"So what do you do when you're not here for the summer?" It's a natural question, especially when they find out I'm not in school. I try to scrounge up something that answers the world's definition of Doing Something. I tell them I was a nanny in Germany before this, and a baker in Seattle before that. I tell them I don't know what I'll be doing at the other end of the summer.
What if I simply said, what if I truly believed that who I am is a follower of Jesus? What if that was where I found my truest identity? This morning I felt chastised along with the Galatians when Paul said, "You foolish Galatians! Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law or by believing what you heard?" It's not about observing the law, doing my duties, being productive, getting the job done. A life well lived is a life of believing, a life of receiving.
Instead I try to please others, to do a job well for my own credit, and to validate my existence, my being right here right now, by the works of my hands.
But the works of my hands will fall like the tower of Babel; they will burn like wood, hay, and stubble; they will crash when the rains come down and the streams rise up. At the final summing up, they will amount to nothing.
What will remain? Love, and I am not capable of love on my own. Like an infant who is not held and loved from birth, if I do not receive love from my Father I will suffer from spiritual attachment disorder, from failure to thrive. My job is pretty simple: look to the Father. Receive love from Him. Go deep in intimate relationship with Him. This is where heart transformation happens, where love comes from.
There was a little girl at kid's club in Warm Springs this past week who made me feel my inadequacy. Her name was Clarissa, and she asked me as we blew bubbles together where David and Kat were. I remembered David and Kat; they were team members from the first week. "Well, they had to go home," I told her. Her face fell right away, but she asked me a few more questions and as my answers sunk in she became increasingly depressed. "Are you sure they aren't going to be here this week? But Kat was my best friend. They aren't coming back?"
We puttered around the various crafts together, but her apathy increased. I read her a couple of books, and she put up with listening to the stories but her heart wasn't in it. She didn't want to head around back for story time, but I cajoled her to join us on the grass and she sat with me on the outskirts of the group, leaning against me, resigned, wearily eating her teddy grahams and sucking her Capri Sun.
When we waved goodbye, said "See you later!" at the end of the afternoon, I wondered if we were doing any good at all. Are we just torturing these children, already living lives of hellos and goodbyes, of fair weather friends and guardians? We come each day and leave after a couple of hours; the teams come for a week and then go home; the interns keep returning throughout the summer but at the end we all disappear and they don't see any of us for another year.
What am I doing here, I wondered? I come, the virtuous missionary with my packet of love and good deeds to pass out for my eleven weeks here. I am not entering into their pain, their lives, their community. While my need for Jesus is not one whit different than theirs, my actions seem to say that I think I have something to offer them.
And then I thought of that great missionary Jesus, and how he came. He didn't move in next door, setting up a store of heavenly goods to parcel out to passersby. He moved in WITH us; he moved into a human womb, took up the all the constraints and trials and dilemmas we struggle with. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
I have not done that. I have held myself aloof, not wanting to enter into the suffering and dirt of the human condition. I, who am of this race, will not stoop as He has done for me?
I do have a long term career goal: to be transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory. It starts with gazing long and steady at his face, all day, every day.
