Dear Friends,
What was the last thing that confused you?
Maybe you encountered some perplexing directions. Or maybe a child said one of those incomprehensible things that they say (because aren’t children always doing that?), and then couldn’t or wouldn’t elaborate. I know that I, for one, was a particularly confusing child, the sort with odd-seeming interests and an obsession with mostly useless facts. And, I think that for many people, I remain a somewhat confusing adult.
Looking back just a moment to Pentecost, I was struck by this micro practice from Illustrated Ministry –
In the Bible, encounters with Jesus are often marked by difficulty understanding – his speech, his actions, his choice of companions. Parables are perhaps the ultimate example of this, but in this Sunday’s lectionary we will encounter Jesus sharing a meal with tax collectors, with sinners. Why? The people around him did not understand.
Jesus, of course, had his reasons. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”
That’s such good news for us. In fact, I’d venture it’s our only hope. It’s what welcomes us in. And, it’s a good reminder of how imagining the “why” behind others actions can help us extend grace to them, despite a lack of concrete understanding.
From Grace to Belonging
As I frequently write about here, access & inclusion work are at the heart of what I do. And I think one of the reasons why I feel like these two pieces – Christian education & disability issues – fit together so clearly is because they are ultimately both about grace that begins before understanding and far exceeds it where understanding is possible. In the second part of this week’s Gospel, a woman who would be considered unclean makes her way forward to touch the hem of Jesus’s cloak. Jesus’s radical love and acceptance, his refusal to push her away, is the greatest “cure.” At least in this moment, with him, she is not an outcast, and Jesus doesn’t even know her.
I want to be clear that so much of what generates the conditions of exclusion stems from anxiety and expectations. It is not that we don’t have the capacity to extend that radical grace, but that in many cases we are worried about getting it wrong somehow. It’s easier sometime to not extend grace than it is to do so and potentially be wrong, make things worse, or even just deal with the discomfort of pushing through our own anxiety.
Sometimes we need more windows – a greater ability to see into others lives – to help us through these moments.
I’d previously recommended Tiffany Hammond’s new book “A Day With No Words” back when it was still on pre-order, but it’s been out for a few weeks now and my excitement hasn’t faded. Based on the story of her son Aidan, a non-speaking teenager who uses other strategies, including an AAC device, to communicate, Aidan is the voice of this story. And his story is one that, while widely met with grace on the page, often attracts stares and anxiety out in the world.
(Don’t miss this coloring page to go with A Day With No Words!)
Children are, when we can push past our own anxiety, much better at radical grace. Their lives are marked by uncertainty and confusion because they don’t have the same amount of life experience as we do. In order for them to thrive, they not only have to acquire more information, but in their early years they need to normalize their own confusion. They will make up stories and push past the strange. They want to know, but what that knowing looks like is different. Sometimes its enough for the knowing to consist almost entirely of what they’ve made up in their heads – and how fortunate are we when they invite us into it all.
Welcome to the Community
What do we do in the name of windows and mirrors, in our effort to build community rather than fracture it? It lives in the careful choice of words, in the act of inviting. There’s a reason that ideally each Godly Play session begins with intentional greeting and welcome and connection, at the door and in the circle. We are building a community, each and every time.
Whatever your practices, this piece on building community from Real Kids, Real Faith is a great example of how such practices work.
Routines also help us build community. And sometimes routines come from attending to energy and joy. On Palm Sunday, I brought the children at my current church up to the altar to come closer to the the full preparation process of Holy Communion. And oh, did they want to do it again. Now, it is a routine. We know how to do this together. And doing it each week doesn’t make it less special. If anything, it makes it more special because they are better able to attend to what we’re doing as it becomes more familiar, as we don’t have to re-regulate past excitement or anxiety or confusion.
We build community when we learn to sit with the silence, or accept the mistakes. These are things that can feel counterintuitive relative to the rest of our lives, but the good news is that that unfamiliarity means we can practice together. Beaming Books has a 7 day mindfulness packet that we could all benefit from this summer, as the long days tilt us toward frustration and bickering and a little too much togetherness. It offers invitations to real silence, real listening, and real imperfection. Let the grace that is beyond comprehension come with you on this journey.
As I’ve been writing this note, I’ve been thinking about my own experience of preschool through first grade church school growing up. The youngest children in the program, we began each week in song accompanied by Miss Bea and, like many of you, I’m sure, we often sang, “I’ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy.” And then there are the subsequent verses – from “joy” to “love of Jesus” and then on to the ones that became tongue twisters for our developing speech – “the peace that passeth understanding” and “the wonderful love of my blessed redeemer.”
Peace, here, I think is very much the same as grace. It is beyond our understanding, as children and as adults. But with it comes joy and love and the redemption of right relationship. Peace and grace beyond our ability to say why, beyond any possible deservingness. However we say it or feel it, the real task at hand is to reflect it back into the world, a gift to others but also to ourselves.
Peace. Grace. Peace.
Bird