January Walks

People think I'm a little bit crazy to be out here. They’re not wrong. When I leave the house in the morning, it is 22 degrees F (-7 C), so even though I am wearing five layers, I can feel the chill creep down my neck and attempt to crack my lips. The haze is thick over Kandern, but I actually emerge from it rather quickly on the first uphill. My heart pumping, I look out over the sleepy village before turning south, deeper into the woods. The sun is just lighting up the crowns of the trees, and it feels a bit less like crazy and a bit more like magic.

The world is dressed in ice crystals. I pause often to try to capture it in photograph, but none will ever do it justice. The ground is so hard, I can practically walk over any part of it that I want to. At one point, a mysterious strand of Caution tape that is wrapped in a square on the high embankment beckons me to clamber up and see what it’s protecting. A giant rectangle-shaped hole is dug roughly six feet deep, which feels suspicious, but I decide to listen to the crunch of the frost rather than to wonder about bodies. 

The sun finally emerges over the crest and filters through the Black Forest trees, its shadows casting long and straight across my footpath. There aren’t many birds awake, merely a lone woodpecker who keeps German work hours and seems to feel the urgency to finish before noon. The trickle of water surprises me since most of the world is frozen, but then I notice that the liquid flows beneath a layer of ice in the ditch. I continue to crunch my way south, squinting whenever the trees give way to a clearing or a vineyard.

When the castle comes into view, the frosted stones catch my breath. White over yellow with the Baden flag fluttering softly in the breeze - it’s stunning. And while I might say that about most castles, this one has found a special place in my heart over time, the marker that my morning hike is nearing its finale, the warm cup of coffee nearly visible now as I stand on the castle hill and look down into Lörrach. My cheeks are burned pink in the selfie, and somehow I'm both warm from walking and still cold at the same time. I have an hour before the basketball game starts that I came for, and even though it’s going to take the rest of the day to fully warm up, every step was worth it.

Joy of Being Wanted

I think I’ve discovered the secret to feeling loved: a horde of nieces and nephews who come thundering at you when you emerge from baggage claim so that within seconds all you see is their heads and all you feel is their arms wrapping around you. Sigh. I adore those nuggets. How do you bottle up that kind of joy?

On my first morning, after the deep sleep that only comes after a 26-hour travel day, I walked out onto the Lanai with my coffee, amazed to find the Pacific Ocean a mere 20 meters from my toes. As I joined Dad and Jen and the nuggets slowly trickled out, we found ourselves watching the morning kayakers go by. Suddenly someone squealed “Whale,” and sure enough, I looked up just in time to see the tail dip back below the surface with a splash. It regaled us a few more times to many oohs and ahs, only to be followed as an encore by a pod of dolphins having a party. They jumped and spun and did that tail-dance thing that I thought was made up in cartoons. We couldn’t help ourselves; we were laughing and clapping and filming and fully present in a beautiful, joy-filled moment.

The two-and-a-half weeks with the family went by way too quickly and were so so so good. From beach-themed gingerbread house building to a surprise Anniversary Dinner for the parents to a hike through a lava tube at Volcano National Park to the candlelight service at Scott’s church to visiting the battleship U.S.S. Missouri, it was all so rich. When the parents took me to the airport, all I wanted to do was find the repeat button. Of course nothing is perfect, and there were times we needed to take breaks from one another. For my part it came on the day I lay in bed with a fever, but on the whole we never got sick of each other. No one ran away, and there were no big blow-ups. In fact, the struggle was often how we could logistically all get to the beach or the Aloha Swap or the sunrise hike. How do you fully grasp the feeling of being wanted like that?

It’s hard not to grieve for those of our students who went home for the Christmas break and didn’t get that feeling. Welcoming a person in is so simple that my nuggets could do it for me, and yet it's not a skill our society is particularly good at these days. It's always been an aim of mine that every student who walks into my office would feel seen and loved. To get a piece of candy from my candy jar, they must “pay” me with a high-five because I want at least one instance of healthy touch for them that day. Don’t get me wrong, the majority of my students come from wholesome families, but communicating the feeling of being wanted? I’m not big into resolutions, but I do believe in promptings from the Holy Spirit, so this is my area for growth in 2024.

Gingerbread "Houses"

Christmas Eve 2023

Light Up

When I was a kid, I had this tradition on the first day our tree went up. When my parents were wrestling my younger brothers into bed and I finally had the living room to myself, I crawled underneath the tree and lay on my back with my head as close to the trunk as possible. That way it was twinkle lights and greenery as far up as I could see. I felt then as if I was among the stars.

And I think of Abraham now. Without the glow of modern pollution, how many stars did he actually see that night in Genesis 15 when God told him to look up and try to count them? Or in Genesis 22 when God made the promise that his offspring would be as numerous as those stars? Not only that, but his offspring would possess the gate of his enemies and all the nations of the earth would be blessed because of him. Did Isaac also look up and anticipate? Wonder? Doubt? Confer with Yahweh? I close my eyes so that when I open them, the lights will twinkle all the more while my pupils seek to adjust to their sudden presence, from dark to light. 

And I think of Isaiah now. He got to see Abraham’s descendants multiply, but there was often little hope as they suffered under the weight of sin. Yet he makes this claim: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” Four verses later he speaks of the child being born, and the connection between that human baby the light seems obvious to me in this day. With my face mere centimeters from the lowest lights, I thought of what it would be like to touch light. 

And I think of the shepherds in Luke 2 now. What would it have been like to go from black darkness of night to having an angel appear and bringing the full glory of Yahweh with him as he spoke of “good news.” Talk about an eye adjustment. As if that weren’t enough, he was then joined by a “multitude of the heavenly host,” perhaps as many as the stars of Abraham, and they belted out praise, the sound waves of which must have absolutely flattened the shepherds. To their credit, they didn’t hesitate in going to see if the gospel was true: had Abraham’s promised offspring really come?

And I think of John 1 now, who said the following of Jesus: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and countless others did get to see actual light, maybe even touch it. Inevitably, whenever I crawl out from underneath that tree, I can't help but bump into the lights, and I wish I could grasp light, to wrap it up in my fist and call it “mine,” even if just for a moment. But that is precisely the good news. I can hold the light. Actually, I can be the light. For in joining my life to that of Jesus, the offspring through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed, I become one of those stars of promise that Abraham saw and which the darkness will not be able to put out. That’s what I think of even now as I look up at the sky in anticipation, in advent.

Not quite "under" the tree, but I do love our Middle School Student Center decorations this year.

Second half of November

 You guys, I've been having way too much fun these weeks with guests and Christmas banquets and International Chapel, that I didn't get a blog written. Enjoy these pictures.

Always Yes to Theater

My friend Heather is so funny. She can’t even finish her question of whether or not I want to help with the Middle School play before I’m reaching for her script. One of these days she'll stop asking and start assuming.

It's mid-November, so another Middle School theater production has come and gone, complete with a stellar cast and much laughter between hours and hours of work. I told the kids how they were probably the first cast I’ve ever worked with who didn’t fall like vultures upon the food table every night, usually a given when we have props that contain food. Especially cupcakes! They were such professionals.

The story was an unfamiliar one. The Ransom of Miss Elverna Dower is about two students who don’t want to give a speech in English class, so they kidnap their teacher. However, it turns out she’s a persnickety person whom the principal would rather not have back, so he doesn’t pay the ransom or even tell anyone about her situation. Meanwhile the two kids keep getting more and more work from her so that in the end they simply release her. But neither the kids nor the principal get in trouble because Miss Dower never rats them out. The humor was right at Middle school level, complete with jabs at the expense of school principals and teachers. Our kids were thrilled to perform this in front of a school audience.

As every year, at some point, Heather and I tried to direct the conversation toward the deeper things. If a story is “good,” it must contain gospel truth somewhere, so I asked them to think about it for this play. What came out in the end made us all chuckle because we decided that Elverna Dower - the teacher that no one wanted to interact with - was most like Jesus. She was the one who absorbed the sins of both kids and the principal, their failures and poor decisions throughout the play, and she allowed others to think it was her own carelessness that had locked her in the book room all day. She forgave and moved forward with teaching the kids English and the principal leadership.

I’ll never grow tired of being in the wings of a stage, of getting to fist-bump students when they come off after a hard monologue, of making sure that one 6th grade actress remembers to grab all her props. But it’s those conversations where we get to see Jesus that drive me to say “yes” every year when Heather starts the question, “Do you want to help me with …” “Always yes!”

with one of the leads after opening night

Chrysalis

One of the programs that most attracted me to the MS Chaplain position is Chrysalis. With its weird scientific name bordering on the presumption that this program will somehow turn awkward Middle Schoolers into full-fledged butterflies, Chrysalis actually has roots in my family. My brother, Andi, was a student at BFA in the early 2000’s and helped dream up the idea that High Schoolers could be pouring into younger students through some kind of official small group program. The result is that today we have 6 adults in the community who train and mentor 20 Senior students who then lead and engage with 45 Middle Schoolers. 

To prepare well, we took the first two Thursdays of the year just to train the 12th graders on how Middle schoolers think and feel, why we structure the evening as we do, and what it means to be in constant contact with God themselves before leading Middle Schoolers to him. My absolute favorite moments, however, came when we broke up into 4 teams and came up with “skits.” I laughed so hard at Beach Ball Ballet and How Animals Eat and Synchronized Swimming. When the time comes, the Middle Schooler are going to LOVE it.

These Seniors have impressed me. When we played dodgeball the first time, I informed them that it was their job to always make sure the MSers were involved and felt like they were making good contributions. Half an hour later, I watched a girl dive in front of a flying purple dodgeball and gave her a thumbs up as she flopped onto the ground and waited for someone to “free” her. As soon as someone did, she gave them a high five and then ran over to free three more young students. By far, the best part is seeing them not just lead the Middle schoolers, but love them. Watching one of the 6th grade boys wave at his leader across the cafeteria only to see the 12th grader’s face light up as he waves back with a, “Hi Henry!” warms my heart. With only two Chrysalis nights in the bag so far, I can’t wait to see how things continue to unfold.

Beach Ball Ballet

Surrender

 Every year BFA picks a theme that will guide much of the spiritual conversations, especially in Chapel and the Middle School youth group and each school's Spiritual Emphasis Week. This year, I got to sit in on the selection process in the spring and watched the team come to the word "Surrender" pretty early and unanimously. As Middle School Chaplain, it's been my task to help unpack this word in Scripture for the Middle School kids.

I was drawn pretty early to the rich young Ruler in Matthew 19, so I highlighted his story in my first chapel. The students helped me make a list of all the things he would have had to surrender if he had decided to follow Jesus. Their list was more extensive than I imagined: possession, influence, reputation, freedom, and authority were all near the top. The next week, I jumped over the story of Peter's first encounter with Jesus in Luke 5. We came up with a really similar list, but the part that stuck with me the most was a small detail I don't know if I'd noticed before.

When Luke first mentions Peter and the other fisherman in verse 2, we seem them performing an action: washing their nets. From a college class, I remembered that washing the nets also meant repairing and cleaning and ensuring that they were ready to be used again the next night. It was actually an arduous process and really integral. Because if you think of a fisherman's tools in 1st century Galilee, boats were nice, but nets were essential. This was Peter's true source of income. So when Jesus asks him in verse 4 to try fishing again, we see Peter's initial response was "We already tried all night long and didn't catch anything," but I wondered if the underlying thoughts were screaming things like "Are you serious? I just finished washing and fixing the nets. I'll have to do that again. We went at it all night, and I'm tired. If I have to stay to wash the nets again, it'll be at least 3 more hours until I get some sleep!"

For Peter to hardly pause and to continue on with "But at your word, I will let down the nets" speaks to me of a surrender I feel I have yet to learn. No hesitation. No negotiation. Willing to count a cost. That's what I want for myself and my students. Not to just anything or anybody, but toward our Savior.

First day of being MS Chaplain