The Tears of Baptism

I wonder if Paul was ever frustrated with his work. Surely there were days when he wanted to throw up his hands and admit defeat. Not that I am ready to admit defeat, but there are days that I wonder if our labors are in vain – that the culture is too strong, the brokenness too severe, the goals too grand. Here in Stillwater, we operate a summer program called Camp Exploration. It is a day camp for at-risk children aged K-5 grade. For eight weeks we have 25-30 children (depending on which parents/guardians decide to drop their kids off that day) Monday through Thursday, all day long with 12 college students. It is an interactive experience where children learn about healthy environments and relationships. These are kids who are simply not making it in life. Our goal is to give them a chance, an opportunity to survive in their broken families and the disordered cultures around them. It’s long, hard work. Our student workers end every day absolutely exhausted. Since I have my own projects during the summer, I serve only as support leadership staff, stepping in when I’m needed and stepping out when I’m not. But just having kids running by my office all day is stressful. Today, Markia and “Little Rock” got into a fight. I’m not sure what it was about, but they had to sit out for an hour in the lobby next to my office. Maybe there’s nothing worse than having to sit quietly while other kids are in the other room screaming their heads off playing. But, I keep asking myself, “Are we doing any good with these children?” For the fifth time in three weeks Adam was back in the Director’s office attacking other kids. For the third time in two weeks, Markia had to sit out for fighting. Last week, we had four kids get into a fight hurling racial slurs at each other. How do you have a conversation on race with 8 year-olds? We’ve had countless events of certain kids breaking down in tearful fits of rage because of something insignificant. We are in Week 4 of Camp Exploration, and I’m not seeing results yet. I know, I know. Our job is to plant seeds. Someone else will water, and still someone else will care for and harvest. I don’t doubt Paul’s words, but I wonder if he had to work with such messed up kids? Lessons of hope come in varied forms. Have you ever watched a 6 year-old try to do yoga? It’s fascinating to behold. Who knew that a child with a dead-beat dad and a mother in prison for drugs could laugh and play like that. Michael offered a sermon a while back addressing the need to keep hope in the midst of the struggle. Here is an excerpt from that sermon.

"It seems that the Church, both in its conservative forms and its liberal forms, has forgotten that the primary means of relationship is baptismal and not biological. In random conversations with children involved in our program, I have found that very few have any contact with the Church, and nearly all of them are clueless if they are baptized or why this should have any significance. Does this legitimize their wholesale abandonment? A college student recently asked, “Do I have to be religious to be a mentor in your program?” I smiled and said, “I hope you have given up on religion. Religion will get you only as far as your diploma allows. I want you to be faithful.” Therefore, my next question to this student was, “So are you baptized?” We need people who are brave enough to look beyond the sanctuary and see the new birth found in the tears of abandoned children. We need students who want to walk with Christ as opposed to talk about Christ. We are learning from students that the water of baptism should be collected from the tears of those that we have forgotten. The mentors become visible/tangible role models. One of the children recently asked me, “How much to the mentors get paid?” When I told her that the mentors were paid nothing she exclaimed, “You mean they just like us?” I laughed and said, “I think it’s more than ‘like’. I think they really care about you.” The silence that followed from my young inquirer, possibly bewilderment that someone actually cared, was as holy as the silence that follows the empty sanctuary after tenebrae. Renewing our baptismal covenant is related to redressing the churches commitment to the poor. Collecting the water from the tears of children in crisis is a unique gift that we believe the Church is called to embody. Baptism, after all, is not a gift of being selected and placed inside a barricade! Baptism is the gift of liberation that allows us to walk into the world with confidence that even in the midst of our dire condition, the care and love of God through His people can redeem despair into hope."

So we labor on. I continue to pray, too, as I found in the psalter last night, “O Lord, how long?” I think we have to pray that, remembering that God will work wonders far greater than we can imagine in our limited space. So, to my Iredell brethren and sestren (like that?), what great thing can God accomplish in us in light of the baptisms through which we were gathered as the Church? Maybe our own baptismal waters were gathered from the tears of our Lord who weeps for the lost and broken. How then do we labor?