Elmo and Love
Last night I finally got around to watching Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey. It came highly recommended by many of my friends, and I wasn't disappointed. I'll admit that I've loved Elmo since I was a kid--at one point in middle school, I may have perfected Elmo's voice ... yeah, it absolutely got me all the girls.
Anyway, the documentary was a fascinating look at the life of Kevin Clash, the guy who made Elmo who he is today, from his humble beginnings in Baltimore to fulfilling his dreams of meeting and working with Jim Henson, bringing a voice and character to a fluffy red puppet who's familiar to us all, and now to his role as an executive producer on Sesame Street.
One of the things that struck me while watching it was the story of how Kevin developed Elmo's character. The first incarnation of Elmo was as a growly, gruff-voiced caveman-like creature who liked to cause mayhem, but it just wasn't working, and so fellow puppeteer Richard Hunt tossed Elmo into Kevin's lap and said, "He's all yours." Every puppet, he'd been told, has to have one thing that makes them, one characteristic that defines them.
Somehow, someway, Kevin discovered Elmo's: love.
Elmo is love personified. He loves everyone. He's all about affection: hugging, kissing, holding hands. He's all about making people feel loved, welcomed, included, appreciated. And that, I'd suggest, is why he's so popular. It's why kids love him; it's why, as Kevin relates, kids in Make-A-Wish-type situations ask for him; it's why he brings comfort to those in distress; it's why he brings joy to those experiencing sorrow.
Love.
Yes, I'm drawing a lesson from a furry red puppet and applying it to faith.
Because God is love. Jesus is love personified. And we're supposed to be the same way--that's what a follower does, right?
So what does it say about how we're living our lives, about how we're presenting Christ, about how we're representing God to a hurting, broken world, that we aren't received the same way, that we aren't in those same places, that we aren't bringing the comfort and welcome and joy of a loving God to those around us?
There is beauty in the world: Yosemite
I've been reading again through one of the books that changed my life, Brennan Manning's The Ragamuffin Gospel. One of his chapters talks about wonder, and he quotes Abraham Joshua Heschel, who said on his deathbed, "Never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder, and he gave it to me."
Both Heschel and Manning lament that, "As civilization advances, [our] sense of wonder declines." Because we get so caught up in our plans and projects, our busyness and activity, with ourselves, that we forget to take time to bask, to celebrate God's glorious creation--"We grow complacent and lead practical lives. We miss the experience of awe, reverence, and wonder."
The video below is an absolutely stunning time-lapse video from Yosemite, taken by Sheldon Neill and Colin Delehanty. It was a reminder to me that there is so much beauty in the world, if I'll only take a second to step back, open my eyes, and look up.
A trip to Yosemite has definitely been added (bold and underlined) to my bucket list.
Pictorial: Three weeks in January
A selection of pics from the first three weeks of January. 2012 has gotten off to quite a start!
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- Quincy House Concert
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- Qualia Macchiato
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- Winter sunrise
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- SNOW!!
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- Capitol
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- Washington
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- Jefferson & the Moon
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- Tealights
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- Don Coleman at The District Church
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- Tree
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- The District Church Leadership Community
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- Another gorgeous day to be thankful for
In the beginning … rest
On New Year's Day, I preached at The District Church (and I did the same yesterday at Sojourners chapel) about sabbath and rest. Here are some excerpts:
This message is as much for me and a result of what God’s been doing in me as anyone. For much of 2011, when I saw something that needed doing, I did it; when I saw a need that needed to be met, I met it. There wasn’t a cohesive structure to it, and there wasn’t an intentionality to it. And so it shouldn’t have been a great surprise to me that by last month, having worked two at-least-30-hour-a-week jobs for 10 months and running from one need to the next, from one campaign to the next, from one person to the next, I was absolutely exhausted. I remember thinking that I’d actually never been more physically drained. Spiritually, I was ecstatic because I was in the place God wanted me to be and doing what I knew God had made me to do; but physically and mentally, I was exhausted because I wasn’t practicing sabbath. I wasn’t stopping, I wasn’t resting, I wasn’t recovering, and that led me to do those very things I felt called to do, poorly.
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Can you imagine what it would be like for your work, your activity, your productivity to be your identity, your worth, your value, and for you to know nothing else?
Well, yes, of course we can. It’s not hard. We see it all around us. Maybe we even see it in our own lives. For us here in Washington, DC, in the twenty-first century, this same commandment can be a freedom. Maybe not from a life of actual bricks and chains. But from the bricks and chains of perpetual activity, from feeling as if changing the world depends on us and us alone, from feeling as if you are the only one who cares about this cause, or the only one who can make a difference in this person’s life. It is the freedom of God’s world.
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If we’re to live lives of integrity in a world that tells us all sorts of messages that are contrary to the gospel and the kingdom of God, we need to be immersing ourselves, constantly and consistently, in what God says to us and about us: even before you did anything of value, even before you were ever productive in any sense of the word, even before you were born, I loved you, I accepted you, and I called you my own.
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Jesus, the Lord of the sabbath, said, in John 10:10, “I came that they might have life, and life to the full.” Living life to the full isn’t the same as filling life to the full. A fulfilled life is not the same as a filled life. A fulfilled life is not saying yes to everything. It’s learning what God has called us to, saying yes to that, and saying no to other things. Not because we don’t want to do them—they’re probably great and wonderful and attractive things, otherwise it’d be easy to say no—but because we can trust in what God has called us to, and trust that God has things in hand.
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And in living out the sabbath from one day into the rest of the week, we live out an alternative story for the world to see. It is the gospel story—the good news!—where our worth is not determined by our activity or our productivity, where we are not judged—by others or by ourselves—on the basis of what we do or how well we do it; but where the grace of God comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ and liberates us from being enslaved to the stressed out, high strung, anxious, reactionary, workaholic lives that we see all around us, and maybe even in ourselves.
More questions at The District Church
What a week! Earthquake on Wednesday (I lived through five in California and never felt a single one; I move to DC and feel the first one!). And outside my window, Hurricane Irene is making life very, very wet and windy. (But prayers definitely going up for the folks who're getting hit much harder than we are/have been.)
Anyway, I've been meaning to blog about church this past week but that got squeezed out by the events and general busyness of this week. On Sunday, we finished out our "My Most Important Question" series, and got to hear from Daniel -- "Why is it so hard to trust in God's provision?", Heather -- "Is God good?", and David -- "What do you want me to do?" As with the week before, it was so good to hear from folks in our community; and once again, the honesty of their stories, the passion in their telling, and the presence of God in the midst of the struggles shone through. Heather, in particular, is a dear friend of mine; and while I'd heard her story before and talked with her about some of the things she talked about, it was so moving to see and hear her sharing it with the church community.
If you have time--actually, I'd strongly encourage you to make the time to go listen to the podcast; you can find it here.