Flush

Sometimes my soul needs an enema. 

It's a really bad visual, I know, but the concept is right.  In order for a soul to continue to sense its connectedness to God, all the remains of digested life need to be flushed.  Sometimes this occurs naturally, or organically, but sometimes it takes an outside source.  I.e - an enema.

Let me start with this first:  I've never had a real-life enema and frankly, it doesn't sound that wonderful.  I've heard that some people actually volunteer for the procedure.  Count me out.  There's no reason on earth that I want anyone else to witness something like that, but with a soul enema, it's a definite internal process.

It began about a month ago...

I really enjoy my job - I work with some amazing people and each day when I drive to school with my three daughters chirping about which classes they will be attending during the day, which boys are doing idiotic things, listening to them laugh and sing, I think to myself, Life is really good.  If there were a pause button, I'd have pressed it already.  But, somewhere in the midst of the beginning of this school year, I think I unconsciously began to notice a fire blanket being draped over me.  Where once the blaze of spiritual life was uncontained, now I felt somewhat smothered.  I found that I was becoming short with people, not focusing during conversations and even falling asleep at importune times in meetings. 

To be honest, life felt heavy.

It's not as if I was perturbed, I just felt like I was in a funk and I wasn't even aware of it.  Not until we found ourselves at NOVO, the state youth gathering in South Australia.  We'd worked with a few of the directors before and we knew of their incredible organizational and faithful abilities, but we'd only done SPIN camp before which is a camp for younger children.  This was our first foray into youth ministry in South Australia with high school youth.  The camp was held at Cornerstone College, a Lutheran school in Mt. Barker.  Situated just outside of the downtown area, the sprawling campus includes beautiful athletic fields, a full sized gymnasium with six basketball hoops and an incredible fine arts center.  It was there in the fine arts center that we found a great locus of spirituality for the weekend.

 Already in the process of setting up, we met Brad and Paul securing pyramid shaped decorations to the walls behind, and around, the band.  Sound, lights, and a huge carved statue of spread-winged Jesus decorated the front.  Like most sound and light engineers, Brad and Paul were affable, yet reserved.  They let their artistry speak for them.

We were greeted by various different leaders, young adults who invested their own time, talents and financial resources to help high schoolers encounter Christ.  Christine probably had the more difficult task for the weekend - she, along with nine others, was called to be a chaplain for the weekend, and I was given the opportunity to be a keynote speaker for the conference. The theme was 'Unlikely Heroes,' a reflection on Biblical people whom God had called to do sacred, often difficult, tasks. 

A month before hand, I made a mistake.  I felt as if I had been growing a little too big for my spiritual pants, my ego swelling, I think, in believing that I was somehow 'specialler' because I had been asked to speak for various functions.  I think the Spirit was interceding for me to pray for humility, but I used the wrong words (in my opinion.)  Instead of asking God to give me an opportunity for humility, I prayed, God, humble me.  There is a whole Pacific Ocean of difference in the two.  When we ask God for moments to practice humility, we can recognize that we've made a difference and we give glory to God.  When we ask God to humble us, we allow him free reign to bring about a quite painful, or embarrassing way, to step down a few steps on the ladder of ego.

I had been asked to give a presentation at a statewide event with Queensland leaders.  I thought I had prepared enough and certainly, I, as a 'motivational speaker' should be able to download all of my 'wisdom' upon the leaders.  As the day unfolded, I felt a disconnection to them (of my own creation, probably); it was almost as I was speaking a different language.  It didn't help that the rain was falling so hard that they couldn't hear me and I couldn't hear them, but the telling moment was when one of the leaders put his head onto the desk and promptly fell asleep in the midst of a point that I thought was a particular 'nugget of importance.' 

A generous slice of humble pie.  Do I want seconds?  No thank you.

So, as we traveled to South Australia, I did not ask God to humble me; I asked for an opportunity for humility.  But I was nervous... Would they fall asleep again?  Could I bring God's goodness and fortitude to 120 high schoolers and fifty odd leaders? 

So I prayed, God, Speak your words through me, in spite of me, so they can see you.

I was asked to lead five sessions for the youth on unlikely heroes:  Joseph, Esther, Mary (mother of Jesus), David and Jesus.  In the next blogs, I'm looking forward to sharing with you my own musings about the NOVO weekend, the discourse on unlikely heroes which lead to, for me, the flushing of my soul.