Tag: Be Present

sorrow everywhere [ymca meditation on ash wednesday]

The YMCA was born in shadows and darkness, amidst bleak human misery, fueled by the courageous Christian faith of George Williams and his friends to pray for his fellow factory workers by name, all drowning in the ash-drenched despair of 1840’s sooty industrial London.

Today in my part of the world it is grey, bleak, chilly and sopping wet; perfect for lamenting on this Ash Wednesday.

Christians around the world today in their church or YMCA are choosing to pray, confess and repent of their iniquities, forgive those who sin against them, and maybe have the sign of the cross smudged on their forehead.

It’s a day of sorrow, of humility, of vulnerability and raw honesty. 

We get to choose what we do with this day, we get to choose what to do with everyday, but it does seem to me that most people struggle with what to do with the sorrow that is everywhere, the grief and sadness that smudges each day. 

Of all days, this is one to be melancholy, to be pensive, maybe even just plain depressed. 

Everywhere I look is sorrow: sorrow in Ukraine, sorrow in Palestine, sorrow in Turkey, sorrow in the USA, sorrow in our cities, sorrow in our schools, sorrows in our YMCA, sorrow in our families, sorrows in our souls; there’s sorrow everywhere. 

East Jerusalem, view from the Mount of Olives cemetery

What are our choices? Numb ourselves to the pain of it? Ignore it? Avoid it? Be consumed by it? Rage against it? Succumb to it? To pay too close attention to reality is to be in perpetual lament. 

These are choices Jesus faced, whom we affectionately and in solidarity also name as The Man of Sorrows; he didn’t shy away, nor turn his back, but faced the pain, embraced it, even absorbed it, taking upon himself the pain-wrecking sins of the world.

This is why Paul Tillich writes about the virtue of courage precisely in the glaring face of death, of anxiety and grief, of seeming bleakness and meaninglessness; for Christians in our darkest hours we can see, if nothing else, the courage of Christ to trust God in the face of evil, injustice, and unrelenting sorrows.

The YMCA was born in darkness, amidst bleak human misery, fueled by the courageous Christian faith of George Williams and his friends to pray for his fellow factory workers by name, all drowning in the grueling despair of 1840’s industrial London. 

Whatever the future of the YMCA and our churches, it must include our courageous presence in the lives of men and women who suffer the industrial injustices of reality, whose souls are broken down by machines and efficient technology, whose hearts are darkened by grating grief and stewing resentments. 

What if you could have a day where you could just come clean before God?

Just lay it all out there, everything in your spirit, mind and body that is marred by shame and guilt, to let it go – as Christians we would say: to accept God’s forgiveness of our sins and in Christ Jesus be filled with His Spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.

On Ash Wednesday, and on any day in the YMCA, we can choose to truly lament as well as muster up the courage to be present in sorrow everywhere – by the Spirit of the One who overcomes evil with good, who overcomes death through resurrection, who will one day wipe away every tear.

“And the God of all grace, who has called you to a resilient and glorious joy in Christ, after you have suffered (it won’t last forever), will personally restore you and make you strong, firmly able to withstand the storms.”

[adapted from 1Peter 5.10]

Click here for a song by Seacoast worship that’s meant a lot to me today, maybe it will for you too:

May the grace and peace of God be with you all, always.

Experiencing the YMCA Christian Principle of Equity & a Healthy Spirit For All

Whatever the future of Christianity in the YMCA can look like, I’m hoping it is one where we experience a religion sustained by the Same Spirit of Christ that makes equity and justice a reality.

For Christians in the YMCA, our principles are personal; not just that they mean a lot to us and we take them personally, but that they are Personal – that they are birthed out of a Real Person, out of the Way, Truth and Life of Christ Jesus.

Equity is a central Christian principle because it is central to the life and teachings of Christ.

When Jesus announced his “personal mission statement” to family and friends in his hometown synagogue of Nazareth, he declared a salvific message of justice and healing, of equity and liberation, of righteousness and goodness.

He wasn’t just stating the principles he would be putting into practice, Jesus was putting forth the way the Spirit of God was present in the world: with the poor against the rich who rob them, with the captives against their enslavers, with the blind against the gougers, with the oppressed against the elite who erode their freedoms.

“Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.

He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.

He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.

Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.””‬‬

Jesus of Nazareth, Gospel according to Luke, 4.14-19 NIV

Christian theologian Michael Gorman remarks on the obvious:

These words became the substance and shape of Jesus’ ministry. More precisely, then, Jesus, filled with God’s Spirit, embodied biblical justice, especially in his concern for the weak and marginalized; the evangelists bear witness to this…. It was integral to his identity and mission. We might even say that Jesus not only proclaimed the good news to the poor…but he also became the gospel. And like the God of Israel’s Scriptures, Jesus expected those who walked with him to do likewise….”

Michael Gorman, Becoming The Gospel, 216-217

It was this atoning Same Spirit of God that was upon George Williams and his eleven Christian friends when they started the Young Men’s Christian Association in 1844 London England.

It was this Same cruciform Spirit of God that was upon Anthony Bowen when he courageously started a YMCA in the USA.

And it’s been the Same Spirit of Equity, Justice, Righteousness and Love which has animated the best of the YMCA since 1844; it’s also the Same Spirit that critiques and convicts us when we fall short of the glory of God and sin against one another.

Christians in the YMCA have an opportunity in every generation to powerfully experience the redemptive Power of God through their participation in the Gospel of Christ – and this mostly happens when we faith-fully participate in actions of justice and mercy, in sowing seeds of equity, in hungering and thirsting for righteousness.

The spirit of the YMCA must be renewed every generation.

The Same Spirit which was upon Jesus of Nazareth is the Same Spirit upon every follower of Jesus in the YMCA who is Born of the Spirit, upon everyone who bravely trusts in Christ, it’s for all who will humbly imitate him in love and equity by His Spirit.

When Christian’s in the YMCA get it wrong, when we perpetuate injustice and inequity, when we are guilty of unrighteousness, when we are convicted in our spirit by The Spirit of our sins against our neighbors, we know what we ought to do:

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our injustices, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our inequities and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.”

The beloved apostle John, adapted from his first letter, 1.8-10 NIV

How serious is Jesus about those who follow him, who bear His Spirit, to speak truth in love to each other when we sin, when we are at fault for inequity, injustice, and unrighteousness?

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you.

If they listen to you, you have won them over.

But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’

If they still refuse to listen, tell it to your assembly of fellow followers; and if they refuse to listen even to them, treat them as you would an unrepentant and hard-hearted enemy.”

Christ Jesus in the Gospel according to Matthew, adapted, 18.15-17, NIV

The YMCA was started by Christians that we now revere, and it’s been built up and sustained almost eighteen decades by millions of Christians with the Same Spirit of Jesus upon them. Hallelujah! What a glorious reality for our communities and world!

But alas, all of those same Christians have never been without sin, each of us, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn says, experiences: “the battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man and woman.”

It shouldn’t be a shock when Christians in the YMCA commit injustices, rather it ought to produce sorrow and righteous anger, especially when it gets denied, goes unrepented, and unhealed; truth is crucial for reconciliation to flourish.

Whatever the future of Christianity in the YMCA can look like, I’m hoping it is one where we experience a humble religion sustained by the Same Spirit of Christ Jesus that makes equity and justice a reality.

Christians in the YMCA can strengthen the presence of Christ, they participate in the gospel of Jesus, they become the Good News of God when they “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our Lord.”

Wherever there is a cry to experience equity, wherever there is a protest against injustice, wherever unrighteousness darkens a soul, we ought to as followers of Jesus keep his Nazareth manifesto at the front of our minds, at the tip of our fingers, at the center of our spirit.

In the YMCA, may we who are brothers and sisters in the Lord, always strive to put Christ’s personal principles of equity and peace, of justice and love, of righteousness and mercy into practice everyday, that together by the Spirit of the Lord that is upon us, that has called us, we build up a healed spirit, a mind liberated by good news, a body released from oppression, that there would be flourishing for all.

Prayers for Peace on the National Day of Prayer :: the YMCA, the Church, the City

Especially as Christians, we have a responsibility to fulfill our calling as “little Christ’s” – to “live our lives” in Christ Jesus – this is how we will overflow in thankfulness and be instruments of peace where we live and work and pray.

For the 2022 National Day of Prayer, the emphasis was drawn from the encouragement of St. Paul to the church in the city of Colosse (Colossians 2:6-7).

Here is the cotext of what we wrote to the young Christian men and women who associated there in homes and the marketplace:

“My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments.

For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”

Colossians‬ ‭2:2-7‬ ‭NIV

Prayers for our country and community are essential, praying for our leaders and families, our churches and YMCA’s matter.

Especially as Christians, we have a responsibility to fulfill our calling as “little Christ’s” to “live our lives” in Christ Jesus – this is how we will overflow in thankfulness and be instruments of peace where we live and work and pray.

As you pray today, and everyday, may these words above of Saint Paul, and this prayer below of Saint Francis guide you in spirit, mind and body, for all whom Christ brings into your life:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let us bear your love.
Where there is offence, pardon us as we pardon others.
Where there is discord, bring union through us.
Where there is error, may truth arise.
Where there is doubt, grant us faith.
Where there is despair, be our hope.
Where there is darkness, shine your light through us.
Where there is sadness, inspire us with joy.


O Master, let us not seek
to be consoled but rather to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love,
for it is in giving that one receives,
it is in forgetting that one finds,
it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,
it is in dying in Christ that one is raised to eternal life.

Adapted from the prayer attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi

The following prayers and prompts are from Central Branch YMCA in downtown Fort Wayne.