I’m writing this while sitting on a porch, overlooking a mountainous valley outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. It’s nighttime, but the sky is softly lit by the ever-present summer sun and the trees whisper with the touch of light rain. The air is warm and kind. It smells alive and invites you to breathe deeply. The mountains are big enough to make giants feel small, and everything sings with its own unique song of interdependence. It would be easy to find God in this place if that’s what you were after.
HELM chose well in bringing us twelve Disciples of Christ (fitting, right?) here to this sacred and unfamiliar land. We are 20-22 years old, with some of us newly graduated from college. I graduated via zoom while we ate breakfast here one morning. I was surrounded by cheers from my fellow HELM scholars, many of whom I met just a few weeks into my freshman year. Now we are here together, having gotten to know each other and ourselves more intimately and in different ways than we could have expected four years ago. We’ve traveled to Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, and now Alaska together, building community through persistent curiosity, humor, and tests of patience. I feel this chapter of my life and my time as a Leadership Fellow rapidly coming to a close, and I have a lot of anxiety looking towards the challenges to come. However, even when I don’t trust myself, I trust these people. They are intelligent, considerate, and brave, and remind me that I am too. It would be easy to find God in this group if that’s what you were after.
God feels pretty far off sometimes. We’re not always in a place of retreat surrounded by beautiful landscapes and communities of like-minded enthusiasm. Often, we’re in between breaths, with minds stuck in the liminal space between sporadic revelations. It is hard to see the sacred wholeness amongst the fragments of injustice and doubt. I wish that the mosaic of broken pieces always fit together to form something as undeniably holy as this landscape or this group of young people, but, in my experience, it doesn’t work that way. Movements harden in stagnation, people grow tired and bitter, and the vision gets fogged. We reckon with our mistakes and question our motivations. Some may say I lack faith because I often get lost in this process, or that I am unfit to be a leader if I don’t move with conviction in every step. I hope those of you who have supported the ministry of HELM with your money, prayers, time, or energy doesn’t feel this way. Leadership in the church has never been easy and isn’t getting any easier. However, if there is any place I feel certain to put my faith, it is in this group of young people. We came into this program with an idea of the way God moves in our lives. Through HELM we experience holiness, develop connection and conviction, and clear our vision of how we might move God through the world. When given some tools and time, is easy to find ways to move God through this world.
I have pure gratitude for my time learning from the places and people HELM has brought me to. They have taught me that there is still much to be done, ingrowth and outgrowth. As I look ahead at our movement out of school and this program, I have faith that all of my fellow HELM scholars will continue to ingrow and outgrow in ways that call God into their communities and purpose into the space between breaths. Our work has only just begun, and I hope you join me in excitement for where it will take us.