Dreams, Risk, and the Movement of God.

I have long been amazed and inspired by people who were seized by a dream or by a hope bigger than them, driving them to take unimaginable risks.

My latest inspiration has been that of my friends' dream. It started with one friend seeing the needs of his community and being moved by a dream to do something. It led him to take a rough, difficult journey. Another friend of mine was also moved by this dream, by this hope, by this need to [re]create. She has joined in and become an intricate part of this dream. Many others have been essential to what they are doing, but these are the two that I have known most closely.

What blows me away is the amount of risk they have each taken. They have both been willing to lose it all to continue to carry this dream to fulfillment.

Isn't that the story of God? The parable of the Treasure in a Field has typically been used to describe the calling for those who follow Jesus. It's sometimes been used to try to make people give up their all to follow Jesus. I don't think this is the appropriate interpretation.

First, it was the beauty and the recognition of the value of this treasure that compelled this man to sell all he had (probably sacrificing his source of livelihood), risking his all, to gain something greater. It seems like foolishness. Or the Pearl of Great Price. The merchant knew what he was looking for. He sold everything to gain a pearl with great value. It doesn't seem to make sense. Wouldn't someone rather sell the pearl to gain the profits? But no, this merchant bought this pearl.

It's like how Jesus says that we must lose our lives to find them. To gain such treasure, we must risk it all. The treasure is not so much our reward for doing so, but our reason for doing so. Likewise, the parables describe God's actions towards us. He gave his all, risking everything in order to gain His treasure - the Kingdom come - among us.

What makes the dream so compelling is that once you know the risks another takes to bring dreams to fulfillment, the more you want to be a part of it, because you recognize that it is quite simply worth giving everything for. It is worth the risk, worth the loss, and upon its fulfillment is an indescribable gain.

I recognize that my friends have risked everything they have for this dream. I am compelled by it, and I feel moved by recognizing the worth that drives them to take such risks. As a result, I am compelled to take risks and to join in this dream. I invite you all to join me in this dream and to be so moved by its beauty and worth that some would risk everything in hopes of its fulfillment.

Please consider helping fund this dream. Go to Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/978638463/re-create-englewood) and watch the video. If you are so moved by this blog and by the dream that God has imparted to people willing to listen and make such leaps, make a contribution.

In everything, may we be encouraged by our God who gave his all to gain us. Would we join with him, recognizing the worth and beauty of our Lord, his reign, and his ultimate dream. Would we reflect his love and take risks, losing everything to gain something even greater.

*For more info on the dream of my friends, go to Kickstarter and search "[re]create"

The Capacity to Hate.

I have been working at a non-profit with teens and kids for the past couple months. I was glad to once again be a part of something that was bigger than me, but did not anticipate to feel swallowed completely by it. There's a lot going on there, and due to confidentiality, I will refrain from giving identifying details, but lately my work has been exhausting and confusing and incredibly painful (both literally and figuratively).

To date, I have been hit on the cheek with a highlighter (hard enough to make me cry out in pain), in the forehead with a large Lego block, and in the back of the head with a book. Only one of those was unintentional.

A young child I have worked with confuses the mess out of me. He is horrible to work with. I have never felt so degraded and belittled in all my life (at least not in my immediate memory). He's discovered that we can't actually physically force him to behave and he uses that to his advantage. I doubt if he knows the meaning and implications of the things he says and does to me, but the words he uses and the physical nature of his disdain hurts me deeply.

This kid has discovered that the best way to show contempt and an utter rebellion to what we say is to spit on people. I have been spit on by him more times than I can count. I have been given the middle finger, been told to "shut the fuck up", been told to shut my "bitch ass" up, been called a "bitch" and a "fucker", been hit, been spit on, been hit by objects thrown (quite intentionally) at my face. And all of it actually hurts me. If you are offended by the language (and by the lack of warning in my using such language), good. You come moderately close to experiencing the offense I have felt. Except none of it was used against you. By a child. By the one you are trying to protect, that ends up assaulting and diminishing you in almost every way a child possibly could.

There are moments, fleeting moments, when I am reminded he is a child. He tells me his favorite colors are pink and purple, and he doesn't understand why the other boys laugh at him. He's told me "I love you" (which confused the crap out of me). He's given me a big hug and kissed me on the cheek. He's burst into song, singing the Barney theme song. He's a child. A young child at that.

An older child recently told me to "die and go to ____" (and yes, he left it blank too, for fear of getting in trouble). He said it while smiling, but he wasn't really joking either. It confuses me.

I know that some kids echo what they have experienced in their own lives. In fact, all do that, to some degree or another. What they mean by what they do and what I take from what they do are different. But I started thinking today... At what age does a person develop the capacity to hate?

I don't believe a baby has the capacity to love or hate. At the risk of sounding callous, I think babies are primarily biological beings. They cry for what they need. They smile and calm down at their mother's voice, not because of some emotional connection, but because of the biological environment that led them to become most accustomed to their mother's voice during pregnancy, thus making them feel more at ease. Pure biology. No more could they hate than they could possibly love.

I started wondering which develops first: love or hate. I started wondering whether this had been studied. I'm sure it's been attempted, but what could possibly be the operational definition of hatred? What quantifiable measure could encapsulate and reflect the internal hatred? What even is hatred? Is it wishing ill upon another? Is it treating them with cruelty? Is it acting upon an impulse to cause them pain? Is it wishing them dead? Could it be one of those things without being all of them or is it something less than hate if not all of those things are present? Is hatred possible without putting oneself in another's shoes to consider how they will experience the words/actions?

What about how it develops? Does love or hate develop first? Does it depend on environment? Most children raised by abusive parents still love their parents. What does that mean? Does it mean love is more natural than hate? Is there any evolutionary benefit to the emotion of hatred? Is hatred an emotion or an action?

I am deeply confused and troubled by the capacity to hate. I think all people eventually develop the capacity to hate. What causes some to develop a greater degree of hatred than another?

If you could choose for your child NEVER to be ABLE to develop the capacity for hatred, would you choose that? Or would you think it would make them less than human? Or more than human? Which would it be and would it be worth it to you?

Anyway, the stuff with my job was a springboard to these questions. I have no resolution, but I wanted to invite you into my life and into my mind today because it was weighing on me heavily. What's scary to me is how much this job reminds me of my own capacity to hate or at the very least to be filled with anger, to be so wrought with an onset of anger that my blood runs cold. To drive home so worked up that I have to turn on the heat so that I don't feel cold inside even though my body is physically sweating.

These questions are relevant. With the recent shootings and with the recollection of past shootings, this is relevant. With our ability to argue about gun control laws when children have been killed, this is relevant. With my ability to literally forget that a child is just a child, this is relevant. With children who are taught to act hatefully, this is relevant.

I'm inviting others with me to choose to act against cynicism in this. I'm inviting others to encourage me not to grow bitter and not to be filled with despair.

There is a Kingdom that stands as a light shining in the darkness. There is a Lord who stands as light in our darkness. There is a Jesus who, though at once he looked like an extinguished candle, rose again, proving that light rises again. There is a Church that is called to bear witness to that light and to be light in darkness, knowing that we too may face extinguishment, but to live in the faith that light prevails.

Recontextualizing Gleaning.

I have been fascinated for the past few years by the idea of "gleaning" in the Old Testament. Basically the idea is that those who grew crops were to leave the edges of the field unharvested so that the poor and the foreigners could harvest the food and take it for themselves. The reference I find for it is Leviticus 23:22 - “‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God.’”. 

First, what is the reason that God gives for doing this. Because he is God, right? When I read that verse as a kid, I accepted that as justification for why. Sure. God is God, I am not. Do what he says. It's not much different than "because I said so", and kids are expected to go along with that (even if it's ridiculous to expect them to). I think it's more than that. 

By identifying himself and by implying that it is because he is God that they should follow this law, it seems that identity is a major part of this law. Israelites were chosen to represent God to the world. They were to be a blessing. By declaring who he was (and remember, LORD in all caps is actually The Name of God, not just a generic title), God was identifying himself, his nature, his character, and his mission to the world. As his people, who were told over and over again to do things that would bear his image in the Old Testament, "so that the world would know that he is God", they were to do the same. 

Okay, so it's in God's character to care for the poor. Jesus made this clear when he declared (or re-contextualized) his purposed by quoting from the prophet Isaiah, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."

People of God, this is our identity too. I am so enamored by the idea of gleaning. It's interesting because if we were to witness this today, we would hear a lot about it. We would hear about how the poor are leeching off of the wealthy (or the middle-class, or whoever). We would hear it as though they pilfered the goods. We might be shocked that someone would give over some of their abundance. In fact, maybe not abundance, since for the landowners, the crops were their very livelihood. This action, this participation in God's mission, pushed for more than just following a rule, but for a change of mindset.

In psychology, one of the topics I found fascinating was the idea that behaviors could change the mindset. I know mindsets change and cause behaviors. But behaviors have a significant effect of mindset. This is even highlighted by the gospel of John, wherein the author proclaims that those who do good love the light. His logic makes sense, but it's the reverse of what we would expect, so that it somehow condemns the Pharisees and uplifts those who are looked down upon.
  
How could we participate in God's mission in a similar way? I was blown away recently when I considered that tithing is not much different than leaving a portion of your fields open. It's a refusal of profit. It's accepting a sort of loss along with your gains. It's recognizing that your gains are somehow linked to the loss of others. It's recognizing that your gains may even be at the expense of others (in the U.S., we either know this is true or choose to be ignorant of that fact). 

I have always been resistant to the idea of tithing. And I'm not known for being a scrooge. Tithing bothered me because there was no reason given. It bothered me because in my church background, you never knew where the money was going. Early church writers talked about distribution practices. They knew where their money/belongings were going. They were going to the poor, the widowed (who in those days had no protection), and the orphaned. They went to the world's most vulnerable. Tithing today shouldn't be much different. And in fact, if you are distributing your means to the most vulnerable, I would say that is a form of tithing. 

Can we do this in a way that is directly linked to our spending practices, to our gains? The main difference I see between gleaning and tithing, in our modern context especially, is that the practice of gleaning was directly linked to gains made. It caused cognitive dissonance. It brought to the forefront the question of identity, as I believe God does of himself and of his people when giving this command. Perhaps tithing did the same, but it's more removed (I contend) in that way in our modern lives. 

I once heard about this bank with a program that, any time you made a purchase, rounded up the total to the nearest dollar and donated the change from each purchase to the cause of your choice. This, to me, is a good start. This seems undeniably linked to the idea of gleaning and to the question of identity.

At some point these things become automatic. "Okay boys, only harvest till the line with the big rock." That can pose the danger of no longer requiring the landowner (or resource-holder) to be mindful and to be at a greater risk of divorcing one's gains from the recognition of another's need. But at the same time, its becoming automatic may have positive meaning as well. At some point, what you had once regarded as yours, which you did work for, and which in all rights is yours, is no longer considered yours in your mind. 

This is a question of identity and mission. This is a recognition of who is our God, a recognition of our identities as those who bear God's image and do his work in the world, and of how we view the identity of others. 

I am forming ideas of how to do this in my own life more intentionally. I think there is beauty to generosity being unplanned. In fact, I think most of it is. But I think intentionality plays a role in forming us so that we become the kind of people who do what we do because we are compelled by compassion.