Celebrate

"Well, Happy Birthday!" I said to him and his mom. I was standing by their crowded front steps gathering information and filling in the "Date of Birth" blank on his camp form when I realized that it was his holiday.

After wishing him well I tried to move on to the next question. I was not successful.

The man who was also sitting on their steps dealing drugs called into the house to his associates. He announced that it was the boy's birthday and they all got excited. They came to the steps, greeted him boisterously, gave him big hugs, and each handed him cash.

The party spread to the stoop next door and those gather all came over for the celebration. More gave money. Another flagged down the ice cream truck and got him a treat.

After a few minutes I could see that the spontaneous party was just getting started and that there was no use in trying to finish the camp forms that night. I headed to the next campers house knowing I would have to get the other mundane information later.

I was frustrated to not have the forms done. The deadline for their submission was looming and it was hard to find his mom at home, much less lucent. Who knew if I would even be able to get this taken care of.

These are the kinds of moments that I'm reminded just how much of a Pharisee I can be. Of all the people on the steps that night, I'm the one who preaches about Joy, Hope, Love, and Peace yet was totally unprepared to celebrate his birthday. Gifts, food, and accolades seemed to pour out of nowhere from among all the others. The only thing I could focus on was the line that said, "Emergency Contact Information."

Don't get me wrong. What I was doing was important and necessary. But I thought it trumped the moment of celebrating the importance of this kid.

When I read the Gospels again, I see how Jesus got in trouble (with the Pharisees and Martha and the disciples and others) because he was ready and able to celebrate the goodness he found, even with those pesky tax collectors.

And if I were that kid, I would have seen both a group of people who were ready to drop everything to celebrate me and a person who only seemed interested in information about me. With whom would I have aligned my allegiance?

So it's not surprising, really, that 12 years later he's taken over for the men who once sat on his front steps. Oh, we still visit and he has good memories of activities at church and his week at camp. They are simply distant memories that he was able to share with the ones who he felt loved him the most.

Lord, let love be my only debt.

Chirp

12 inches. That's how far we live from our neighbors. The common walls that separate our houses are 12 inches thick in our 'hood.

Most of the time it's not so bad. 12 inches of brick muffles a decent percent of the noise and I only know what the neighbors are having for dinner if it's especially spicy.

Of course, things are different in the summertime. Many of us don't have air conditioning so our windows are wide open all the time. The noise of the streets and nearby houses echo through each others homes.

So it was a pleasant surprise when everything was quiet as I got in bed that night. The fresh air of the open windows brought delight to my soul. The thought of a few moments of peace and calm before drifting off to sleep was quite a treat.

Just as I got comfortable in bed I heard it. You know the sound. It's that little electronic chirp that smoke detectors put out when they're low on battery power.

chirp.

40 seconds of silence.

chirp.

Trying to wish it away.

chirp.

Get up and check all the smoke alarms in the house.

silence.

Go back to bed.

chirp.

Yes, one of my neighbors' smoke detectors needed a new battery. I don't know if they weren't home or if they were really sound sleepers or if they just didn't care. But the one night that the street wasn't filled with noise from cars and radios and people . . .

chirp.

Jesus didn't answer my prayers the way I had hoped that night. By 3:00 a.m. I was requesting the hammer of God to come smash that thing and send it to its glory.

chirp.

Yes, sometimes 12 inches is a little too close, especially when the windows are open. In the darkness with both my and my neighbors' windows open it was clear that something needed to be done.

Sometimes there are annoying little chirps in my soul at night, too. Maybe I'm not paying attention or am sound asleep or am so disconnected with my own inner self that I don't notice or don't care about the chirping. Maybe I do notice but feel helpless in trying to make it stop.

Thankfully, God calls us to both times of gathering in close proximity and times of rest. When I get together with people of faith for a time of rest from regular responsibilities, like at a retreat or camp, I have the chance to be physically closer than normal. If things go well, I'm likely to open up the windows of my soul to let a fresh Wind in.

And it's then that I find it easier to hear the low battery chirp in me. It's in the quiet time together that I can most know where I need to let go of old problems and let new Power come in. But if I'm still unable to hear it, hopefully a nearby friend with his soul's window open will hear the chirp from my low batteries and will administer a recharge.

Of course, sometimes in those settings I learn that my batteries are holding sufficient voltage. That's when I can sometimes hear the low-battery chirp in a neighbor's inner life. Then it's time for me to help them to gain a new charge.

For as we care for ourselves and for one another this way, we quiet the chirps and let a Peace that passes understanding come in. Then we can truly rest in Him and disperse to our daily lives renewed.

Revive me, O Lord, and use me to bring restoration to others.

Generations

After being cussed out by a dad who didn't appreciate the fact that his daughter had been in a church, much less that she participated often enough to earn a trip to the church's summer camp, I headed to the next house to try to get permission for another kid to spend a week at camp. On the short walk from one house to the next, I stopped on the corner to visit with some kids who had been to camp in the past. They were all dealing drugs and my visit slowed their commerce for a few minutes.

The futility of the situation didn't improve when the mom answered the door at the next kid's house. She was clearly strung out on heroin and nodded off as I talked with her.

Until she heard the word "camp," that is. Once that little word came out of my mouth she connected. Not with me, but I could see she was off in a different space than where heroin usually takes someone.

She turned to me and said, "When I was a kid I went to a camp with a church one summer. I want my kid to do that, too." She signed the forms.

It's so easy for me to get caught up in today. So much of life seems to be an exercise in banging my head against a wall followed by people complaining that I didn't bang it hard enough to do any good. And when I look only at today (and maybe the last couple of years) then I can only agree.

But that mom's lucid moment forced me to refocus through the eternal lens that disciples of Jesus are privileged to have. The woman's life was clearly a mess, but the faithfulness of the church of her childhood was opening doors for her son's future that might not have been otherwise open to him.

And when I can look through that lens I have just a bit of hope. That hope is not for today but for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I think of what could happen if Jesus' disciples will continue to surround and bless this family for generations to come. Is it possible that each generation could grow just a bit closer to Christ than the last? Could a family's testimony of growing in Christ from generation to generation empower disciples for generations to come?

When I look through that eternal lens, I can have some hope that the former campers who were dealing drugs that afternoon will not only let their kids come to church and go to camp but will encourage them to do so.

And I can hope that the girl whose dad cussed me out because she was in church got enough good seed planted in her so that she won't cuss out the pastor who comes by ten summers from now inviting her yet-to-be-born kids to a week of Vacation Bible School.

Because my God has plans for this world that are bigger than the span of my life. I get the privilege and responsibility of remaining faithful and being a blessing in this generation, trusting that other people of faith will build on those blessings in the generations to come.

Lord, let me see with Your eyes that I may see the worth You've put in each person and the hope You have for them and their descendants.

Invisible

The principal of the neighborhood elementary school and I were visiting in her office. We were chatting about plans for the upcoming semester, coordinating schedules, and broader neighborhood issues.

While we were talking I mentioned that several students from the school had spent a week in the woods at the church's camp the previous summer.

She asked who had gone and I casually rattled off a list of a half-dozen boys. She stopped, gave me an odd look, stood up, walked over to her desk, picked up a file, and opened it.

She said, "Tell me again who went to the camp?"

She seemed to be checking off the names of the kids in her file as I said them.

She closed the file, looked at me, and said, "I knew something had happened to those boys this summer. There's been something different about them this year. I didn't know what and I've been trying to put my finger on it. Now I know."

I had been at camp that summer. In fact, I had been a cabin counselor to those boys. By the end of the week, the collective prayer of the entire staff was, "Thank God it's over!" It had not gone well.

Or so we thought.

Because sometimes fruit is invisible. Yes, we knew we were trying to plant seeds in the kids lives. But those boys were moving targets the entire week and we were pretty certain they had dodged all the seeds we tried to scatter.

But something took root in them. It might have been something we had sewn or it might have been a seed or two that were drifting on the Wind that we knew nothing about. Or most likely it was some combination thereof.

And the seeds took root. And they bore fruit.

Invisible fruit.

Fruit that none of us at church could see. Fruit that we didn't see out on the streets. Fruit they couldn't really see at the school, but they knew something was there; they just couldn't put a finger on it.

It's in these moments that I get a little hint about the depth of faith and trust we need if we're trying to be about the work of the Kingdom. We need to trust that when we try to sew seeds that once in a while some will take root. We need faith to know that sometimes the fruit is invisible. We need to live in the peace that can come from faith and trust, especially when the fruit is invisible.

And in the midst of the moments when someone notices something different that they just can't put their finger on, we can experience a glimpse and echo of what Isaiah was trying to say when he wrote, "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped." (Isaiah 35:5)

Lord, forgive me my desire to always see the fruit of the seeds I've tried to plant on Your behalf. Let me sew seeds in faith and trust today.