amazing stars and intentional rainbows

My son, Jed, on the dark drive home from seminary, asked me which class was my favorite, "Of aaalllll the years you have taught at Western."  (I've only taught at Western 3 years, but thats 1/3 of his life . . . )

And I said, “Tonight.” 

What made this night so special?  Seated in a circle, in an almost Greco-Roman outdoor setting, with the faint modern day whirl of cars buzzing up and down Los Gatos Blvd., a teen skateboarding through the Calvary Church courtyard, my son playing and watching God's people out of the corner of his eye, Helicon reading John 6, while Lawrence and Jerome poured Trader Joes grape juice into dixie cups and broke triangular pieces of flat bread, yeah it had to be tonight.

I remember looking up after we broke the bread and drank the cup, the Eastern sky bursting with a perfect rainbow.  (Jed said he went out to look for where it landed and that on both ends it disappeared into puffy clouds.  He knew it was from God when he saw that.)  God was up in the the Los Gatos sky, painting a rainbow with the colors of his crushed body and crimson blood.  (forgive me for not making more of the intentional rainbow.  That really was a God thing! And God moment.) 

There we were talking and laughing, building a memory, sharing communion stories, reading about Henri Nouwen and Bill Van Buren.  For a moment I forgot that we were a class, and it seemed like we were a band of disciples dipping lavosh into hummus and crushed olives, sipping on grape juice in dixie cups that held several swallows of purple life and our fragmented lives together.  Good times. 

I look back over my experience in seminary as a student.  Most of the papers I wrote I have forgotten, much of the content of required reading has sunk into the ground and all that juts out are titles and authors and a feeling of what that book meant to me (if it was a memorable one).  So where did the learning happen?  What readied me for service in the Kingdom?  Yes, my theology was formed and my spirituality sprung to life, but it wasn't the papers or the busy work (alone) that did this.  It wasn't the lectures by themselves.  It was key moments in a class when a question poked at the lecturer and sparks arced a flame to life.  It was grabbing a coffee during a break, sharing a laugh with a colleague, debating a concept, tugging and prying at truth.   It was the time when I drove from Stockton to Sacramento with Jon Venema talking about existentialism, Johannine Lit, the 49ers and his PhD journey.  And the prayer he prayed over me when he dropped me off that night.  My Thesis taught me much, but not half as much as the mentoring of Jon through the thesis and the words from Gary Tuck after he read it.  When Gary looked at me and told me how special the paper was, I grew.  I got the same feeling that Samuel must have had when Eli said, "That voice is the Lord's."  When Jim Sawyer, pulled me aside and commented on a unique thought in my theology, and then corrected a faulty view I knew I was growing.   You will notice something common that gets little credit for growth:  community.  The learning was most profound when it happened in the context of community.  I learned how to think, how to communicate, how to respect and value another's perspective, how to disagree (and still love that person with everything in me).  In that moment my emotions and heart, mind and soul are alive and kicking.

Thank you, Amanda, for encouraging us to move away from the lecture and schooling of discipleship and get in a circle and experience Christ and his Kingdom with each other.  Jed, thought it was so cool that you were running around looking for the"perfect" spot to remember our Lord's suffering and death.

So when i replied to Jed, "tonight" i was thinking all these things.  And Jed, wanting to relate to the specialness of the moment said, “Dad, I have a pet star.   I always know which one it is, because it goes (pointing out the window to the dark I-280 sky) 1-2-3 stars in a row and then its a tiny one after the three.  I gave it a name.  I call it, ‘amazing’.”

We were both speaking about the same thing.  There are some times and spaces that are special and you give them names.  Last night was ‘amazing’.

Comments

[Henry Vargas]

Amazing Jeff... just simply amazing!

[jason kear]

thanks for sharing. this typepad helps me to feel connected.

[Helicon Kuan]

Jeff,

Thank you for this great post. Being there to share that with you and the rest of class was amazing and very memorable. I am going to miss hanging out on Tuesday nights. :)

Helicon

[thesis paper]

Wonderful article, thanks for putting this together! "This is obviously one great post. Thanks for the valuable information and insights you have so provided here. Keep it up!"