Evangelism

Those who know me know that I'm a crier. It's hereditary. Like closing my eyes during pictures, or finding my arms unconsciously supported in the dinosaur hold, tear ducts that well up at the slightest provocation is a trait I share with my mother. Whether I see my over anxious tear ducts as gift or curse depends completely on my mood and the period of life in which I find myself. (Thankfully I've never had to worry about mascara streaks or blotched eye liner to make them a constant curse.)
Currently, life is going by at a slower pace and I am enjoying the time to contemplate most things, including the salt water that leaves streaks down my cheeks. Lately I've found myself wiping moisture from my eyes around 9:45 each morning as I stare down at the faces of 20 or so beautiful children. It is my task to tell the bible stories, to give the lesson, and to share God's story with these children every morning at day camp. Why I would tear up when giving the lesson boggled me until I apologized for it at a staff meeting last week.
I was chastised for apologizing and reminded of the other leaders in our church who are prone to moist eyes when they talk about the God they love with passion. Previously, I had given no thought to topic I was discussing when my tears began to flow, but now that I have become aware of it I am curious as to what it may mean. Apparently I am passionate about God's love and about explaining that love to the kids I see at work everyday. Many people would call that evangelism. I have never considered myself as someone who would ever be passionate about evangelism. My passions lie in the physical realm; I care about justice, about equality, about giving everyone the chance to be heard. But apparently, I am also passionate that everyone love, and that everyone learn they are loved more than they will ever know. And apparently, talking about it makes me cry.
And now I am left with the question that if evangelism, something I had never dreamed I could be passionate about because I wasn't even sure I believed in it, is important enough to me to make me cry, what else might I be passionate about that I have been to prejudiced to try?
Prayers and Peace.

Comments

  1. EnnsplaceAugust 12, 2010 at 12:20 PM

    Since I am the gene that passes on your tears, hear my thoughts dear one, For I am learning from you and want to share my thot; I wonder? Just maybe if tear ducts are about learning to open oneself to all that is possible. Look at the apparatus: It opens and it closes. And what does it open and close to? Moisture- that which is needed to grow. It closes when too much is coming in that might destroy the eye and then it opens the flood gates to let out all that needs to be let free. It opens so that that which must come in and mix inside the soul and body does so that the Potter can do his work and then like a gate, it sweeps out all that the Potter releases so that the vessel inside might be made in her liking. Maybe just maybe Evangelism is the same, learning to open and to close. To close one’s thoughts when what is heard does not honour God and to open ones thoughts to let out that which does? Or maybe it is all about letting go and forgiving while at the same time knowing that the gate holds in that which continues to create and cause one to grow. That the timing of when and where the gates are released are not of our control but of the Creator’s. The ancient words of God are full of tears, tears of freedom, tears of justice, and tears of love. The words seem to portray a picture that love in its truest form is always about opening and closing. Always about justice and forgiveness. Possibly it is about learning that in an imperfect world, unless the eye is centered on the Almighty that which lies around gets in the way of love; of love to those who have never known it. What do you think? Could evangelism merely be humankind’s way of trying to, in its own imperfect way, seek to open and close one’s eyes wider to let God into sight in a way that might share that sight to those who cannot see? Take a lesson from the sun blindness stalking the Sahel, Something we see daily- one needs a hand to guide when the way is dark.- A faraway mother in the Sahel

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