looking back, looking forward

When I was in high school, a college student named Allyson spent a lot of time working with my youth group. After I moved away from Brentwood - first to Knoxville for college and then on to Washington, D.C. - we lost touch. I knew that she left the Nashville area later as well - first for seminary in Fort Worth and then on to New England, where she continues to minister to students through her work with the Baptist Convention of New England. 

Allyson and I recently reconnected through Facebook, and today we saw each other face-to-face for the first time in over 20 years. Talking with her brought back a lot of memories, and God used our conversation to confirm some stirrings in my heart. She told me that she has remained in contact through the years with a group of girls she began mentoring back in the 80s - girls she taught for three consecutive years in Sunday School beginning in their sophomore year. These "girls" are now 40-year-old women, but they continue to gather annually to nurture the bonds that were forged back in their teenage years. 

I couldn't help but think about my relationships with the girls in the Class of 2009 at my church, girls who I have been teaching in Sunday School for the past three years. I have promised them that I will continue to mentor them after they head off to college this fall, and it's exciting to me to ponder the prospect of us still getting together regularly over two decades from now (not so exciting to think how old I'll be then). Allyson made a long-term investment in "her" girls, I hereby pledge to do the same.

graduation

Last night my son graduated from John Overton Comprehensive High School. Chaney is a 13-year veteran of Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (MNPS), and he has always attended his zoned school: 5 years at Norman Binkley Elementary School (0.4 miles from our house), 2 years at Rose Park Middle School (6 miles away), 2 years at Croft Middle Design Center (1 mile away), and four years at Overton (2.3 miles). MNPS have taken a lot of flack through the years, and certainly the school system has a lot of room for improvement, but our experiences have been very positive. Chaney has had excellent teachers at each school he has attended, and he would not have become a National Merit Finalist Scholarship winner without their help. 

As we made our way through the crowded lobby after Overton's graduation ceremony last night at Belmont's Curb Event Center, a friend remarked that she felt like she was in the midst of the "It's A Small World Ride" at DisneyWorld because of the ethnic diversity. While such diversity frightens some parents, it's one of the things that I have treasured the most about my son's public education in Nashville. Just among the list of distinguished scholars (students with a cumulative average of 93-100), I found the following surnames: Abdullatif, Al-Jabbary, Boggs, Durani, Elassoulit, Hartzell, Hesen, Juarez, Juru, Le, Lin, Marquina, Martinez, McCann, Mohamed, Msoma, Quach, Sueing, Swiney, Tan, Yosuf, Young.

Chaney has gone to school with students from five of the seven continents. He has been in classes with refugees from Iraq and Kosovo. He's watched as students who started out in the English as a Second Language class in elementary school have become fluent in English and have excelled academically. He's brushed elbows with students from every socio-economic level. He's spent day after day walking the halls with more people who don't look like him than those who do - and that's a great thing, in my opinion. 

In her valedictory speech last night, my friend Adriana made a reference to the One who knew her before she was in her mother's womb. Looking out over the crowd that had assembled to celebrate the accomplishments of the Class of 2009 last night, I thought about how intimately God knew each person in that room, how He made each and every one of us in His own image, and how He loves each one of us passionately. 

My son has been well-educated by Metropolitan Nashville Public School, and I am extraordinarily grateful. And God has been with Chaney every step of the way these past 13 years, teaching him invaluable lessons about the diversity of His creation. Thanks be to God!

Remarks to the Class of 2009

This morning First Baptist Nashville honored the Class of 2009, and I had the opportunity to address the seniors during a special breakfast. Here's what I said:

Years ago I read a book by Norman Cousins called Anatomy of an Illness. One of the many things that intrigued me about this book was the author’s assertion that laughter has healing powers. The writer of Proverbs observed that “a cheerful heart is good medicine” (Prov. 17:22), so I don’t think Mr. Cousins’ thesis was far-fetched. And if laughter indeed is good for you, then I ought to be in great health because the Class of 2009 has made me laugh more through the years than any other group of people I’ve ever known.

The laughter started back in the days of Mission Friends with several of you. From those early experiences, I learned that you couldn’t sit still, you loved to do crafts, and you consumed snacks in great quantities. 

Then there were the Vacation Bible School experiences. I think I worked with your class at least four years in VBS. I remember laughing as I watched you enthusiastically learned the motions to the admit-believe-and-confess song of the year. And you couldn’t sit still, you loved to do crafts, and you consumed snacks in great quantities.

And then you entered the youth group. I hadn’t intended to work with youth, but when that first summer camp rolled around I found myself on a bus to Doublehead, ready to spend a week in a cabin with 7th grade girls. I distinctly remember our awkward cabin devotions that year – a bunch of girls sitting in silence under the watchful gaze of the framed picture of the Indian mother who looked like Nancy Brown. It’s hard to believe that there was a time when this bunch of girls didn’t have anything to say!

We found plenty of things to laugh about at each of the five camps we’ve shared together, but we undoubtedly laughed the loudest and longest the two years that Tom Richter was our camp pastor. And I still laugh when I think about the morning at Doublehead at the spirit circle when Bryan, attired in his Powerpuff Girls costume, tackled Josh from behind.

I’ve also laughed with you at five Labor Day Retreats. We’ve laughed in Sunday School classrooms, in Discipleship Training classes, and during the Monday Bible studies in my living room. We’ve laughed on mission trips to Atlanta, New Orleans, and Charleston, at DNow Weekends, at January basketball games, girls’ sleepovers, Super Bowl parties, family cookouts, Christmas cookie decorating parties, on the “Leadership Development Retreat” at Ridgecrest, and at the infamous cooking lesson at my house.

The ability to laugh has helped the Class of 2009 to navigate a difficult year. Many times, laughter has broken the tension. We’ve laughed, even though we haven’t really understood what God was doing – kind of like Sarai laughed when she overheard the Lord telling Abram that she was going to have a baby after all those years. And what did Abram and Sarai name that baby? Isaac – which means laughter.

But the best moments by far have been the ones when we’ve laughed together in sheer joy – and, thankfully, we’ve had an abundance of those moments during your senior year. I have watched you grow closer in your relationships with each other, but – more importantly – I’ve seen evidence that your personal relationships with Christ are ever deepening. Although this past year has been stressful, you’ve been able to take your faith to another level, as you’ve learned how to trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. And I have learned so much from watching your faith journeys unfold. So thanks for teaching me, and thanks for making me laugh.

I assure you there are many more laughs yet to come. We’ve got choir tour, camp, and the mission trip to Wales ahead of us this summer. In fact, missionary John Robinson has already warned us that we need to tone down our laughter while we are in Wales – that’s going to be a challenge for this group.

As you prepare for our adventures this summer and beyond, I hope you’ll remember this verse that we talked about in our Monday Bible study group earlier this spring – Zephaniah 3:17: “The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.”

a little pencil in God's hands

"Very often I feel like a little pencil in God's Hands. He does the writing, He does the thinking, He does the movement, I have only to be the pencil."
Mother Teresa, March 7, 1979

I have just finished reading Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, a collection of Mother's Teresa's private writings, and "astonishing" is the word that comes to mind. I am astonished by the depths of her passionate love for Christ and her vow to "not refuse Him anything." I am astonished by her sacrifice, her vow of absolute poverty. I am astonished to discover from her own words the depths of her personal spiritual darkness, yet this interior darkness never extinguished the light of Christ that gleamed so brightly through her life in the dark holes of the slums of Calcutta.

A little pencil in God's hands. An astounding image of submission. Am I content to be such a pencil - allowing God to do the writing, the thinking, and the movement? 

bubbles and hymns

I have stored a way a lot of wonderful memories from Chaney's senior year, but few can surpass last night.

I started hosting a Bible study for my son and a few of his friends from church during his sophomore year. This year the group burgeoned to nine regulars with a couple of other seniors who dropped in from time to time as their schedules permitted. Each week we've been studying a different spiritual discipline, so we've covered a range of topics, including: lectio divina, Bible study, meditation, prayer, almsgiving, singing from the heart, forgiveness, spiritual friendship, and discernment. To prepare for the lessons, I have used a great resource from The Upper Room - Soul Tending: Life Forming Practices for Older Youth and Young Adults.

Last week we had our last official Monday Bible study, since AP exams and graduation ceremonies were looming. Last night, Lauryn Moody (a true spiritual friend who teaches Sunday School with me and who has been a regular at our Bible studies) invited the seniors over for a celebratory dinner. Joe Fitzpatrick, our church's new worship and music pastor, was our special guest.

As we sat around Lauryn's dining room table, I asked the seniors to tell Joe about the various spiritual disciplines we had studied over the past few months. One of the students even had her notebook from the Bible study with her (no surprise that she is the valedictorian of John Overton High School), so she let him take a look. As the students shared, it occurred to me that this was a fairly rare sight - a group of high school seniors excitedly discussing spiritual disciplines around the dinner table.

Afterwards, the students opened the festively wrapped graduation gifts that the mom of one of the seniors had sent for them. One student remarked that this seemed like Christmas, so as they tore into their gifts, Lauryn played "White Christmas" on the piano and we all sang along. The girls were thrilled with their bubble machines, but for lack of a screwdriver, it took a half hour for them to get one up and running. But once the bubbles finally took flight, spirits soared even higher. 

The best part of the night, though, was when we all gathered around the piano and sang hymns together with Lauryn serving as our accompanist. Many people argue that teenagers don't like the old hymns of our faith - and many don't - but this group of seniors has a fondness for the Baptist Hymnal. A girl requested that we sing her favorite hymn, "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," and we sang in four-part harmony with gusto. Chaney then requested "My Lord is Near Me All The Time." We closed out the hymn sing with a rousing rendition of "Wonderful Grace of Jesus."

Bubbles and hymns are hard to beat. Thanks be to God.