Struggling through with joy... |
kind of.
Struggling through with joy... |
My children and I participated in Vacation Bible School at our church this week. This is an annual rite of passage for many Americans in the summer, but I personally have never participated, either as a child or an adult. My mother said she took me to VBS once when I was little, but I have no memory of it, so it doesn’t really count. Although I do wonder if that week of singing and learning about Jesus somehow imprinted itself on my little soul and that’s how I found myself dodging water balloons thrown by a group of 4-8 years olds last week.
VBS was an intense experience for me. I still hang on to the wariness I felt most of my life toward religion. My father was a lapsed Catholic but his was the church we went to. My mother abandoned her religion in young adulthood, and while she never converted to Catholicism, my dad’s church was our default for Christmas and Easter. We rarely prayed before dinner, we didn’t often speak of religion and no one ever spoke of Jesus. We were wary, as a family, of born-again Christians, Mormon missionaries and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and as I grew older I saw most Christians as boring squeaky-clean do-gooders or massive hypocrites. Which they are, and I am, now that I’m a Christian. Because we’re human. We try, we fail, we get up, we try again. Singing about Jesus and watching cheesy videos about how Jesus rescues was a lot for me. It was a lot for my kids, I think, but only because they’re so young. The day we watched a video reenactment of a drowning boy who was saved by a friend brought up a lot of anxiety for my son. We had to talk about it over and over, about how God sent the friend to save the drowning boy. I emphasized how the boy was ok now, how God was there to save him, how he was even on a swim team later in life in spite of his bad experience in the water. All week we learned about how Jesus rescues. I struggled, all week, with anxious thoughts about how he actually doesn’t. Very often he doesn’t. I woke at night thinking about all the students I’ve had over the years who were abused, left for days without real meals save a crappy school lunch, about the toddlers and babies being separated from their parents at the border, about my own children and the challenges they will eventually face. It won’t seem like Jesus is rescuing them. They will feel abandoned, as I’m sure many of my students did, as those babies feel in the holding centers at the border where workers are instructed not to touch them, not to offer a hug of comfort or a pat on the back. In VBS we did activities to illustrate the idea of rescuing, and our young charges often got frustrated that their science experiments didn’t work fast enough, or didn’t work just right. I tried to point out that it’s often that way with Jesus. He doesn’t rescue in the way we want him to. As our pastor said in Sunday’s sermon, it is highly unlikely the second coming is right around the corner. We have to wait, to be patient, to see that God is intervening, eventually, but not in the way we might have imagined or hoped. We are instructed, as Christians, to be God’s hands and feet here on earth. This is one of the harder jobs we have, right up there with loving our neighbors as ourselves. I suck at it. I’m not a good friend, I lose my patience with my kids too often, I’m not as giving of myself as I should be to the people I love. Not to mention the powerlessness I feel when I see the homeless people camped out in our local parks. Should I take them food? Water? Sunscreen? Will I only be aiding them in their addiction? What of mercy, of letting go of judgement? I pray every day for help with this. It is something I will need help with for the rest of my life, to be God’s heart and hands here on earth, but it something I want to dedicate myself to for the rest of my life. VBS was hard for me. I’ve been an Episcopalian for over ten years now, and I still struggle with the divinity of Jesus. I love the idea, but I don’t believe it with my whole heart the way I believe in God and God’s grace. I feel like this is a profound sin, and yet I have to recognize it because the teachings and work of Jesus are what I value most about my faith. The idea that we are loved absolutely and without question, that we are forgiven, again and again, that we have an incredibly important job to do here on Earth, to love and work for all the people who are less fortunate, who need us. And we need to do it in a way that recognizes each person’s dignity, their equality. Their sameness with us. There is also the sheer un-coolness of unbridled love and passion for Jesus. I was a cynical, surly teenager and young adult. Cynical is so often the default for many of us. It’s easier to sneer and disbelieve than to be vulnerable, to say, well, maybe some of this stuff works. Maybe loving God fills that hollowness that drags me down like a weight every day. Maybe it helps me be more tender towards myself and everyone else, every broken human being, even the ones spouting hatred and idiocy who I really want to slap the dog shit out of, to quote my father. Maybe it brings me closer to mercy and peace. Maybe it is ok to love Jesus so much that once a year I bring my kids to Vacation Bible School, and we throw our hands in the air as we sing about how much Jesus loves us, and we eat popsicles and have water fights and do science experiments to understand God’s love. My pastor warned me that one day, when my kids are teenagers, they may not want to come to church anymore. That’s ok, she said. Don’t force them. Let them find their own path. For now, I am their guide, and I want them to know they are loved, they are cherished, they are forgiven even when they screw up royally. It’s a good foundation to start with, no matter where they go.
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