On Graven Images, Our Children, and Back-to-School

Last week, I was en route to Meet the Teacher Night when the screen to my iPhone went black. 

After a late night run to both the wireless provider and local Apple store, it was confirmed beyond repair. 

What was worse, I had been too stingy for the $0.99 monthly iCloud subscription and lax in regular backups…for about 12 months. Instead, I had entrusted a free app to automatically save my photos- and it did not. Countless photos and videos were now lost.  I would not have been so bothered if it were not for how many of them were of my kids.  

After spending more than enough time wallowing in my stupidity, shifting blame to the free app, downloading the Facebook zip file of all photos/videos posted circa 2007 (yes, you can do that), and scrolling through my shared texts for pix sent to family and friends, it hit me: I had become obsessed with the loss of the digital images of my children. In some ways, the images of my kids had become almost as valued as my kids themselves. 

As I thought through all the events that had taken place over the last year, I realized how much time I spent trying to capture the moments versus living in the moments. My interactions reduced to the five-inch screen and preferred IG filter. This is not to devalue images, for they can indeed be holy. I have often scrolled through my camera roll in meditations, praying through the moments as a form of an Ignatian Examen. I will continue to do so. 

Yet these images are just that, images. They are not to be mistaken for the beautiful and tangible lives of each of our children. Maybe this is a bit of what God meant when God said, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image…” (Exodus 20:4). God knew sacred symbols could quickly be mistaken for the things to which they pointed, reducing the relationship to that which could be possessed, contained, distorted, and even lost. 

And God and God’s relationship with God's people could not and would not be any of those things. 

Our children, who bear the very image of God, cannot and should not be either. 

Still snap those photos and record slo-mo videos. They’re so fun! We should back them up, too. 

This week, my Facebook and IG feed are dominated by images of my friends’ and family (and my own) kids headed back to school. I love it! This is one of my favorite social media weeks. Back-to-School week is a brief respite from other digital trends. Instead of polarizing commentary, I see the faces of those who most wonderfully reflect the love, compassion, generosity, and playfulness of their Creator. I frequently pause to pray for them, remembering the mixture of excitement and angst that comes with a new school year. 

I also pray for the teachers who will be walking alongside these young bearers of the divine image as they learn and discover, question and wonder, struggle and forge a community within their classroom. I especially pray for them in these days, when our schools have become all-too-familiar with violent acts that require our teachers to spend great energy on safety drills, assemblies, and other practices to create as safe of a learning environment as possible. I pray for them because, between the hours of 7:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., teachers are like the Otterbox to our most precious images of the divine and holy. 

But mostly I pray all would know, whether in the classrooms or at lunch tables, the hallways or gym classes, playgrounds and bus rides, or when they forget their homework or that it is picture day, they are loved beyond measure- as high as they can count plus one.  Even more, they are bearers of the divine image, which makes them holy, set apart, and eternally beloved. 

This is a truth not able to be contained in a photo. 

Happy Back-to-School! 

A brief meditation that has been carrying me of late. May be helpful in the days ahead, for teachers, students, parents, and any adults caring for children, too. 

Life is a lived paradox, 

A holy question,

an experiment with conflicting experiences,

meanderings between hope and despair.

The only constant 

you are loved to love 

by the Holy One 

who is Love.

Link to previous back-to-school posts: http://gregklimovitz.blogspot.com/search/label/backtoschool 

Children & Youth Ministry as Resistance: A Brief Word for #BackToSchool

We were talking at home the other day about how, in many ways, to raise a family and rear children in the way of love, welcome, and commitment to justice is to participate in the faithful resistance to empire. When we say, “as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD,” (Joshua 24:15) we are declaring our commitment to a counter-narrative to those of hatred and oppression that have been given a renewed platform by those in positions of power.  When we read Scripture and pray at table or bedside, the stories we choose and the content of our prayers reinforces to our children what it means to be a people who follow Jesus in such a time as this. 

The same is true for those who serve in varied forms of children and youth ministry. In every age, to include our own, children and youth ministry is critical and subversive discipleship work. This work moves beyond Bible trivia, church membership programs, sporadic mission blitzes, and the handing down of abstract doctrinal statements into the craniums of young people. Instead, this work aims to equip young people for a counter-movement of love and generosity, forgiveness and welcome, justice and commitment to God’s preferential option for the poor and oppressed.  

Children and youth ministry is not about the preparation of future leaders in the church, although partially true, but strives to empower change agents in the here and now. This ministry is about joining them in their efforts to embody the gospel in the places they have discerned most pressing. Children and youth ministry is about nurturing the prophetic imaginations of Jesus' youngest disciples as we trust the Spirit’s movement in and through them. 

As social media feeds are flooded with chalkboard #backtoschool photos (we posted our own), my prayers are with those who serve in various capacities of children and youth ministries. I pray for mentors, teachers, listeners, counselors, and facilitators of conversations able to spark small and large expressions of faithful resistance. I pray for school administrators, faculty members, and coaches who worship in the pews on Sunday and walk into school campuses on Monday. I pray for Sunday School teachers, choir directors, and ministers and youth directors. I pray for weekend retreats, before and after-school programs, and fellowship gatherings that cross all lines of division based on race, class, language, and religious tradition. I pray that in each and every way adult disciples walk alongside children and youth, that they would do so aware of the significance of their call. I pray the church would equip all for their vocation, too. 

Even more, I pray for the children and youth. 

I pray they would know they have been called for such a time as this. 

I pray they would know God’s love is not based on the best or worst thing they have done, but rooted in the very image they were stamped with before they could even take a breath or speak a word. 

I pray they would know they are loved to love and blessed to be a blessing.

I pray they would be open to their neighbor, seeing the image of God reflected in their peers. 

I pray they would feel empowered by adults to resist evil as an extension of their baptism whenever they feel their most vulnerable neighbors are being exploited by either church or state. 

I pray they would experience the church as a place where their questions about the intersection of faith and public life are welcomed as much as their neighbor whom they invited to the mid-week event. 

I pray the Bible and church history would come alive to them as they learn of the great cloud of witnesses who participated in the resistance against systemic injustices, even those perpetuated by religious institutions and traditions. 

I pray they know the world can and will be better because of the contributions they make, even as they lead us closer to the day when God once and for makes everything new and right again. 

Every day, as I move through the car line at drop off, I pray these prayers for my children and yours. It is one way I commit to the resistance that is the gospel, especially as we send our children back to school. 

"However we may be justified in wagging our heads over modern youth's fantastic drive for freedom, it is certain that our final attitude cannot be surprise and opposition; the youth movement of the present time in all its phases is directed against authority for its own sake, and whoever desires to be an educator today must...stand in principle upon the side of our younger people” 

---Karl Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man, p. 292

Turn and Wonder: On Our Kids Beginning Kindergarten

Every morning, as I watch our #Twinado walk from car to school entrance, I am reminded of just how many hours they will spend with classmates and educators. 

2,400 days and 16,758 hours to be exact- not including snow days, sick days, and early dismissals. 

Then, as I drive away, I say a few prayers. I also give a wave and drop a word of thanks to those faculty standing at the crosswalk who make sure our kids are safe and have the space to learn and grow into the people they were created to be. I even fight a few tears, reminded both how quickly time has gone and how much of parenting involves entrusting our children to the love and care of others.

This last part is especially difficult. 

So I pray again and again that God’s Spirit would hover over the sacred chaos of their education years. 

Turn and Wonder

You turn and you wonder

what might lay ahead

in the classroom

cafeteria 

playground 

bus ride home 

16,758 hours of possibility

to learn

to discover

to fear

to struggle

to encounter others

Each day a canvas

each moment a drop of paint

bright colors

dark shadows 

a gallery in the making

who you are and yet to be

You are loved

to love

we say as you walk out the door

into the care of others

sisters and brothers 

new friends and neighbors

Ask questions

then ask another 

each mystery not to be solved

a nudge forward

ahead

to what has yet to be uncovered

You are not alone

numbers

letters

will not define you

you were made in an image

unable to be assessed

Remember this 

when you see her seated next to you

gain a glimpse of the child alone

could be you

looking for a friend 

welcome and belonging 

You are just beginning

learning 

growing 

faster than we imagined

more brilliant than we could have hoped

unfinished still

Turn and wonder again

each day  

every day

You were created for this

for tomorrow

and every day to come.

Be Opened: Lectionary Reflections for Back to School Youth and the Rest of Us, too.

"Be opened," Jesus proclaimed in Mark 7:34.

The disciples were pilgrimaging with this prophetic Rabbi when he put his fingers in the ears and touched the tongue of a deaf man with a speech impediment. 

“Be opened,” Jesus commanded. 

Only a handful of verses earlier, Jesus encountered a Syrophoenician woman. This Gentile neighbor ran to the Jewish Messiah and pleaded for the life of her beloved child suffering from an “unclean spirit,” a sure subversion of first-century social mores. She knew her life mattered; her daughter's life mattered. Unconcerned about such racial barriers and ethnic codes of segregation, this poised mama dared, even provoked, Jesus to model the same. 

And she was open to a miracle and resurrection possibilities. Her only question, would Jesus be open as well? 

The answer, “the demon has left your daughter.” 

These two healing stories are everything but loose fragments and isolated parables in the building of Mark’s gospel.  Last week’s lectionary highlighted the preface to the narratives we encounter this Sunday.  Jesus challenged the Pharisees and Scribes who had become so obsessed with the letter of the law they were closed to the reality that in Jesus God was doing very new things.

“You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition…You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition” (Mark 7:8-9).

Now we read of Jesus practicing what he preached. The entirety of Mark 7 is a call to be opened to what God is doing all around us, even when it confronts our most hallowed traditions, collective assumptions, and cultural barriers set up to protect and preserve what we (sometimes falsely) believe to be right and good. Jesus' witness pushes us to collapse anything and everything set-up to oppress or marginalize another. 

“Be opened,” Jesus reminds us nearly two millennia later. 

If we are truly listening, we will notice Mark’s account of these healing stories is aimed at us. They dare us to remain open.  They challenge us to hold loosely our truth claims, comfort zones, and social networks as we consider what God may be up to in the very people and places we have previously dismissed. 

Be opened.

Every year for the last four years I have written a letter to students as they go back to school.  These letters are public prayers for those who navigate the hallways and commune in classrooms for 180+ days of the year. 

This year I write less of a letter and more of an echo of the words of Christ, “Be opened.” If we listen carefully, what follows are invitations for all of us. 

BE OPENED

Be opened by your neighbor next door, behind, and in front of you, as their life and story are equally as significant as your own. 

Be opened by history learned and lamented, celebrated and grieved. Be opened by how history can transform our collective present and future.

Be opened by the teachers in your midst, who have devoted their lives to spark the imaginations of young people and nurture agents of change locally and globally. 

Be opened by nonviolent means to solve conflict. 

Be opened by forgiveness.

Be opened by faith communities, especially those different from your own. What may God teach you through the convictions of others? 

Be opened by rest, aware you cannot do everything, all the time, every day. 

Be opened by play, reminded life is a gift to be enjoyed versus a task to be completed. 

Be opened by Scripture and new ways of understanding the story we claim as sacred. Welcome others to read alongside you and remain open to the possibility of the Spirit reading you page after page, story after story. 

Be opened by service and opportunities to engage your most vulnerable neighbors. Recognize the stranger not as less rather as equal. 

Be opened by advocacy for those relegated to the margins of your campuses, workplaces, neighborhoods, cities, and world. Dare to challenge the status quo and never cease to elevate the voices from the fringes of society. 

Be opened by art, so frequently the Spirit’s tool for social change and movements rooted in God’s concern for justice and equity. 

Be opened by being wrong.

Be opened by being right.

Be opened by failure. 

Be opened by joy. 

Be opened by tears. 

Be opened by hope. 

Be opened by shared suffering.

Be opened by witnessed resurrection. 

Be opened by the One who was able not only to open the eyes and ears of the blind and deaf, but also a cold and dark tomb many believed would forever remain closed. 

Be opened. 
------

Thanks to fellow Presby, Mihee Kim-Kort, for featuring the litany in her Podcast, "This Everyday Holy":
http://thiseverydayholy.com/2015/09/06/episode-11-putting-faith-to-work/ 

A great Podcast that brilliantly engages the story of the Syrophoenician woman:
LectioCast: Entrusting Ourselves to Abundance and Generosity
http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2015/08/31/entrusting-ourselves-to-abundance-and-generosity-lectiocast/

See also a recent reflection from Jill Duffield of The Presbyterian Outlook: 
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Looking-into-the-Lectionary--23rd-Sunday-of-Ordinary-Time--September-6-.html?soid=1102135377571&aid=eJyHvf3y5GI 

Holy Crap, My Kids Are in Preschool: Annual Back to School Letter

This summer, my wife and I reached a new milestone in parenting. Some claim the event is a rite of passage. Others say the experience is the final nail in a coffin that burries your man card and any cool factor you may have once held dear.

I feared this looming possibility, nay, probability, [naively] convinced my cool factor was just beginning to peak.

So, like many dads, I tried to avoid the inevitible- not wanting to be forever-marked with the giant "M" sure to prevent me from being invited to future neighborhood BBQs.

Then the Hyundai died. Then I realized a family of (almost) five can't exactly cram into a Mazda 6. Then I got the needle and thread out and began to stitch the dreaded letter to my polo shirt now properly tucked into my dad jeans versus left free-flowing.

You guessed it, we bought a minivan.

We thought we were officially parents when the Twinado was delivered some three-plus years ago. That was before we started rolling up in the Black Mamba (my name for the man van) and pulling out our dual stroller and cooler of snacks from the automatic hatchback and dual-sliding side doors.

Now we are real parents.

And in just over a week we will reach another milestone- our kids will begin school. Sure, it is preschool and only twice a week, but they begin school nonetheless. We will join the fraternity of parents who entrust the care of our chldren's education and formation into the hands of other thoughtful adults.

This year we are going back to school, not as students or a youth pastor, but as parents.

And we have our own anxiety.

So while this time of year I typically write a letter addressing youth, this one is for parents. Not because I work with some of your kids, but because I have kids, too. I write as a parent not a pastor. I write in solidarity versus from afar. I write pleading for your prayers even as I offer my own.

 

Dear Back-to-School Parents

I write this letter because we just received one. We got that letter in the mail written in the same comic sans font I remember my preschool-teacher mother using in her mailings to parents. We got the letter not addressed primarily to us, rather to our kids from their first-ever teacher.

And we cried.

We didn't weep and sob, we just shed a few tears.

We cried, not because of what the letter said, but because of what the letter meant. It was a nice letter. Actually, it was a beautiful letter saturated in kindness and welcome.

But still, we cried.

We cried because the letter served as another reminder that our kids are no longer babies. Our children, like yours, are rapidly evolving into persons unprotected from this world that is a holy mess, a hybrid of sacred and painful wonder.

And we have realized in a whole new way the value of that hard little word, trust, and it's faithful companion, prayer.

We have to trust and pray for the parenting of others. We have made our humble attempts to raise our kids in the kindness of Christ, which celebrates the value of every person made in the image of God and called a child of the kingdom. We have to trust and pray other parents are seeking to instill a similar kindness that, while not always lived out by adults let alone preschoolers, enables children to co-exist within a classroom.

We have to trust and pray for our kids. We pray they become those kids who befriend versus bully, demonstrating they have already been schooled in peacemaking. We pray our children learn to use their imaginations as they practice the delicate art of love and compassion. We pray they are the ones who look after the kid others may steer clear of because of some sort of difference. We pray they offer kid-sized forgiveness when others don't treat them with the kindness they know to be good and right. We pray they receive the same sort of forgiveness when they fail to exercise kindness.

We have to trust and pray for other people's kids. We pray all children experience the fullness of community as they meet new people their age and begin to discover the goodness that dwells within us all. We pray for the circumstances that surround other children, some more difficult than others. We pray, should they not know of a caring environment at home, they would experience hospitality and dignity while in classroom or on campus.

We also pray for those children who, for whatever reasons, are tilted more towards violence and agression versus gentleness and love. As parents, we have all experienced the best and worst of what kids can be, so we pray for more of the former than the latter. We also pray for the ability to navigate difficult encounters our children may have with others. Even more, we pray for the ability to shepherd our children gracefully when they may be instigators of conflict with other children. We pray other parents are trusting and praying for us, too.

We have to trust and pray for teachers. We have to lean on those adults who have felt called to care for and educate young people. We have to trust their wisdom and giftedness as they uncover the briliance and creative possibilities of our children. We have to trust teachers are looking out for our kids' well-being and will ensure they are safe when we are not there to protect them. We have to pray teachers have the support and training to do their job well. We also have to advocate for teachers when they do not. We also have to generate opportunities to celebrate, elevate, and empower teachers so they know they are appreciated as they partner alongside us in the formation of our childrens' young hearts and minds.

We have to trust God, whose ears our prayers fall upon. We have to trust that the God who walked alongside us as we navigated the same hallways will also journey with our children. We also pray our kids sense that presence every day of their lives.

We have to trust and pray that presence is what they practice, too.

So as this new school year begins, which is a first for us and many others, I am trusting all of you. I am also praying for you.

I hope you will offer us the same.

 

Grace and Peace,

A Fellow Anxious, Excited, Nervous, Eager, Fearful, and Hopeful Parent

 

Related Posts:

2013 Letter: http://gregklimovitz.blogspot.com/2013/08/annual-letter-to-youth-prayers-for-new.html

What I Would Tell My Graduate: Letter to Class of 2014: http://gregklimovitz.blogspot.com/2014/06/what-i-would-tell-my-graduate-letter-to.html

10 Living Hopes for Class of 2012: http://gregklimovitz.blogspot.com/2012/04/10-living-hopes-for-class-of-2012and.html

2011 Letter: http://gregklimovitz.blogspot.com/2011/08/letter-to-youth-hopes-for-new-year.html

Annual Letter to Youth: Prayers for the New School Year

Dear Back-to-School Youth,

I know you may just now be starting your summer reading, but vacation is almost a wrap and school is almost back. While your parents may be rejoicing, you probably don't feel ready. True, some of you may be eager to see your friends again and enjoy the rhythms and rituals of middle and high school life. But most of you probably prefer the pace and privilege of summer break. Yet, like most good things, your sabbatical is coming to an end and mid-terms are right around the corner.

I admit, I don't envy you. I am grateful my public education days are in the past and the pressures of exams, peers, lunch tables, homework, and whether or not I brought my gym uniform or protractor are bygones.

I also admit, I do envy you. There is a part of me that misses the days when every day I was surrounded by loads of people. Granted, some of my peers caused great fear, angst, and stress. Still, every day was an opportunity to be in the presence of another individual who was questioning, struggling, wrestling, celebrating, and walking through life in a way similar to me. It was also an incredible age of self-discovery.

So however you feel about back-to-school season, my prayer is for you to live in the moment. The future will be here before you know it (which is 2015 according to Marty McFly) and you won't be able to get the precious days of your youth back. So make the most of it, not YOLO style with irresponsible and reckless behavior, but with the realization that NOW is your time to reflect the love and light of Christ.

So before I drop a few hopes and prayers for your 2013-14 school year, make this one of your final end-of-summer readings:

"You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:14-16)

Hopes and Prayers for 2013-14 School Year