God on Stage: Open Mic at Kwantlen

Tonight I'm hosting what I hope will be the first of many open mic events at Kwantlen. When I was a college student I loved playing music at open mics, so when I started thinking of fun community events to put on at Kwantlen this was an obvious choice for me. People of a wide variety of experience and skill all gather around and enjoy each other’s music, poetry, and art. Music achieves one of its many levels of greatness simply by grabbing a guitar from the closet and singing “blowing in the wind” to a crowd of classmates avoiding their homework.

At a chaplaincy meeting yesterday we went over the chaplain's job description and the very first line says something to the effect of “being a Christian presence on campus”. I think that events like this open mic is part of that Christian presence. It’s certainly not explicitly evangelistic (depending on how you interpret that term, little to none of what I do is), it’s not even overtly spiritual or “Multi-faith,” but I think it certainly is part of God’s activity here on campus. God is the creator of beauty, the creator of artistic expression, and so to celebrate that and give others a chance to share their art is part of God’s redemptive act in the world because that act is beautiful, is beauty itself.

So opening up a stage and microphone to anyone who wants to share their gifts and talents, whether they are honed to perfection or not, whether they identify with the Christian faith or not, is an opening, and window, into who God is: a God who is beauty, most abundantly in the person and life of Jesus Christ in whom we live and move and have our being. 

Among Atheists

It’s been a long time since my last blog post! No real excuse, but I've been fairly occupied by a Postmodern Philosophy and Religion discussion group that has been going on through November. It’s been an exciting and interesting set of conversations; a mix of students with different backgrounds and different assumptions. It’s been particularly interesting dialoguing with students who are rigorous atheists. Our dialogue has been respectful but not lacking in passion or debate, which makes for a really lively and (I think) fruitful discussion. The topics are wide-ranging: the existence and reality of God, politics, ethics, knowledge, personal development, and others. As I've learned from the Christian Reformed tradition, there isn't one sphere of life untouched by God, and so that means no sphere of life is off limits when discussing philosophy and religion.

It’s really helpful to rub shoulders in this way, with people who hold entirely different assumptions about the world. In these discussions I have tried to enter in with a willingness to be changed by the encounter. This doesn't mean I hold my beliefs lightly, ready to toss them out with a moments notice. Rather, it means that my beliefs are (hopefully) brought into a non-defensive dialogue with very different positions.

What I've been struck by as I've enjoyed these conversations is how compelled I am by the Christian vision of the world and the gospel. As I stumble over words trying to articulate the mystery of God I feel myself being drawn into that mystery. The materialist or atheist disagreements have done very little to shake that experience. I don’t feel as though I'm being defensive with the Christian faith. Even, and perhaps especially, when that faith is exposed to rigorous critique I have a deep experience of it being beautiful, somewhat terrifying, and utterly true (in a way that far exceeds mere propositional truth).

Whether or not it becomes so attractive to others is the work of the Holy Spirit. For myself, while I claim a certain limited competence in articulating the Christian faith I strive to allow my voice to be silenced in two ways: by others who want to express a deeply different opinion but also by the experience of the gospel itself, which challenges me more than any atheist position ever has. Rowan Williams has said it elegantly:

“The greatness of the great Christian saints lies in their readiness to be questioned, judged, stripped naked and left speechless by that which lies at the centre of their faith” (The Wound of Knowledge).

It is this sort of submission to the cross of Christ that I am attempting to live out on the Kwantlen campus, whether in a conversation with an atheist or a deeply committed Christian. Everything, even our own articulation of the Christian faith, is subject to the beauty of Christ. And Christian faith does not so much give us perfect knowledge of God as put us on our knees in awe, terror, worship, and love. 

St. Anthony and Kwantlen (The Desert in the City)

Kwantlen is a frenzied place to go to school. Students are often in a rush, running from class to tutorial to study session before getting a “break” when they get to stand in line at Tim Horton’s for 15 minutes during lunch hour. And a major reason for such a hectic education is the goal (and perhaps the pressure) of getting a degree which will launch a solid career path. Not only are that, but a huge percentage of students, one of the highest in the country, also work part- or full-time while attending Kwantlen. So in addition to feeling hectic at school, many of these students might have to drive across the city to get to a job that starts half an hour after a class ends. And if to all of this we add external commitments to a spouse, family, religious community, or friends, then we might conclude that “frenzied” is putting the situation rather lightly.

I suspect that many of us may actually live a similar life to the average Kwantlen student. There are a multitude of pressures coming in from all sorts of places – work, family, church, friends, committees, boards, etc. In a lot of ways, it seems as though such a situation can’t be avoided. How could we possibly escape such pressures? We can and possibly should choose to take on less projects and less commitments than many of us do. But in a lot of ways, I feel like this situation of multiple pressures is sort of the air we breathe, the water we swim in. Baring a radical life-style change, we’re sort of “stuck”; if we choose to take on less commitments then we’ll either take on something else or what we already have taken on will swell and expand to fill the little breathing room we may have managed to create.

What does such a context mean spiritually? How does learning, living, and inhabiting such an environment affect our lives lived before the face of God?

In the first place, I think, it’s a spiritual challenge. It is fatiguing. It is unsettling, fragmenting, disorienting. If our hearts are truly restless until they rest in God, then it is clear that the restlessness of our contemporary life presents a challenge to that aim, that end, that final goal of communion with God. And sometimes it is not clear that such a challenge can be overcome. Where is God to be found? How can we “rest” in him? Even in times of prayer we aren’t “restful”; concerns and anxieties are often the first thing to distract me from prayer, from entering into the word of God in the scriptures.

But is there any unique gift that our fragmented postmodern lives can offer to living with God? Or are we simply doomed by our culture to have (or to want to have) successful careers, a network of colleagues and friends, excellent healthcare, a large house, long life, and all the anxieties that accompany such a life-style?

I don’t really have the answer to this question. I waver between having more despair (which this post suggests) and having more hope, where perhaps spiritual practices of prayer, worship, silence, and solitude can break into our sense of fragmentation, where these practices can create a centre rather than another piece of an impossible puzzle.

In an admittedly different context (Egypt about 1700 years ago) there was a wealthy Christian named Anthony. By this point Christians were no longer being persecuted. They had freedom to worship, they were involved in running society, they now held power a certain amount of power and influence. In that way, somewhat similar to how we might feel studying at Kwantlen: get a degree, get a job, contribute to society! Go, go, go!

In Church one day he heard the gospel reading say “Sell all you have and give it to the poor. Then come and follow me.” Anthony was a literalist – he did precisely that and went off into the desert for a life of prayer, scripture reading, and simplicity. It wasn’t long before he was being joined by others, now known as the “Desert Mothers and Fathers”: the beginning of monastic community.

Not many of us will choose or even could choose such an extreme change in life-style. But we can find some hope in this: Anthony was given a vision of his “spiritual equal”. Who could this possibly be? Anthony had given up everything to follow Christ, surrendered a wealthy life for one of poverty and commitment to relationship with God and others. This vision, though, showed a regular person in the regular city, working a regular job: plumber, lawn-mower, accountant, or what have you.

So the radical retreat and life-style change of Anthony is an important expression of a spiritual yearning for God. But that radical spiritual yearning is available to anyone, anywhere. Our contemporary life, expressed by a career driven place like Kwantlen, does indeed offer challenges. There are things that need to be refused in order to live life with God. But sometimes it feels like we simply can’t refuse the frenzied pace; it’s simply inescapable.

However, I think that Anthony’s vision tells a different story. We can live a radically spiritual life in the midst of a radically non-spiritual context. The intensity of Anthony’s commitment to God is available to us, too. How this is the case, I am not really sure. But Jesus affirms a similar point when he is addressed with the pressures of his day and age: a family that thinks he’s out of his mind. (Mark 3:31-34)

Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they send someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you."
"Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother."

Autumn Leaves

“Lord, you have assigned me
   my portion and my cup;
you have made my lot secure.”

                                Psalm 16:5

Outside the Multi-Faith Office the trees are blazing with colour. Their leaves range in colour from light green tinged with yellow, to deep red and orange, and everything in between as they prepare to shed their summer leaves for the winter season, though first showing off an array of colour and light.

This morning for morning prayer we spent time with Psalm 16. It’s an invitation to give thanks to God for what he has done. Today one of the things he has done is bless the Kwantlen campus with bursting fall colour. This is part of “my portion and my cup” that God has given.

Of course, “my portion and cup” stretches beyond these few minutes of enjoying the beauty of autumn. We are all given many good things: bodies, personalities, careers, tasks, possessions, family, friends, and community; and the list goes on.

But all these things are not always so easy to accept; our “lot” does not always feel so “secure” as the Psalmist expresses here. My job is difficult! I'm struggling with my relationships! I feel like a failure! I want a different personality! My body is failing! My car isn't nice enough!

Such concerns and anxieties can plague anyone. When I walk these halls at KPU, meet students and faculty, or when I pray by myself, there always seem to be things we aren't happy with. Always something to be discomforted by. How then can we possibly thank God for our portion and our cup? How can we claim that he has made our lot secure? Even when surrounded by wealth, blessings, and love it’s so easy to feel insecure!

That is why these fall leaves in their seeming insignificance are so important. I glance out the window and can enjoy them for a brief moment before my thoughts become anxious or unsettled. And yet the trees still stand tall, displaying all their simple beauty. And for a moment my experience of them is “my portion and my cup”. In that experience, my lot is made secure.

We cannot experience peace in the big things of our life – marriage, work, family, self-identity – if we are not willing to find peace in the moment that God has given. Your portion and cup of large-life aspirations only takes place one moment at a time. So what God has given you, what God is always giving you, is this moment. Sometimes that moment is rather easy to enjoy, like beautiful autumn colours. I can totally admit that different circumstances can make “the moment” seem more like a burden than a blessing.

But God has redeemed this person (you) in this moment (now) through his identification with creation and humankind in Jesus. 

It is in Jesus that you, God,

Have made known to me the
  path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your
  presence,
with eternal pleasures at your
  right hand.

                                Psalm 16:11

Fill us with the joy of Christ through the Autumn leaves of the present moment, now and always.

Amen

The Wings of the Dawn

“If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.”

                                                Psalm 139: 9-10

The practice of prayer is an important, beautiful, and often difficult thing in Christian life. One of the small things I am doing at Kwantlen is host a time of morning prayer on the days I am on campus, praying through scripture: the Psalms and the Gospel of Mark. It is a very humble, small beginning – sometimes I am alone, sometimes I am joined by one or two others. But in its very smallness this activity is still one which is crucial for inspiring and equipping followers of Christ to experience and prepare ourselves for what God may do in the normal moments of our day.

Prayer can be difficult, too. Particularly in busy lives where there is always something to do or something to be distracted by. When we slow down with scripture and in silence we might experience a sense of disorientation. Our doubts, fears, and anxieties love to rush to the surface. The Psalmist knows this experience: “Out of the depths I cry to you!” we pray time and time again through the psalter.

But the poetry and profundity of the Psalms is also something to take deep comfort in. The passage from Psalm 139 above is a remarkable piece of poetry; the simple phrase “the wings of the dawn” is full of imagery and power, as if the morning sunrise were a bird that our souls fly away on, rising to meet the beauty and the pain of an ordinary day, settling down in places where we might think God is far away. Yet “even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”

So “comfort, comfort my people,” says our God. Take the time to slow down in prayer. Open yourself to the fear and anxiety that might be present with every morning, with every beautiful dawn. And trust that where ever you are – at work, at home, on the road, at Kwantlen – no place is empty of God’s guiding presence, his steady right hand. God call us to himself no matter what our circumstances, as this morning we read Jesus say in Mark: 2: 27 – “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners”. 

Learning and Walking the Unknown Path

It’s been a busy couple of weeks with the Multi-Faith Centre at KPU. Since the new semester has started we have been busy attending different orientation events, trying to raise awareness and create some student interest and energy around the MFC. We’ve also been internally working on expanding and bringing on board new chaplains and new faith traditions – the latest on that front is a new Buddhist chaplain on the Richmond campus and there will soon be a humanist chaplain joining me on the Surrey campus. Things are moving along!

As for creating a Christian community here on campus, things have been slow but relatively steady, probably to be expected in the first year on campus. I’ve made a number of positive connections with Christian students and staff, and I’ve enjoyed these first steps of developing a friendship with them; I look forward to more. But students are very busy and have widely different schedules, which makes bringing us all together something of a challenge. I continue to work on finding a common time and I trust that the Lord will provide. Morning Prayer is happening on Thursdays at 8: 40 regardless of who joins me, but I look forward to sharing the scriptures with fellow Christians as the semester and school year moves along and I make stronger and more frequent connections.

This morning for prayer I read Psalm 25: “Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.” What are God’s ways on this university campus? What paths of God can I follow as I walk down these halls? God seems often frustratingly silent on the details. But I trust that his paths run “to the ends of the earth,” and so in that spirit I can tentatively hope that as I walk down to the student café for a coffee in the morning the simple journey I am taking can become obedient to God’s divine providence, guidance, and direction. I am by no means certain or confident of what that precisely means. But I have no choice other than deep trust that my presence at Kwantlen can join in with the very action of God.

"The Spirit Blows Where it Wills"

Last week at orientation on KPU’s I was hosting the Multi-Faith Centre table as the Christian Reformed Chaplain. On the Richmond campus a few years ago the MFC created an “I believe in…” board, where students write what they “believe in” on a small card and pin it to a large board. We decided to take up that same project on both the Richmond and the Surrey campuses this year. At the end of a day of orientation we have a large board filled with objects of belief, representing something of the diversity at Kwantlen. We’ll continue the project next week during “Welcome Week”, but orientation alone resulted in lots of different answers. I believe in…: myself, opportunity, God, respect, family, food and eating, and Jesus Christ, to name a few.

What does it mean to “believe in” Jesus Christ? And especially, what does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ in the context of so many other beliefs, from the trivial examples of “food” to the incredibly vague examples of “opportunity”? Not only that, but there are certainly religious traditions at KPU and in Surrey who aren’t represented on the board; think about the major world religions of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. What does “belief in Jesus Christ” mean alongside this myriad of differing traditions?

Jesus is the one who shows us what God is like. He is the Son who is so utterly dependent on his Father that that relationship of dependence is the ultimate thing that controls his life, a life of love, compassion, even to death. And we are invited into that relationship. Jesus invites us to stand where he stands, to pray “Our Father who art in heaven”. And this invitation is so powerful, so moving, so completely reconciling, that the invitation itself has made its way into the way Christian’s talk about God: the Holy Spirit. So to “believe in Jesus” means to inhabit and dwell within the beauty and assurance of Jesus’s invitation to stand with him, beside him, and have him stand and dwell within us as we pray to the Father, the source of Life, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

But can we do this alongside other traditions? How would we do this alongside other traditions? Jesus says to Nicodemus in John 3: “The wind blows where it wills. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit”. There is a mystery about the spirit who invites us into relationship with God. God has shown us himself in Jesus, but Jesus himself wasn’t entirely predictable. He refused final definition, a figure on the move. So it is of those born of the spirit. We might be tempted to label non-Christians cleanly and easily as “wrong” or “misguided”; and as Christians we do certainly need to make judgements about right and wrong, about true and false. But an important part of that act of judging is to be open to the spirit working in us and working beyond us. 

I hope this can open us to a simultaneous posture of confidence and humility. Confidence in God’s revelation in Christ and our participation in it through the Holy Spirit, but also humility in recognizing that the very spirit in whom we have salvation also is free to work and blow where it wills. I certainly seek bear witness to God in Christ, but part of that seeking is watching and waiting for the Lord in quiet confidence and assurance.

Belief in Christ is never a “finished task” in itself, let alone face to face with other traditions. And certainly the Christian task is not to water down our faith to make it palatable for everyone and anyone; the distinctiveness of the gospel in Christ is the gospel. But the gospel is clearly so much more than the mere truth that “Jesus is God”. If Jesus himself is the truth, then the Christian task is not necessarily to convince others of our faith but to combine our words with our actions, not only actions of service, but also our acts of prayer and acts of receptivity to the life of the Spirit which blows where it wills. 

"The Deep Breath Before the Plunge"

As many of you have likely noticed, cool temperatures and rain have arrived just in time for the start of the Fall semester of school. I've always loved this time of year; the outdoor energy of summer sunshine is redirected to the activities of the Fall, like planning for the new school year, getting ready for indoor sports, and taking out warmer clothes. Cooler weather drives us indoors more of the time, and that opportunity allows for less running around being busy with either work or holidays, and instead invites more reflection, more thought, and maybe more prayer.

This is my last day on campus before new student orientation on Thursday. In the 2^nd installment of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, the Wizard Gandalf is standing with his frightened hobbit friend Pippin before the beginning of a great battle. Gandalf says to Pippin about the quiet before the war breaks out, “It’s the deep breath before the plunge”. And that is certainly where I am situated right now, taking a deep breath before the plunge of thousands of students and the energy of a new semester crashes into the campus in the coming weeks.

I really have little idea of what it will all look like. Of course I have a general sense of direction and purpose on campus, but there are unknown faces, unknown stories, unknown adventures that all await me and which I also know nothing about. It is both thrilling and slightly nerve-racking.

But standing before the possibility of the “new” is the continuing task of the Christian. Who knows how God will show up? We can trust that God will appear in the likeness of Christ through the Holy Spirit, and that gives us a clear guidance of what to watch out for. But at the same time, when Christ was on earth, he unsettled what we think about “God”; so I think we should continue to expect that. Christ doesn't close things down, he opens things up – new possibilities for life, love, and joy.

So it truly is a “deep breath before the plunge” on this cold, rainy day at Kwantlen. And the plunge into God’s future, as usual, is filled with the excitement and thrill of encountering Christ in the unexpected openness of new relationships, new stories, and the “new” in itself. For Christ himself is “the new”. 

Christian Companionship

Starting my job as a Christian Chaplain at Kwantlen has meant that I am now joining a tradition of Christian Reformed Chaplaincy, one that is respected and appreciated in University settings across the continent. This tradition continues to be rich and interesting, and there are currently many other campus chaplains scattered in those universities, chaplains who have now become colleagues, companions, and friends in this exciting job of being a Christian presence in a centre of learning.

Today I met one of these colleagues of mine over the phone. The beginning of this job has brought with it many challenges, some of which were expected and some of which were not. I was in need of someone to share these struggles with and so was truly blessed by the 30 minutes of conversation I had with someone who I now call a colleague, friend, and mentor. I was able to describe and “unload” the stories and challenges that have arisen in this first summer of chaplaincy; a listening ear, some words of wisdom, and some encouragement for the future were all occasions for this new friend to be the presence of Christ to me. It was a simple conversation, yet full of the significance that comes through Christian companionship.

Christian companionship is significant. We dare not neglect it, I think, or we run the risks of isolation, self-sufficiency, or even despair. Becoming who we are in Christ involves a community, involves relationship with others. I have been gifted with many rich Christian communities: family, schools, universities, and churches. Now I get to experience a new dimension of Christian community, the companionship of co-workers in a similar career, wrestling with and enjoying different yet similar situations.

This is certainly not limited to those positions more formally known as “ministry”. To be a follower of Jesus is to be in “the ministry”, no matter what your career calling. In every moment we are called to witness to our faith. So this collegiality I experienced today is not confined to “chaplains”; we are all co-workers in Christ and so we can all find ways to allow our work to be “ministry” and then find ways to connect with each other for prayer, encouragement, and shared hope.  If we ignore this sense of Christian companionship in our careers and lives, we miss out on a vital dimension of the Christian life. Jesus has summoned us into relationship with each other, a relationship that does not neglect any area of our lives, careers, family, or anything else. Encouragement and companionship is needed in all of these dimensions. “Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, as indeed you are doing” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). 

Dirty Dishes

I'm in a messy office today! Some students stopped by for the weekly Multi-Faith Centre tea-time I've been hosting through the summer, and so I stacked the coffee table with cookies, kettles, tea-pots, mugs, lemonade, all sort of social, summery goodies. The conversation was relaxed and enjoyable; the result was a pleasant few hours and some dirty dishes.

Some dish-washing is a pretty small price to pay for the chance to build relationships. In fact, dish-washing is often a hugely beneficial thing for community building. After a meal and conversation, the menial task of washing up can become the place where a common task becomes a common source of friendship, openness, sharing, and love. This is so crucially important for what it means to be a community, to develop love over common objects, common tasks, a common vision for our community and our world. For the Church, the common object, task, and vision are all summed up in Jesus Christ, in his life and person. We look to the one who brought healing and comfort, love and justice. He is the one whom we love (the object), he shows us the tasks to act out in love (the task), and he reveals to us a future for a world held in the love of the Father (the vision).

Of course, dirty dishes are not the only common task the community of the church is called to. We are summoned to a common task of confession to and forgiveness of each other. The church is filled with much more than dirty dishes; we all carry personal problems, we all find ourselves frustrated with difficult personalities, we struggle with negotiating the different goals we each hold for the direction of our Christian community. “Doing the dishes” might not be such an easy thing; we need to bring to the surface the dirty, difficult, uncomfortable, and challenging things that we would rather avoid.

Can the church dare to be a place where that sort of honesty and vulnerability takes place? Can we bring all the problems we would rather keep hidden out into the open air of confession, of mourning, of lament, trusting and hoping that doing so guides us towards a common object of love? It is difficult, it is hard, it may be unsettling.

But the presence of the Holy Spirit urging us on in our communal imitation and love of Christ will aid and comfort us in the task. And our hope in Christ is that all of the churches tasks, from the pursuit of justice, to the confession of sin, to the washing of dishes, may be occasions for God’s presence to break into our world in fresh, new, and sparklingly clean ways. 

The Quiet of the University

Since I stepped into the Multi-Faith Centre office a few hours ago I haven’t heard or seen a single person. The quiet of the summer semester is particularly evident on the top floor of a corner building on campus (where the MFC office is).

I’ve written about this in previous posts, but I can’t help returning to it: the summer quiet of a university. It feels very fitting, very in tune with the rhythm of the seasons. Right now the weather is warm, the sky is clear, and most students and faculty are doing all manner of summer activities: leading summer camps, enjoying creation, gardening, working outdoors, or anything else that beckons the human spirit outside its usual walls and into creation where the ceiling is the sky and the walls are oceans. The hard work of thinking and school can be rightly put on the backburner for these months.

And yet, the university remains. Libraries are shelved with books, classrooms stocked with desks, chairs, and blackboards. The task of learning and exploring through the life of the mind still invites us, even though it rightly releases us into the summer joys of a different sort. The fall will soon be here, the hallways filled, library carrels occupied.

I, admittedly, am a lover of school. The quiet waiting of the university intrigues and excites me. When the temperature cools and the rain (hopefully!) returns, the task of learning is always eager to open itself up to the human spirit which returns to books and lectures with new experiences to reflect upon. It’s sort of a natural progression of exploration and reflection; we go “out” to gather experiences, to test our learning in concrete realities, and then return “in” with fresh material of life to reflect upon.

As I enjoy the quiet of these summer semester hallways, though, I am reminded of both my own desire to invest my life in the “inward” movement, but also how these two movements of exploration and reflection bleed into one another and are not so easily isolated from each other. We gather experiences in the process of reflection, and we reflect in the process of having experiences.

So for that I treasure the university, not only for its ability to reflect on experiences but also how it provides its own experiences. The university is not just an “escape” from reality, it is its own reality, with its own rhythm of experience and reflection.

In some ways this mirrors the rhythm of the Christian life; prayer and worship leads to action and service and back again. However, here, too, the boundaries are not so neatly defined. Paul encourages believers to “pray without ceasing,” indicating the fluid nature of departure and return; prayer is an act of service, and service is a form of prayer. We ought not abandon either concrete practice, but realize that the Christian journey is one movement with different emphases at different moments of life. We are on one continuous journey of conversion, a conversion of our desire away from idols and towards the living God made know in Christ. 

Unceded Territory

Today I had the chance to give an interview with Kwantlen’s student newspaper, “The Runner”. The inside front page offers a short description on their name:

“The Runner recognizes that our work, both in and out of the office, takes place on unceded Coast and Strait Salish territories, specifically the shared traditional territories of the Kwantlen, Katzie, Semiahmoo, Sto:lo and Tsawwassen First Nations. Our name is inspired by the hun’qumi’num meaning of Kwantlen, which is tireless hunters or tireless runners. Just as Kwantlen is adaptable and changing so is The Runner.”

“Unceded” means that no formal treaty has been signed, no agreement has been reached between the First and Second nations occupying the same land. We ought to remain attentive to this; Christianity was deeply implicated in colonial expansion which sometimes took an aggressive form. This doesn’t mean we should feel unbearable shame and romanticize about North America free from the infiltration of Christian or colonial influence. But we do need to confess our implication in what was and still is a painful journey for First Nation’s people across the continent.

I feel a bit like a “runner” right now myself (though I can’t really claim to be “tireless”). This interview with the student newspaper is another attempt at reaching out (“running” into) to this university community, spreading awareness about the Multi-Faith Centre and my Christian chaplaincy working out of it. These attempts have been rather scattered and seemingly unrelated: coffees and lunches with staff and students, l meetings with Multi-Faith centre staff, some regular conversations with particular students, a bit of low-key programming (a weekly ‘tea-time’ at the Multi-Faith Centre office). Right now I can’t really see a deep connection or continuity between my efforts; they are rather scattered, which makes the ‘running around’ metaphor an appropriate one.

I acknowledge, though, that I am on unceded territory, both in an official sense regarding our First Nation’s communities, but also in a broader sense of trying to set up camp in a somewhat foreign territory. The aggression of some colonialism is not to be recommended on this score. I am tentatively trying to set up a temporary shelter, a spiritual oasis where I can receive and welcome travelers with the hospitality of Jesus. “I am not of this World,” Jesus said (John 8:23). In acknowledging our pilgrim journey through our lives we realize that absolute comfort and homecoming is not for us to establish in the World, in separation from God. Instead, we make our home in Christ himself. By doing so, we are invited to care for people, the land, creation itself in a way that offers a place of rest and sanctuary that is real, but not of the world; it is of God. It points to the end of all creation making its home in God and God in it, resting in the divine nature and freed from “the world”, freed from separation from God.

In that sense, as Christians we are runners, “running the race, pressing on towards the goal” as Paul put it. I will keep ‘running’ around on this ‘unceded’ territory, as a stranger in the world, attempting to offer hospitality and rest in Christ, who is not of the world either. I won’t do it perfectly. Sometimes this ‘unceded territory’ will be a place where I regretfully push my own agenda and try to set up a firm foundation on my own. But by being attentive to the pilgrim life of Jesus we can be drawn back into a journey that calls us to hospitality and peace against a world that all too often interprets ‘unceded’ as ‘empty for domination’. In opposition to this, we as Christ’s follows must reverse this interpretation, and instead offer ourselves to God’s service. 

Small Fry

The summer semester on Kwantlen’s Surrey campus has been quiet, but has generally had a bit of a buzz of students and staff making their way through their various tasks. Today for some reason, though, the campus has seemed utterly empty. A student who stopped by said that his class which is usually 15 people had dropped to just 3.

This was my first week of hosting a Multi-Faith Centre Summer tea time that has been advertised around campus. I took time to set up the office with little trays of treats and candy, with mugs and water for tea or lemonade. Such a set up in the quiet Multi-Faith office up in a top corner of a building felt a little small, a little unnoticed. I was hoping for a some student traffic and energy, hoping that some of the advertisements had been noticed and a new student or two might show up. 

That wasn't the case, though. Instead I had the privilege of sharing a simple conversation with a student who I have enjoyed getting to know quite frequently. Instead of being blessed with the new, I was blessed with continuity, a deepening of an already established relationship.

Though I don’t always sense it, I do trust that slow and continuous deepening of relationships always carries within itself the possibility of energy and excitement. In fact, with our limited perspectives we often simply can’t see what sort of “newness” might emerge from attending to the continuities that we inhabit through pattern, routine, and comfort.

There was no fanfare around my little tea-time event. Most of the cookies remained uneaten, the lemonade untouched. No one will write about it in the school newspaper next week. But the chance to sit and talk with a friend in a quiet corner of this campus is evidence enough of God’s sustaining energy. I trust that with faithfulness and attentiveness, God can bring to life a new energy out of very small pieces of old stability.

John 5: 5-13

⁵ Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” ⁶ He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. ⁷ Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii^[a] worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.” ⁸ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, ⁹ “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” 

¹⁰ Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. ¹¹ Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. ¹² And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.”¹³ So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.

Contemplative Emailing

I never thought or anticipated that this job would involve so much emailing! But email, I suppose, is basically the preferred method of communication these days; whether it’s students on campus, colleagues at the church, or former professors, the primary way I get in touch with them, near or far, is through the tap-tap of a keyboard which magically produces words on a screen and instantly sends them firing through microfibre cables to their intended destination. And as I continue to establish connections with a variety of people on campus, it is an important and useful tool. 

We should be cautious, though, about email and electronic connections. I don’t want to necessarily ultimately condemn or condone simply making use of them; what we need to be attentive to is what kind of mind, body, and spirit they are shaping in us the more we make use of them.

Email is fast. Email is convenient. Email is efficient. Speed, convenience, efficiency – these can be and often are all good things. But they are good things in moderation. They are good things if we don’t let them dictate every part of our life. However, it is fairly easy for them do just that; we might subtly and without noticing it look for fast and efficient meals, fast and efficient conversations, fast and efficient reading, meetings, church services, etc...

But my conviction is that we are not only created for speed. We are created for silence, stillness, and slowness, created to be attentive to things, places, and people that can easily get caught up in the flow of a fast-paced, email-dictated day. God is always present, always available, always wanting deeper communion with us; but fast-paced technological lives can sometimes paradoxically make us fast asleep to God’s creative reality.

So maybe we need to effect a sort of reversal; instead of allowing an efficiency-based thing like email to dictate those parts of our lives that require more time, like food, friendship, and reading, maybe we can also let those slower activities affect the way we do our fast-paced activities. Instead of making dinner into an email event (quick, convenient, microwavable) we can make email in a dinner event (slow, careful, over-baked for a few hours).

Of course, I don’t mean to deprive us of the convenience and efficiency of email. This is an attitude change, not a literal change. Spending hours on a simple email might not (though it certainly may) be feasible or possible. But maybe it is possible that a slow, contemplative dimension can work its way into the seemingly most un-contemplative activity, like writing a short email and sending it off through the internet at the speed of light. If we take conscious-time to slow down, maybe for a few minutes at the beginning and end of the day, then that attentiveness to God’s presence in those few minutes can open us up to God’s presence in those emailing-type activities that can threaten to dominate our outlook on life. 

And if we do that, then we are truly following Jesus, who not only embodied God everywhere but saw God everywhere; “Consider the lilies of the field…”

Housekeeping

Our projects and goals often unfold and develop at a different pace and in different ways than we expected or hoped for. And even if we have a sense that a plan might take some difficulty and slow work, when the difficult and slowness arrives we can’t help but feel a little discouraged.

My week has had moments of a combination between these two sources of slight discouragement. This summer, I knew heading into it, was going to be a time of slowly developing connections and relationships within the Kwantlen community, getting my feet wet on campus and envisioning what concrete projects I could undertake as a chaplain when the Fall semester rolls around. That has only been partially what has happened – in fact, there have been a number of fast paced and high energy days on campus, where meetings with different university departments, connecting with students, and my own reflection about the shape of this chaplaincy make for a full and interesting schedule. Last week, too, was a busy one, planning for, implementing, and following up on a Multi-Faith Information evening, inviting other communities to participate in our Multi-Faith Centre on campus.

This week, though, has moved along much more slowly. The campus has seemed quiet. I’m yearning for an increasing amount of intentional relationships focused around Christian faith and spirituality, but many of my connections with students are one-off, brief conversations. Also, because the Multi-Faith Centre is so new, there is currently a slight lack of cohesive vision and direction for the Centre and its various chaplains, and this is something of a hindrance for implementing or even envisioning some concrete projects I want to undertake as a Christian chaplain.

So while there are lots of good and positive things moving along in my work, there are also opportunities for discouragement and confusion. And it is not necessarily a bad thing to be disappointed. We all have dreams and visions for our careers, families, relationships, and our very lives; sometimes things work out with ease but that is definitely not always the case – we’re also all faced with challenges that can seem to stall or derail what we hoped for.

But while it is not a bad thing in itself to be discouraged, there are different ways forward. 

Discouragement can be an end in itself, swallowing us more thoroughly into its power. While we can’t avoid discouragement entirely, we can choose what we let it do to us. Do we invite it in and allow it to set up camp in our home? Or can we instead invite discouragement in as a sort of housekeeper, as the Islamic poet Rumi suggested (see the poem below)? It comes into our souls, not to stay forever, but to empty us out, to clean us of plans and projects that lie broken on the floor, and then leave an empty, clean, and fresh space where God himself can come in, inhabit us, and work with us again to look forward in hope to new possibilities.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

The Joy of Multi-Faith

What an exciting week for the Kwantlen Multi-Faith Centre! Last Monday evening we hosted an open house and information evening on campus. We are hoping to expand our Multi-Faith Centre to include chaplains of many different traditions and beliefs, and Monday evening was a chance to extend an invitation to a wide and beautiful array of diversity. Buddhist, Muslim, Baha’i, Humanist, and Christian were all represented. The discussion was rich, fruitful, and reflected a desire of different traditions to celebrate both unity-in-diversity and diversity-in-unity.

It’s given me another opportunity to reflect on Multi-Faith explorations from a Christian perspective, this time with the energy of a specific Multi-Faith experience in my mind. I particularly enjoyed a conversation I had with a Muslim Imam (the Muslim equivalent of a pastor), as we asked each other questions about our different religious traditions. I learned about the theological and moral significance of the Islamic month Ramadan, a time of fasting for the sake of closer communion with God, a deeper investment in Muslim faith, and the invitation to share in the experience of the poor and the hungry. It is a rich and beautiful practice that has stretched through centuries of Islam. The Imam was deeply committed to it, describing the tradition of Ramadan with an inspiring combination of humility and confidence.

Across different religious traditions there are certainly differing systems of belief. On one level, Christians and Muslims simply hold different things to be true. However, it is very important to remember that religious traditions are not merely a set of beliefs. They are always encompassed by different practices that form a community. Again, Christians and Muslims have different practices; Christians celebrate the Lord’s Supper and Baptism, Muslims practice rigorous fasting during the season of Ramadan. Some practices, though, are the same: both of these traditions affirm, for example, that caring for the poor is an essential part of the life of faith.

Remembering that religious traditions are far more than just a set of beliefs is already a way past the sort of dilemma that suggests that if you don’t agree on the truth of certain beliefs (such as “Jesus Christ is God’s Word Incarnate”) then the only conversation that can be had is one arguing out who is “right” and who is “wrong”. The things that Christians claim are “true” are only “true” in the context of the practices of Christian community: taking the Lord’s supper, baptizing, reading the scriptures, caring for the poor, etc… Religious truth is not the same thing as scientific truth.

As a Christian, then, even though I may not share the same beliefs or practices of the Muslim tradition, I am not committed to arguing out the truth or falsity of certain religious statements, because I believe that religious truth is something totally different from scientific truth. When Paul writes “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified,” he is not talking about a mind-independent truth, but about the truth of Jesus that affects him to the core of his being, shaping him into the image of Christ, the suffering-servant King. And that is not something that can be argued for or against using rational argumentation. It is far more existential.

That is why the first reaction of a Christian to a different religious tradition is not one of antagonism, but of hospitality and interest. The practices and beliefs of Islam come from a rich and robust history of Islamic theological reflection and practice. If we can trust that the truth of Christ is deeper and more expansive than a set of beliefs, then we can also trust that God encourages us to learn and celebrate the particularity of other religious traditions. I will likely never practice Ramadan. But the practice of “knowing only Christ and him crucified” means patiently and discerningly emptying myself to receive others with hospitality, compassion, and interest. Affirming and celebrating other traditions with their specificities of belief and practice does not mean saying “all religions are the same, deep down”. It means, rather, trusting that God, as triune, does not only manifest himself as pure unity and sameness, but also as delightful difference, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We are not in a position, as Christians or as human beings in general, to make final, definitive truth statements. What we can do is live as the final and definitive truth, that is, as followers of Christ. But that does not make us the judgers of world religions. Instead, it means that we are constantly judged, judged by the scandal of Christ on the cross.

This is a difficult topic, and I don’t pretend to have gotten to the bottom of it. But for now, I celebrate and am thankful for the presence of God that emerges between Christians and Muslims and between any two people who approach relationship not with fear, antagonism, or control, but with friendship, hospitality, and open-heartedness. Jesus demands nothing less of his followers. 

The Thrill of Christian Faith

This past week of chaplaincy at Kwantlen overflowed with a huge variety of experiences. My Fleetwood CRC chaplaincy committee visited the campus early in the week. Together we explored both the physical and spiritual space of Kwantlen, with its well-designed libraries, classrooms, offices, and cafes, all the while imaging and sharing our sense of the deep spiritual desires and questions that this community of learning is wrestling with. We asked ourselves, how can our Christian chaplaincy make a home and hospitable centre for this piece of God’s creation?

I met some students for the first time who came to the Multi-Faith Centre with a spiritual intensity and questioning mind that led to very fruitful and exciting discussions. I thought long and hard about the importance of the Multi-Faith Centre, about how it can be both inclusive of all perspectives and religious traditions as well as allowing for the distinctiveness of thought and practice that each of those traditions has to offer, whether explicitly religious or secular. I met with Kwantlen representatives to discuss and think about that very issue. I connected with other Christian Reformed campus ministers, sharing stories, ideas, and encouragement. And I even encountered some disagreement this week, a difference of opinion on how the Multi-Faith Centre should function.

Many of these experiences were spiritually intense and charged with an excitable energy. Some of my week was lower key, writing emails and doing online research about Multi-Faith Centres on other university campuses.

But whatever the energy level or emotional impact of these varied experiences, I am increasingly convinced that the Christian life is exciting. Thinking, practicing, and living out the Christian faith is not simply about ordered and proper theological frameworks, church structures, or ethical systems. While all of these things are important, they are only so insofar as they are caught up in the thrill, danger, and excitement of following Jesus.

In his book “Orthodoxy” G.K. Chesterston wrote something that continues to haunt me: “There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy.” Orthodoxy he is talking about, the rich, thick tradition of Christian faith. Not the thrill of heresy or being supposedly ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’ and rejecting Christian institutions or traditional doctrines, as if Christian tradition were dull, uninspiring, and in need of science or secularism to jolt it out of its slumber. Instead, Christianity carries within itself the seeds of its own destabilization and unsettlement.

It is Jesus who jolts both the church and the world out of its passive slumber. Jesus calls us to the excitement of love, justice, joy, and creativity. And not only that, but the Christian tradition is deeply invested with working out who Jesus is and what it means to follow him. We are caught right in the middle, not of bland doctrines, but of exciting tensions that lie at the heart of the Christian faith: Jesus is both fully human and fully divine, the Kingdom of God is both now and not yet, the Church both receives the love of Christ and gives the love of Christ. And Jesus himself formulated one of the most paradoxical and exciting teachings of all: “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:25).

Through this past week I have been struck by how this thrill of Christian life can make its way into both the menial and more inspiring tasks and experiences. Every moment of following Jesus is centered around living in the exciting and fruitful tensions of power in weakness, of giving to receive, of divinity and humanity. As his followers we are at the heart of this orthodoxy. Of course, we often fail to live out of this energy; the tasks of the world drain our energy or we are tempted to close down the thrill for the sake of safety and security. But if we continue to try to follow Jesus and be inhabited by his spirit of life, then the excitement, peril, and joy of Christian faith will always be as close as our very selves. 

God in Every Person

The way I spend my time at Kwantlen has taken a slight shift these past few weeks. I am transitioning out of office set-up and generally getting settled. Instead, I have been increasingly involved in what I came to Kwantlen to do: develop relationships and be involved in human interaction. These interactions are many and varied: some meetings, some passing conversations, some in depth discussions. And people of different religious backgrounds, ethnicity, and personalities all add to the variety.

If we think about it, even the frequent conversations we have with people we see often are never the same. Each day, each interaction offers something new and different, the chance to see a person in a new light, whether it's a new acquaintance or an old friend. It feels as though human persons have an infinite depth to them that cannot be full explored, either after one hour of conversation or a life-time of relationship.

What is it about humans that makes them so rich, interesting, and wonderful? I think it is God himself. Every person is a unique place where God can be received and given. That is why individual people are so valuable, because they offer us something that can't be found anywhere else: the presence of God expressed and experienced in a special way.

And this isn't meant to be a grand pronouncement about making every interaction we have with each person into some sort of extreme religious experience. Instead, it's about noticing that God is present in ordinary people doing ordinary things. Of course, some people we meet might not fit our standard of 'ordinary'. Or sometimes people might be hard to agree with, difficult to get along with. But none of that prevents them from being a place where God is at work. That is why Jesus ate with both "sinners" and the "teachers of the law"; no one was cornered off from being in a unique relationship with God.

One of the challenges of following Jesus is looking for and celebrating the different people we meet, in all of their particularities or mannerisms: race, religion, personality, or anything else does not prevent them from expressing that relationship with God. It is not our task to judge who has the Holy Spirit and who does not; instead it is our task to look for and rejoice in how God's love is everywhere, in all creation, and in every person.

This also means being OK with celebrating our own unique way of encountering God and sharing God's love with the world. Oscar Wilde said "Be yourself. Everyone else is taken". And if we really are ourselves I think that we are also attentive to helping other people be themselves. You and I and everyone else are on a journey of becoming who we are called to be by God. And this journey is not one that is in isolation. We become our true selves in God when we follow Jesus and try to help others find themselves in God's extravagant love.

God is encountered in each other. And so as I keep meeting new people and strengthening the relationships that have already begun, I hope that I can celebrate God at work in my life and through that celebration to help other's encounter God in their own lives. It doesn't have to be an extravagant thing: just a careful attentiveness to how every person in every moment is beloved by God and capable of becoming who they are called to be in that love.

A Sacramental Moment

Everything is a little quiet around the Kwantlen Multifaith office this afternoon. My day has been spent answering emails, meeting with a student, doing a bit of reading, and still attempting to get some of the logistics of a new office figured out. This afternoon, though, as the tasks of the day draw to a close, I am confronted with the task of slowing down as the silence of empty afternoon halls creeps in around me. While still glancing through my inbox, I am suddenly pulled away from the noise of technology, of the bustle of both my inner and outer world.

I'm still quite new in this position. Regular programming hasn't started yet, I don't have lots of emails to follow up on, and yet its been too easy to fill my mind with a sort of frantic pace.

It's important to remember, now and always, that time is a gift. This summer especially, as my first season in this chaplaincy position, it is important to savor the slightly slower pace that has been granted to me instead of allowing my soul to be caught up in external activity.

We need to treasure and make use of the slower times in our lives, partially to prepare for the busyness of the future (and the Fall season of a university is always busy), but also to enjoy them for their own sake. In the slower moments of a day, a week, or a month we are being granted an opportunity to recall things that busyness does not allow for: we are invited into thanksgiving, into prayer, perhaps even into a chance to work on ourselves, challenging ourselves to reflect on those areas of our lives which require us to trust God and trust others. The Church calendar and liturgy works these moments in naturally, with a season like advent reminding us to wait, and the practice of the Lord's Supper recalling us to our shared humanity with the common loaf and cup.

But life itself can sometimes offer such liturgical or sacramental moments. Let's allow ourselves to be drawn into them from time to time.

Faithful in Multifaith

There can be no doubt regarding the plurality of religious and secular worldviews and practices in Canada. The situation at Kwantlen Polytechnic University is no different. This university serves as something of a microcosm, if not for all of Canada then certainly for south-western British Columbia; there are many significant and visible cultural, ethnic, and religious groups on campus. In fact, I don’t think identifying a majority is even possible. We are all “visible minorities,” as far as I can tell.

It is in response to such a cultural milieu that a Multifaith Centre such as the one here at Kwantlen is established and becomes a locus of important dialogue, conversation, and practice. What, though, precisely is a “Multifaith Centre”? And how might a Christian community participate in such an initiative?

In a country like Canada, in a city like Surrey, in a university like Kwantlen, globalization is a palpable reality. However, what evidently does not take place in this process of cultural and ethnic diffusion is the reduction of all differences into the same.  There is no neutral archetype of a human person or human community which everyone in the world slowly slips towards thanks to globalization. This is not to say that there are not attempts to erase difference (consider the travesty and tragedy of residential schools or the more benign and bland attempts of certain spiritual traditions to make everyone is the same by suggesting that "deep down" there are no differences). However, religious commitment and cultural tradition are not easily or simply eliminated.

A Multifaith Centre affirms and celebrates these differences. Different traditions, cultures, and religions can come to this centre and find a place to explicitly explore their own tradition, delve deeply into it, but always in the context of others who are doing the same with their own traditions. The aim is not to find the basic commonality of all these varied traditions and abandon the supposedly superfluous aspects of distinctive doctrine, practice, or lifestyle.

How, then, might a Christian community engage this sort of centre? I would suggest that it is by being thoroughly attentive to our own tradition. And what does the Christian tradition consist of? Of course, within Christianity we have to acknowledge a vast array of differences. However, speaking about Christianity within a Multifaith context, I would appeal to four central aspects of Christian practice identified by Rowan Williams: baptism, bible, Eucharist, and prayer. These are not things we check at the door of the Multifaith Centre, but we bring them in with us, exploring and imagining what they mean when they are put alongside the practices and traditions of other faiths and religions.

Of course some commonalities will arise. Celebrating difference does not mean ignoring or neglecting what can truly be shared. But such commonality is not authentic if it is imposed from the outset, if certain faith communities are told to abandon their practices and come with only their doctrine or intellectual tradition to a falsely ‘neutral’ and ‘rational’ interfaith dialogue on the intellectual aspect of a tradition alone. No tradition is devoid of practices, and so to be authentically Multifaith must include all the various practices of a tradition.

Christian witness is not about converting non-Christians to our pattern of belief and practice. Of course we are not entirely devoid of reasons for holding onto our Christian tradition, but Christian witness is not convincing everyone that they are “wrong” compared to to our “right” beliefs. Rather, it means faithfully attending to Christian practices of baptism, scripture reading, the Lord’s Supper, and prayer, practices that Christians for centuries have affirmed open us to the presence of the Trinity at work in all creation, in all people, regardless of their cultural, religious, or intellectual background. And if we are able to be attentive to the work of the triune God in all things then I suspect we will soon be echoing Jesus’ words in Matthew 8.10: “Truly I tell you, not even in Israel (read: Church, Christianity) have I found such faith”. 

The Christian as Perpetual Beginner

Edmund Husserl once wrote that "the philosopher is the perpetual beginner". I would willingly and easily substitute "Christian" for "philosopher" in this phrase; if our life in God is an journey into the infinite, then every day, every moment can be seen as a new beginning, a fresh starting point, an inaugural event that leads us into an adventure, a task, or a resting place that we have not foreseen. The resurrection took the world by surprise, offering a beginning where there seemed to be only a dead end. Ought the resurrection not still take us by surprise, not as a cold, disinterested fact but as a truth that gets under our skin, into our hearts, and invigorates us to pursue life, and life to the full, even, dare we proclaim, life that extends beyond and ruptures from within dead-ends, disappointments, and death?

These past few weeks at Kwantlen have been an explicit beginning, something that anyone would recognize as a beginning, so my imagination hasn't yet needed to infuse life into a dead situation (instead, it's more been engaged in imagining how to set up the furniture in the Multifaith Office). There is mostly possibility and excitement before me since the tradition of CRC campus ministry at Kwantlen simply hasn't had the time to stabilize and atrophy into an static institution in need of a prophetic summons. Right now, rather, there is a simple and obvious situation of what Christians are always being confronted with: a fresh moment, a new opportunity to discover God within oneself and within the world.

This morning I encountered the joy and excitement of new life in Christ over breakfast and coffee with a Christian member of the Kwantlen community. Conversation, stories, and ideas were shared as together we imagined what direction the future of a Christian presence at Kwantlen might take. Not only, though, was it the beginning of an important conversation about the role of campus ministry, it also already was campus ministry: two Christians establishing a relationship, a friendship, hopeful and trusting that God is always-already present in each-other. I think we ought not underestimate what life God will bring through the humble beginnings of a friendship that situates itself within the reality of Christ and his kingdom of love.

Right now, then, beginnings are exciting and inspiring. No doubt the task of a perpetual beginner can and will grow wearisome, difficult, and manifestly uninspiring. But for now, a certain positive energy remains, not overflowing itself with an unrestrained passion, but a gentle hum beneath the surface of the menial tasks of setting up an office, scheduling meetings, and sending introductory emails. The Son is always being born in our midst, in our world, in ourselves - by the power of the Holy Spirit may we always find ways to be attentive to that infinite gift from the Father.

Good Beginnings

As I write these words I am sitting in the newly established office for the Multifaith Centre at the Surrey campus for Kwantlen Polytechnic University; it’s my first time sitting in here as the Christian Reformed Chaplain. I’m up on the third floor of the “Fir” building (many of the buildings here are named after trees). The window looks out into a forest of spring-green leaves; the nearest tree is only yards away and reflects green light right into the office. Inside, is less lively: grey and black furniture on a grey and black carpet that is in need of a good vacuum. Some work will need to be done over the next few weeks to make this a warm and hospitable space.

This office will be my home base on the Surrey Campus of Kwantlen as I begin my position of Christian Reformed Campus Chaplain. The campus is fairly quiet now as many students have abandoned classes for a summer of work experience or vacation and the professors take advantage of fewer on campus responsibilities to work at home or travel to conferences. A few offices open onto the work of mathematicians or biologists, but for the most part the halls are lined with closed and locked doors on a Wednesday afternoon at the outset of the summer semester.

I’m standing on the edge of a new job/adventure that I can predict little about. I’ve been heavily involved as a student in two campus ministries, one at a small Christian university (The King’s University) and the other at a large public institution (University of Toronto), and they each offered both unique gifts and challenges. Kwantlen is sufficiently different from both of those contexts, and just as campus ministry was an exciting and varied experience with them, so too will it be equally if not more so here. The inclusion of a Multifaith centre is something entirely new for Kwantlen’s Surrey campus and so the task of a CRC campus chaplain here is mine to both create and discover.

What is my task here? Why establish an office and pay a salary to a Christian Reformed chaplain? One of the phrases which has come up often in conversations around this question is “a Christian presence on campus”. That is my task: to be a positive Christian presence on this campus. But what is a “Christian presence”?

2000 years ago Jesus of Nazareth walked around Galilee and Jerusalem preaching wisdom, performing miracles, challenging human self-sufficiency, and manifesting the love and grace of God. The events surrounding his death and resurrection were so energizing and generative that within a very short time the name of Jesus was increasingly tied to such strong titles as “messiah” (“Christ”), “savior”, “son of God”; eventually the language extended so far as to say that “in him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,” and ultimately relating him to the very act of creation: “In the beginning was the Word…”. This language surrounding Jesus, though, most certainly did not emerge in a vacuum or intellectual ivory tower, but was always correlative to the development of a community which dedicated itself to the fostering of this language, not only in conceptual formulations, but also in word, deed, and presence in the world.

Fast forward 2000 years, through councils, creeds, crusades, martyrdoms, persecutions, and empires and we arrive at one place among many where the Christian tradition has branched: a third floor office at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. The language and practices of the tradition are still with us: the reading of scripture, the pursuit of justice, the sharing of bread and wine, the opening of ourselves to God in prayer. This tradition now finds a new home and a new context at Kwantlen. The open questions before us are now: how is Christ known here? What does the gospel mean now? Where is God at work in the World, in Surrey, at Kwantlen?

This is the task of a Christian chaplain: to ask these questions and to never stop attempting to answer them with both word and deed. Our very lives both are the gift of God and a response to the gift of God. It is the gift, if you will, that keeps on giving. A new centre, a new focal point for this giving has now been opened here at Kwantlen. Kwantlen itself is now the gift to be received and the task to be accomplished. God in Christ is always already working here, God has already elected, called, chosen Kwantlen for something. For what? This is a task of discernment for me as a chaplain and for each Christian and, indeed, for each person who crosses the threshold of this centre for learning and growing. However, though this task of discerning God’s call may be fluid, dynamic, and as of yet unspecified, it is specified insofar as it is never separated from the establishment of God’s kingdom of love and justice made perfectly known 2000 years ago. The perfection of the knowledge of God in Jesus is not a finished task; it is one which is always-already only beginning in every moment of our lives. Regarding beginnings, though, it is surely and explicitly a beginning here at Kwantlen where the joys and challenges of chaplaincy still lie in a book closed before me, but waiting to be explored, enjoyed, savoured, and encountered. I’m only now turning the first page.