In Matthew 17:1-9 it says this:

Six days later Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and brought them to the top of a very high mountain. He was transformed in front of them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light. Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Jesus. Peter reacted to all of this by saying to Jesus, “Lord, it’s good that we’re here. If you want, I’ll make three shrines: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, look, a bright cloud overshadowed them. A voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son whom I dearly love. I am very pleased with him. Listen to him!” Hearing this, the disciples fell on their faces, filled with awe. But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Don’t tell anybody about the vision until the Human One[a] is raised from the dead.”

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about changes; the big ones and the small ones. The ones we are ready for and the ones we seem to be pushed into. I am not generally a big fan of change. I have my favorite places to eat, my favorite places to shop. I don’t rearrange my furniture very often. It’s not that I’m unwilling to change, but I like the stability. But for me personally this has been a year of some large changes and it has me reflecting on what we can learn from times of change.

Several years ago now, I was laid off from a job I’d been in for six years. It was a rough time. I was angry and hurt. I was scared for the future. I felt unmoored. I hated that I wasn’t leaving on my own terms. But getting laid off turned out to be the push that I needed. It served to catapult me into a new future; a future that turned out even better than I could have imagined it.

But when it happened I didn’t feel ready. At the time it didn’t feel like a good thing. In the midst of the fear and the hurt, I didn’t want to hear that “it was for the best”.

Have you ever had an experience like that? An experience where things changed even when you didn’t want them to? Or where you knew things had to change but you didn’t feel ready? What did you feel like? What did you do?

In this story from the Gospel of Matthew we find the disciples in a similar position and it lets us know that we are not alone in our fear and our desire for things to stay the same.

In this passage Jesus takes his closest friends to the top of a mountain and they have this amazing encounter together. They see the prophets and they hear the voice of God. They discover something new about their friend and their leader; he is revealed to them in all of his glory. And I think their response is telling. Instead of wanting to run back down the mountain and tell everyone, their first response; their immediate reaction, is to want to build shelters and stay put.

They want to stay in the space where they had this amazing experience. They wanted to hold on to that feeling for as long as they could. They wanted to make it permanent.

There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting things to stay the same. There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to stay in a job that you enjoy and that feels safe, or to stay in the home that you’ve built, or to go to your favorite places over and over again. Sometimes we long for comfort. In a world that is full of uncertainty and complexity, it can be nice to have something we can count on.

But what if what is comfortable and safe is holding us back from what God is trying to do in and through us?

Jesus told his friends while they were on that mountain that they couldn’t stay there. Jesus told them to get up. To not be afraid. And then he walked with them down the mountain and they continued on their journey. It was a journey that would take them to Jerusalem where Jesus was killed.

I wonder if, in those three days when Jesus was dead and the disciples didn’t know what was coming next, if they thought back to this moment on the mountain. I wonder if they thought that they should have tried harder to keep Jesus there. If they all should have stayed safe. In the midst of their pain and grief they probably thought of a million ways they could have done things differently.

Sometimes the closing of a chapter brings pain and grief. We wanted things to turn out differently. We wanted to keep going. We wanted to stay together. Sometimes we have situations where we can’t see what the future is bringing us: We are in the valley of unknowing. We don’t know what our work here means yet (we don’t have enough distance to see). We don’t know what God will continue to do in and through us. We don’t know what’s next.

But Jesus’ message still rings in our ears: Get up. Do not be afraid.

Without Jesus leaving the mountain, without his journey to Jerusalem, without his death and then his resurrection, we wouldn’t be sitting here in this room. Had Jesus stayed safe on that mountain there is a good chance his message wouldn’t have spread very far. Because it was the events of his death and resurrection that gave his followers the courage and the inspiration to spread the message that God was doing a new thing and that anyone who wanted to could be a part of it.

And that’s the good news for us, too. We are a people who (at least on our good days) believe in resurrection. We believe that even when it seems that all hope is lost, even when it seems that we are at the very end of something, even when it seems that there is nothing left, that God is still working and God will do miraculous things. God will bring new life out of dead places.

But it often doesn’t look like we expect it to. We don’t always know what God is going to do next. But I know that God is doing something. God is preparing all of us to continue to do ministry in new ways. Something is happening that is making space for something new to be born. In us. In the world. It might not look like what we’ve tried to build over the last several years; but I believe that God is doing something here. God is going to continue to work in and through us. Our mission doesn’t change; to be transformed people, transforming the places around us.

We continue to spread the message of a God of love and compassion who welcomes all people and invites all of us to be a part of the work of bringing about the Kingdom of God.

Jesus says to us get up, don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to walk into the unknown places. Don’t be afraid of the future. Don’t be afraid of the discomfort that comes in the midst of change. Don’t be afraid.

We belong to God. We are a people of the resurrection. We believe that new things can come from even the saddest of endings. So today we get up. We walk down the mountain, knowing we are beloved children of God and that we can have courage to face whatever is next.

I was first introduced to the concept of “thin places” by reading the fiction of Madeleine L’Engle and Stephen R. Lawhead. It’s a concept drawn from Celtic spirituality that says there are particular physical places in the world where the veil between worlds is thin. It’s also a place where the normal rules of chronos time cease to apply and instead we get kairos time; God’s time. It’s a place where time and space seem to collapse into themselves and where, if you’re paying attention, you might be able to feel it and see it.

L’Engle and Lawhead both create fiction where people slip between time periods and into alternate dimensions. From the get-go I was fascinated by this idea. It’s the same fascination that draws me to reading about the work of exorcists. Both of these ideas say that there is more to the world than can be seen with the human eye; that the life we live is bigger than just us.

I grew up in a tradition that saw demons around every corner. Everywhere you looked Satan (or one of his minions) was waiting to trip you up. Danger was lurking and you needed to be always on your guard lest you stumble and fall into sin. Or, more dramatically, we were constantly waging a spiritual war. Going up against the forces of darkness with just our prayer lives to protect us. This thinking makes for interesting and exciting fiction but can scare the crap out of a little kid who is told that it’s all real.

It seems that belief in the demonic world and belief in thin places are two sides of the same coin. In each, there is another reality just out of sight. In the view of the demonic world, the space out of sight is controlled by Satan. The idea of thin places is much less frightening because that world out of sight is controlled by God. It’s kairos time. It’s a place where we get a sense of God’s reality. But for those of us who’s faith and spirituality are gritty and place-bound, both of these concepts can seem far-fetched or like wishful thinking.

As I left behind my fundamentalist evangelical roots, I mostly left behind ideas of the “spiritual world” as this other, concrete realm that we simply couldn’t see but that still existed and had a pull on us. My faith became concentrated in the here and now. My spirituality was about the concrete working out of justice. What mattered was what we did here, now, in this place.

And yet, I still prayed. And yet, I still felt drawn to contemplative practices, to the monastics, even to the idea of being a hermit attached to a community.

I recently read N.T. Wright’s Surprised By Hope. It’s the first book I’ve read of his. I know that some of his views (particularly on women and sexuality) are harmful and wrong, but this book was brilliant. He makes the case for the physical resurrection, not with proof texts or Lee Stroebel-Esque bombastic rhetoric, but by examining the tradition and Scripture.

One of his main arguments is that if we understand the resurrection of Jesus as a physical resurrection, and we understand, too, that our resurrection will also be physical, then we are left with an understanding that Heaven isn’t someplace “out there” somewhere, but it is the place where Jesus physically resides now. It exists alongside our own world, out of sight but very real. The role of followers of Jesus is to work to collapse this veil between heaven and earth.

Which brings us back to thin places. Wright talks about places where it is easier to worship, where prayer seems natural. In some instances he points to places where there has been continual worship for centuries and thereby that place has been made into a thin place.

His understandings fired me up. It made me think back to those L’Engle and Lawhead books that I loved so much and helped me to understand why I was so captivated by those concepts. What if prayer really does matter? What if it does bring about change? Not in the sense of a Santa Claus God who delivers ponies and parking spaces, but in the sense of bring the Kingdom of God ever close to this world we live in. What if we can pray and worship and contemplate thin places into being?

Suddenly the work of cloistered nuns, monastics, and hermits makes sense again. Suddenly the altar in my bedroom where I occasionally manage morning prayers becomes more important. Suddenly prayer takes on new meaning. And not just prayer, but my awareness and sensitivity to the work of Jesus in the world, to the Kingdom of God around me, to places in nature that seem to inspire a religious response; all of these things make sense and have meaning.

This work isn’t an escape. Our spirituality doesn’t become another way to flee from the world around us. It’s not a way to ignore the suffering and desperation that is everywhere. It’s not about securing our spot on the heaven-bound bus (and leaving the world to burn). In fact, as Wright says so eloquently in his book, the resurrection is about the world as well. God’s not going to whisk us all to Heaven; instead, God is going to resurrect this world. God is going to bring heaven and earth together, into one unified space. All of the work we do here and now, all of our struggle for justice, will be a part of the resurrected world. We are co-workers with God.

But it’s not just work with our hands; it’s also work with our hearts and minds. The mystic in me is thankful for a way to claim the reality of thin places. To believe that the hard work I do in my own heart, mind, and soul could make a real difference in the world around me.

It also gives meaning not just to my personal prayer life, but to the idea that all of our prayers joined together make a difference. It increases my awareness that praying and working thin places into being is a holy endeavor and that no action is wasted. It also forces me to pay attention to the places that are already thin and honor them.

I’ve been thinking a lot about wanting to be, in my very person, a thin place. That my presence in the world gives people a sense of the Kingdom of God. I want to live in such a way that when people encounter me they have a sense of kairos time and feeling. I want to live in such a way that I am already experiencing and living out the resurrection and that those around me will feel that and be inspired to live that way as well.

May we create thin places. May we be thin places.

Photo Credit: sunrisesoup via Compfight cc

I don’t know when, exactly, I started keeping a journal. The first one I have still in my possession is from when I was 12. It starts with these words, “Today I am at my cousin’s house. It is very enjoyable.” In these early journals I still write with the cursive of childhood, large and looping. I talk about my obsessions of the moment (it was horses for a while).

But even in these early journals there are hints of recurring themes; loneliness, feeling out of place with my family, feeling like I should be writing more often.

I’ve kept a journal more or less regularly since that journal at age 12. I haven’t always been consistent; there are times when months will go by without a single entry, and there is one chunk of time that is lost because I switched to a digital journal and the disk it was on got corrupted. But for the most part the record of my thoughts is tucked into journals and sitting on my shelf.

The early journals are pink. Some have cartoon characters on the front. There are journals with decoupaged covers. As of the last five years or so the journals are black moleskines, both pocket and full size, my favorite brand to write in.

This practice of journaling has been one of the most vital in my life. In my journals I don’t worry about using the best words or expressing grand thoughts. These pages are simply for me. I use them to complain, to obsess, to be sad and angry. I use them to work out my thoughts and feelings. I use them to worry about money and about people. I use them to ramble. In my journals anything goes. I don’t have to hold back. I don’t have to be nice. I don’t have to worry about anyone else’s feelings. For someone who is a bit of a people pleaser, having this kind of outlet is huge. To be able to have one space where I can say and feel anything I want has been healing for me.

But it’s not all complaining and venting. I write about what I’ve been doing, what my plans are, what I would like my plans to be. I write about what I hope for. I write about who I want to become. In these pages I can start to envision the life I want to work toward and because I have a vision of what I want I know better how to work on it. If you can’t even imagine what you want you will keep doing the same things you’ve been doing.

These journals become a record of theology shifts and life shifts, of dreams born and dreams dead, of friends loved and friends lost.

My journals help me to remember. They help me to make sense of who I was and who I am. They help me to chart the changes. They help me to fill in the blanks on those years that are becoming hazy from distance. Looking back I can see themes and warning signs and hopefulness. Looking back I can see wishes that have since been fulfilled. Looking back I can see the arc of the life that has brought me to know.

These days I try to write three pages a day (ala Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way). Ideally I’ll do them in the morning while I have my coffee, but as long as I get them done in the day I consider it a success. Writing more often helps me to get to the good stuff faster. Instead of the entire entry being a recap of what I’ve done that week it becomes a quick recap of the various day and then a catalog of what’s on my mind. Sometimes I have a problem that I am trying to work out, sometimes I have something that I keep turning over and over and over in my mind and writing it out helps me to make space to think about and do other things.

Sometimes the pages pour out and other times it’s like pulling teeth. The point is it’s a ritual. A safe place.

And it makes a difference.

I can tell if I haven’t written in a couple of days. I feel more on edge. My emotions are all over the place. I’m unsure of what I want or need or how to make myself feel better. If I feel myself edgy and can quiet myself for a moment I usually find that I haven’t journaled. So I sit down. I open the book. I uncap my pen. And I write. And at the end, even if I don’t know the way forward, I at least feel a little better. Cleansed somehow.

Journaling is probably one of the most essential habits I have in my day to day life. It’s the thing that makes the most amount of difference.

Do you journal? What has been your experience with it? If you haven’t, is it something you could try?

It’s one of my favorite times of the summer; I’m packing to head to our national youth conference. A whole slew of evangelical teenagers coming together for a week of worship, sermons, service projects, and more. My favorite parts are the worship (I love to sing), participating at the national level for drama and music, and seeing all of the friends that I only get to see once (or maybe twice) a year. As I get ready to go, the all important packing happens. I approach this with the utmost care. I want to show off all of my favorite t-shirts throughout the week. Most of them are Christian bands or artists, but others are emblazoned with slogans. A t-shirt with a giant cross on it that has a post it note nailed to the beam that says “I’ll see you soon. Jesus”. Or the shirt that says “I am NOT ASHAMED of the Gospel”. Or “Only a fool says in his heart there is no God.” I liked my Christian t-shirts. I had a ton of them. I wore them all the time. I thought they were conversation starters; that people would see them and ask about them and I would have the opportunity to tell them about my faith. I thought they were bold, declaring exactly who I was and what I believed to the entire world. I thought they were proof of my devotion. Proof of my seriousness. Proof of how unashamed I really was.

And I genuinely did think that wearing shirts like this would do something in the world. The same way that I thought pithy bumper stickers or a fish on my car would. Or the billboards on the highways that said “It’s a child, not a choice.” Because I believed in those slogans, I thought that declaring my belief would shift the balance of the world.

I was reminded of this the other night as we were driving home from a weekend away and I saw one of those billboards on the side of the road. I was immediately angry and frustrated. I thought to myself, “God, there is just no nuance there. There is no room for grace. There is no room for anything, really.” And yet, I am sure the people who shelled out the money to buy that billboard thought they were doing something amazing. They thought they were making some kind of a difference.

I am now more convinced than ever that the world will not be saved by bumper sticker slogans (from either side). Because the solutions to the problems of our world are more complex than what can fit on a bumper sticker or a t-shirt. And as much as I’d like to say that, for instance, a sticker declaring “no more war” will make a difference in the world, the fact is that it won’t. That ending war is not simply a matter of us being more peaceful but that it involves lots and lots of other things like food distribution, power, wealth distribution, access to resources, and much much more.

Now, mind you, bumper stickers and lawn signs and t-shirts can make a difference. Because symbols do matter. They can let people in your neighborhood know whether you are safe or not. When I see someone with a “Black Lives Matter” lawn sign or flying a rainbow flag those symbols let me know something about their politics. Likewise, when I see someone with a “Blue Lives Matter” sign or a bumper sticker that says something about what marriage equals, I also know something: These are not safe people for me to be around and I need to keep my distance. These are the type of people that will vote to take away my rights and that, frankly, could get violent if provoked and do me physical harm.

Marginalized folks have learned to look out for symbols that tell us whether we are safe or not. It’s how we survive in the world. It’s how we know the places where we can let our guard down, even if it’s only for five minutes, and find some respite. These symbols let us know which towns we need to be hyper-aware in or which ones we need to avoid entirely (if possible). So keep putting up your signs and flags and wearing your shirts because it takes some of the guesswork out of the equation for us.

But know that those signs or shirts aren’t going to convince anyone of anything. I have never seen a lawn sign and been like, “You know what, I had never considered that before. I’m going to change my mind.” But I have seen signs and been like, “Oh, the person who lives there is someone who it might be safe for me to get to know.”

Those t-shirts that I used to wear (and it is not lost on me all of these years later that, here I was, packing to go to a Christian conference, and I planned on wearing all of these shirts.) weren’t really about convincing anyone of anything. They were more about identifying me as belonging to a certain group and connecting with other people who were also from that group. When I was out and about and saw someone else with one of those Christian shirts, I thought, “Yes! There is someone like me.”

What I didn’t realize is that all of my bumper slogans probably kept me from having the actual conversations I wanted to be having with people. Conversations about the depth of the spiritual life, conversations about what Jesus meant to me. I’m sure what I was signaling with those shirts is that I was someone to avoid. Someone who couldn’t handle nuance. Someone who might throw out a judgment before the conversation even got started.

Those shirts also (and probably rightly at the time) identified me as someone who wasn’t a safe person to be around for a lot of people. They told the people I was connecting with that they probably shouldn’t come out to me, or tell me about areas in their life where they were struggling. Those shirts told people that I was likely to judge. Or to respond with a cliche that lacked real depth.

But that’s the thing: back then I thought with the depth of a bumper sticker. I believed that praying a prayer to Jesus would make everything better. That if we just got enough people to get saved then the world would change for the better. But if my shift away from evangelicalism has taught me anything it’s that we are not saved through prayer. We are saved through actual, real, deep down, life change. And that life change means orienting our lives around those who are most marginalized. That’s where salvation is. And it’s complicated and complex and messy. And the more privilege you have the more it will cost you. And none of this can fit into a compelling slogan that you can slap on a t-shirt or a sticker for your car. What we need is deeper conversations about how things are interconnected. What we need are conversations with room for nuance. With room for complexity. We need to have hard conversations about real solutions that aren’t just putting a bandaid on things but that will change the world and move us toward a future that is filled with justice.

I’m still a fan of t-shirts. These days I wear mostly Uprising shirts. Our slogans, I hope, really are conversation starters. I hope they aren’t just about connecting with an already “in” group, but are about expanding conversations. Slogans like “Everybody has a story” and “Your story is safe with me” are about starting conversations, not shutting them down.

The world won’t be saved by a bumper sticker. But it will be saved by stories. And conversations. And real work done with empathy and with hope.

Photo Credit: Todd F Niemand Flickr via Compfight cc

Every year all the of the churches in the fellowship I grew up in would send their youth groups to a large youth conference. Each day included several sessions with speakers, youth group time, free time, off campus activities (seeing local sites, etc), and the national rounds of Bible quizzing, music, and drama. There were also concerts by big name Christian bands; Third Day, Jars of Clay, and Audio Adrenaline to name a few. (And one year I even got to get up on stage and dance with Rebecca St. James.) It was one of my favorite events of the year.

This event functioned as part youth rally and part revival. The speakers were asking us to get serious about our faith and to live it out well in our homes, churches, and schools. We were encouraged to be committed and faithful. And because you were there with your youth group there was a built in accountability system to keep you on track when you got back home. There was usually some speaker that got my attention during the week and I would feel convicted of something. Sometimes it was the silly stuff like the year a ton of people got rid of “secular” cds (probably to go home and buy them again. I got rid of a Celine Dion cd that year. Because I am edgy like that.)

The speaker about midway through one week was a guy named Bill Wilson. He is said to have started the largest Sunday School in the world. He lives and works in Brooklyn and has drawn thousands and thousands of kids into his children’s ministry by creating entertaining and high energy programming. He trained workers to follow up with kids, giving them attention and care. As he shared his stories of being in an incredibly poor area of the city, about the violence the children faced, about the violence he had faced by being present in the city (he had actually gotten shot several times), I couldn’t help but be moved. I was this kid from the sticks with a safe and secure home. My family wasn’t rich but we were okay and here was this guy who was doing ministry that really mattered.

Wilson is a no bullshit kind of preacher. He didn’t rely on humor to get people on his side. He simply told his stories. If anything he was kind of brash and harsh, occasionally shouting a bit at the crowd of youth. But everyone was hanging on his every word. I was definitely hooked.

At the end he said he was going to do an altar call. We were no stranger to altar calls; often emotional music would play and people would be encouraged to come forward, but Wilson didn’t want to do that. I still remember this clearly even though it was over a decade ago; He said, “I’m going to count to three. If you want to come forward, do it.” No sappy music, no drawn out speech, just a blunt you’re in or you’re out. He began to count: “One. Two” and when he said “Three” it sounded like a gunshot had gone off. It was the sound of stadium folding seats snapping up. The room surged forward; it felt like almost everyone was in motion. Within seconds there was no more room in the front of the auditorium because of all of the people on their knees. Youth were in the aisles and wherever else there was room.

When he said Three, I moved, too. I don’t remember knowing if I had planned on moving. But I was overcome. I found myself on my knees at the front of this stadium, weeping. Now, back then I was not someone who cried. Ever. In fact people were often concerned because of the way I held back my tears. But that night I was simply overcome. There is no other word for it.

There was something electric in the room that night. Something that compelled a massive group of people to be moved into motion. Now I know that some people will say it was the power of a manipulative speaker, but there had been lots of speakers who had used all sorts of rhetorical devices and in all of my years at this conference I had never seen a reaction like that one. And he didn’t use a lot of the hallmarks of other speakers who were trying to elicit an emotional reaction (descriptions of the crucifixion, sentimental music, etc.). And the feeling lasted for the next several days as people felt like they needed to change something in their lives; like they needed to root out something that was wrong.

Looking back on that event I still can’t really explain it. I don’t know what kind of lasting impact it had. But I do know that I am still thinking about it all these years later. There is still something about that night that bounces around in my soul. There’s something powerful about being in a room when something like that happens. I’m inclined to think that it’s not something that can be manufactured; not on that scale, not with that kind of response. Maybe it was the Spirit moving. Maybe it was a group response because of the pressure of the counting, I don’t really know. But it was a powerful experience and one I am not likely to forget even if I can’t explain it.

For years I tried to get that feeling back.

My churches growing up were big on praying for “revival”. They wanted the Spirit to sweep in and change people’s hearts and lives. Revival, in their minds, was a lot of individuals changing their hearts and lives and therefore changing society. It was about “holiness” which usually meant sexual “purity”, getting serious about reading Scripture, being active in your church, and witnessing to your neighbors.

The other day I was listening to an album by Johnnyswim and a line in one of the songs just about knocked me over: “While you’re praying for revival, I’m already living in one.”

There were so many years where I was begging God to change me, to make me “pure”, to help me take my faith seriously. There were so many years when I was praying for revival in my own life. I wanted more experiences where I felt moved like I did when Bill Wilson spoke. I wanted some dramatic life change that would make me feel like I was good enough.

But in that moment, when I heard that line of the song, I realized that it was talking about me. Revival happened in my life. It wasn’t about “getting right with God”, it was about realizing that God loved me just as I am. I didn’t need to get more involved in toxic churches, I needed to embrace a faith that was life-giving. Revival looks like health. It looks like wholeness. It looks like relaxing into the knowledge that I am a beloved child of God. It looks like embracing who I am (which includes being transgender and queer). It looks like taking Scripture seriously and understanding its context and also understanding it as a life-giving story that gives me meaning and hope.

Revival is here. It’s not something outside of us that we pray for to change us; it’s inside. It’s the fresh breeze of the Spirit blowing the dust off of our hearts. It’s being awakened to the work of God in the world. It’s opening our eyes to the needs of our neighbors and doing something about those needs. Revival is here. It’s the work of our hands. It’s praying with our feet. It’s ours to bring about.

Photo Credit: .FuturePresent. via Compfight cc