Observations of a CASA volunteer

Lawyers in suits; social workers in "business casual;" parents in whatever outfit they can find for a court appearance. Some of them wear the garb of prisoners, complete with shackles. These are accompanied by officers in uniform.

I watch them come and go. They all have stories -- those in tailored suits and those is jumpsuits. The stories of the parents have intersected with the Department of Child Services. Their missteps are being aired behind the closed doors next to me. I will hear only one of those accounts today. Only a handful of people, including the judge in his robe will hear more than one. No one will hear them all. Not in a lifetime.

What brought these people here? What back stories lie behind their current stories?

I have lived in this relatively small jurisdiction almost four decades. As I look around I realize I know one of those waiting for their turn in the courtroom. At least I knew her as a teen. Now she's a grandmother and our paths seldom cross. We chat for a few minutes. Her granddaughter had drugs in her system at birth and is in foster care.

I was wrong. I heard more than one story today. It is a sad one.

As I continue to sit alone and wait for my turn in the courtroom, a lawyer approaches a mother nearby and instructs her to make an appointment with her office. And keep it! As the court-appointed lawyer walks away, the mother says, "I need to see about getting another attorney. I can't handle this!" The lawyer keeps walking with no indication she is listening. I was warned about her during CASA* training. Someone to watch out for. The young mother continues, "I don't have a phone! I don't have a vehicle! I don't even have a place to lay my head!" The lawyer is gone and I'm not sure who the mother is addressing. Being in her line of vision, I make eye contact and invite her to tell me more. She vents some frustration, repeating her assertion that she has nothing. I have nothing to offer beyond sympathy. She wanders off. I try to imagine the life of someone who doesn't even have an old car to stash their stuff in. I wonder about the rest of her story, how she got here, but realize I'm unlikely to see her again once I leave this place.

So many sad stories. I will not fix anything for anyone today. The best I can hope is to possibly remind a few that God hasn't forgotten them.

I figured out several years ago that I have a choice. I can live my comfortable lifestyle while avoiding the sad tales around me. Or I can offer to listen to the stories and live with the discomfort of being aware of the pain around me while I'm doing well and realize my resources aren't nearly sufficient to make it all better for anyone. Maybe the awareness of my inadequacy is a blessing. That awareness reminds me I'm not self-sufficient.

I choose to listen. And sometimes people talk to me. I pray for these people. It truly is the best I have to offer them. And maybe it is no small thing to bring their pain to the God of all comfort. After a while I might even be moved to do more. CASA is at least a start. It gives me a reason to be sitting here today in the midst of the pain.
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*CASA -- Court Appointed Special Advocate. A CASA represents the child in CHINS (CHild In Need of Services) cases.

A Forum Grieved

In May 1994 we brought home the first Windows computer to join our household. It came with several pieces of software, two of which have endured in some form -- Quicken for managing personal finances and America Online for email. I often cringe when giving out that AOL email address in 2017, but someone recently noted that it signifies a certain longevity - starting early and staying steady. Maybe. Or maybe I'm just old. Whatever the case, it still works.

In 1994, AOL was one of few options for finding one's way around the wild, frontier town of the internet. As the AOL community grew, discussion groups formed, including one for members and friends of the Church of the Nazarene. It opened a new door for me. After a while, I moved beyond AOL and stumbled across NazNet.com. I don't remember the day that happened, but by June 1997, I was thrilled by the opportunity to meet some of the participants in real life at the General Assembly of the Church of the Nazarene in San Antonio.

That was twenty years ago. In August 2017, the discussions at NazNet.com came to an end and the slate was wiped clean. Over twenty years of discovering I wasn't nearly so alone as I had thought in my experiences as a Baby Boomer raised in the CotN. Despite how numerous we Boomers are in the larger culture, I always felt alone and isolated in my church life, like no one else was dealing with the issues I saw around me. I read about how churches worked so hard to attract the Boomers (as they do now to attract Millennials), and, yet, felt like an invisible demographic wherever I participated in church life. It's all fine. I accept that church is not about me. But it's still hard when no one else shares your struggles or even seems to comprehend the questions that drive you crazy.

NazNet came along and introduced me to a whole new set of Nazarenes, the likes of whom I had never encountered in my life. It turns out I wasn't the only one left disturbed by viewing "The Thief in the Night" as a teen at church camp! I wasn't the only one to later question the entire idea of the "secret rapture." I wasn't the only one to see a disturbing gap between holiness as it was preached and the actual observed lives of holiness people. Who knew?

And now it's gone. We're being urged to join equivalent groups on Facebook, but it turns out there are no equivalent groups on Facebook.  And an attempt to recreate NazNet.com as NazNet.net is failing to thrive. It seems the NazNet glory days are over.

Still, it happened. It did what it was created to do -- opened up new levels of discussion among Nazarenes and their friends around the world. My joy in what NazNet gave me over these past 20 years far outstrips my grief at its passing. The words may be gone from naznet.com and even from the enormous collective memory of the internet, but they remain as essential elements of who I am as a person and follower of Jesus Christ today.

Thank you, Bryan Merrill, Dave McClung, G.R. "Scott" Cundiff, and all the rest who made NazNet happen. You have been a blessing.

Bad deeds (and good) exposed!

^{1 Timothy 5:24} The sins of some are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them. ²⁵ In the same way, good deeds are obvious, and even those that are not obvious cannot remain hidden forever. (NIV)

In Sunday School recently, we read 1 Timothy 5:24-25. The main topic here is the exposure of sin, but Paul assures Timothy that good deeds are also eventually exposed.

It's sobering to realize my own sin will eventually be exposed. It is more difficult to believe that the sins others seem to get away with will someday slip past their careful efforts to hide them. And to resist the urge to try to help that process along. This passage is a good reminder that my efforts are not required to expose such sins.

Competing with the temptation to expose hidden sins in others is the desire to have others see and acknowledge my own good deeds. It's easy to be envious when the good deeds of others get recognition and mine are overlooked. This desire is strengthened by messages from the church like we find in Casting Crowns' "If We Are the Body":  If we are the body, why aren't His arms reaching ..." These lyrics expose those of us who claim to follow Christ as falling short in good deeds. My inner response to messages like this is a strong urge to point out all I'm doing that no one seems to notice.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns us against doing good deeds for show. He explains that when our goal is to be seen, being seen is our full reward.

To bring it together, Paul tells Timothy good deeds will come to light on their own. Jesus warns us against making a show of our good deeds. We're left doing our deeds of kindness simply as a humble offering to God and the recipients of that kindness without acknowledgment from the people telling us we aren't doing enough. We trust God to direct us to opportunities to do good in quiet ways and to be the One to reward us. Faith: believing the teaching of the Bible is true even when we don't see the evidence.

This is a lesson worth revisiting often.