Dream Geography

Growing up, my family moved six times before I graduated from high school (among four different states and regions of the U.S. as well as another country). It is an average of every three years. The first four moves happened almost in a blur: I was ages 2, 4, 5, and 6. Then, we stayed put for seven years, which is still my record for living consecutively in one place. Move #5 happened the summer between finishing middle school and starting high school. It was also the move that involved the most culture shock for me: from urban/suburban/metropolitan/diverse Montgomery Co., MD, right outside of Washington, D.C. to a small North Carolina mill town. We lived there two years and during that time, all my dreams took place back in MD. Then, in the fall of my junior year of high school, we moved again and the setting of my dreams changed from MD to that mill town. Following the mobility of my childhood, I kept moving as a young adult: college in St. Louis, semester abroad in Spain, grad school in Philly, back to NC, then serving in Nicaragua, before back to NC again where I have now stayed put. Perhaps needless to say, the locations in my dreams have been all over the place, sometimes even back in MD.

Recently, however, they've become current. Often in my dreams these days are the kids of Unidos por Cristo. When I left teaching in 2006, I also subconsciously stopped investing myself in kids. I had a hard time learning the names of kids I didn't know. I subbed for an elementary Sunday school class and had trouble involving myself in it. I didn't realize til 2009 what I had done: I was afraid of investing myself in kids and then leaving them again like I did in Philly and in NC and in Nicaragua. Either my heart needed a break, or my head just decided it was safer not to get involved in kids' lives. Things have improved since I made that discovery and I have wholeheartedly enjoyed getting to know and playing with the kids at Unidos por Cristo. They are great kids and I love them and can name every single one of them and something about what's going on in each one's life.

I announced yesterday at church that I would not be appointed to return to Unidos por Cristo for another year but rather will begin serving at another church come July 3. My plan, to my husband's dismay, is to have a gift for each child on my last Sunday. I will miss them.

Los Despreciados, Los Humildes, y Los Perdidos (the least, the last, and the lost)

I don't know how many of you are familiar with the Disciple Bible Study originally written years ago by a United Methodist Bishop and his wife. They discovered a lack of Bible literacy among the congregations they served and created a curriculum to remedy that problem. Disciple I covers the entire Bible in one year's time. Then, they expanded on it and created subsequent studies. Lately, the trend is for short-term Disciple studies, only three months long because folks don't want to commit to a whole year. I myself have taken and/or taught and/or co-taught Disciple I, II, III as well as the short-term study on the Psalms. I've also been to the training on how to facilitate these studies (a much more accurate word than "teach" when it comes to Disciple). Part of how the long-term studies work are that each week there is a theme word, a theme verse, a human condition, and then at the end, a mark of discipleship, all of which relate to the reading one does during the week.

Last summer, when I started at Unidos por Cristo, I presented the Bible study group with a few choices as to how we could go about Bible study. They chose Discipulado (or, Disciple I, the only long-term Disciple study in Spanish). Things have more or less gone pretty well, especially lately as we've slowed down the study to adjust it to our framework. Between work and bedtime for those who work super early in the morning, we only have 1 1/2 hrs to meet. Disciple is designed for 2 1/2 hours. So, we now take two sessions to go over one week's worth of material. This group would rather go more in depth instead of being exposed to more material. At the end of each unit, we read together "our human condition," and I ask if they agree with it and we talk about it. Then we move to "marks of discipleship" and read that together and discuss it.

Last night, they didn't agree with "our human condition." We were on week 21, which covers the Gospel of Luke. The theme word is "least" (despreciado). The theme verses are Luke 4:18-19,

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release of captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

We began by talking about those verses, what they mean, and the context in which Jesus said them. Folks said that "good news to the poor" was bringing the message of salvation to the poor in spirit. The captives are those who are captive to sin and death and we now tell them, in Jesus' name, you are free! (This kinda related to my Maundy Thursday message, which I share in an older post.) "Our human condition" for this week reads below, in English:

"I don't really like the poor. They're not always clean. I stay away from sick people. They smell bad. I don't understand people whose customs, culture, and ways of thinking are different from mine. They make me uncomfortable. I don't want to go to church with them or socialize with them. People with handicaps also make me feel awkward. Actually, I enjoy being with people who are just like me."

This human condition, which many of us would think is universal, is not. There are folks who don't mind the poor, who don't avoid the sick, who don't feel awkward around those with handicaps. There are churches who welcome those with different customs and languages. There are people who enjoy being with people from other cultures. Gloria a Dios! because that's what the kingdom of God looks like.

The "marks of discipleship" for this section no one had any problems with: "Disciples throw their weight with God's mission to the least, the last, and the lost." Gloria a Dios! that this is not a hard lesson for everyone to learn.