My Spiderwick discovery

A couple months ago, I watched the movie "The Spiderwick Chronicles" in order to determine whether or not my eight year old son should be allowed to watch it. After watching the movie with my eyes peeking through a blanket for most of it, I decided that no, it is a little too scary for me...er... I mean my son, to watch. That said, there was an interesting premise to the movie that stuck with me (the over-analyzer) and recently came to mind again. In the movie, the man Spiderwick has discovered another world within our world. Things that we see with our human eyes, such as flowers, and butterflies, mushrooms and tree leaves, he realized were fantasy creatures like nymphs and fairies. They did not so much hide from human eyes, but blended into the everyday scenery in a way that they were unseen by those who were not looking for them. In his discovery, he learned the beauty of this hidden world and befriended these creatures (there were also the scary and evil creatures but that is for another lesson..another blog).

I think that Spiderwick was really on to something. I believe that it is easy for us to live in our own world and to be completely unaware of a group of not fantasy creatures, but rather human beings who live among us. As a young college girl I was keenly aware of those who lived in the homeless and downtrodden world. I went to class and went to church, but I also spent time sitting out on University Avenue, sharing life and a sandwich with Homeless Mary, and the group of street kids who liked to sit outside of McDonalds. I didn't "add" street ministry to my life, I just chose to spend my ordinary life with a group of people that many wouldn't normally see. Choosing to be a part of this life gave me opportunity to buy dinner for a group of gang members who attempted to mug me at gunpoint and to become a regular "rummy" (a card game) partner with a young man who called himself a vampire. Those years were an incredible blessing to me and gave me opportunity on a regular basis to find beauty, friendship and God's merciful hand in a world that I could have shut my eyes to.

I now have a confession to make - I have recently come to realize that for most of my "vocational ministry" time in the past 12 years, I have lived as an incredibly unseeing kind of person. This is a difficult and sad confession for me. Somehow in the course of becoming a Jr. High director and then marrying a youth pastor, my ability to see the unchurched, the downtrodden, the "fringe" of society, dimmed. I became focused on encouraging Christian youth and their leaders, I spent time with the gals in my bible study and I planned church potlucks and church teas. I don't think any of these things are bad - but they became the only things I chose to see. Then I had children and I became even more nearsighted. I am still in the middle of that exhausting endeavor. It was all I could do to keep up with church commitments when a good day included keeping the boys alive and getting my teeth brushed. I certainly didn't have time to open my eyes to another world of people to take care of and love!

All that started to change about two years ago when frustrated one day I asked God "is this all there is??" Will I be a mother and a church leader yet never again be a rummy partner for a vampire? God answered that question (I believe) by sending our family to Israel last year. He took us out of our comfort zone and he took us out of the traditional Western church setting and he placed us right in the heart of Jerusalem where the whole thing got started. And then he opened our eyes in a big way once again to the hidden world of people on the fringes of society by making us one of those people. We were no longer part of the moral and cultural majority but rather the outsiders, the people who no one wants to acknowledge or befriend. Our friends last year became those on the fringe with us - the palestinian shopkeepers, the sharp tongued Brit, the rebellious new age Jew, the messianic family.

And then he brought us back to Orange County.

We are on the same street, in our same home, going to the same school and driving the same streets, but everything is different. God has had to keep us out of traditional church leadership to do it, but we are seeing a side of our home that we were blind to before we left. I do miss a large church with a community of friends, but at the same time I feel blessed everyday that God has forced me out into this new world. I am no longer rushing from church event to church event, fulfilled by those relationships so much that I dont have time to stand and chat with the other moms picking their kids up from school. I can talk to the homeless man who hangs out by the coffee shop, and I can interact with the people shopping at the Persian market. I can stand out in the street and really find out how my neighbors are doing (while chasing my toddler of course!) and I can keep an open door policy to people who want to share a meal with us, because we are home to do so. Yesterday I came home and asked Ryan "where have these people been?" I lived here for seven years before God had mercy on me and opened my eyes. To a beautiful world full of God's fingerprints outside of the church walls. And trust me, it's there!