 -Rev Melissa Fain- 23 The Lord proclaims: the learned should not boast of their knowledge, nor warriors boast of their might, nor the rich boast of their wealth. 24 No, those who boast should boast in this: that they understand and know me. I am the Lord who acts with kindness, justice, and righteousness in the world, and I delight in these things, declares the Lord. Jeremiah 9:23-24 CEB If any of you were following my personal drama yesterday, you might already have an idea of where this is going. Yesterday, at 5:30am, I wrote, what I believed, to be this amazing devotion. I was Ralphie from A Christmas Story, re-reading his work with awe. The words were just spilling from my fingertips, as I typed out what I also knew in my heart. I liked it so much, I read it an extra time before I hit the "Save" button. I had stepped away from my computer, pleased my Saturday morning was not going to be me getting up at 5am to write out a Lenten devotional. Then the truth hit. As I had been writing, Weebly had logged me off. Not only had all those words not been saved, they had been lost forever.  Of course I lamented my loss on social media. It was one of my better written posts. Not only had I used the word "gobsmacked" appropriately, but it was really for the sake of others. Even sadder, as I began to recreate the post, I realized it was not going to happen the same way twice. Sure, on Monday I'll post something similar, it just won't be that post. I lamented further how I had lost something special. That's when a group joke surfaced. I'm part of various private groups, all part of a larger group of online friends. We talk religion and joke way more than we talk religion. This was about Tenacious D. They are a band that has been around for a while. I wouldn't post any of there music here, as the content can be questionable (while hilarous.) It is Jack Black (think Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) and Kyle Gass's band. Somehow, one of the lesser used group jokes circled around this song called "Tribute." I am going to share it below, because it has been edited for television. When talking about a copy or something that no longer has an original version, the tribute joke is dropped. As I was lamenting my loss, one of my friends joked, "Maybe you could write a tribute... Since you couldn't remember the greatest piece in the world." I chuckled, and joked back, but I realized there was something truthful in what she was saying. Our personal experience with Spirituality and God will never be understood once we try to explain it to others. Something will always be lost. Anytime we try we are simply giving a tribute to the experience. That's just life. We are called to find God in those tributes, as mundane and normal as the tribute looks. So this is my tribute to the greatest devotion ever written. Why the greatest? You've never read it, so I'll remain the only judge to it's greatness. I say it was amazing. It could have ended world hunger. But in all seriousness, God has found a way into my explanation, and I think God for that. God is a tribute. Let us pray:
Holy God, Unseen, I find a way to see you. Unfelt, your presence is touchable. Unspoken, you speak to my heart. Thank you. Amen.  -Rev Melissa Fain- I'm standing in the ruins of a compound. The jungle vines are twisting around the remains of dorms, and there are trees growing up in areas that used to be kept clean for walking. The air is stifling. The sounds of birds sing out, hiding the hideous truth hidden in the remnants. I push through the calm before me. Question it. Want it to call out as I stare into it's silence. Then it does. Voices rise from the ground. "Help me!" "Save us!" Faces materialize into the voices. Bloated and aching. They are fighting against the very ground to free themselves from their prison. They cling to me; desperately clawing at me. I cry back, "You can leave! Don't stay in this hell!" This seems to be the permission they need, and I feel them departing, but a red hot face pushes forward, pulling the others down with his sheer force. "You can't have them! They belong to me! And, I'll have you too." This demon terrifies me. I want to save those who are too afraid. Only, they are now gone, and it has eyes on me... That's when I wake up. It is officially the only real nightmare I've had over the past decade. I had just finished reading Raven: The Untold Story of Rev Jim Jones and His People. The book shook me to my core. God was used for personal gain. The Divine was warped, and recast in the vision of Jim Jones. Using the poor as leverage, he was after power. The only outcome was death. In the jungles of Guyana he took a large part of his People's Temple in a trial to attempt communism. When it was clear the attempt was going to fail, he convinced everyone to drink cyanide laced Flavor-Aid. Using the name of God for this end is simply wrong. So many looked away because it fit their agenda. There was sexual assault, falsifying miracles, adultery, inappropriate conduct as a church leader. He was a bully. He made sure no one crossed him, or they would be punished. That's before the mass murder at the end of the story. Just because someone says they are called by God doesn't make them a prophet or even called. Here's the thing. God's call is there, and remains there, even when the call has been hijacked by evil. God is still there, was there, and will always be there. We must condemn the warping and twisting of the call, while trying to salvage God from within it. It's sometimes a life or death task. Standing up to corrupted power is dangerous. It must be done for the sake of God's children. God is warped beyond recognition. Pray with me:
Holy God, All I need is a sacred remnant, a reminder of what you need. I will plant that remnant in the good soil, and grow your Kingdom. Amen.  -Rev Melissa Fain- 2 Six days later Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and brought them to the top of a very high mountain where they were alone. He was transformed in front of them, 3 and his clothes were amazingly bright, brighter than if they had been bleached white. 4 Elijah and Moses appeared and were talking with Jesus. 5 Peter reacted to all of this by saying to Jesus, “Rabbi, it’s good that we’re here. Let’s make three shrines—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 6 He said this because he didn’t know how to respond, for the three of them were terrified. 7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice spoke from the cloud, “This is my Son, whom I dearly love. Listen to him!” 8 Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. Mark 9:2-8 CEB My son was impossible. We were in Cade's Cove, in the Smokey Mountain National Park, hiking Abram's Falls. He was officially a Webelos scout. It wasn't something new for him. Yet every 100 or so feet he was too tired to move. He just had to sit... again! It was four of us: my five year old daughter, my nine year old son, and sister, and myself. Almost half way there, just a quarter mile from the falls, my son fell to the ground. "I quit!" My sister, as frustrated as me, but not showing it like me, sat down beside him. "I'll tell you what," she said. "We can quit right now." "Really!" My son was no longer tired. He was excited. "Yeah, but then this hike will be for nothing." Dejected, he slumped again. "Just a little further that way is this beautiful falls. There's water you can splash and play in. Then, we would be half way done! The hardest part is getting there." "I don't wanna hike anymore!" My sister and I looked at one another with that look. It was the look of a thousand frustrations. I recalled all my childhood hikes, and how many of them went just like this. I was tired. I couldn't go any further. How my dad just made us power through. I could be pushed in that way, but not him. "I promise you," she said. "It's worth it. Plus, if we go back now we go back right now. We would need to get out to eat our lunch. If we go to the falls, we stop and eat lunch there. We hang around for a bit." "Promise we'll sit." My sister had successfully changed the focus. Before, my son was counting steps. Each single step was really two: the step to the falls and the step back to the car. She changed the focus to rest. He would get more rest by just just adding a few more steps. It was worth it for the rest in the middle. We all need these focus changes every now and then. Getting to the middle of a project is hard work, and almost always harder than the second half of the same project. The first half is an uphill journey with no momentum, little to no help, and no perspective. We can get stuck in the grunt work and forget the purpose. As my colleague and friend, Rev. James Brewer-Calvert, pointed out to me a few weeks back, the above scripture (the Transfiguration) happens exactly in the middle of Mark. A moment of clarity and purpose happens smack dab in the middle. The grunt work was done by this point. Jesus had grown in wisdom and matured. The Disciples were chosen and part of the team. The masses still didn't know who this Jesus guy was, but he was starting to gain a following. The middle of this journey was worth the hike. While it is true we may not understand when these middle moments happen, God is all over them. Maybe they're not as beautiful as Abram's Falls, or as glorious as the transfiguration, but they are eye opening. They are meant to be moments of clarity. It's getting to them that's the problem. So many of us give up quickly. So many stop because it hurts too much, or we get too tired. If we just go a little further we will see the purpose behind the work. Other wise, the work was for nothing. A nice waste of time is all. Don't stop. Don't give up. God's in the middle. Pray with me:
Dear God, I'm coming. Be patient with me. Amen.  -Rev Melissa Fain- 1When Pentecost Day arrived, they were all together in one place.2 Suddenly a sound from heaven like the howling of a fierce wind filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be individual flames of fire alighting on each one of them. 4 They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak. 5 There were pious Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd gathered. They were mystified because everyone heard them speaking in their native languages. 7 They were surprised and amazed, saying, “Look, aren’t all the people who are speaking Galileans, every one of them? Acts 2:1-8 CEB It was the 1996 Olympics, and I was excited. I was going to be able to watch an Olympic event live, and I wasn't going to have to pay to see it! Well, I would have to work. As a high schooler I worked concessions to earn money for band events. Plus, I was excited about the possibility to use some of my German. I had brushed up on the German for certain lunch options. I was ready to go. Only I discovered I would not be working the lunch shift. I was working the breakfast shift. I didn't consider what this truly meant, until I was standing in front of two German men wanting to order something I couldn't understand. They were frustrated. I was frustrated. I was the only one there who even understood how to say hello in German. Now, the only thing they wanted was to order something, and I had no way to know what it was. Unhelpfully, I kept holding up a bagel like eventually they would just order it out of frustration. It was a mess. God is in that mess. I wanted them to understand me. They wanted me to understand them. The answer would have been a third way. Perhaps it could have been drawing pictures. Finding some common method we both understood for the sake of communication. It wasn't until a band mom began holding up various items that they finally sighed a sigh of relief. They wanted a doughnut. Church is not the me, myself, and I show. We are not called to create an atmosphere filled with a bunch of people just like us. The Spirit calls us out to speak beyond ourselves. Part of the church's failure is the misunderstanding of "going out." Our atrophied Spiritual legs think sending out a pretty picture on Twitter will bring those outside in. In truth, we need to start working those muscles and spend most of our time outside the building, learning the languages. Hint: People cannot learn our language until we learn their language first. (Language here should be translated to mean culture. Even the people right outside your church doors have a culture.) If you can't find God in your church, perhaps it's time you leave. God is a foreigner. Pray with me:
Lieber Gott, hoerst du mich? Amen.  -Rev Melissa Fain- God created humanity in God’s own image, in the divine image God created them, male and female God created them. Genesis 1:27 CEB Can someone explain to me why this statement is somehow more scandalous than "God is Black"? It's okay. I already know. It's our implicit understanding of femininity. Implicit, meaning not clearly expressed, in this case also means it plays out because of old understandings in our social system. Also known as: systemic. On one hand, God isn't male. God is beyond gender. On the other hand, we'll just keep calling God by masculine qualifiers, while loudly saying God is also not female. On one hand, we understand God does not have a gender. On the other hand, we'll voice God in this booming male voice. On one hand, we understand God does not have a gender. On the other hand, we'll gladly speak up God on Father's day, while safely avoiding it on Mother's day. We may know these things, but our collective understanding of God can firmly place the Divine in the masculine, without fear or guilt. Our high horse is hobbled, or perhaps, it has just been a hobby horse this whole time. We're simply playing with the idea of God. "God is female" is scary in the same way "God is... [insert anything negative here]" is scary. Deep down, our collective understanding of femininity believes this is something less than. It's this mindset that God is good, but women are not good enough. Don't believe me? Then look at our media. When we get a movie where the female pretends to be male to get something, it's a learning experience. She becomes a better person for having stepped in the male role. Meanwhile, if a male does the same thing if often used as a joke. The male leaves the gender, learning it's better to be a man. The exception being motherhood. In movies, males becoming moms make men better men. But, women are more than mothers, and you don't see movies where women gender swap to gaze into fatherhood. You do get movies where femininity is a tool to the goal of the masculine character. I know, big words. Let me take a step back and simplify it for you: "God created humanity in God’s own image in the divine image God created them, male and female God created them." Females are not the Zerox copy of males. Females are images of the Divine, just as much as males are. More than that, there are female images of the Divine placed throughout the bible. God's wisdom is personified as female. Let's start there. God is female. Let us pray:
Holy Mother, who birthed Creation, protect us like a mother bear, while bringing us in as a hen bring in her chicks. Amen.  -Rev Melissa Fain- 37 The Israelites traveled from Rameses to Succoth. They numbered about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children. 38 A diverse crowd also went up with them along with a huge number of livestock, both flocks and herds. 39 They baked unleavened cakes from the dough they had brought out of Egypt. The dough didn’t rise because they were driven out of Egypt and they couldn’t wait. In fact, they didn’t have time to prepare any food for themselves. Exodus 12:37-39 CEB I used to excitedly scribble in my journals. It's true. I'd frantically read my bible, see something amazing, and get it down on paper as soon as it would come to me. When Fig Tree first became a platform I wanted to joyfully share those insights. As I had not read them anywhere else, I wanted the world to know what I saw. But then I saw counter arguments to my points, without any citation to my original work. The Tower of Babel was the worst offender. I wrote about Pentecost being an anti-Babel. It was a bringing back of the people once they were ready to be a people again. Then, multiple writers started counter arguments, but as I read each one, they each refused to cite me as the reason they were making the counter-argument. "Some say," they wrote. I became I stepping stone for their own platform, without pulling me up in the process. I was plagiarized in a way where I couldn't fight the plagiarism. It hurt the most when someone made money off their counter argument by publishing a book. Here I was, struggling to have enough money to buy groceries, and he had published a book. It broke me. I guarded my thoughts. I didn't want to be used. I wanted to be a partner. Rising waters raise all ships, unless your ship has been bolted in place. Then you sink as everyone else rises. Soon, new ideas didn't come to me anymore. God was calling me to share, even if what I shared was misused. If I wasn't sharing, I wasn't going to be given the knowledge. So, that being said, I'm pulling out my journal and sharing something from that time of excited scribblings. I understand it can lead to my work being misused and abused again. It's not fine, but it's better to get it out there. It's meant to be out there. If this gets too heady, I'm going to put a divider below. You might want to skip to the actual point. We are called to the "other." For Cone, the other will, and always will be, the oppressed. That's why he says Jesus is Black. In American and global history it's the Black person that has been continually oppressed. The oppressor can only seek God through contrition. There is a counter argument to this theory. Counter arguments are good on two levels. First, it means the first statement is valid enough to deserve a counter argument. Part of the reason process theology hasn't been sufficiently reworked is because theologians either think it's junk theology or they fully believe it. Until someone takes it as a serious theology, we won't be able to rework it into something stronger, or dismantle it for what it might be. Secondly, it strengthens the initial theology. We are partners in this journey towards Divine understanding. Each of us are capable of drawing us closer to understanding God, and push us away. In counter, only saying the oppressed has a voice means oppression becomes something special. It becomes bad to overcome oppression because then one is no longer special in the eyes of God. It keeps a people down. Worse still, this is a unwritten counter argument. Voiced and told countless times, but never written. At least as far as I'm aware. There has to be a third way. The oppressed, the oppressor, and the redeemed. A third group that has triumphed over oppression by either no longer being oppressed, or accepting their role as oppressor and moving beyond. As Rev. Jamie Brame once told me, "You have to give them a way out, or you will completely lose them." (He was talking about scary stories, but it works here too.) God is for the "other." This is not an easy statement, and if you see it easily, brace yourself, it's about to get uncomfortable. We choose who the other is. During the Civil Rights movement, the other was the African American, and those who stood with them. During the Holocaust the other was the Jewish people, and everyone else sent to the gas chamber to die. Those are easy "other's" to throw our weight behind. I can stand behind those who are disenfranchised with ease. The other is anyone a group of people knowingly choose to exclude from the greater whole. The French did it to the elite, and rich. They started a revolution that led to death and destruction. Yes, the ones in power can be "othered." Doesn't feel so comfortable anymore, does it? Jesus never excluded anyone. The door was always open in some way for anyone who wanted to enter. Any time someone elite came to him asking about the Kingdom, he was always careful to let them exclude themselves. You are not "othered" if you willingly choose to leave the group. This isn't some trick to keep a group of people outside of God. Jesus wanted them included too! God's story is continually about giving second and third chances at redemption. Abraham wants to go back into Sodom and try again, and God lets him. Jonah is called to tell the oppressor, the Ninivites, that they could be saved too. When the Israelites leave Egypt, there are Egyptians that come with them. As the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have made their statement, "All means all," we can't help but feel the tension there. When we get down to brass tacks, if you can't see how uncomfortable that statement truly is, you're doing it wrong. There will always be a group or a person or a people that makes God's universal inclusion (even if they ultimately choose to exclude themselves) uncomfortable. Where the other is, no matter who we have made the other, there God is. God is with the other. Let us pray:
Dear Lord, Keep me from exclusion, and draw me to healing. Amen.  -Rev Melissa Fain- 38 “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. 39 But I say to you that you must not oppose those who want to hurt you. If people slap you on your right cheek, you must turn the left cheek to them as well. 40 When they wish to haul you to court and take your shirt, let them have your coat too. 41 When they force you to go one mile, go with them two. 42 Give to those who ask, and don’t refuse those who wish to borrow from you. Matthew 5:38-42 CEB Let's just take a moment and remind everyone again what this Lenten Journey is. It is in our nature to find ourselves in the text. There's devotion after devotion that are helpful on a personal level. That's not the point here. If anything you should read most of these and be uncomfortable. Forcing yourself see God beyond your personal context. It's not easy. It hasn't been for me. There have been devotions I've written that I wrote kicking and screaming. This is not easy, and if it were, I'd be doing it wrong. White, college, South Africans in the 90's saw beyond themselves. Back in the late 1800's the Dutch and British had colonized South Africa. This wasn't for the native South Africans, but the natural resources the land had. It led to a terrible racial divide. The white South Africans held the power, and the black South Africans remained oppressed. This came to a head during Apartheid, a terrible time of racism and segregation. Beginning in the late 40's, and going until the 90's, the tide would turn with these white college South Africans. There was nothing to be gained. These college students, standing up for the oppressed South Africans, were giving up an easy future for the sake of the other. See? If they had been excluded from the discussion because they were the oppressor, the tide would have been monumentally more difficult for the oppressed. Let's change the point of view. Being a female minister is not a cakewalk. I'm an oddity, a monster, a destroyer of scripture... a bunch of stuff that are silly and difficult. I've watched several women, smart women, who are ordained get pushed out for their gender. These are churches that supposedly raise female leaders in the church, and they are still unfairly pushed aside. What good will it do me to cut out anyone who has made my journey harder? Yeah, it sucks. Yeah, they knowingly and unknowingly hurt me on some level. I'd be very lonely if I didn't figure out how to be inclusive again. Sad as this sounds, I'm not looking for the American male equivalent of White South African college students. Deep down, in the core of my being, I believe God is in the moment where something is no longer broken. This requires me to seek out those who make me uncomfortable. Not for me. It's never for me. It's for my kids. It's for the potential world they will live in some day. I've already accepted I'm going to amount to nothing, and I've found peace in that. Now I have to make the world better for everyone else. God is oppressing. Pray with me:
Dear Lord... Amen.  -Rev Melissa Fain- 38 “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. 39 But I say to you that you must not oppose those who want to hurt you. If people slap you on your right cheek, you must turn the left cheek to them as well. 40 When they wish to haul you to court and take your shirt, let them have your coat too. 41 When they force you to go one mile, go with them two. 42 Give to those who ask, and don’t refuse those who wish to borrow from you. Matthew 5:38-42 CEB In 2011 the General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) had an important discussion point. Not the question itself, which was do we minister to the victims of sexual abuse. That was overwhelmingly approved. The question was about a little piece of language tied to the resolution. Do we say victims or survivors. So many came forward and talked about being a survivor, that they were no longer a victim. So many others expressed the importance of the word victim, and how everyone wounded by sexual assault was a victim at some point, but not everyone became a survivor. There was a counter point, that support should not magically go away when someone moved from victim to survivor. Ultimately, the resolution was amended to say we will minister to the victims and survivors of sexual abuse. Now, eight years later, why am I returning to it in a discussion about enemies? Mostly, abusers of all types are the result of a cyclical problem. Abusers don't appear out of nowhere. Almost all abusers arrive at their abusive behavior because something happened. They too were victims at one point. When we move from victim-hood to being a survivor we are doing more than healing. We are ending a cycle that perhaps goes back generations. This is because a victim eventually only has two directions in which to go. They can either heal or continue the cycle. What's worse, once they make the wrong decision, and continue the cycle of brokenness, the sympathy towards them becomes almost nil. Churches get in trouble here. We need to help the abuser move towards becoming a survivor, but not at the cost of the new victims created in the wake of their brokenness. Churches tend to focus on the abuser over the new victims. Then the issue isn't fixing the broken abuser, it's hiding their brokenness. The above scripture is not used like a healing balm, but a weaponized bomb. New victims are told to shut up, while nothing real happens. Meanwhile, the scripture is much more about restorative justice. It's about changing lives for the Body of Christ, not hacking limbs off, or leaving problems that will destroy limbs anyway. It's our job to move victims to survivors, and abusive victims to survivors. It's our job to end those cycles for Kingdom's sake. The absolute worst thing to do is hide or push away. God is your own worst enemy. Let us pray:
Dear God, Make me ready for this kind of restoration. Prepare me. Amen.  -Rev Melissa Fain- 41 Each year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Passover Festival.42 When he was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to their custom. 43 After the festival was over, they were returning home, but the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents didn’t know it.44 Supposing that he was among their band of travelers, they journeyed on for a full day while looking for him among their family and friends.45 When they didn’t find Jesus, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple. He was sitting among the teachers, listening to them and putting questions to them. 47 Everyone who heard him was amazed by his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him, they were shocked. His mother said, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Listen! Your father and I have been worried. We’ve been looking for you!” 49 Jesus replied, “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that it was necessary for me to be in my Father’s house?” 50 But they didn’t understand what he said to them. 51 Jesus went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. His mother cherished every word in her heart. 52 Jesus matured in wisdom and years, and in favor with God and with people. Luke 2:41-52 CEB Let's just focus on verse 52 for a second: "Jesus matured in wisdom and years, and in favor with God and with the people." The word I want us to highlight and underline is mature. Here, let me do it for you. Jesus matured in wisdom and years, and in favor with God and with the people.To say Jesus matured is to say immaturity was in there somewhere. Words have meaning and implications. You can't have both a matured Jesus, without an immature Jesus being somewhere in the story. Immature, especially that hectic transition between immature and mature, is about potential. We cannot judge a rose by it's newly formed bud. We cannot judge a tween on their questionable actions. We can be frustrated. Oh, we can be frustrated! Also, before you get on your high horse and call me out on Jesus' action being somehow wrong... He didn't tell his parents where he was going. He was caught doing something he wasn't supposed to do. Adult Jesus wouldn't have found himself in that situation. He would eventually go mano-a-mano with the well versed Jewish lawyers. You can't convince me he was completely in the right here. An adult Jesus would convince his parents they should be in the temple with him! Forget just letting him go! Second statement you are making: He could have asked and then went. If that were the case, those parents would be casing that temple. I'm a parent. Children are fairly transparent. They would be checking out the temple, going to the aunt's house, back to the temple, what about the food vendors, and back to the temple. Taking two days to finally get to the temple doesn't speak to the idea that Jesus ever communicated anything about wanted to be in the temple. Adult Jesus communicated! God lives in these immature, potential messes! They are not perfect. Mistakes are made. Lessons are learned, and everyone moves on. God is a child. Wait! Yeah, I'm not ending on the title today. Today is a mess, an un-mature mess! Do you think when Jesus called the children to him he knew the importance of being present with the immature child. (The future mature?) Yeah, God was there. Let us pray:
Dear Father, take my immaturity and help me grow up! Amen.  -Rev Melissa Fain- 8 “Or what woman, if she owns ten silver coins and loses one of them, won’t light a lamp and sweep the house, searching her home carefully until she finds it? 9 When she finds it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Celebrate with me because I’ve found my lost coin.’10 In the same way, I tell you, joy breaks out in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who changes both heart and life.” Luke 15:8-10 CEB I saw that look and it arrested me. Two girls, staring up at me from a gas station. What appeared to be their father was ordering them into a vehicle. I knew that look because I had given it before when I was about their age. I also know what looked back at them because I had seen it before. Complete and total helplessness. I had my baby son in the car. I didn't know them. I had no agency to step in and help, but I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, they needed help. Their desperate gazes have haunted me now for a decade. I had mentally condemned those adults from my past. I condemned the ones who just stared helplessly back, and I condemned the ones who openly expressed they wanted to help but couldn't. All I needed was one of them to step up. But step up and do what exactly? We are a sea of people, surrounded by others, lost.Truth is, God is too; by us. How much does the story of the lost coin change when it's not God searching for us, but us searching for the last part of God? The story is no longer passive, but active. In an active story, we are given the agency to create the positive change in the world. That's what haunts me about those girls. Try as I might, I can't shake the feeling there was a moment of action, and I turned the situation into a passive experience. It's a moment I will never be able to relive. I let the coin remain lost, and lost a piece of God in the process. God is calling us to action because God is lost. Let us pray:
Oh Motherly God, who gathers us like a hen gathers her chicks. Guide us to gather your children in the same way, and bring wholeness to your kingdom. Amen. |
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