On the plains of Moab, a very old Moses gave his final words to a people who were no longer known as slaves, but as God’s chosen. The book of Deuteronomy is dedicated to his final charge to the masses with whom he wandered in the desert for forty years. What he tells them boils down to one word: Remember.
And so at the end of this program, named for the burning bush that called Moses to ministry, and while I have the ability to speak to you in this manner, I want to repeat what Moses said: Remember.
Remember what we taught you. Of the things you learned in Project Burning Bush, by far the most important was the spiritual practices. Sure, you learned some Hebrew and some Church History and got to argue over Ethics – but the foundation of our program was the time you spent learning how to slow down and listen to God in a multitude of ways. Examen, Lectio Divina, the Labyrinth, the Loving Gaze of God, Active Listening to each other, Meditation, Journaling – all of these are wonderful tools we introduced to you. Let me remind you to use them.
There will come a time in your college/young adult life when you will find yourself lost. You will have failed or you will have a decision to make or you will discover that you are in a pit either of or of not your making. You will be wandering in a wilderness all your own. The tools of daily spiritual practice can help you find your way out of the murk. Spinning in place will only make you frantic. Putting it off to do something “more important” won’t fix it. And freezing up in terror never helped anything. You must stop, breathe and remember that everything you need is inside you and you have the tools to listen to that beautiful voice from within. Remember, you know what to do.
Remember what creates authentic community. The first thing you did at Project Burning Bush was to create a covenant as a community. Some items were non-negotiable, such as drugs, full participation, and the ever-favorite “purpling.” But you also contributed to the covenant based upon what you needed. And the document stayed open throughout your stay in case changes needed to be made. The Israelites were a covenant people too – the Torah created the boundaries to a community lived for each other and for God. And the entirety of the Torah is bound up in the simple act of loving God, loving others, and loving ourselves. It was the same for PBB. The boundaries were not created to bind us, but to breathe as a living thing intent of showing love at all times to God, to each other, and to ourselves. Anything less is not authentic community.
There will come a time when you will be offered a chance to be in an inauthentic community, whether it is at work or school or church. You will discover that not everyone can love without feeling afraid of vulnerability. You will find that when threatened, people can be vicious. And you will find that sometimes people lie, just because the want to belong so badly. Be patient. Many of you were the same way when you showed up at PBB. And within all of us, these demons still live. But there was a moment in your life when you participated in a community that worked toward the goal of truth and love. It took an incredible risk on your part to make this community work. And it will take an incredible risk every time you try to create it in your life. But remember, our most important need – more important than food or shelter or clothing – is the need to belong. Seek that for yourself and take the risk to use what you learned here to create authentic community with others.
And finally, remember to pass what you’ve learned on to generations that follow you. If we are to seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God, we surely need to know HOW to do that. I’m not saying that PBB had the corner on the market for all things spiritual, but passing on the ancient arts of listening to God and to each other, and passing on the skill of forming authentic community that creates safe, honest, loving spaces for us to develop relationships is a grand start. PBB is no longer around, so we are relying on you to take the promise to the next generations. And the promise is this: We are loved – all of us. We all belong to each other. And our God-given talents and gifts, as small as they seem, can indeed meet the world’s greatest needs, if we give them in faith, hope, and love. Oh, and this applies to EVERYONE.
None of this will be easy. Project Burning Bush had to re-create something new with these tools every year. And many times we failed. But failure does not mean we give up. God’s promise is still true. So we brush ourselves off, right our direction, and plod along the journey together.
I’ve said my peace. Now I must go to the mountaintop with the others in my generation and watch as you move forward across the Jordan into this great promise. My generation has failed in allowing the Kingdom of God to shine through our world, as have the generations before us. All our hopes are on you. We cannot follow you but we can see from this vantage point that you have every good thing and every skill to create a new way, paved in peace and love. Our anxious, angry, fearful ways have not worked. Prove that love really is the only way. Be the blazing bush you were intended to be.
And remember – Everything will be OK in the end. If it’s not OK, it’s not the end.
