The past week has felt rather overwhelming at times, in regards to news coverage both nationally and internationally. The stories have been filled with the joy of weddings, and the intense emotion of the death of a terrorist responsible for the 9/11 horror.

This morning I saw a news segment that spoke to the topic of how parent's should handle this amount of news, which is so emotional and filled with conflicting images and information. Marti Erickson, developmental psychologist, cautioned parents to use guidance and common sense, noting that young children would not be able to discern the historical and present day ramifications. Likewise, elementary age children should be be given opportunity to ask questions and understand the national and international history which occurred during this era in their lives.

The availability of news on screens will continue to increase as accessibility becomes easier with each passing day. Families will need to address the questions of how much news is ok? What age is a child ready to discern real life and fiction? Which stories are valuable to perspective, context, and history? There is not a one-size-fits- all, but children do need to cared for and considered as the technology options increase.

A movie just released entitled, "Meek's Cutoff" is an interesting story based on a diary found regarding a wagon train that was lost in the Oregon desert. The story is fascinating in that it captures the audience's attention, not because of amazing special effects or well-known, award winning actors. Instead, it captures us because it speaks to each person about his or her own wanderings and struggle with controlling the uncontrollable.

Chris Hewitt, movie reviewer for the Pioneer Press, gave the movie great reviews and suggested it would be considered a classic in 10-20 years. I hope it doesn't take that long to get the attention it deserves. The director, Kelly Reichardt, spoke  of the varied responses of people after watching the movie. My own viewing experience brought me to thoughts of the Biblical story of the Wilderness, and the journey of the Israelites. I suspect everyone who was in the theater the same night I was had their own, very personal reflection. It was fascinating how when the movie ended, no one left the theater. Everyone sat and watched all the credits, waiting and watching for "the answer" or the ending.

But that's what makes the movie so captivating. The audience sees themselves in the characters and can feel intense unrest if there is uncertainty to control and to endings.

As Christians, we have the amazing blessing of knowing what the real ending is. And we know that the ending is actually the beginning of new life.

For anyone not able to rest in that peace, the ending of the character's story in "Meek's Cutoff" could be very unsettling. Maybe it would create the soul searching needed to listen for God's voice in the wilderness.

This week I was at the airport, dropping off my son who is back on the road with a Youth Encounter Team to continue a year of "on-the-road" ministry. Airports are such an interesting place to watch people. There are often moments of great joy as anticipation of reuniting of family and friends is fulfilled. Other times there are farewells, which bring sadness.

In my case, it was a mix of emotion.

I was sad to say good-by to my son. I was also grateful knowing that he was being reunited with his "Youth Encounter family" that he has connected with this year. It has been a huge blessing for their team, Captive Free East Lakes, to journey together. They have traveled over 20,000 miles since the end of August 2010. That's a lot of journey in 8 months.

One of the songs which often runs through my head when I think about the Team out traveling is David Crowder's "How He Loves". It is a song the YE Team share as they lead worship, and it's a song my son and I have shared. It's a beautiful story and song about a love so great and so abundant. It's a story and love that we've just re-visited during Holy Week and the celebration of Easter.

Holy Week. Farewells. Sadness.

Easter. Reuniting. Joy.

Abundant Love.

Grace.

New Life.

The worship services I attended during Holy Week and Easter were a blending of experiences. Music included instruments ranging from pipe organ to guitar, violin to drums. The choral pieces ranged from an African-American spiritual to the Hallelujah chorus. The messages included scripture from Old Testament books (Psalm 22) to the Gospel of Mark to narratives from my peers.

All of these experiences provided richness during a time in the Christian journey when the story of Jesus life, and death, needs to be heard by all, in as manys ways possible, to have the greatest impact imaginable.

Technology has proven to be a resource that changes, and impacts lives daily. Depending on the writer, one can find articles in favor, and opposed to, the effects of technology on society and the world.

Looking specifically at Digital Technology and its effects on life is an ongoing process. Studies on brain development, such as, How Digital Technology Has Changed the Brain, are just beginning to share insights into adaptations the human brain has made due to digital technology. The article shares fascinating ways in which images and information is processed, different from previous generations.

With research information sharing these insights, we all have choices about the future. While transformation and change can be scarey because it is unknown, it can also be exciting, and somewhat guided, if we choose to particpate.

Churches are a wealth of new and old. Each week church communities experience both the birth of new babies and the death of beloved members. Both can, and should, be celebrated because we know of new life through Jesus Christ.

Likewise, we can choose to celebrate the beginning, and the ending, of other experiences in our church communities.

In a recent search for Digital Resources for churches, Digital Church by Lifeway had created a "one-stop-shop" for churches to meet a variety of needs for church leadership.

The music, the images, the worship, the prayer...as Christians they all point us to the One who made the ultimate sacrifice. If opportunities exist to engage people, and their brains, in dialogue about a risen Savior, what question remains? Can a blending of new and "old" be celebrated? Can images of today and yesterday move one to tears? Can music elicited from instruments created over decades move the soul? Can our God, the Alpha and the Omega, transcend all of our anxiousness?

Who Are The Poor?

This is the title on a power point presentation by Tom Gillaspy, the MN State Demographer who shares fascinating, and challenging information, regarding the people of Minnesota. The subheading on this title is:

Poverty In Minnesota
Testimony to Legislative Commission To End Poverty In Minnesota By 2020

The question was asked in a recent discussion, is it reasonable to attempt to end poverty in Minnesota by 2020?

This goal has been set forth by "A Minnnesota Without Poverty", which is a statewide effort to end poverty. The goals of AMWOP include the words,

" Ending poverty is possible, but it takes all of us..."   

These are the words that seem a stumbling block. Is everyone willing to be a part of "all of us"? What would each of us have to change in our daily lives to have the effect needed? Do we feel an urgency? Does poverty have to directly a family member, friend or self, before we react? How do our actions  cause a ripple effect of change in a community?

In the Bible, one can read a well-known set of verses referred to as "The Beatitudes". In these verses are deeply transformational ideas for the culture of the time, the Roman Empire, but also for us today. In a thought-provoking essay, "What the Beatitudes Teach", we are invited to engage in life and relationship with self and the other in a different way. The author refers to "vast and daunting, but not insurmountable obstacles".

So maybe the the goal of ending poverty in Minnesota by 2020 seems vast and daunting, but maybe the obstacles aren't as great as we think. Maybe the first obstacle is actually self, and the change that needs to happen within. Are we willing to make the change?

I Wish You Enough

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.

I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough “Hello’s” to get you through the final “Goodbye.”

- – - written by Bob Perks

A recent class project has focused on poverty and "what is enough?". It's an amazing word when you think about it. ENOUGH.

This afternoon I heard a moving presentation from MayKao Y. Hang, President of the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation. Ms. Yang spoke on leadership, but what really came through was her authentic self, and a big part of that was knowing what ENOUGH was truly about.

The WIlder Foundation uses the following words to describe it's mission: "opportunities to work, to be engaged...to live in decent housing, to attend good schools and receive support during times of need." Hang's definition and understanding of these words come from a very different context than many of us. Hang is Hmong. Her story includes refugee camps, fleeing in the middle of the night, and arriving in a new country with only the clothes she was wearing.

And now she cares well for others, working hard to make sure they have enough. And it's obvious that enough, in her definition, includes integrity, respect, knowledge, and honor.

Her spirituality has impacted and formed her understanding of God's desire for each of us.

ENOUGH has a new place in my journey. I don't think I'll ever hear it in the same way again. Ponder it's place in a journey...

I love color!

And I think I'm even more excited about color right now because Spring is trying hard to get here, and a few crocus in the neighborhood have been poking through with purple, yellow and white flowers in bloom! (Yes, white is currently a color because it's not in the form of snow, but in the form of a new flower!)

I've been thinking and writing a lot about Creation the past few weeks, and find myself continually amazed at God's imagination. I know the thrill I get from creating, and I know how excited I am to finish so I can move on to the next thing. I wonder if that is how it was with God and Creation? Was God looking to the next idea before the current one was completed? I'm glad we hear that God sat back and said, "that is good!" each time another major creation theme occurred. Appreciation of creation is necessary. Pausing to enjoy and take in what is present is what brings fullness to the creativity. If something created is never enjoyed, something very rich is lost.

So back to color...I love color and am constantly looking for "new" colors. This can create some interesting conversations for those who believe "Roy G. Biv" are the only colors in existence! Have you ever gone to a paint store and tried to choose a color! There is no such thing as the color "blue"! There are hundreds of shades of blue, just like in the sky where each moment of the day can create a slightly different hue. "that is good"!

Or how about crayons? What a difference between the 8 pack and and the 64 pack! Did you ever see the Mr. Rogers episode where they went to a crayon factory? It's a favorite!

The bottom line for me is that color is such a wonderful gift to my journey, and I am so grateful that God has such an amazing imagination!

A new "skill" I have been engaging in is the activity of storyboarding. I've had both the opportunity to read about it, try my hand at it, and also watch fellow classmates as they construct stories for a class project. It's so interesting to see the variety of lenses with which people approach storyboarding, both in terms of the story they choose to tell, and how they tell it. It reminds me of how uniquely God creates all of us, and how differently the world is viewed and experienced because of that.

This storyboarding exercise has made me again consider the power of a story.

I was reflecting on the days when a flannel graph in the classroom was all the rage at school and, it was a good day when you got to be called on to help move the characters and other scenery, and potentially manipulate the story.

Then there were "filmstrips". Square by square, we moved through a story, often with captions to fill in the details, lest we not fully understand the significance of the scene.

Today people scrapbook. Great creativity goes into many scrapbook pages, recounting birthdays, family vacations, reunions, school years, and more. I'm not a scrapbooker, but appreciate the energy and love that is poured over the pages that tell a story.

And now I'm storyboarding. The Introduction in the "Digital Storytelling Cookbook" has a great quote:

“Stories move in circles. They don’t move in straight lines. So it helps if you listen in
circles. There are stories inside stories and stories between stories, and finding your
way through them is as easy and as hard as finding your way home. And part of the
finding is getting lost. And when you’re lost, you start to look around and listen.”

Corey Fischer, Albert Greenberg, and Naomi Newman
A Travelling Jewish Theatre from Coming from a Great Distance
Excerpted from Writing for Your Life by Deena Metzger

I really liked the imagery in this quote and how it applies to life. Life is both easy and hard. Finding your way home can be easy and hard. But it is in the looking and the listening that we experience the richness of life, in all its complexity and uncertainty.

I've come to that place where I realize more fully, that the more I know, the less I know. It's a mix of humbleness and relief and challenge. But I love a good challenge. And life is a good one.

The word "Share", used as verb is defined by Merriam Webster as:

   "to partake of, use, experience, occupy, or enjoy with others"

The subject of copyrighting includes the concept of sharing. How does one share one's works? Who benefits from sharing? Should there be restrictions on sharing, both from the giver and the receiver?

When we are children, we are taught to share. It is a "value" we hope becomes part of a person's DNA. In a quick search on the internoet, there are over 46 million sites related on how to teach a child to share. This interest would seem it is an important value in our culture. One well-known children's story on sharing is "Stone Soup", which is so well-received that numerous versions are available, written to apply to a variety of cultures and contexts.

The struggle of defining sharing becomes a whole new issue when a mutual understanding of who "owns" what is to be shared and what rules apply to the relationship between giver and receiver. As an adult, we probably have a variety of contexts where we've engaged in attempting to navigate the world of copyrighting. These contexts may include print media such as books and magazines, music either as something listened to or musical scores that are used for performance, or video that is watched for personal or professional use.

Somewhere along the way, we've all developed ideas on what is an appropriate way to "share" via copyright laws. But as with many laws, do we really understand their purpose, how to engage in them, and are they still appropriate to current context? Maybe what we've learned is a myth and not even accurate, and we are breaking the rules of sharing unknowingly?

One result of navigating the world of copyright is the understanding of "fair use", which is an attempt to share resources without creating too many restrictions to inhibit the wealth of creativity residing within the humamity.

The understanding of sharing, which we as community have declared important through our interest and teaching from the very early stages of life is at a new crossroads as media creates unlimited paths for people to share. Both cultural and judicial systems are attempting to navigate this new terrain and honor and respect the realtionships which result. Many of the questions posed will be out-of-date by the time the conversation begins, due to the rapidity of change within the media context.

So what do we do today, as conversations struggle to attend to yesterday's questions on copyrighting, and cannot even imagine tomorrow's question?

Maybe returning to the story of Stone Soup, and why people chose to share within that community, could be an answer for today---and for tomorrow?

This weekend I have the blessing of being with my family in Denver. We are in to Denver to see our son who is spending the year as part of Captive Free, a Youth Encounter ministry Team. This weekend, the team is leading worship at a Quake/Zone event. These events are for middle school through high school age youth, and is designed to be 40 hours of intentional focus on faith, relationships grounded in Jesus Christ, exploring God's action in the world, and our response as God's children.

As I was present in worship several times in the last 2 days, I've felt joy, hope, love, humility, strength and weakness, as I reflect on a God that is so great, so compassionate, so creative and imaginative. As I see the mountains on the horizon, I'm reminded of a verse from Psalms.

Psalm 121:1

 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
   where does my help come from?

What a gift to know the answer to the question, "Where does my help come from?"

My prayer this weekend for the youth and adults at this experience in Denver is to know, or come to know, the answer to that question. Bob Lenz, a speaker at the event, has shared some poignant stories that have shared the rawness, and the difficulty that our journeys often include. And in the midst of hardship and challenges, he shared a place for hope, with God at the center. A life without problems is not offered, but the promise of hope is.

And as we journey through Lent, towards the hope of Easter, lifting one's eyes to the mountains can be a beautiful and wonderful blessing, and reminder where our hope and help comes from.