I sat down by the pool to
dig into Rachel Held Evans’ new book, Inspired. I’m currently serving as chaplain to the
senior high at All Saints Camp—one of my absolute favorite things to do—but not
much quiet time for reading….
I was overjoyed to find in
the very first chapter talks about Genesis and the creation story—that is the
VERY thing we are talking about right now! High five to God and RHE. I was
preparing myself to borrow everything she had to say. And then I read this,
“We know who we are, not from the birth certificate and Social Security
numbers assigned to us by the government, but from the stories told and retold
to us by our community. Should the time of birth on your certificate be off by
a minute, or should it be lost altogether, it wouldn’t change what’s truest
about you—that you matter and are loved.” [1]
I smiled to myself
thinking how my children love to hear the stories of their births, and
then of course, there’s my birth story—born in the backseat of a station wagon.
“Yep,” I thought, “RHE (I like to use initials when I can’t use monograms) is
onto something here.” Almost instantaneously I realized I could not use this
example here at camp. Some of the youth do not have stories of their births
that assure them they matter and are loved. Instead they have stories of being
shuffled from home to home, often separated from siblings. “But,” I continued
to think, “They do know they are loved and they matter and a large part of it
is All Saints Camp and the staff and friends they form here. All Saints has
become part of their stories—part of their community.”
My heart and mind jumped
to the children who are being separated from their families. I don’t know their
birth stories, but I am willing to bet many come with the knowledge they matter
and are loved. They have families who believe they matter and are loved so much
they are risking everything to cross the borders. I reread RHE’s words. Sitting
in the 95 degree heat, a chill swept through my body. I wondered whether the
numbers the government is assigning these children matter to anyone? And if
they are off by even one number—what could that mean for reuniting families?
Currently the stories
being written for these children do not bring the assurance they matter and are
loved—that they are indeed children of God who as one of the youth said this
morning, “Deserve every privilege God’s creation provides to everyone.” (Have I
mentioned how much I love the youth?) These stories, however, don’t have to be
the whole story—they don’t even have to be an entire chapter. Just like the
government doesn’t get the main narrative voice for my children’s stories, I
cannot sit back and allow them to author these children’s stories.
We need to take the pen;
we cannot erase what has been done, but we can control the next chapters. We
have to try; we have to participate for the stories to be different, to be
changed, to be infused with love and acceptance, we must take action and we
must take it now. There are a lot of resources out there. Here’s one I’m
starting with. https://advocacy.episcopalchurch.org/home?8
I may never be an
officially published author, but I will be a part of writing this story. Today,
that’s enough for me.
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