Dear Beloved Community,
Here I am again, writing to you on the heels of a great learning adventure! So before I say anything, I must say thank you. One of our four missional priorities here at First on Fifth is “Becoming a Teaching and Learning Church.” It is one thing to say this is a value, and another thing entirely to routinely create space for learning to flourish, both here in our church house and outside of it. Time and again this community has leaned in and supported me as I have sought new horizons to expand my own learning of what it means to be a person of faith in this world. Thank you.
Over the winter break I, along with 14 other divinity students (5 from our First on Fifth community! Mallory Challis, Maggie Clark, Bethany Leggett, Devin Withrow and myself.) and friends of the divinity school, took a pilgrimage to Egypt, exploring the sights, sounds, smells, and stories of a place with deep intertwined multi-religious histories. For two weeks we journeyed together, from Cairo to Alexandria to Luxor, through thousands of years of history and legend, taking it all in and attempting to process the immensity of all that we were seeing, learning, and feeling. We visited numerous temples and tombs, many museums, both a beautiful monastery and breathtaking nunnery and retreat center in the desert (two of my favorite stops), and of course, we rode camels around the great pyramids.
However, one of the perils of a winter trip is that they often coincide with cold and flu season. Add in the classic traveling sicknesses that arise, new allergens in the air, and new culinary habits to cultivate, many on our trip found ourselves sick for days at a time- often crowdsourcing from our more prepared fellow pilgrims tylenol, sudafed, nyquil and the like to try and keep each other well enough to keep learning day after day. As I reflected on this trip that contained so many amazing things, trying to decide what I wanted to highlight to you all here, Devin illuminated it. “You should mention how we took care of each other.” It’s true. And as I reflect on the trip – the monuments, churches, mosques, and synagogues we visited- I see care woven in time and time again.
In Coptic Christian theology in Egypt, the “Flight of the Holy Family” is highly venerated. This path of Mary, Joseph and Jesus into Egypt to escape the persecution of Herod, as told in a few verses in Matthew ch. 2, is more than a short piece of the gospel story there. As we visited churches where it is said the Holy Family hid and lived, at times for months, places where it is said that baby Jesus took his first steps or was bathed in a particular well, there was a sense of refuge, of compassion, of care abounding. We used our theological imagination to embody the fear of a family fleeing for safety, of sojourning in a land that is not home, of a toddler learning to walk, of the holy touch of clean water, of communities welcoming in strangers, and we felt with the Holy Family the importance of taking care of each other.
Amidst all of this reflecting, I began listening to Father Greg Boyle’s book Cherished Belonging this week (which Pastor David’s Devotional Classics study is reading right now! Feel welcome to join!). As I was listening, I was struck by the end of the introduction when He offered a list of 10 things he believes after his many years in ministry.
- God is in the Loving.
- God is inclusion.
- Demonizing is always untruth.
- We belong to each other.
- Separation is an illusion.
- Tenderness is the highest form of spiritual maturity.
- “Kindness is the only non-delusional response to everything.” – George Saunders
- Love your neighbor as you love your child.
- We are all unshakably good.
- A community of cherished belonging is God’s dream come true.
As I replayed this section a few times on my audiobook, each one of these struck me as intrinsically connected to this deep need we have to take care of one another and be taken care of. It was true for the Holy Family and It’s true today. This is the only way forward. We belong to each other, Father Boyle reminds us. And so, after two weeks in Egypt, this is my take away: We must continue to prioritize taking care of each other- no exceptions.
With courage and hope for the road ahead,
Lena
p.s. You can see more photos from our trip, courtesy of Bethany Leggett, here!