(Disclaimer: This is my vocational blog and my vocatation is Child and Family Ministry. Feel free to not read this you are one of my Facebook friends that might be the least bit squeemish about children, God or faith–somehow I’ve linked my blog to Facebook as a note and can’t quite decide if I should change that. Talk amongst yourselves. ;-))
It is the middle day of VBS. No, I’m not a adolescent texter using BFF, BTW, FWIW, LOL, G2G. If you’ve been a part of a church community over a summer (in the south?) you know VBS stands for Vacation Bible School. This is the day of VBS that I look forward to. It is half-way over, I usually have worked out the old kinks and fewer new kinks show up on this day. This is usually the day that I can slow down enough to find an “a-ha” somewhere in the day. I can be slow and present enough, for even a moment, to feel God’s presence. I love those a-ha’s. That is why I love my job so much, because few other jobs other than Child and Family Ministry can offer these kind of a-ha’s. (Maybe a Mt. Everest sherpa, Scottish shepherd or New York bicycle delivery person, but that is too close to call.)
Big a-ha’s come from small things.
Just before the closing worship for VBS, before everyone arrives in the nave, I go in and prepare a bit. I turn on the mics, adjust the decorations and dim the lights. These past few nights I have had to stop that and simply look up. As the sun sets in the west, it streams through the arching stained glass windows and cast the most extraordinary light show the whole length of the ceiling and nearly touches the front altar. The spectacle only lasts a few minutes and then the sunset darkens the ceiling. Most of the children never see it.
Tonight, some other early arriving adults marveled at it too and joked that it is like some Mayan ruin on an equinox. What if the architect gifted us with some secret treasure that is revealed when the light touches some critical spot in the church. Of course, while unfailing, the light is not unchanging, so in the building’s 50 years, no one has figured this mystery out as of yet. It very well could have happened already and no one was there. The custodian was down the hall. Maybe I was at the grocery store or some such place, completely unaware of the awesome light dancing on the ceiling of our church, unleashing some Indiana-Jones-esque drama.
Last night, I had the children look up at the ceiling for a milli-second to see the awe of the tail end of the spectacular light show. It was only a glimpse. Tonight, by the time the first group of children was coming in, I was making small talk with some grown-ups when out of the corner of my eye I saw three tiny two-year-olds looking up at the ceiling, saying “Wow.” (I can’t write Wow in such a way to convey the pitch, duration and overall cuteness.) We stood there together for a milli-second in awe together.
I often feel in my life of relative luxury (I have food, a bed and air-conditioning, plus a lot more), I should be more present, aware and thankful for the mysteries around me that point to the divine. And yet, how often I find myself caught up in the to-do lists, the traffic and the bummers of life. Come to me like a little child?
I read in the newspaper recently that Julian Lennon recently contacted childhood friend Lucy (something?). She was the inspiration of the song Lucy in the sky with diamonds. The child Julian, showed his father, John Lennon, a crayon drawing and explained it was his friend Lucy in the sky with diamonds. Big a-ha’s come from small things.
I wonder what light show will be on the ceiling next week with no one there to see it?