To Whom Much is Given….

Being a parent requires the ability to engage intimately with both little people and big people and not everyone is good, or comfortable at that. I can teach you how to do it more easily and with more fun.

Growing through your past challenges and embracing who you are with your baggage checked instead of carry –on requires authenticity and contemplative practices that keep your head bowed to your heart. I can introduce you to those disciplines and ideas and techniques that will encourage that lifestyle.

Being a pastor who is more devoted to faith than church politics or denominational doctrines requires superhuman surrender and courage and belief and I can lead you in ways that are meaningful and deep to acquire those skills that let you feel the fear of being rejected by the ruling class and go for the God moments with your own life, and the people you lead

And I can teach you this…. Once a summer it is necessary in my life to sail down the highway on a summer’s evening with the windows open and the theme song from "Footloose" blasting with the bass full on. That’s called Joy.

It’s a principle in life I thought had eluded me this summer until the last night of the last delivery of the last child I care for to the last parent ready to receive them. True it was the ‘KidzBop’ version that I think is sung by eleven year olds who are Mouse Club wannabes…but it worked. True, transcendent celebration oozed from everywhere, the car, my body, my voice, and my spirit. The world was light and free.

A week later I sailed down another street doing a test run for my career schedule which involves getting from one side of the city to another as quickly as possible. I moved from the gentrified reclaimed small homes of middle class families, to the broken down, grassless dirt and refuse filled front yards of hopelessness to the ancient mansions on their second or tenth remodel that were once the icons of Seattle wealth and power.

I thought of our highway. You go fourteen miles and encounter four stop signs, a whole lot of horses and green trees and about five blocks of small, subdued businesses. From end to Island end we are the same. No diversity, no change, few challenges.

We are privileged. I say that to you even having lived my life as one of the poorest of the poor here on the Island. I am poor. I have a Master’s degree and five dozen other graduate credits at least. I can get by in a couple of languages. I’ve been to other parts of the world, easily. My children have been educated in private schools. The public schools they have attended have been in the ranks of the top tiers of private schools. Most of them have been to college. One of them even attended graduate school.

The word can’t is in my vocabulary only as it refers to my faith and relationship with God.

I have a waterview.

The poorest of the poor, the craziest of the crazy, the most uneducated, and the most provincial on this Island are better off than 98% of the world.

The challenge to continue to accomplish, reach for and envision the most with the embarrassment of riches we have on this Island is our greatest need. The balance between self indulged exploration of our gifts and talents and sharing them with the world to make it a better place continues to be that which we carry as the onus of blessing.

I love all the efforts on the Island that take our resources of time, people and physical blessings and connect them with the world. Not just the shoeboxes at Christmas, but the impulse to care everywhere bringing fresh water and super yams that feed the hungry and saving animals that are endangered and pushing the edge artistically so our souls keep growing and, and, and…….

We do it. We just need to keep doing it. And we need to remember we are enormously privileged just because we live here.

The rest of that quote is… ‘much is required’. ‘To whom much is given, much is required.’ There’s another one that says, "God has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8 (NIV)

Just remember. Do more if you can, but we all need to just remember that if we choose to live on this Island we are more duty bound to exercise our privilege with excellence.

Not everybody’s Footloose. We need to keep dancing just so some people can walk.

Love,
Deborah