Obligatory New Year's Post, Pt. 2 (Dig a Little Deeper)

All but one of these questions deal with something profound that happened in August -- for the second time, I lost a young person in my youth ministry. This time, it was a young man who had been very faithful to our group, a quiet, laid back guy who didn't go looking for trouble. I was profoundly affected by his death.

What relationships meant a lot to you this year?
Since B's death, the conversations I've had with a lot of my young people have had a gravity to them that didn't exist before. I have appreciated the deepening of our relationships, even if it came from a terrible situation.

What was your happiest memory?

This is recent too -- a few weeks ago my dad had a medical emergency and was in critical care. When my sister and I left him on Friday night he was intubated, ventilated, and sedated. My happiest memory is coming back on Saturday and seeing him sitting up, talking up a storm (if you know my dad, you know that talking up a storm is one of his specialties), and getting ready to down a dinner of clear broth and Jello.

What was your saddest memory?
B's death. See above. A couple months later at a pastor's retreat, I had a dream that I was at an unknown kid's basketball game waiting for him to come out of the locker room, and B came out instead. He gave me a big hug and had a big smile on his face. In the dream, I hugged him and cried.

What moment did you feel close to God?
Here's a piece of a sermon that answers this question. I was preaching from Mark 1:9-15, about Jesus being baptized and hearing God's affirmations, and then immediately being driven into the desert to be tempted. This is what I wrote:

This summer has been for me a profound example of this text. I had a wonderful experience at our summer program, Brighter City. It was at times frustrating, as my assistant director can tell you, but there were so many opportunities to glimpse the goodness and pleasure of God that I was almost overwhelmed. The young people who had been campers themselves now serving as counselors, and doing a really good job. The morning prayer time where children and adults shared moments where they saw God at work. One boy said that his counselor, was the smartest man in the whole world. Another said that the cross necklace he made in art helped him to feel safer. I was on such a high after Brighter City.

But not two weeks later a young man from our youth ministry violently lost his life. There was so much I didn't understand about B's death. There were no words I could think of to say to his friends or his family that would comfort them, there were no words I could think to tell myself to comfort me. Even though I knew that it was useless, I thought over and over again about what I could have or should have done that would have prevented this. I regretted not calling him or texting him or talking to him since I had last seen him at our young adult group. But in all the anger and confusion, in all the tears, in all the hours on porches reminiscing, and all the moments where I felt for a second that he would just appear, at my office door or when I saw his friends gathered, I never felt alone. I had, and still have, a lot of questions about why something like this happened, and why it happened to someone like B, who was so laid back and calm, and kind, and God has not given me any easy answers. I was, and still am frustrated by the violence that is continuing to escalating in the city, and how overwhelmed I know many, including myself, feel trying to face it down, and God has not given me an easily packaged plan or program. But neither has God left my side. Neither has God left me empty. God has stayed, with me in the anger, in the questioning, in the confusion, in the frustration, in the pain.

I first found out about B's death at 4:30 in the morning, the morning of our wonderful baptismal service at Houghton's pond. I hadn't been able to go back to sleep, or eat very much at all, and so when I arrived at Houghton's pond, I was exhausted, and hungry, the shock barely wearing off, only beginning to be able to cry. I was in a wilderness place. But I did not feel alone. I felt tended to by angels. In the service we sang, “Hallelujah what a savior, hallelujah what a friend, saving, helping, keeping, loving, he is with me to the end.” Even in the middle of all that fresh, raw, grief, I believed those words. I felt loved, helped, kept, the presence of my friend and Savior with me.

Not everyone knows what to do in the midst of sorrow and pain. Some people get nervous around it. Some people hide from it. Some want to distract from it. Some want to pat us on the back a few times and then say, “All right, that's enough now.” I'm sure we have all had occasions of sadness and had friends or family who avoided the situation until it seemed to be better. Jesus is not that kind of friend. Our God wades into the water with us, sinful and dirty as we are, our God sits with us and tends to us in the wilderness, even when we are utterly abandoned by everyone else, and our God gives us glimpses of the glory of the world that will be without sin or dirt or wilderness to carry us through.

And now time to look forward...