everyday earth-shakers

Last week, my nine-year old cousin convinced me to start reading the first Percy Jackson book series. She said the books were great and impossible to put down (which I took with a grain of salt, as she is only nine, after all). 

Considering I read them at the pace of a book per day over the first four days, I'd say her assessment was spot-on.

For those of you who are woefully unfamiliar with the series, it centers around Percy, a teenage boy who discovers he's a demigod (half human, half god). Life had always been hard for him - he was raised by a single mother, since Poseidon doesn't stick around with his baby mommas, apparently - and Percy struggled with ADHD, dyslexia, and being a general misfit in every school he attended (and was inevitably expelled from). Learning of his identity as Poseidon's son only makes life harder, as he is compelled to become a hero and take on quests to save both the mortal world and Mt. Olympus.

Cue the remarkable feats and unbelievable exploits Percy and his friends must perform to survive and succeed. The story line around our hero really does draw you in, as its plot is patterned on the same (yet perennially compelling) structure nearly every other adventure story you've read follows.

After reading an excessive amount of Percy Jackson one evening, I forced myself to drop the book and get outside for a walk before the sun sank below the horizon. It's not the dark I fear in San Antonio, as I'm living smack dab in suburbia, but the bugs here in Texas are quite fierce. (My unofficial job, outside of nannying, has been to provide nourishment for all the mosquitoes within a 2-mile radius of my aunt and uncle's ranch. Consider this accomplished.)

Anyways, on this lovely evening's walk, I was musing to myself about how much our culture loves the hero, the celebrity, the exceptional one who rises to the top. As much as we in the US trumpet our allegiance to democracy and equality, we think the person who is the most successful, most powerful, or most influential is inherently better than the rest of us mere mortals. This especially resounds when they overcome challenges and adversity. 

In the heroes we love from books and stories, they are often forced to step up on doomsday and rescue everyone from the brink of disaster, from an evil tide that is perilously close to taking down everything good, noble, and just.

As these thoughts tumble through my brain, I see a small visual aid confirming my train of thought: A tiny boy of no more than four years old, with jet black hair and a disarmingly sweet, shy smile, waves at me from his driveway wearing...a Batman t-shirt.

We love heroes. We don't require their character to be flawless or their conduct perfect - in fact, perhaps we prefer when they have weaknesses akin to ours - but we love them for their courage and abilities. Among the sharp contrasts in the comic-book world of good vs. evil, light vs. dark, just vs. unjust, we revel in their daring exploits that save the day.

Our world's a bit muddled in comparison, isn't it? Sharp contrasts between "good" and "evil" are not so simple, even to the discerning eye. With such polarized politics, a media that can spin a story multiple ways, a constant stream of leaders - political, entrepreneurial, and faith leaders, to mention a few - who let us down with their soft spines, opportunistic posturing, and pointed, exaggerated rhetoric that demonizes their opponents, it's not easy to sift through the muck to determine who is on the side of good, truth, or justice.

Our systems of government, economy, and society are so complex that it's incredibly difficult to sort out just policies from the unjust, right from wrong, truth from lies. Consider this moment in time: 
   -Our "open and democratic" government is aggressively attempting to hunt down a man for revealing a national security program whose monitoring of U.S. citizens appears to be highly unconstitutional. 
   -One of the core elements of our economy - the military-industrial complex - ensures that the U.S. rakes in huge profits from the sale of weapons and military technology to other nations (including some rather sketchy regimes), yet we claim to be a nation that values peace and abhors violence. 
   -Our country's prison-industrial complex is becoming increasingly privatized, meaning that corporations and individuals directly profit from the incarceration of an ever-growing percentage of the U.S. population (which is already vastly higher than any other first world country, and this includes a disproportionately high percentage of minorities in our prisons).

And this is only a few of the twisted realities that exist in our nation today. Pardon my cynicism. The more I learn about how the world operates, the more possibility I find for frustration and cynicism. 

Yet.

Cynicism solves nothing. It's a bitter, pessimistic reaction to a heavy flood of bad news that batters us down daily. If this reaction becomes permanent instead of merely temporary, it poisons and immobilizes us.

There must be something better I can do with my time. If I'm tired of the influx of bad news, injustice, and the apathy that chokes most people from acting to change things, then I need a different remedy.

Starting this fall, I'm going to make an effort to interview people in my life who are doing small but faithful, disciplined acts to make the world a more loving, hopeful, just, and compassionate place. I'm not talking about the generic and overused "make the world a better place" kind of act - "better" is too relative, isn't it? - but those who make it their life's practice and purpose to follow God's vision for the world he had, and has, in mind.

From these interviews, I will write a post that shares what they're doing in their communities, just to remind us all that there's still a reason to hope, to act, and to reject the apathy that's more contagious than we care to admit.

These people won't be much like the superheroes our culture adores. They'll be so much more than that. They are the everyday earth-shakers, the ones who see the world for what it is, yet work to shape a world they know is better, higher, and far greater than what we can imagine.

I'm sure I'll still post on other topics and things that come up in the fall, but every few weeks, you can come here to be introduced to another everyday earth-shaker who's refused to give up on God and the world he created to be good.

Take that, cynicism. Try not to let the door hit you on your way out.

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.