My second sixth birthday.

Last week I turned 35.

Last week I saw an old friend that I hadn't seen in close to 20 years.

Last week I learned a little bit more about myslef, and this friend reminded me that I am who I am suppose to be just by being myself.

But before we get there, we have to go back to the day I first met him.

I entered Kindergarten at the age of five.  And I had just one friend.  His name was Justin.  Justin and I did everything together.  We played together, did art together, we ate lunch together.  Justin was my closest friend.  Justin was my only friend.  Then one fall day, Justin moved away.  I remember my teacher telling me this would happen.  I remember my partents warning me that school would be different with out my confidant there.  The next school day I would turn six.  (Actually, this probally happened closer to October or November, but I am trying to build some symetry here.)

I remember that day.  I rememberr standing at the back of the room looking out at all the toys, looking at all the art supplies, looking at all the other kids, and having absolutely no ideas what I was suppose to do.  I didn't know how to interact without Justin there.  So I simply stood and stared.

Then a kid named Adam Kline bounded into my life.  He came over and we played together.  We did art together, we ate lunch together.  We did everything together.  Adam and I grew up together.  We spent as much time together as we did with our own biological brothers.  Adam was my closest friend.  He taught me that the best way to have friends is to be a friend.  He was the one that introuduced me to comic books.  Adam was the one who first saw something unique and good in me.  (He said of all the Avengers (our template for how the world worked) that I was most like the moral and upright Captain America.  This was the first time someone saw something good in me before I saw it in myslef.)

Then junior high hit.  Adam moved across town and went to a new school.  Then highschool hit, followed by college.  I moved out of our hometown.  Adam stayed.  Somewhere in the middle of all this we lost touch with each other.  We knew more or less what the other one was doing, but with few exceptions we now lived seperate lives.

Last week Golden Shoulders of Nevada City, California played in Chicao, Illinois.  Adam Kline is the front man for said band.  They were playing on my 35th birthday (this time it was in fact the actual day).  There was no way I was not going to see this show and miss a chance to hang out with Adam Kline once a gain.

I grew up in a culture of Christianity that was conservative in every since of the word.  Good people, who love God, but they saw a closed world, with closed theology, which often lead to closed off missions and closed off lives.  I have found the typical reaction to this form of religiousity is to either accpet it lock, stock, and barrell, questioning nothing, and accepting closed theology and a closed off life; or to throw the cross out with the conservative bathwater (if I can mix and mangle my metaphors).

As I look around my predominatley liberal Christian culutre here in seminary, I wonder if I am the only one who grew up as I did, the only one who still sees the value in absolutes, but doesn't hold them absolutely.

Speaking with Adam after the show I found out that I wasn't alone.  I was assured that there was someone else who had taken the same journey that I had.  I was comfrted to talk with someone who had sifted and weighed what we were taught as children and held on the good, held on the truths, held onto the cross, but has left behind that which can led to a closed off life.

The title of this entry is "My second sixth birthday."  It is taken in part from the idea presented in this comic, that breaks life into seven year chunks.  At "35" I am just beginning my sixth life.  (I fudged the timeline of when I first met Adam, to be able to get away with saying):

So I spent my second sixth birthday as I spent my first: learning from a guy named Adam Kline that
I don't have to stand at the back of the room and stare at the new toys and wonder where I fit with the new kids.  I am who I am suppsoe to be.  And more importantly, I am who I am just by being myself.

--Serving alongside all of you, just from further away,
--Jesse Letourneau

Rambling Road

Time for another not so regular, not so structured edition of what has been bouncing through my mind.

Last month, I heard a sermon on Luke 24, The Emaus Road. The analogy was given of when Jesus opening the eyes of His traveling companions to the plan of God to standing on a peak and looking back on the trail you have just walked. This is where it all becomes clear. This is where you can look and see every twist and turn and understand why they are there. This is where the path you just walked makes sense.

Fourteen years ago I sat in the bleachers of Forest Lake Christian School's gym and argued with God. Roughly six weeks ago I sat in an airport shuttle and tried to argue with God. The gym was my point A and the shuttle my current point B.

Way back in 1996, I was a high school senior who thought he had learned it all, seen it all, and done it all. Only I knew something was amiss. There was more to this God I served, yet it was just out of reach. And so I prayed. I prayed a prayer that I would have never prayed I had I known how it would have been answered, and yet have never regretted.

My prayer was simply this: "God I want to experience you in new ways. I want you to become real in my life." Like an incredibly slow mantra, this was my daily prayer for months. Then I met a man named Tom Ives. Tom was from Royal Servants, a short term missions organization. He was there to give the talk for our weekly chapel.

I have never felt the call to be an overseas missionary, so why would I need to go "practice"? (I have been on four short term trips, and am considering a fifth.) I had no real desire to listen to what Tom had to say. It wasn't going to apply to me. Besides "these guys" come and yell and scream and say the only way to be closer to God is to raise money and go on their trip. I wasn't buying what Tom had to sell. I sat down convinced this chapel would have nothing for me.

The first words he spoke were, "Do you want to experience God in a new way? Do you want Him to become real in your life?" The next 25 minutes were spent with me trying to convince God that He was mistaken. That this was not the answer to my prayer. I whined about schedules and money and languages, each time I thought I had outsmarted God, Tom's next sentence answered my exact "problem."

It was on this trip in 1996 that I first began Children's Ministry. I played with puppets, told stories, and saw kids make decisions to follow Christ. The next fourteen years were spent volunteering in one form of CM or another.

Then the lunch and the shuttle ride were the final pieces to the puzzle.

So here I stand, perched atop a vista, looking out over the last 14 years.

I see a whale lip syncing DcTalk. There is CEF and Good News Club, picking up helium tanks, and debating whether Santa Claus should be invited to our Christmas Party or not, frosting sugar cookies without the aid of a knife, songs and games and stories, verses and water fights, learning and teaching, and sometimes learning as I teach, adding shading to cartoon houses, and complaining about Ma's "cooking", there is a commissioning service involving a jester, a cake, and the title of Ambassador of Grace Kids to Alliance Redwoods. And there is singing Baby Shark and having lunch with Scott.

Very little of that means much to anyone but myself, but it is the path that has carried me this far. As I look back I see God equipping and guiding me. As I look up, I see a path not yet taken. One if I knew what it entails, I would never have asked for. A path that I am sure I will not regret.

Serving Him alongside you, just from a little further away,

--Jesse "Gonzo" Letourneau