Living the questions... still.

Last Monday, I gathered with the group of student leaders who facilitate service-learning in the residence halls for our biweekly meeting and asked them a simple question: "What do you want to talk about this semester?" Our meetings happen late at night due to the obnoxious complexity of college student schedules, and I'd been feeling at a loss regarding what topics would be worth their time and attention. So I asked. (I'm a big believer in democracy.) And I was astounded by the response.

My CPCs wanted to know how to communicate a vision to people. How to encourage other people to care about the things they already are passionate about. How to integrate service and intentional lifestyles into a variety of different careers and lifestyles after they graduate. How to balance--or juggle--the tension between witness and service and evangelism. You know, small questions.

I was really proud of them, on the one hand--and terrified, on the other. I'm only two years older than they are, after all. How am I supposed to speak into any of those amazingly profound and wonderful questions?

But that's the wrong question too. Because the point isn't that I have the answers. The point is that they are asking the right questions, and we can ask them together. Together, we can look for faithful responses to those questions--because there aren't clear, simple answers, and we might never arrive at resolution. But that lack of resolution is no reason not to search for truth.

So my plan for the next meeting is to tell stories--parables, like Jesus did, that point us to the Truth of the Kingdom, and that leave room for the shades of gray that exist in our life now. I'm going to talk about immigration reform, and introduce them to the people I know and love whose lives have been messed up by a broken system, and I just might get all riled up and teary-eyed. But in the process, I hope and pray that they'll glimpse my passion and maybe develop a bit more of their own. And that's the best I can do, right? Because just like Jesus did when He spoke to the woman at the well, we're invited to "come and see." Just like God did when He put on humanity and became incarnate, we're invited to become more human by learning and knowing each other's stories--and in the process we see a bit more of the truth. Like Karl Barth writes, we only are truly human when we're in relationship--when we look into another's eyes and really see her, or listen to him speak and really hear him, and therefore know Another. Then, as we see the truth about this world, ourselves, and each other, we come to care, because all of a sudden this brokenness is personal. Then, all of a sudden, we realize that we've lived into the questions with passion and that there's still room for grace, and that God is faithful even in that chaotic search for truth, and that ultimately His Truth will set us free.


-Kelly