Freedom

The last few days here in College Station have been beautiful. Now, admittedly, my view of beautiful weather is probably a bit skewed, but the gray rainy days are my favorites. Today is the first day since Monday that we have made it to the 80s, Tuesday and Wednesday we never left the 60s.

Its about this time of year that I begin to feel trapped at work. My office is windowless, and stuffy. When I get out, I generally have to spend my time in musty old rooms filled with giant record books. But between my office and the records, I have maybe a hundred yards of cool, fresh Fall air to soak up. Like a gateway drug, it only leaves me wanting more. So, I am trying to find excuses to escape the confines that come with the job.

One way is to go to campus and do a little work from there. It allows me the chance to see reminders of why we're here, as thousands of college students walk by, heads down, ears plugged with I-pods and such, and backs burdened with books. I get the chance to pray for them, and get some work done at the same time, and enjoy the air.
I also find myself going and simply walking around the backyard. The soggy yard squishing water with every step, the smell of the wet cedar fence, the cool breeze that will occasionally shock my lung with it's suddenness. They make me feel alive. They remind of Falls growing up, Friday's after school, in the hours between class's end and the games that night. Though I never played football, there was a sense of expectancy in those hours, a sense of...freedom.

As those memories play through my mind, I think a lot about freedom. We are given life to experience it. I watch my girls, Leslie trying out her new gymnastics moves, bounding about, and Kenna twirling as she and Kristin watch Dancing With The Stars. they are living, not bound to the worries of bills, and responsibilities, and concerns. They are free. In a lesser way, the college students we work with are free, too. They are spreading their wings, learning through trial and error who they really are. They test themselves to see their limits, but they still have more freedom to dream of futures untold, to try new things free of the burdens of full time jobs (for some, anyway).

But lest you think I feel trapped by life, I need you to know that actually, I feel more free than I have in a long time. I would love to be full time with the Gate, setting my own hours so I could go with Leslie to gymnastics every week, and then swing by campus for an hour or two to meet with students, or staying out way too late because I could sleep in the next day. That's still a long way off, but for now, I feel free because God has allowed us to pursue this dream, to be in the lives of some college students and young adults as they navigate these vital years. As we walk with them, we can live their freedom with them a bit. Movie nights, disc golf, coffee shops, talking through relationship issues, seeking answers to tough God stuff- it is freeing.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go walk on my soggy yard.

8 Years

So on Facebook today, a lot of people were talking about where they were 8 years ago, when the world changed. I was on my way to class, coincidentally it was class in which we were at that time discussing urban legends, and when I first hear from a friend what had happened in New York, I thought it was hoax. Or at least that it was exaggeration. It wasn't, and what I remember of that day was that everyone was in a haze. Much like it had been two years earlier when Bonfire fell, but this time, it was worldwide.
But tonight, I got to thinking about what has happened these last eight years, personally and to the world at large. In the days that followed, there was fear, anger, hopelessness, and also resolve. Since that day, it seems that we as a country have grown more fearful, less trusting. We are as a nation more divided than we have been in my lifetime. Fear of what the next big tragedy is looms in the air-will swine flu get us? Or biological warfare? Or will we all be on a breadline- or forced into socialism or fascism, or some other -ism? And our fear and distrust have not made us better.
I wonder as I look at my children, 2 and 4, and how they don't know a world that was once innocent. They have cartoons and children's shows that are teaching them how to prevent getting and giving the flu, they will never a know a world that didn't have some system for telling how scared we should be like the terror threat level color scheme. Yes, my kids will look at the world in a better way than I did in some respects- they won't see color differences as starkly as my generation- that is if we don't go back that way with the rhetoric we hear daily from politicians and pundits and armchair politicians- of all colors. Yes, my kids will have access to more and better medicines, they will be smarter than me sooner that I'd like with all the technological advances, and they will have opportunities to go and do things I didn't - not because my parents held me back, but because I never knew they existed.
I remember 8 years ago, schools tried to keep people from talking about the tragedy of 9-11- and being angry. Kids do not need to be sheltered from the fact this world is messed up, and sometimes really bad stuff goes down. They need to learn to process this, grow from this, and make every effort to make this a world this never happens again. When Leslie and Kenna see the images from that day, and ask, we tell them, as much as they can understand. I want them to grow up with a desire to spread love and peace and the message of Christ- which is love and peace- so that those motivated by hate and fear are not just silenced, but changed. Changed by a message of true hope.
In the days after 9-11, there was much talk of revival, and hope that God was raising us up. But that faded soon, and we let hate and unforgiveness creep in, and we called it patriotism to desire to see lost Muslims die horrifically. I am not saying I oppose the war- war is a 'necessary evil' of government, just as it was in the Old Testament- but we as followers of Christ must never rejoice in the death of a person going to Hell- no matter how evil they may be. In some ways, the desire that we be broken over the terrorists' eternal fate informed our hearts with our path toward the Gate- to show love, even to the unlovable. That is the message I want my kids to learn about what happened 8 years ago today.

Fog

So this morning, Leslie woke me up at 4:19 and was too scared to sleep. So I went into her room to hopefully lay there with her for a bit so she could sleep. But she didn't. In fact, when I did fall asleep, she woke me up to ask if it was time to get up. So I have spent the day in a slight fog of sleepiness fought off only by lots of Dr. Pepper.
Most of my foggy days are due to Benadryl the night before, and the fact that medicines mess me up when it comes to coherency. I just sort of sleep walk through the day.
When I got to thinking about it today, I realized that we all seem to get to a point where life itself seems a constant fog. We shuffle through our days, mumbling stuff, bumping into things and people, mindlessly performing the scheduled tasks. Our fog may be a fog of apathy, fear, resignation, anger, pain, boredom, disappointment, or sense of failure. But we all seem to be in a fog, headed into one, or escaping one.
In a little over a week, the Gate begins a series basically about beginnings and the identity we develop in young adulthood. It's making me think about that time in my life, when I was full of hope and optimism (older people called me naive). I saw problems as challenges to over come, and went after them, not giving up, but looking to a new line of attack when things fell apart.
Somewhere in my past, that changed.
The older or more experienced people's advice that "You just can't change that," or "Thats too much to take on" began to collect in the air around me. Then, the weariness of fighting sets in, and then the 'responsibilities of adulthood,' then the idea that those people were right- all these collected into a fog.
The fog is finally lifting for me- the result of starting to dream again, to hope, to expect big things. Maybe its being around college students, who still have these in abundance, or maybe its just starting to trust God to be who He says he is, once again. Whatever it is, it makes me want to challenge the Gate, and you reading this, to press on. Keep dreaming big, keep trying to change the unchangeable, reach the unreachable. And those folks who try to talk you down, kick them in the teeth and keep going. (Not literally, though there are times....)
The Gate is about dreams. Its about a dream to reach young adults and college students for Christ. A dream that this generation can and will restore the passion of the Body of Christ. A dream that students can BE the church, not just a part of it. Its also a dream that God will show up in our community, change it, and set free His Spirit upon us all. We're are seeing these things happen, and new dreams are being born as we speak. Not just dreams we have for the church, but dreams the individuals that make up the church are having.
So, put down the Benadryl, grab your DP (or caffeine of choice) and let's wake up. Things are about to get interesting.