This week, Jesus walks into a city. We know the story well鈥攑alm branches and a donkey, a bit of a ruckus at the temple, a traditional dinner with a remarkable twist, a garden, a betrayal, a dark day and death.

Each year around the world, many Christians mark Holy Week by practicing their own journey to the cross. Passion plays and parades fill the streets of countless cities, each with their own cultural flair and contextual narrative. I have twice had the opportunity to witness Huehuetenango City, Guatemala in all of the passion and color and homage of Holy Week. Bright colors and artwork fill the streets. On the evening of Good Friday, the sidewalks teem with people as elaborately decorated floats march to the city center. There is an air of celebration, certainly, but it is also tinged with the reality that this event marks the somber walk of Christ to his death.

There is something so public about how we are invited to remember the story of Holy Week. Much of the time, we are told that our faith is personal or something we share with a small collective of people. But Easter is a season for living the Christian story out loud. It鈥檚 a story of bread and wine, body and blood. It鈥檚 filled with curses and tears and whips and a rough hewn wooden cross, carried burdensomely for all to see. We are invited to live this story outwardly ourselves, not simply by staging a grand Passion play (those are always cool though鈥�), but by answering the call to walk the streets of our communities with the same sense of gravitas and humble appreciation for the deep sacrifice of Christ, which leads all humanity into a new way of resurrected life.

We are invited to live this story outwardly ourselves.

I think about the streets of my neighborhood and my parish. I think about what it might be like to live this story out loud, in the common spaces, this year. It鈥檚 not about street corner evangelism or brightly colored parade floats. That鈥檚 not my context. I hail from the City of Subdued Excitement (Bellingham, WA). When I think of how Jesus would walk through the streets of my city with a cross on his back, I think of how he would cry out for the rapidly expanding homeless population on our streets. I think of how he would weep for the lost and lonely college students who are contemplating suicide. How he would look out across our beautiful bay and think of the Lummi Nation and mourn for how disconnected our city has become from its native heritage. And I think about walking the streets of Railroad Avenue and, while seeing pain and suffering, also seeing hope and resurrection lifting from the earth as God uses ordinary people to bring renewal and justice to the city.

This week is about a journey to the heart of home. It is not a homecoming marked by complacent rest, but one in which we cry out for the places we love and the people who inhabit them as we seek a new kind of world鈥攁 world in which the power of death has no more sting, and the cross of the empire has become a subversive symbol of hope.

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I have a goddaughter who is an American-adopted Ugandan. Her parents knew a deep sense of calling that led them to reaching out and welcoming into their home three girls from a Ugandan orphanage. And I am changed by the fact that I now belong to her, and she to me. She has become my kin, my neighbor, my family. We are not bound by blood or skin color鈥攚e are bound by the love that extends as the hands of God in our common, shared life together. And I find, as I remember her presence in my world, that I am me more because of her.

The calling of the Christian way is to embrace the stranger and make a place at your table for your enemy. 鈥淟ove your enemies, pray for those who persecute you,鈥� Jesus says. At the core of this tradition is a radical concept that we not only must live alongside those who are different from us, but that we are meant to seek the well-being and shalom of our enemies, as equal and even above our own selves.

We are meant to seek the well-being and shalom of our enemies.

I鈥檓 struck by how contrary this way of life is, especially in the culture and climate of our nation. We live in a period of nationalist rhetoric, where our American identity supersedes standing up for those who may have wronged us or may look different from us, practice their faith in a different way, trace their family origins to different places than I do. We are told we need stronger borders, not more open tables, or stricter qualifications for who can become our neighbors, not welcoming hospitality that says regardless of who they are, they must be welcomed as though 鈥渨hen you cared for the least of these, you cared for me.鈥�

For me, the piece that gets at the core of my feelings of anger and sadness around this climate of fear and ostracism is the fact that I need 鈥渢he other鈥� to truly know myself. I am not whole if I do not know (and by know, I mean experience, come into intimate contact with, connect to, and be willing to be changed by) my neighbor鈥攁s close or as 鈥渙ther鈥� as they may be. For it is in encountering our differences that we begin to place our own sense of identity. I am not me without you.

We stand at an intersection where we are wrestling with what it means to embrace differences in identity, while maintaining and strengthening our own sense of who we are made to be and how we live in the world. This is not an easy place to stand, but if we avoid the intersection, we risk losing ourselves in the process of turning our backs on our neighbors. Neighbors, whether they be our own flesh and blood family or whether they are outsiders, strangers, refugees, and immigrants, are meant to stand in the intersection and reveal to us who we are鈥攐ur biases, our gifts, our strengths, our shortcomings. And they reveal an even deeper reality: they stand in as the presence of the Living God with us (the very means of incarnation here and now).

As we begin to shift our minds from the rhetoric of self-centeredness, we begin to recognize that of course the problems and complexities of our world will drive us to conflict. When we hear of children losing access to meals at school, we can say 鈥渘ot my kids鈥� or we can begin to recognize that these are our neighbors. There are no kids who are 鈥渘ot my kids,鈥� all children belong to me as I belong to them. And what is a table centered on truly Christian grace and welcome if it is not a table where all sinners鈥攔ich and poor; black, brown, white; gay, straight; fundamentalist, progressive鈥攁re able to sit together in unity, break bread in peace and acceptance, and recognize our kinship which is at the very core of our difference?

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This moment is an intersection. We stand in between all that we have been and all that we will become. And all we can do is live in this instance, this day. Jesus reminds us that we need not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Our task is to focus on what is right here, before us.

Lately, I鈥檝e been reflecting a lot on how we become more productive or engage our work with greater focus and efficiency. There are many tactics and practices that help us get at this issue. We set goals, we make plans, and we hope that through the slow process of practice we will be able to make progress.

But perhaps we find ourselves stuck on the goal without knowing how to move ahead. We want to get there, we want tomorrow to be today. And so we miss this present moment. We think about what鈥檚 coming (or what鈥檚 been) and lose this moment of intersection we stand in right now.

Perhaps we find ourselves stuck on the goal without knowing how to move ahead.

Electrical grounding: 鈥淐onnection to ground also limits the build-up of static electricity when handling flammable products or electrostatic-sensitive devices.鈥� ()

As I think about intersections, I want to explore what it means to be grounded and how to break out of infinite loops, routines that take us nowhere but cycle on endlessly.

In the intersection of this moment, we need something that will ground us. An electrical ground, among other things, limits the buildup of static in devices or materials. The ground helps reduce how much 鈥渘oise鈥� there is in the system, helping the circuit to function properly and efficiently. Likewise, we need grounding forces that help us rise above the fray of static noise that surrounds us every day. We need practices, for instance, that will remove us from the incessant noise of stress or the news or demands of our jobs and homes. We need rhythms of life that will always pull us back to the center, towards the love of God and the way of Jesus and ground us out against the noise.

In the intersection of this moment, we also face the dreaded infinite loop: eat, sleep, repeat. The record on the turntable has started to skip, repeating the beat, not moving forward into the beautiful song it was meant to play. We go to work, check our messages, go to meetings, take a coffee break, and the day continues on in a monotonous routine of similarity. Even if we have variety in our lives, with exciting work and interesting people to share it with, sometimes we can get caught in periods of looping, feeling like we can鈥檛 get moving, can鈥檛 grow, and we lose sight of the purpose of all that we do.

We need to be able to stand in a moment, facing the infinite loops of our day, and learn how to pause or extract ourselves from it all, even just for a moment. Like grounding, breaking the infinite loop helps us to gain perspective, to take stock of this present moment and discover the context it stands in. Breaking the infinite loop of life isn鈥檛 easy. We need something that will disrupt us, open our eyes, call us awake. If we find ourselves in an infinite loop, it鈥檚 not likely that we will be able to break ourselves out of it alone: we need others. We need the powerful force of communities and individuals in our lives to help us put the world into perspective. We need to tell people our story and hear theirs, recognizing that in our human interaction, our mutual sharing of life, we gain perspective for who we are aside from the infinity of our endlessly cycling days.

We need something that will disrupt us, open our eyes, call us awake.

It鈥檚 been less than a year since I finished graduate school. I鈥檓 also the father of a two-year-old. And our lives continue to feel like they are in flux, where change is the constant. It is so easy to get stuck in a loop or swept up into the static these days, the good, beautiful, challenging work of living in the world, serving God, and trying to discern directions for the future. I have found comfort and purpose in taking moments to breathe and break the loop, to find the ground, to stand calmly in this moment of intersection and pause. Sabbath rest, slowing down, and learning to appreciate the tension of such a moment in life is a rich spiritual practice that leads me back into the world with a renewed sense of calling and purpose. I cannot do without it.

As you stand at the intersection of your life, can you recognize the forces that call you to the ground, into humble and patient waiting for the voice of God to speak into the static? The voice is soft, so in a noisy world, we need practices that will slow us down and quiet our hearts. What grounds you?

In this moment, what is looping inside of you? Is the record of your life skipping, repeating, not advancing the song, but repeating a fixed beat? Here we need the help of the other, those outside of the loop, to intervene, to connect with us and help us set the record back on track. We have to ask for help, have to reach out to people who love us and know us and can help us. With their help, the song can begin to play again.

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As a kid, I was not troubled with the origin of waves or other deeper existential questions. Rather, I found myself in awe of the wave鈥檚 crash. Where the wave came from did not so much matter as what the wave did. How high would the break splash up off the seawall? How far up the beach would it flow after impact? What was the reach and the power of the wave?

According to an Introduction to Oceanography text from San Francisco State University, 鈥淭he waves that break on the beach were created by wind blowing over water. As they travel away from the area where they were generated they evolve into long, smooth-crested waves called “swell waves.”

Swell waves can travel for very long distances across the ocean without losing the energy they acquired from the wind. Local wind can also generate waves. These are called “sea waves” and have short, choppy shapes. So sea waves are generated locally and swell waves are generated far away in the open ocean.

Through the narrative and academic work we do at 天美视频, we are exploring the intersection of both the swell and sea waves of our lives. We look back on the swell鈥攚hat has happened as winds have blown on us, long ago, setting us on a trajectory that has taken years to unfold, the swelling power of experience and trauma, the aftermath of growth and change. And we engage the sea waves鈥攖hat which is stirred up here in the messy, joyful possibility of academic study and discourse and the challenges of our daily engagement with one another.

The sea waves of our today interact with the swell waves of our past, highlighting the complexity of the power that is rising within us and which may be harnessed towards some end, some task, some place where our waves may break and be transformed.

As a pastor-in-training, my attention is drawn to the church. The church rides the swell waves of tradition, built up over time and propelled with the shifts of the wind. The church is also frothed up by the sea waves of today, the passions of culture, the fresh winds of the Spirit. I believe this program is preparing me to engage the church on both of those levels.

First, through my own process of learning and understanding the long form of the swelling waves of the church, I am learning how I might ride along with tradition and engage the immense, long-built power which it holds. Studies in scripture, systematics, liturgy, worship, polity, and practices of social engagement鈥攖he church has long traditions of these which resonate out from God鈥檚 covenant with Abraham and God鈥檚 love manifest in Christ. At 天美视频 and through the formative struggle of graduate school, I am learning to ride the wave of tradition in such a way that I can honor where we have been by how I lead in the church in the future.

Second, I am learning to pay attention to the sea waves of the church: the local expressions of the Spirit, manifesting in the world today that provide a freshness and character to the long form waves of tradition. Through our passion for the neighborhood, we engage the sea waves of our particular communities not as distractions from the grand mission of God but as clear, present signs of God鈥檚 calling and movement right in front of us. How do the sea waves of this moment interact with tradition? While riding the swell wave of tradition, how might I see the liturgies and sacramental practices of the present moment?

For instance, what might the gathering of thousands of Seahawks fans on the streets of downtown Seattle following the Super Bowl tell us about humanity鈥檚 desire to worship, to respond and engage ritual, to act collectively upon a common cause? Or what might the loneliness of an elderly woman in my congregation tell me about loving the widow or the orphan in the here and now?

My hope is that 天美视频鈥檚 MDiv program is not only preparing me to ride the swell waves of tradition and adapt to the ever-changing sea waves of today, but that in some way, I am learning to make waves myself. Formed and trained in the ways of a pastor, counselor, therapist, artist, provocateur, might we also be called to stir up the sea鈥攖o stand in this moment and see the needs of the world we live in, to look backwards and forwards and witness the telos of God, the God who is beginning and end, on the way? We ourselves might be used as wind to swell, stir, and crash through acts of justice, mercy, and humility in the world.

It has been my experience at 天美视频 that this generative movement is possible鈥攄ifficult, uncomfortable, and disrupting, but also enlivening, quickening, and hopeful. May the powerful winds of the Spirit continue to blow us each unto this strong, vital work of making waves.

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