There’s a humming in my heart today, a listlessness I can’t shake. It’s been a day of busy meetings and ideas, churning through deadlines and ideas but the whole time there is a soundtrack playing in my head that matches the rhythm of my heart.
Maybe it’s blue skies, maybe it’s the proud sadness of the harbour bridge flags at half-mast for Sir Edmund, maybe it’s the smoky asphalt sticking to the soles of my jandals and the familiar rub of skin delicately peeling from my shoulders.
Maybe it’s the delicious closeness of my favourite season of the year. It could be the impending nuptials of dear friends, perhaps the sense of newness within myself. It could be the slip of the tongue that I’m storing up in my heart, and the word of the Lord that has birthed hope within me again.
Either way… this is the fragrance of summer, isn’t it? The hope and fullness of it all. Gladness, sadness, pain and fragility all in the same breath, all in the same living room.
Colour In The Kingdom More than thinking about the roles of geography in the coming Kingdom, I’m really fascinated by the role that skin colour plays. I’m fascinated to think about how we communicate and birth a new sense of relationship, value and understanding between groups of people in the context of Eastercamp. Everything that we do still feels not good enough, too tokenistic to be really progressive in creating a celebration of multi-cultural identity.
What even is a multi-cultural identity in the context of kingdom values, kingdom culture, kingdom identity? Do colour barriers, socio-economic barriers (not always the same) simply fade away? Does the Christ of the Gospels unify the ethnic diversity under Roman rule or simply tolerate it within a broader understanding of what’s to come? What’s the Scriptural mandate for celebrating and identifying as part of a people group other than Jew or Gentile?
Here is a story that started out a long time ago, and left it’s first chapter here. Another chapter begins here, where I’ve been part of the Soul Survivor world for five days. In a mere 72 days, Sam will enter the Eastercamp world where Marko was in 2007 and where Stu always has a place.
After this weekend, there are even more threads in the weaving, including old friends who are new youthworkers, and old friends who are being made new… and everything in between. The Lord has been good this week, with lots of healing happening in the lives of people around me.
Tonight I was watching Sam preach and I couldn’t keep the smile from growing bigger and bigger on my face. There is something so good and precious happening in his gifts that I can’t wait for the story to keep going at Easter. I was so stoked to hear him this weekend. Yay. Ok, enough ranting and raving.
We’re going to leave in about half an hour for the long trek back to Auckland, where I expect to encounter dawn somewhere. I’ll take a pause whereever we are at that point, and give thanks.
This is the most exciting and brief post that I will write for about 3 posts.
This year in preparing for Eastercamp, it became crystal clear to me all of a sudden, that it’s no point booking Christian bands for no reason other than they are Christian. Those bands very rarely offer any major drawcard or culture access point for non-churchy kids into the Eastercamp culture. In fact, it could be seen and experienced as another sub-culture exclusion point instead.
So what if, I said, we actually hosted non-Christian bands that do create a culture access point at Eastercamp? What if we created the culture access point around common World Vision values, a supportive media proponent like txttunes.com and do something that’s never been done before.
A few years ago, it was easy to book Christian bands that were doing a bit of mainstream crossover. But now, the case is not the same. Those acts have either wound up or moved overseas. Currently, there are a wide range of artists where one or more member of a group is a committed Christian. For a number of those bands, they carry strong social justice themes and that means a wide common ground can be found between Eastercamp’s theming, World Vision and the advocacy causes of the artist.
I put it forward, simply asking that I have permission to pursue the kid that otherwise wouldn’t come to camp, to create a resource that actually creates inroads or helps build impact for kids that seeing this and not usually coming to camp.
I expected a fight. I prepared my arguments. They were well-worded, compelling and convicting. In fact, I’m almost disappointed that I didn’t get to use them, because they really would have been fun to expound… but I didn’t have to because my Vision team said yes. They bought the dream, caught the vision and gave me permission to walk on the sharp sharp edge.
Early Mornings, Wisdom More Than Knowledge All those years ago when I worked in radio, I loved the early morning journey into the middle of the city. I loved waking before the rest of the city and surveying her peacefulness as she woke. I loved watching the dawn from the 11th floor of the Peace Tower.. sun sliding over the harbour and the traffic slowly snaking it’s way in and out of the city centre.
I love early mornings still, when I’m at Eastercamp and I unlock the doors to the sanctuary space, waiting for the youth leaders to pile in. I love the emptiness of the enormous room, but how home-like it feels. I love the mist and fog of an early Waikato morning like nothing else on this earth.
I love early mornings now, just because the birds that sit in the macrocarpa outside my window, on my window sill, in the olive trees and on my tin roof are full of song, and the dawn feels like a slow golden glow rising over the horizon into my kitchen window.
I love early mornings on Tuesdays, because I gather with precious Jesus-hungry teenagers and we dig into the Word. I just love it. I love them with such a joy because they are full of goodness and challenge and life.
What’s so great is that this group is in dogged pursuit of wisdom, not knowledge. The knowledge is empty, but they have hearts that crave wisdom. I am relearning the wonder of Proverbs 3:5 .. leaning NOT on our own understanding.
Tide Is Turning, The Sun Is About To Break Forth The past couple of weeks have been really challenging. Tough times. But the sun is about to burst forth, and I’m looking forward to the feeling of the Sun’s rays on my face. I imagine this is sometimes what Peter would have felt like.. the constant ache of frustration and exhaustion.
I reckon Peter was probably much more of a thinker than what we traditionally give him credit for. Sure, he was a hot-head, but I can’t help but think that he pondered and mused on his actions, reactions and would’ve/could’ve equations. Methinks that’s when the dark shadows would have rolled in, self-doubt and anxiety would have shown themselves on his face.
Thankfully, me and Peter are standing on the shoreline together today, knowing that the sun is going to rise, bursting forth glorious light.
Lord… you have heard the words of the poet behind every beauty there is some kind of pain my burgeoning labour weighs heavily on me with the unanswerable questions like “why do you believe?”
I have no answers but a voice that sounds like yours it’s a voice on the wind it’s the summer i long for it’s the hope in the picture i’m painting where late summer sun will warm my skin again please let me not be cold that long
Lord… you know the wrestle of my heart unseen the knifeblade of decision that sharpens on integrity where is my justice Lord, where is my hope? I have rested in your strength these years but i am weary, the skies darken over me You are not weary Lord, uphold me
everlasting one, draw near to me and i will yield to you make my confessions of longing and hold on to my breath catching my tongue on tears, kneeling on fist, head to floor oh in this moment not to be alone not to be in silence, not out of arms
and here is my whole heart and vision falling under shadows here is my will submitting Where is my justice Lord, where is my hope? what now for the people? what now for tomorrow? what left is sacred, what is left?
Wash the mud and spit from my eyes, heal my sight wash the mud and spit from our eyes, heal our sight make uncertainties clear, truth to light from fear the many, make simple, make few, make right… make You.
We work on the corner of Symonds St, Mt Eden Road and New North Road. We have several excellent coffeehouses in our immediate vicinity. We’re just up the road from Mt Eden Village, and from K’Rd. We’re equally as close to Kingsland and Newmarket. What’s all the geography go to do with it?
Well, in the small trapezium formed between those reference points, live and work lots of people that we know. I love the ritual of the drop-in, the treats run, the lunchtime coffees and the ‘walking’ route that leads me past the doorways of friends and others who are all in business, life, ministry and habitation in the vicinity of one another.
It seems to me to be good practice, to know the names and lives of the people at Altezano, at Canteen, at the various workplaces around here. It seems to me to be good practice to know the names of the homeless who make shelter around our office building. It also seems good practice to intentionally walk, and take notice of what is happening around us. More than just the changing billboards or street posters, but the businesses that open and shut, the parking wardens who get this round. It helps to feel grounded and connected to the “real world” that happens outside the office door.
For those of us that are in business literally ‘together’ (as much as location joins anyone together by proxy) – it is also good to be the presence of sanity and joy.
So, while I am waiting for my communal house or for my holistic community to grow.. I can at least take comfort in my holistic, communal work environment. Learn more names, greet more familiar faces. Make everyone feel like a regular in your world. That is the extension of the arms of Christ.
Confession I can’t say too much more without spoiling the surprises but… suffice it to say..
I have been thinking a lot about the connection between secrets, secret lives, fantasy, sin, silence, darkness, hopelessness for young believers and Confession. I think that the Prodestant church has not excelled in providing a response to sin that expresses appropriately the grace, mercy and forgiveness of Christ.
After all, the Bride is designed to be the instrument of God’s grace to one another. But if we whisper our confessions in quiet, solitary prayer and let our tears fall alone – where can we hear the sacred words… you are FORGIVEN?
How much too, does our understanding of our forgiveness – the weight and the sanctity of it, affect our participation in Communion rituals? Thoughts welcome.
Tash McGill is a broadcaster, writer and strategist who works with people and organisations to solve problems and create transformation. She believes people are the most important thing and that stories are powerful ways of changing the world. You can find out more at tashmcgill.com or by visiting her LinkedIn profile.
