crisis

last night, as i was teaching, i totally tore apart my own heart.

we made this beautiful tree, which is serving as our on-going object lesson. when we taught crisis - last night - we tore off the leaves, fruit, and bark to reveal a dark, forelorn tree bearing fruit such as alienation, pestalence, shame, hatred, and death. then we put out three black bowls filled with grey leaves and black flowers. one bowl represented our relationship with God, another our relationship with others, and the final bowl represented our relationship with the earth. we asked the kids to think of ways they have contibuted to the crisis and decorate the tree with the "fruit" of their contributions - sins i guess.

it was hard to hold myself together as i joined them - realiazing that every seemingly insignificant sin adds to the chaos and further alienates from the garden of unity with God, others, and the world.

even when the sin is anger toward God, this alienates me from the one i am meant to be uniquely united with and therefore destroys me and makes me into a seed of destruction in the lives of others and in the world. i cause the crisis that enrages me, then i rage at God because of it.


we then gave the youth a list of questions, a slide show of "crisis" and an awesome built to spill song as neal and i went around the room and removed all of the beautiful things we put up, replacing them with black candles, table cloths etc. we hung black and grey ribbon over the christmas lights we hung. all of the beautiful things went into a garbage bag and we told the kids they are gone forever. we removed eden from our room.

"removing eden" killed me.





now to sit in the shit that rests between day two and day seven.

we will be re-decorating the tree with beautiful flowers, leaves, golden leaves and bark etc. there will be a great feast. beauty will be restored and the death that exists in the garbage bag that holds our eden will be defeated...but we live in the time between day two and day seven.

so symbolic, so rich, so real.

i am happily broken.