Thoughts on the Youth Gathering from One Who Is Away

In these days where the news leaves me especially prone to despair, I've been taking great solace from the posts I'm seeing from the national gathering of Lutheran youth in Houston.  It's a huge group, and I'm inspired by their hope and enthusiasm.

 

When I think about just giving up, I will think about these youth.  I will think about my years of training in non-violent resistance to evil.  I will remember that we can't know when the tide is about to turn, when evil leaders will be washed away to sea.

 

I think about the similar formative experiences of my youth (by which I mean pre-college).  I went to a Lutheran youth gathering in Purdue in the early 80's.  I went to several national gatherings for adults and families that explored issues of development in other nations--were they called Mission events?  I remember long drives across the nation's cornfields.  I remember coming home and buying the albums that others had brought for us to listen to on their cassette tapes.

 

Most important, I remember the power of seeing us all assembled, of realizing that my small Southern church experiences were not the only ways to be Lutheran in a world of non-Lutherans.  I remember the jolt of realizing that we could be a serious force for good, not just in our individual communities, but in the larger world too.

 

This year's gathering has all sorts of interesting elements, to judge from the posts made by my pastor friends who are there.  I've seen the gathering singing Journey's "Don't Stop Believing"--shivers!  I'm seeing pictures from an interactive Worship booth, where the youth can wear vestments and learn about the elements of worship.  I've seen the supplies needed for the service projects--huge stacks in the days before the gathering, and then the groups on their way to serve.  I've seen the speakers and the musicians.

 

I hope that they will come back from this mountain top experience transformed.  And I hope that they are nurtured in that transformation when they return.  I hope they seek out retreat experiences in the future to rekindle these flames as they flicker.  I hope that they help us all in the work that God has called us to do. 

 

 

It Only Takes a Spark

One of my favorite memories of last week-end when my sister and nephew were here revolves around our outdoor firepit.

Their plane landed at 9:30 p.m. on Thursday, but my nephew was much too excited to go right to bed.  He's 8 years old, after all.  Finally, they had gotten to the warmth of Florida, the promise of time in the swimming pool in February.

We went to the backyard, and my spouse built a fire in the small, metal firepit that we bought a few weeks ago.  My nephew stood on the first step of the very chilly pool and decided to wait until morning to submerge himself.

We sat around the firepit and watched it flame into life.  We couldn't help ourselves; we started to sing:  "It only takes a spark, to get a fire going."  I noticed that we were all singing, even my nephew.  How did we learn this song?

My sister and I learned it at camp over many years and many firepits.  My spouse learned it at church youth groups.  It was a very popular song in the 70's. 

My nephew learned it because my sister used to sing it to him as a lullaby--and thus, the next generation learns this song!  For those of you in youth ministry and church camp work, when you wonder if your work makes a difference, I'm here to tell you that much of it will stick, even if you're not sure that any of it is sinking in.

We could remember most of the verses, but we weren't always sure of which lines went with which verse.  Luckily, we have a copy of that old standby, the fish book, the songbook that doesn't have a name, but has that Christian symbol on the cover.  In the 70's and 80's, that book always seemed to be in youth group rooms and music rooms and many a guitar player had a copy.

I thought of the lyrics of the song, which hold up well in terms of theology.  I thought of all the ways we learn theology, and once again, I'm in awe of the way the song can shape us.  Years after any one of us sang it, we could still remember all the words.  I'm not sure I could say that about a Gospel text that I hadn't read in 40 years.

I read the work of many church thinkers who tie themselves into knots and pretzel shapes about the best way to teach children and to transmit our faith.  While I enjoy these pedagogical debates as much as the next  person, maybe it's time to go back to something more basic. 

Let's start singing again.  That spark will flame up through the years and keep our fires lit.

Charitable Giving and Youth Gatherings

Today my church is collecting money for our youth who will be traveling to the ELCA youth gathering this week.  I shall donate money.

I'm donating money for a variety of reasons, but the main one is because my going to national gatherings was one of the most formative experiences of my life.

In 1980, I went to one of the earliest Lutheran youth gatherings (we weren't the ELCA then) post Luther League years.  It was held at Purdue University.  We went with a larger group from Tennessee, and it was amazing.  That gathering also prepared me for college in ways.  We stayed in a dorm, and our days were structured like college days, with what I remember as classes, and a variety of subjects to choose from.

Equally important was meeting such a huge variety of young people, all of us at various-yet-similar stages of our faith journeys.  It was one of the first times that I remember thinking, "Ah, there are people like me.  I'm not some freak of nature."  I can't even remember what prompted that feeling, just the relief of the feeling.  And I'm not surprised.  It's a typical adolescent feeling, that we're all alone, that we're strange and unlovable, that we'll never find our tribe.

In later years, I went to Global Mission Events, which also raised my consciousness and also prepared me for college.  It was great to meet adults who were unlike most of the adults I met at church.

Now, as a grown up, I suspect there were many adults at my local church who were like the ones I met at these events.  But back then, age groups didn't mingle much.  How would I know?

So, yes, I will give some money so that our young people will have a good experience.  When I was young, unknown grown ups did that for me.  It's time to repay the favor.

All Our Alien Longings: "Super 8" as Theological Work

I saw Super 8 the other night--what a great movie!  For my thoughts on the movie as a depiction of young artists and what that might mean to those of us who aren't young artists, hop over to this post on my creativity blog.

I tend to see the world, particularly pop culture, through multiple lenses.  I ask, "What is the work/world saying about gender?  What does it tell us about our place in the universe?  What is the theological viewpoint here?  What can I learn about being creative?  What is the work saying about race?  About class?"  On and on I could go.

On the face of it, Super 8 is not a theological film.  Or perhaps I should say, it's not an overtly theological film, or even a very spiritual one.  Yet my brain wouldn't leave that angle alone.

I thought about the fact that the movie revolved around a small band of kids, and I started thinking about the ways that those kids resembled the disciples.  You had one wise kid (John perhaps?), several who were slow to catch on (Peter), one kid who wanted to blow things up (Judas).  I couldn't make any of them be the Christ figure, although Alice, the one lone female of the gang . . . hmm, I'm only just now thinking of her.

Yes, she could be a Christ figure.  She's alone and unknowable in some ways.  All the kids are drawn to her.  She seems wise in an otherwordly way.  She weeps over the plight of her friends.  And she suffers a kind of living death and descent into the underworld.  Does she save them?  Hmm.

The movie wrestles with themes that are common to Christianity:  that feeling of alienation, the wanting to connect, the way we treat the stranger, the resident alien.  The movie wrestles with that question central to most religions:  why are we here?  What is our purpose?  How can we evolve into our best selves?

The movie reminds me of the kind of movie that my middle school and high school youth groups might have seen, the ones that were popular, but not overtly spiritual.  What does the Star Wars series teach us about God?

Super 8 is the perfect kind of film for a contemporary youth group.  It's not preachy, but it covers some theological themes.  It's not overtly spiritual, so it stands a chance with people who would be turned off by that kind of movie.  It's sentimental in a way, but it never descends into sentimentality for too long.  It's not an overly sexual movie, which is a relief in our day and age.  It has a lot to say about parental relationships, particularly the ones we have with our fathers.  Lots of missing mothers in this film.  What do we do with this fact, if we're trying to look at the movie through a spiritual lens?

It's one of those wonderful films that doesn't provide obvious answers to these questions, but could yield lots of fascinating conversation.  I'd love to see it again, since I suspect it's a movie that rewards a second watching.