Is It All Coming Together?

This is just a quick post, because tonight at church I felt like something was slipping through me, and I want to remember it. I've had a couple of moments in the past few days that have centered around kids, and that pulled something inside me that I can't ignore.

• Last night I had a very vivid dream about a boy who looked about 8 years old. He was standing on train tracks, facing me, and singing a song about a goat that he'd owned, that was his favorite, that he knew would feed his family when it grew, but the goat was killed by a group of angry men, and now he didn't know what would happen. He was scared, and sad, and was trying to tell me why.
• I remembered a story in the book on compassion that I read over Lent, about a woman named Christina Noble who grew up on the streets in Northern Ireland, and who had a dream about helping children in Vietnam after the war. Her story has been sticking in my mind lately.
• Tonight, Pastor Mary at Bethlehem Lutheran read a couple of children's quotes from "The All Better Book," by Suzy Becker. One came from a boy named Brian, who, when asked "with billions of people in the world, someone should be able to figure out a system where no one is lonely. What do you suggest?" answered, "sing a song. Stomp your feet. Read a book. Sometimes when I think no one loves me, I do one of those." I almost started crying, partly because I felt what Brian felt, and partly because I don't want any kid to ever feel like they're not loved. It's so basic, and so necessary.
• I've been thinking a lot about my theory that the best way to overcome fear and/or anxiety (at least for me) is to find something I want more than I'm afraid of it. Does that make sense? For example, I may be afraid to fly or to travel to someplace new, but my desire to see the mountains and rivers of New Zealand was stronger than my fear. Keeping this in mind, I've recently discovered that when I'm around people who need help, I am more courageous than I would be if it was only ME needing help. My desire to protect others is stronger than my fear for my own well-being in almost every situation where other people are directly involved. For instance, when I'm traveling and I get panicky, I try to find someone who looks more scared and lost than I am, and I think about protecting them, and that somehow makes me less anxious. What I'm saying here is that not only am I beginning to think that there's a reason my brain works this way, but that there's good sense in my using this unusual spark of courage in the service of protecting and helping kids who can't help themselves. Maybe I should be concentrating less on what my anxiety keeps me from doing, and instead see what it makes me good at.

While I'm full of a very clear certainty that I'm supposed to go to Luther, up until now I haven't had much of an end-game in mind in terms of what I'll do when I graduate. I signed up for the Youth and Family Ministry masters program because I knew I like working with kids, but the whole blurry idea is just now starting to crystallize in my head into a more complete picture. I can still only see outlines, but I feel like I keep getting these hints, and to be honest, I'm kind of enjoying the scavenger hunt.

Doing Church in the Post-Easter Season

Yes, yes, I know, "post-Easter season" isn't actually a thing. Technically, in the Lutheran church at least, we're still IN the Easter season, but I tend to have a hard time remembering it.

It's a little bit like Christmas, in that within a week afterwards New Year's has come and gone, and people are putting their trees out by the side of the road, stores are starting to prepare for Valentines Day already, and there's this sense of let-down that "the most wonderful time of the year" is now over. The same thing happens, for me, with Easter. After the 40 days of waiting and watching that we have in Lent, it's easy to see Easter Sunday as the culmination, and then for goodnessake chuck all that fake plastic grass, visit the bargain candy isle, and then get on with it! We've got more important things to do than spend seven more weeks talking about an empty tomb!

Right?

I hope not. I hope that there's a way to make this joyful spirit and focus on love and gratitude last for more than just the springtime. I feel keenly the first part of the reading from 1st John chapter 1, today:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.

It's as if the writer and the other apostles weren't capable of feeling the joy of Easter fully without sharing it. I hold tightly to that idea, the same way Chris McCandless, the ill-fated explorer, did when he finally realized at the end of his life that "happiness is only real when shared." It seems to me that the way to extend the Easter season, not just through the proscribed dates in the lectionary, but throughout the whole year, is to share this joy with others. We give when we have it in abundance, and others give it back when we run short. That's the kind of world I want to live in.

And so I'm writing this to make our joy complete, and I'm giving the money I saved during lent to charity to make our joy complete, and I'm asking questions and soaking in all the knowledge I can to make our joy complete, and the more I do and see and ask and give, the happier I am, and the happier the people around me seem to be.

Easter Sunday is over, but I refuse to let go of the feeling I had when I sang the hymns that morning. God exists, and exists not only as a power beyond comprehension by the human mind, but as a courageous man who loved people who he knew would hurt him; who taught us how to take care of one another, how to open our eyes to the way that fear divides and love unifies, who offers us an unending love that will never be scarce, and who answers death with life.

I can't stop being joyful about that.