.

The next time I find myself asking that ridiculous question, I hope I can remember. I showed the video to my students that day in hopes that they will remember also…and that they will hold me accountable to remember as well.

djordan
Pine Tree

Tagged hope, hoping, hurt, is it worth it, justice, kingdom come, mercy, one step back, pushing, Religion and Spirituality, serving, two steps forward, waiting, wishing, world relief, worth

Oct 15 2012

1 Comment

poems, Prayers

the tension in us

The hardest place that’s worth sticking it out in must be the place of tension.

In the times where we know we must move, but we don’t know how or where or in which direction, the tension burns and builds something new in us.

In the places where we want to do it the right way, with the right intentions, at the right speed and with the right understanding, but we feel the pressure to burst into action because it feels that lives are on the line otherwise, the tension tightens and turns something brave in us.

In the moments where we feel it’s everything we can do to hold back all the yearning and the wishing and the hoping and the praying to keep from cracking open in the most important and tenuous seconds, the tension gags and groans something wise in us.

And so we pray in those times and places and moments when the tension is burning and building, tightening and turning, gagging and groaning in us, that you will give us the steadfastness to stick it out so we can see the fruit of something new in us, something brave in us, and something wise in us.

Amen.

djordan
Pine Tree