Aj Schwanz

So.  Fall’s almost here.  And I have yet to feel like summer ever started.  Last summer I remember more free time, more days spent in the yard, less scheduled events.  But my mind has a tendency to wax poetically, and it’s very likely that I spent last summer like I spent this one, since I can’t even remember what I did last week ….

We gathered at Yearly Meeting in July.  The heat “encouraged” me to take advantage of the full range of opportunities:  workshops, board meetings, evening gatherings, evening celebration times.  Two words:  air-conditioned childcare.  Really, I did it “for the kids.”    But as I saw the eldest forging some bonds, making friends, loving to go play in the sprinkler and watch Larry-Boy and run amuck with wild abandon, I felt less guilty about dumping him off, filling myself up with connections with adults and quiet time to prep for upcoming events, and recognizing:  Hey, I liked YM for those same reasons!  And now he gets to have those memories as well!  The toddler would be less rosy about his experience, but next year when he moves to the “children who don’t wear diapers” room, I think it’ll all be good.

Following Yearly Meeting came our worship gathering’s Vacation Bible School.  Which I wasn’t sure about the eldest’s participation.  But again:  I saw the crafts, the running around, the morning cheer of “Yay!  VBS!”, and I knew why it was a good thing for him to be there.  Actually, VBS is where I first had an opportunity to “make a decision for Christ” – not that I didn’t make repeated decisions at later opportunities, but still.  And somehow it became oddly important to me that Judah have such experiences.  Finally, parental inclinations might be manifesting …

The next week the kids were shipped up (lovingly, of course) to the grand’rents while Jason and I went to join about 350 other crazy people at the coast for Surfside, our high school camp.  I facilitated a tract for the high school grads focusing on life transitions and our identity in Christ.  It was GREAT:  high schoolers are amazing people.  From kids voicing fears that they will only have dead-end jobs and therefore a dead-end life, to others talking about wanting to leave their faith gatherings all their lives until the community had a split and now wanting to walk through that pain and grief with them – wow.  The larger camp met corporately under a tent in a meadow.  Then it rained.  Then it heated up:  swamp thing!  Meals were served in the dining hall and neighboring meeting room.  Through it all (even my 1am bedtimes and 6am wake-up times) people loved on each other and loved on God and were loved on by God.  God.Is.Good.

After that, I felt like summer could start.  Except now it’s mostly prep for the fall.  Which is good and enh, all at the same time.  Fall is the hardest transition for me:  grey skies are coming, plants are dying, hibernation is on the way.  How not to repeat patterns that weren’t the best from past years?  How to live in the life and light that I feel in the summer without getting discouraged in the daily mundane?  How to re-enter into a more scheduled community life … or enter in at all? …

God is present in every season, ready to speak life and light and healing.  I’m not called to live in the summer season all the time:  I’m called to live a day at a time, with each one being a gift (although some days feel like they were gifts picked out of the dollar bins at Target).    Summer:  thank you for your light.  Fall:  soon we shall meet – please be kind (rewind).

I have had a lot of life together lately.  My boys and I vacated up to the grand’rents for a change of scenery/untapped energy sources to connect with.  The boys played; I read (like a book a day – Life Together, Shaped by the Story, Life with God, etc.  Like cramming for finals before seminary:  my brain kinda hurt); we all chatted about life and the daily and church and bearing the Light of Christ and baptism and the beauty of local blueberries and how long will it take Granddaddy to separate all the jumbled Lego pieces from my brother’s childhood into their proper kits?  You know:  good stuff.

We came home.  Jason’s parents came to town:  talking, family showers, missional gatherings, good food.

Northwest Yearly Meeting came, along with Wretched Heat which “encouraged” us to participate in YM moreso than usual:  hmmm, sit at home with no a/c and the stir-crazy boys, or deposit boys in programmed childcare and enjoy the conversations and stories of adults in an air conditioned environment?  The answer was clear.  I even managed the inter-generational ice cream social with two boys up past their bedtimes without the aid of the husband who was serving his time on the softball field (in 90+ temps – we’ll just call it “dedication”).

Then:  off to the beach to enjoy time with Jason’s family before dispersal back to our corners of the world.  Tomorrow:  VBS.  Next week:  Grad Camp.

That’s a lot of together.

In the midst of that activity, I still find my mind clinging to the thoughts and ponderings and rubix cube cunundrum that my brain is processing of “how do we do Life Together?”  I know Bonhoeffer is known for writing his timeless Christian classics, but this book seriously shifted some paradigms in my noggin, and I’m not sure what to do with it.  Questions of rhythms of life with a family, emptying oneself, confession – individual and corporate, the compounding elements of ministry (interesting:  Bonhoeffer says one must master certain ministries – holding ones tongue, meekness, etc. – before engaging in the ministry of delivering a word; otherwise, it will be too tainted by our desires for outcomes of this Word rather than being empty enough to be a vessel of Truth).

I really want to just sit with this stuff; but I can’t.  And I probably shouldn’t:  it’s best “field-tested”.  If only I can shove the grocery lists out of the foreground of my mind …. or maybe I should see if I missed that ministry of managing consumption chapter.