Tag: Be Present

Your Caring Matters: a YMCA Child Care Services Devotion

If you’re anything like me, sometimes you get in a “woe is me” place and you wonder – does it matter if I show up, if I care, if I put in the effort?

Yes, you matter – it matters how you show up, how you prepare, how you play, and how your pray.

Your loving presence and prayers matter to the children and youth in your life.

Your caring matters.

The attention and attitude, your presence and posture matter to the children you serve before and after school.

Here is a story of Jesus blessing children that reminds me of how much it matters:

“Then Jesus came to Capernaum.”
And when He was in the house He asked them, “What was it you disputed among yourselves on the road?”

But they kept silent, for on the road they had disputed among themselves who would be the greatest.
And He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them,
“If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.”
Then He took a little child and set him in the midst of them.
And when He had taken him in His arms, He said to them,
Whoever receives one of these little children in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me, receives not Me but Him who sent Me.”

[‭‭from Gospel according to Mark‬ ‭9:33-37‬ ‭NKJV‬‬]

Take a few moments to soak in the loving attention and caring presence of Jesus with the children.

Imagine that is you being drawn close, embraced by the safe and strong kindness of Christ.

And if we take Jesus at his word, when you care for children “in his name” – inspired by his presence in your life – God is present to that little one.

Whoa.

Your caring matters.

You showing up matters.

You being present matters.

You being attentive and safe and trustworthy matters.

Your work matters.
The children you care for matter.
You matter.

If you’re anything like me, sometimes you get in a melancholy attitude and you wonder – does it matter if I show up, if I care, if I put in the effort?

Yes, you matter – it matters how you show up, how you prepare, how you play, and how your pray.

Your presence and prayers of love matter to the children and youth in your life.

You praying for the kids in your care matters.
You praying for their families matters.
You praying for your family matters.
You praying for your coworkers matters.
You praying for your self matters.

If we look around at the world as some kind of guide for how much children matter, how much our caring for them matters, if you based it on wages or prestige or fame, you’d have to conclude that there’s a lot of “talk” but in reality it’s a low value.

But when you listen to the words of Christ, when you see his example, when we believe his instructions, we can conclude that caring for children in the way of Jesus is bring Heaven to Earth, is how God is present to the little ones in our life.

Whoa.

When we care for children with the tenderness and strength with which God loves us, when let children into our life the way we let Jesus into our life, the way we “receive” children is a way for us to “receive” God.

Being with children is a holy, sacred, beautiful, joyous work that requires us to be humble, forgiving, loyal, trustworthy, open, and playful.

It requires lots of love.

St. Paul in his letter to a church failing miserably at honoring each other, he wrote a memorable, provoking, lyrical poem to inspire them to love like God loves them.

It includes this reminder: “love is patient, love is kind.”

It’s a very practical and concrete example.

You know when you have been irritably impatient with a child, when you have spoken unkindly in exasperation and weariness.

It’s easy to defend our impatience and unkindness: if “their” behavior was better, or if we weren’t so tired, or…etc.

But: patience and kindness are acts of love precisely because we are usually irritated by something, generally weary and easily exasperated – it’s in those dreary moments that love is needed most.

When you are at your best with children it’s usually when you’ve chosen patience while still irritable, choosing kind words instead of snapping back – you know when you do it, you sense it in your spirit, and even if no one notices or compliments you on it, it matters, God sees it, and it is significant.

Keep doing the work of patience and kindness when you are tired and stretched thin – it’s good for your spirit, it’s healing for the spirit of the children in your life, and it’s a way that God is present in our midst.

I invite you to meditate on this artistic images of Jesus, to see the patience and kindness in his presence with the children.

See yourself as one of those children, receiving his patience and kindness.

See yourself as being one with Jesus, giving patience and kindness to the children in your life.

Take a moment to text a friend or send a note in the post mail, reminding them that they matter to you, to God, that their caring and kindness to children matters, and that their work matters to families in our community.

May the Grace and Peace of Christ Jesus be with you, always.

Happy 200th Birthday George Williams – founder of the YMCA

What can you do in this coming year in honor of George Williams legacy to lift up youth, to embody the ​grace of Christ, and enter into the challenges of our generation with courage and wisdom?

It’s a joy to remember the origins of the Y, why we got our start, who all helped make it possible, and for what ends.

When you become a member of the Y, you join a global movement created in 1844 to save young men in spirit, mind and body.

All these years later, the Christian heart of the Y has built up an organization focused on welcome and hospitality, empowerment and solidarity, justice and peace, faith and hope; but the greatest of these is love.

Watch this YouTube message for a 15 second audio clip of Sir George Williams – in 1894!
Watch this trailer for The Soul In The Machine – about George Williams and the founding of the YMCA
Learn more about George and the origins of the YMCA through this dramatic presentation!

What can you do in this coming year in honor of George Williams legacy to lift up youth, to embody the grace of Christ, and enter into the challenges of our generation with courage and wisdom?

Find out more about George Williams at World YMCA
Enjoy this brand new video released on 10/11/2021 – The Reason Why (Part 1) it includes a visit to George Williams homestead and the circumstances of his teen years.

Desire, Being Present and Becoming an Adult: Bonhoeffer & the YMCA

Provoking reflections for adults investing in young people: “Adults may have their longings, but they keep them out of sight, and somehow master them; and the more they have to overcome in order to live fully in the present, the more they will have the respect and confidence of other people, especially the younger ones, who are still on the road that the adult has already travelled.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

How do you know when you are grown up?

What makes an adult an “adult”?

For all of us who work with youth, how do we measure success?

This paragraph below by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, taken from his Letters and Papers from Prison, resonates with me, in particular discerning the characteristics of becoming an adult.

But is it not characteristic of adults, in contrast to an immature person, that their center of gravity is always where they actually are, and that the longing for their fulfillment of their wishes cannot prevent them from being their whole self, wherever they happen to be?

The adolescent is never wholly in one place; that is one of the essential characteristics of youth, else he would presumably be a dullard.

There is a wholeness about the fully grown adult which enables a person to face an existing situation squarely.

Adults may have their longings, but they keep them out of sight, and somehow master them; and the more they have to overcome in order to live fully in the present, the more they will have the respect and confidence of other people, especially the younger ones, who are still on the road that the adult has already travelled.

Desires to which we cling closely can easily prevent us from being what we ought to be and can be; and on the other hand, desires repeatedly mastered for the sake of present duty make us richer.

Lack of desire is poverty.

Almost all the people whom I find in my present surroundings in prison cling to their own desires, and so have no interest in others; they no longer listen, and they are incapable of loving their neighbor.

I think that even in this place we ought to live as if we had no wishes and no future, and just be our true selves.

Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

What is it about that quote that sheds new light for you the role of desires in becoming an adult?

In an era that idolizes being “young” and resists becoming “old” – how does this description of desires and becoming an adult subvert those idols?

Bonhoeffer’s lived experience and seasoned reflections as a Christian pastor and theologian – he died in a Nazi prison at age 39 – are meaningful to me, and have shaped my striving to become an adult that is fully present with my whole self.

For me, no greatness or gratitude comes from regret-dwelling on the past or day-dream living in the future; that usually only fuels self-loathing and depression.

If I don’t master my desires, it also undermines me becoming the kind of adult who takes genuine interest in others, who truly listens, and is capable and willing to welcome and love neighbors, strangers, and enemies, as instructed by Christ Jesus.

In the YMCA and our communities, in the youth work we do, in the collaboration we do with adults, mastering our desires, by God’s help, gives us freedom to become our true selves – not enslaved to our desires.

This is how we can all live richly and authentically in the present; it enables us to embrace the duties that God’s Spirit and society have presented to us in these turbulent days.