pruning trees and building bridges

The door slides open, and hot air sweeps into the cafe.

It's early summer in San Antonio, TX, and God forbid it cool down below 90 this afternoon.

The last time I posted, it was only halfway through a stubbornly long, frigid winter in Chicago. A lot has changed beyond just the season and setting. I'll spare you five months of details, decisions, curveballs, and day-to-day living, instead relying on an illustration to sum up the time since then:

Imagine my life's journey represented by a tree that's ever-reaching, stretching, sweeping toward the sky. Though it looks healthy and strong as it is, every once in a while, it's necessary for the branches that are dying or crowding out the others to be pruned away. The tree will always resist its limbs being cut away at first, but in the end, it can only thrive after it lets go of those parts.

In theory, that illustration is quickly understood. In practice, there's a bit more to it.

Ultimately, this tree stands taller and stronger (and perhaps wiser?), and for that, I'm grateful.

{Enough of me as a tree; I'll resume my human form for the rest of the post.}

I've mentioned I traded in Chicago for San Antonio - only for the first half of the summer - but I need to mention a little side trip I've taken since heading down South. I spent last week at Duke's Center for Reconciliation's Summer Institute in Durham, NC, learning from some incredible people about the Church's call to be an agent for reconciliation in the world. My seminar focused on reconciliation within institutions, since I'm presently enrolled in one (at North Park Theo. Seminary) and will likely be involved in various institutions for the rest of my life. We talked of the potential divides that form in institutions (racial, ethnic, ideological, generational, to name a few) and how to theologically, strategically, and institutionally address them.

I can sense your excitement from here, so PLEASE, try and keep calm. Now, I know institutional reconciliation may not sound super sexy or exciting, but I can promise you that it should matter to all of us. Particularly those of us in the Church.

As Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove point out in the introduction to Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, the Christian Church is foremost among those who desperately need unity and reconciliation. There are over 38,000 denominations worldwide(!!!), yet Jesus prayed his disciples would be "one as God is one". Ouch.

It's funny how easy and quick it is to separate once differences seem overwhelming, yet how heart-wrenchingly difficult it is to truly reconcile those who've fallen apart. It would be simpler and infinitely more convenient to just ignore the breach and move in two different directions.

But unfortunately, reconciliation isn't optional when it comes to the Lord. His vision and plan for us includes the courage, endurance, truth-telling, grace, and above all, love, required to become right with all of creation - even with the ones who've hated us in word or deed.

Last week's conference reminded me of all this, and brought me one step further toward the role of reconciler in whatever community I'm in. Being one who builds bridges in a world that tries to isolate and individualize everything is daunting and intimidating, but I happen to serve a God with reckless courage and a vision far broader than my own.

Oh, and there happens to be many other people out there who've been struck by the beauty and power of reconciliation, and I was gifted with meeting over a hundred more of them last week.

Hope continues springing forth, despite it all. When it starts to fade and disunity or despair seems to have the last word, I'll remember Ellen Davis' blunt reminder - "Hope is a job" - and I'll get on my feet again, grateful I'll never be alone in this work.