Thoughts on an April afternoon at Powderhorn Park

I just wrote this as I was sitting in powderhorn park this afternoon after an "interesting" day of substitute teaching.  It was in a very diverse school that I like to visit despite it's lack of prestige.  Anyway, something got me thinking (maybe coffee coupled with the Spirit) as I was sitting and I wrote this:

As humans there is a lot of pressure on us.  Of course there is the basic pressure to survive or even pass on our genes to the next generation but there is a hunger, a gnawing appetite for greater purpose still.  We feel like we are here for something although we may not know what that something is.  We have dreams of a legacy, a rightness being carried on that transcends our own feeble efforts.  We hope, we yearn -- even in selfishness -- for peace and justice carried out and goodness overcoming evil.  Many of us have this sense of right and wrong although we are misguided on where it's essence stems from at times.  I see it all over in the faces of people.  People in the park, in the schools I work at, in the coffee shop and the grocery store, in the hospital where I visit a friend, in the neighborhood I walk.  There is a pining and a striving for something more.  There is an acknowledgment that things are not quite how they are supposed to be.  We know -- adults as well as children -- and maybe children more at times -- something has been lost.

What is lost? God.  God himself (I use the masculine form for simplicity) is not lost but our connection to him.  Our dwelling in and breathing in the One who fulfills everything in every way.  We are like children without parents trying to care for one another but failing.  We are like sailboats without wind  in the doldrums of a stagnant sea.  What we need is him.  For the Maker indeed knows what we are made for and as it happens it is for him.  It is for us to know and love him.  It is for understanding of his greatness in truth and love to manifest itself in being shown to others.  As we live, our lives become emblems of his sacrifice to bring us all back to his Father heart.  

I'll be honest, I am yet trying to be still and know him, to be blown by that Wind.  I am often forgetful that I am not an orphan any longer but a daughter of a majestic King.  Even so, I am steadily coming closer and closer to the One who draws all to himself.  At times I am conscious that I almost cannot help it.  If I turn from him I start to get cold and numb and I am not inclined to go back to that.  I am also aware of how much further I have to burrow into his wings and be completely free to take flight.  I could chose to leave but I can't imagine why.  Yes, even when his Wind blows me something fierce and I question the kindness I am reminded of his Father's heart that disciplines those he loves.  I am not being forsaken; I am being found again and again.  My will for something beautiful is being reawakened.  Even as the reopening of love causes some pain, the desire for the real and strong crushes the will for something temporary and trite. Little by little, I am learning to see his face and learn his voice leading.

Entitlement Culture

It's funny how your mind can fixated on different things from one day to the next.

Yesterday was Easter and it was a glorious day.  I love Easter.  It is my favorite holiday partly because it means so much (Jesus' death and resurrection is the rock of the Christian faith and is how we can know God!) and partly because the traditions I've been discovering around it (lent fasting, the Pasca (Orthodox Christian) late night celebration) and probably also that is not so commericialized and happens right around the budding of trees and flowers. I took dozens of photos yesterday of our lively church brunch and family get-togethers which I'll try to put up a few of on here in time. For now, I want to turn my thoughts to something I've been pondering most of the day.

As you may know I substitute teach in the Minneapolis Public School Distrist.  Today I returned after a week and a day of spring break.  I ended up in a special education class in North Minneapolis.  There were two black women there who were supposed to be assisting me but they did little.  Not that it mattered too much, the children were very focused and I was actually very impressed by them.  However, it disturbed me how lazy these women felt they could be.  Not only did I have to go over to them and introduce myself when I came in and ask for guidance in the schedule of the day but one woman had the audacity to take a nap while she was sitting in the back of the room and they both were on their cell phones texting or using the internet frequently instead of engaging the students.  These women were probably somewhere in their late twenties to forties (one older, one younger) but they just emanated this sense of entitlement.  Anyhow, it made me wonder why and where the black culture generally gets this attitude.  I know it is not just black people and I am aware that this is a generalization.  Entitlement itself is an issue that pervades the whole culture of the United States of America but happens to particularly be insidious in the black culture.  I found an article from a black website that gave me some insight:
http://www.blackinformant.com/uncategorized/african-americans-and-the-whole-entitlement-thing

My purpose in writing about this is not to judge or continue propagating stereotypes but it is to thoughtfully consider how the black culture in American and the wider culture in general has become so plagued by "entitlement issues."  I know I am not safe from having this attitude at times.  In fact I can pinpoint specific foolish actions I've made in my life that were more based on my attitude of "deserving something" than wisdom.  Entitlement masquerades itself as individuality often.  I'd like to start a dialogue about this because it's something that hurts me to see it's effects (like the negative aspects of the black culture) and honestly, I have a lot to learn about dealing with when I see it in other people (or myself).

 It's interesting to realize that the Bible condemns those who "puff themselves up" but calls the ones who "come as children."  At it's root I think that is the evil of the entitlement attitude.  We are precious and made in the image of God.  We are of amazing value to His Kingdom yet we are sinful and the consequence of sin is death.  We are deserving of death (not the Kingdom) but God gives us the Kingdom.  The only way to enter the second though is to realize the first.

Please share any thoughts about ways we can combat the entitlement attitude in our culture (or other cultures, such as the general black culture of America), churches, homes, schools, and in ourselves.  I genuinely would like to have a thoughtful dialogue about this.