Providing Christian resources from the YMCA past and present to nourish inclusive, equitable work in our diverse and global neighborhoods that build up healthy spirit, mind and body for all.
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.
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.
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.
“For all” is a key part of our YMCA mission, and for Christians in the Y we can do our part as the welcoming hands and hospitable heart of Jesus, motivated to do our part in our decades to be ones who unite – and be part of the transformative answer to Christ’s prayer “that they may all be one.”
It’s a week where we are reflecting on the devastating impact of 9/11 on America and the world, and a sentiment that arises is the remembrance of unity that emerged from the chaos.
That moment of unity was costly, but the experience of it lingers in our national memory, the yearning still clings to our conscience.
Many of us ask the question in some form: how can we be united like that again, but without the destructive evil to prompt it?
For Christians in the USA who reflect on those moments of unity as our country came together, many of us thought of the call Christ Jesus placed upon his disciples.
The unity that America experienced for a few moments after 9/11 is a kind of unity that Jesus prays for – in particular for all who will believe in him throughout each generation in every nation.
Christians yearn for unity among one another in our local congregations, city churches, national denominations, historic branches across the globe.
Jesus prays for unity, “that they may all be one” – and it seems like we are still waiting for this prayer to get answered.
This yearning for Christian unity was desired greatly in the 1840’s during which the YMCA was formed by George Williams and his eleven friends.
The Paris Basis of the 1855 World YMCA Alliance is a practical statement striving to embody this prayer of Jesus for local YMCA’s that desire to be in harmonious relations with Y’s across their countries and the world.
This prayer of Jesus, for awhile, was included in the 1896 logo of the Y, the reference of it – John 17:21 – was printed upon an open Bible, in the middle of a triangle, behind which was a double circle and the Chi Rho symbol.
The current bylaws of many US YMCAs includes explicit commitment to the inclusive and uniting principles of Christ, with an expectation that it would not only shape individual personalities to imitate Jesus’ style of fellowship, but it would influence whole societies.
The Young Men’s Christian Association we regard as being in its essential genius a worldwide fellowship united by a common loyalty to Jesus Christ for the purpose of developing Christian personality and building a Christian society.
The present mission of the Y masterfully condenses the soul of Jesus’ prayer, the heart of the Paris Basis, and the essence of the bylaws in their mission statement: to put Christian principles into practice through programs that build healthy spirit, mind and body for all.
In the life of the Y these days there are crucial conversations around the relevance and connection of “Christian principles” to being “for all” in our mission.
For complex and sometimes ambiguous reasons there is resistance or confusion to the meaning of “Christian principles” in our mission; and others have a similar uncertain take on being “for all.”
It seems to me like it’s worth remembering honestly where we came from, to tell those stories responsibly, to respect those that made it possible in the past for the Y to be here today, and to care enough to pass it on to the next generation even better than when we came into it – that can be a helpful to build up healthy connections between “Christian principles” and being “for all.”
Again, for complex reasons, the “C” in our name has been downplayed in many of our official YMCA branding and historical accounts, a form of interpretation about our context.
Based on observation, it does seem like there is an awkwardness and uncomfortableness publicly talking about the “C” in the YMCA in our movement, which is shaped in various ways by our pluralistic, secular, multi-cultural, multi-faith communities.
And, with the division that has exponentially increased between Christians in the past 200 years, it complicates communication between them in the Y – thus if they talk past each other, or down to those who are different in their following of Christ, how can they speak with united confidence among those who don’t believe in Jesus like them?
One of the elephants in the YMCA room is the uncomfortableness Christians have talking about their own faith – especially with other Christians who believe differently.
If you don’t believe the Y is a safe place to talk about what you believe, then the Y squelches most kinds of Christianity and by default let’s a vague version emerge that might be “safe” but also barely meaningful.
What’s your take on Christians who believe differently than you?
Imagine how Jesus feels when he looks around the world at all the different Christians… is he clicking his tongue, slapping his forehead, rolling his eyes at the diversity of his disciples?
No.
When you read this part of Jesus’ prayer for disciples in the generations to come, there is nothing narrow-minded or small-hearted about it:
My prayer is not for them alone.
I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.
May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity.
Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
It’s a beautiful, bold, compelling, visionary prayer that, to be frank, we are yearning still for Jesus to fulfill.
This prayer of Jesus was a fueling element for the posture of the YMCA towards different kinds of Christian men they let join and lead in the Y.
For anyone who wants a stronger “C” in the YMCA, it includes ecumenical acceptance of the diverse “C” that’s always been true of us – the fruit of this being God’s love for the world being made known.
The movement started with boundaries, like all must; but the Y kept expanding it through the decades – in London, through the British Isles, then Europe and eventually five more continents.
Eventually they let all the Protestant into the Y, despite some internal protesting; then they let in the Catholics and Orthodox – this ought not to be assumed as natural, but rather a striving based on rigorous efforts and prayer.
This same posture led the Y to take the momentous step of letting in their Jewish and Muslim friends, and eventually they would drop all religious requirements for membership and leadership.
When someone joins the Y, whatever kind of Christian they might be, whatever kind of religious conviction you may or may not hold, there is no denying the truth of the ground and roots which nourish the global YMCA movement.
It is inauthentic of the Y to downplay the religious history of the Y, to shy away from the explicit Christian heart of the Y – it makes our movement less interesting, less compelling, less transformative.
It’s okay to honestly say that it is more complicated now, that there is uncertainty on what to do with religions in the Y, and Christianity in particular.
In light of the religious upheavals we are experiencing globally, no surprise that the Y is also caught up in it.
And the violence that is done in the name of religion is reprehensible. Always.
The solution, though, is not to squelch religion, to ban it or ignore it as a way to stem violence.
People are violent.
Religion can be used as a wise and healing tool in the face of violence, or it can be wielded to destroy with it.
If the goal is to find ways to transform violent people into peacemakers, and if those people are religious, we ought to seek ways to use their religious traditions to fuel ways of reconciliation instead of killing each other.
The YMCA sought to do this in its first hundred years, embodied among many leaders, in particular through the life’s work of John Mott, who is considered the Ecumenical Statesman of the 20th century, and who won a Nobel Peace prize for his war relief work.
With a religious YMCA legacy like that, we have an opportunity now to learn from and draw on this part of our history to foment religious reconciliation as part of our peacemaking, of forging just mercy in our violent communities.
Jesus’ prayer is our prayer, for those that believe in him, which is what then shapes our posture towards one another and the world.
When Christians seek oneness with one another, through Jesus, we end up demonstrating a healing and resonant love for the world.
Within the Orthodox Christian community, which John Mott highly respected, is the word “theosis” to describe the oneness in Jesus’ prayer.
Jesus prays that we would be one with each other and with God like Jesus himself is: this is theosis – a kind of healing communion where we experience the transforming joy of God’s reconciling presence in spirit, mind and body.
Thanks to the rigorous studies by Christian missionaries, we now realize that so much of the Christian division in the world is largely due to complex cultural differences, generational differences (often tied to immigrant communities), and sometimes violent socio-economic differences.
Of course the divisive Seven Deadly Sins are always at work, like entropy, pulling people apart in spirit, mind and body – and these must honestly and care-fully be confronted in a community, no matter what they are going through.
But to miss the larger forces at work is to misattribute to individuals what is happening on a massive scale to millions of individuals- thus being blind to trends which we can learn from, and then miss out on ways to give people more wisdom and truth on how to overcome cultural, generational and social-economic differences with grace.
When reflecting on how expansive, how inclusive, how global, how radical is the mercy of God, of how patient and kind Jesus is in answering his prayer these past twenty centuries, we can exclaim like St. Paul:
“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?”
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
The unity that Christians yearn and strive for is a vision of the future which God is mysteriously and faithfully fulfilling in the world as it really is.
It becomes a matter of faith, of trust, that God is the source, the means, and the purpose of unity, that it is marked by mercy, faithfulness, wisdom, mystery, and glory.
Did Jesus know when he prayed for unity in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of his betrayal that twenty centuries later we’d still be missing the mark?
Whatever Jesus knew, he wasn’t naive, nor a quitter – rather, motivated by a sacrificial love, an enduring joy, and a glorious hope that God will someday, someway answer his prayer for unity.
This prayer of Jesus, this desire for theosis, this yearning for transforming unity with God and others – past, present, future – it’s part of why the Y was formed, and in part why it has endured, adapted, matured, and kept moving forward, even if it has stumbled along the way.
“For all” is a key part of our YMCA mission, and for Christians in the Y we can do our part as the welcoming hands and hospitable heart of Jesus, motivated to do our part in our decades to be ones who unite – and be part of the transformative answer to Christ’s prayer “that they may all be one.”
