Week 1: Life on the Rez

25 May - The Beautiful Mess

The only hope we ever have is Jesus Christ, yet his people remain a mess. And he wants to make it ALL beautiful...The Beautiful Mess. The Father gave me a vision today and I believe it to be the vision, hope and desire He wants to be put on display in every aspect of this summer. The truth is...I have no idea what Our Father has in store for us this summer, but the picture he painted across the landscape of my mind depicts a time and place when all is said and done, we will find so much beauty in all of the mess of a world that desperately longs to be ushered into His presence as the New Creation and the New Earth. What most of it all really boils down to this summer is the church; as broken and ineffective it can be at times due to the mistakes and weaknesses of our humanity there is a quiet voice trying to speak to us about how powerful and effective this beautiful Bride can be if our simple desire is to make it the pride and joy of it's Groom. This summer is also about a community of people at the Rosebud Reservation in south central South Dakota. Some I am certain live in despair and without hope. Some have found that desperate hope in the Love and promise of our dear savior Jesus Christ. And yet others are enemies of God because they hate this Love and this promise and are so consumed by their pride and wickedness. This summer is also about the four people whom He called, myself included, who will go into this place with full intent of making as Beauty as we can out of all of this mess. But the truth is...I feel like the only way that any of that will happen is if he destroys us all. We all may think we know what truth is and how that is supposed to manifest itself in this crazy and fog-filled world but truthfully only He knows. And He is the only authenticator of this Truth...a truth that destroys the very fabrics of religion, culture, good, evil, human plight, intellect, wisdom, knowledge, creativity and inspiration in order to take man to a place where true purpose is the only thing left unscathed. The Father has to destroy us all from every member of Christ's precious body to every one He considers His enemy, and everywhere in between. So that, in that moment, Jesus is the only one left standing in the room. Oh how beautiful it will be. May He destroy us all, every believer and unbeliever alike, so that the glory of the Father may be made known to all of creation. He has to shake us at our cores so He can make something beautiful out of all the mess. Father...may your resurrected son, Jesus Christ, be the only one left standing by the end of this summer. May we commit every aspect of our lives to fulfilling this very purpose. May we dream and journey with you. I love you Father.

27 May - The I Am

I came across a very challenging passage today. I was reading in the gospel of John about the time Jesus decided to attend the Festival of Tabernacles in Judea. As usual in most of his early ministry opportunities, Jesus spoke with great mystery about who he was and also made some radical proclamations about himself as well. He in many cases offended and confused those who listened and questioned him about who he was. And I guess I am ok with that because I am not entirely convinced that these people even really wanted to have their ears and eyes opened. But the hard thing for me is trying to believe that I wouldn't walk away from Jesus in that moment thinking he was a crazy man. And if you don't think Jesus sounds like a crazy man sometimes you should probably hear him speak more often. But quite honestly I feel like it is much easier to follow Jesus without ever hearing him speak one audible word. It makes it hard for me to try to place myself in the scriptures while he walked among us because I feel I have no idea how I would respond to Jesus in his earthly time. Would I follow him? Or would I want him killed? Would I truly listen? Would he speak directly to me? Would he look me right in the eye? Would I know? The fear is that most of me feels I would follow the mob rather than embrace the savior. Truthfully though...I am not sure the conditions and circumstances have really changed all that much besides having more of a social and moral awareness of Christ in the world of today.

Anyways...the Father really spoke to me today when my eyes rested on the 8th chapter of John. After Jesus had successfully created a very frustrated and angry gathering of people whom he consistently made announcements that he was the Son of the Father and his equal, the Jews were somehow hooked on Abraham after Jesus says whoever obeys his word would never see death. The Jews were strongly disturbed because even Abraham the "father" of their people whose wonderful, life giving word they still obeyed even succumbed to death. And really getting to the point I suppose...after a few more conversational passes Jesus made the statement that he knows Abraham, that Abraham is ecstatic about Jesus' earthly presence and was even around before Abraham was born. Jesus said, "Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day. He saw it and was glad. Very truly I tell you, even before Abraham was born, I Am!" Easy to say, his words were not received very well by those who listened.

Thinking about this summer and all that it will entail, I can't help but identify with Jesus. All of the nerves, all of the anxiety, all of the sadness. Even all of the joy and excitement. But then there was Jesus; spending eternity with the Father and I can't even fathom what that "Final Hour" between them looked like before Jesus would make his humbled entrance into this world for his 30-0dd years of service. Yes...he would still have the Father but it wouldn't be the same. I just can't imagine what that looked like in the human sense. How long did they embrace? Did they cry? Did Jesus write His Father a letter to keep with Him until his return? Did he ever start to feel alone even while he was still "up" there? It's crazy to think about something like this. For me...when I left to go on this 2 1/2 month journey with the Father so much happened in my "Final Hour" back home. I had conversations I normally wouldn't have. Wrote letters I thought I'd never write. I cried. I embraced. I was nervous. I was sad. I was excited. I knew peace. But I also remember feeling completely alone the night before I left. Sitting amongst a group of people knowing that not a single one of them would truly know what it would be like to "go" to where I was going and "do" what I was about to do. And I know this doesn't even compare to that of Christ. I am merely moving a few thousand miles away for only a couple of months. But thinking about this makes me so much more incredibly in Love, mystified, awe struck and grateful of the beauty and desire of the Father, the Christ and their plan to redeem, reconcile and restore this world back to them. He sent His own son. The Great I Am is here and he has spoken.

29 May - The Calm Before the Storm

I have never seen a storm this big before and we are heading right into the heart of it. I most certainly have experienced a storm with greater magnitude and intensity before but I most certainly have never seen a storm of this size. It's wingspan stretching a few hundred miles north to south. We are heading east from Colorado on a long stretch of highway in Nebraska. Only about 2 hours to Rosebud. The wind begins to pick up. Lightning illuminates the sky. The temperature grows colder; the often suspicious cold that arouses your sense all the way to your soul. And right before the sky opens up to deliver it's watery droppings with overwhelming abundance I ask myself and partly God, "How did this all go so wrong, so fast?"

About an hour ago we stopped at a gas station just outside of the Pine Ridge Reservation where Heather had spent the past year living on the Reservation. We were in the store making small talk about BBQ Pork Rinds when Heather drifted off into the past recalling a time when her sister had come out to Pine Ridge to visit and they had sat in this very gas station for about 3 hours. She said she couldn't believe she was actually back in Indian Country. I asked how she felt about it but I already knew the answer...it was written so plainly on her face. All she said was, "I feel burdened." My best option was to make peace with silence and exit the store. I jumped in the passenger seat of our vehicle that Stephen was navigating and he looked like he had just seen a ghost. I asked him what was wrong. Just before stopping here our time had been filled with with laughter, song and sing, and interesting conversation which included but was not limited to a lengthy discussion about how to most strategically become best friends with Sandra Bullock.

Now...all of that had suddenly disappeared over a 5 minute span like a rapture of good times. It was a very bi-polar window of time and unfortunately Stephen was its vessel. I asked him what was wrong and he started mumbling on about something but all he was really trying to say was that he knew all of the good ol' Denver time were really over and we were heading into something much less inviting. About an hour later I gave Pastor Jack, our main contact at Rosebud, a call and I was met with a heavy hearted man on the other end. Jack informs me that his brother Robert, a close friend of the YouthWorks organization and even closer friend of the people of Rosebud, had passed away an hour ago after losing a quick and brutal battle with cancer. Our plans and expectations for this summer had suddenly taken a sudden detour. This one very phone call would change the course of the entire summer.

What am I to make of all of this I asked the Father. Heather...Stephen...and now This! And as I sat and pondered and asked Our Father to reveal His sovereignty in all of this He simply opened up the skies from what was a small drizzle to a blinding curtain of rain. He numbed my troubled mind with His rain. He spoke oh so gently to me. "Let this be enough for now. I have a plan. Just let me rain sooth you for now." And as the water washed over the car in His small, quite voice he spoke to me, "It's all going to be ok." And there I sat. Watching the sky light up. The rain numbing my mind as I tried to make human sense of the tragedy of an hour. But the spirit of the Lord spoke and all He said was, "It's going to be okay. Trust me. You don't need to make sense of any of it." And all my spirit could groan was a very necessary acknowledgment, "Ok Father, you've gotten me this far. I trust you will take me farther."

30 May - The Communion of Grief

Our reception into Rosebud was largely in question. With the loss of Robert and the sting of death lying very heavily of the hearts of the people here, our team was seemingly unsure how we would be received into the community. We already knew we would have to figure out how to fit in but now the cruelness of Robert's exit made us feel like we really didn't even belong. A friendly couple Tim and Tammy (secret lovers I suppose) greet us at the church building where Robert had sheparded a good flock of people for many years. With heavy hearts they kindly escorted us to an old, dilapidated building that we would shack up in for the next couple of days until we could move into the school. Although I still don't know what to fully make of Tim and Tammy they certainly opened their arms to us and shared their desires for Mission.

Today we attended the Christian Life Fellowship...where Jack and his late brother Robert had co-pastored at for some time. As we walked into the building we were met with a cloud of emotional turbulence. People crying. People laughing. People joyless. People smiling. People smiling. People silent. People chatting up a storm. The truth is you could see written on just about everyone's faces...They were all grieving. All in their own way. Functioning in whatever personal manner that kept them from truly excepting the holistic inevitable. Robert is gone and he is not coming back. Only stone hardened people of loss can really understand both realities during times like these. Maybe not even them. Grief is certainly such a personal experience especially when the numbness of a particular tragedy still hasn't worn off yet. But even amongst the extremely personal process, grief has a funny way of bringing people closer. The Communion of Grief. I guess that is why they say the only times everyone gets together is during weddings and funerals. Drastically polar occurrences when two become one and one again, becomes two. So we grieved with them on the Sabbath day. And it was very necessary. I am not entirely sure we would have felt as connected to these people if it were not for this unfortunate circumstance. I know it is sad to say, and I hate to consider the "If"s and "Then"s but I cant help but wonder. I grieved with these people. I cried with these people. I hugged these people. We laughed. We spoke. We prayed. We listened. And we then we cried some more. But most of all, I felt these people. You see...grief really isn't all that special. It doesn't wear any hats or faces. It isn't wrapped up all pretty. Grief is grief. And it remains and probably always will remain a major commonality of man. I think part of the reason I felt so moved was because it was the first time I was placed back into a circumstance of corporate grief since Kate died last year. It was all brought back to the surface. The pains and the joys. Kate's death bound many people together and it was interesting to share about her life with so many people just a few days before and now I was really being reminded of it from an emotional, heartbreak standpoint. In most ways, I think death is the Father's way of bringing people together. It truly makes sense when looking at it from the standpoint of Jesus. Especially in the spiritual sense. Conflicts don't matter. Strangers become friends. Friends become family. Everything can be put on hold in times like these. Your life just doesn't seem as important as someone else's death. No matter who they were or what kind of life they did or didn't live. The totality of death. It is a time of Sabbath in a way...the Communion of Grief.

On the Rez

Well...as most of you know I am leaving in just a few days to partner with Our Father on an incredible journey for the summer! Our Father is sending me to the middle of nowhere land of South Dakota. He is sending me there to a people...the Lakota Sioux people. I will be spending the next 2 1/2 months with these people on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in Mission, SD. My prayer for this summer is that I would listen to these people, learn from these people, cry with these people, embrace these people, laugh with these people and most of all...begin to DREAM with these people.

In every attempt to not speak from a place of ignorance I believe the Native American people of today have lost most of their identity and almost every ounce of hope. Anyone can look at the social injustices and travesties that have plagued the Native American people of the last 100 years or so but I believe at the core of all the despair and depravity is a nation of people who are unsure of their identity and are finding it hard embrace the spirit of hope in a rather hopeless condition. I think they have forgotten how to dream.

I have been dreaming a lot myself these days. Me and the Father have been dreaming a lot about what it means to be part of the new creation, what it means to be covered in the blood of the Lamb and the peace of His resurrection. And in these moments I can't help but find a tremendous amount of hope, peace and love. Our Father has wonderful plans for us all.

So for me...this summer, He has called me to a place that needs to begin to dream again. And I'm not exactly sure how He will have me play a part in all of that but I long to be present with the Lakota Sioux people this summer in the simple hope that a few of His creation may start to really dream again what it means to be His people. Ignorantly, I think it would be easy for the "white" man to go to these people in order to bring them what we have or even try to help them find their identity as a Lakota Sioux people when truthfully all of us are called to be a people of Our Creator. One King. One nation. One people.

Truthfully...I am very unsure what I will experience this summer and what He may call me to do but I am certain that He has called me to this place this summer. And that is the only beautiful place any of us should ever be...the place where He has called us. For some of us this summer it will be to far off lands, or others it might be to our homes and neighbors, but for me it is to the middle of nowhere lands of south-central South Dakota. My prayer for all of you is that we are a people that are in places where we are called. If you're not sure...I would probably say that means His providence has allowed you to exist in whatever place you are currently in. So in a way...you've been called already my friend. Just Be. I also hope that in these places in which we are called that we begin to Dream with Our Father what it means to be His sons and daughters in the new creation. And as these dreams become the things we begin to long for that we begin to respond to the ways in which Our Father is calling us to be.

Frankly...there is so much to say. so much to consider. so much to ponder. But I think all of this is good for now. I hope all of you who read this check back every now and then. My hope for this blog is to really dialogue with you and myself about all the crazy experiences God has in store for me this summer. So stay tuned. And don't stop dreaming with Him.