May You Find Something to Ignite and Haunt Your Imagination

I think I have spent the last 15 years trying to sing a song that I've only heard once or twice. The melody got stuck in my head on a service learning trip to Cuba.

I was 19 and had never left the country before. I had never experienced church outside of my overwhelmingly white Baptist denomination in South Carolina. I had never truly seen a body of believers stand in that gap of poverty on a consistent, week in and week out basis. I had never truly seen the work of the church spill into its community.

I have spent the last decade and a half grappling with that trip because I saw something beautiful in those churches that I had not quite seen before. Their practice and their passion melded in a way that seemed vibrant. They were hospitable. They pulled us into conga lines as we sang "Hallelujah" in a sanctuary full of joy. But they also prophetically spoke to us with concern about the war that our nation was about enter. They backed up what they preached with practice. They sought to bind the wounds of a drug-riddled community through gardens and baseball teams and dance troupes.

I'm trying to tap my foot to the beat but I fear some days that I don't have the rhythm for it. I close my eyes and I see faces and places where the gospel seemed to sing. And I realize that I have idealized it. I know that those sisters and brothers in Havana and Matanzas were not perfect. But, my God, they seemed to radiate a love for their Creator and their neighbor in such a breathtakingly beautiful manner.

It was a service learning trip and I think that made a big difference. On a mission trip, you go and you, theoretically, help. You are in the position of power because you are offering something to them; you aid the people in that foreign country. You are, though we wouldn't say this, the hero of the story. And, sure, we talk about how we learn more from those that we serve, but at the end of the day people are going to ask you what you did, whether you built a house, whether you brought Jesus to them (as if Jesus were something we hand out).

That isn't to belittle mission trips, but there is something in that exchange that doesn't quite teach us as well as it should. But we were in Cuba to simply be students, to learn, and it was humbling. It was humbling because when it comes to the Christian faith, most in the Bible Belt would think that Cuba would have little to teach us. It was unexpected, even though anyone who has paid a lick of attention to anything about the church throughout history should have expected it.

And it all opened my eyes to what the church could be. But it has also haunted me because of what the church is not. I feel like I don't see that intangible "it" in the American church. It shows up every now and then and that song, the one I've been trying to sing for 15 years, rings crystal clear in my ears. But my ears have only caught the melody here and there.

That song pushes me and frustrates me. Its melody makes me want to be a part of a church that is not just a social club, but a true community that embodies the grace and love we see in Jesus. And it haunts me because I am terrified that there is something about being a middle class white American Christian that prevents myself and others from truly ever getting there. I am not saying that it's impossible; for with God all things are possible. But like I said, I'm not sure I have the rhythm for it. The song creates a tug-of-war within my soul.

And I think that's how it should be. I think you have to be taken out of your comfort zone. You have to learn that the world is bigger than you originally thought and maybe that there are unlikely people from whom you have much to learn. It has to be an experience beautiful enough that it calls you to look for it, search it out, or even try to build it yourself even from a decade and a half away. But it also has to be difficult to come by lest you grow complacent and foolishly think you have arrived. I think that frustration, when healthily engaged, can lead to faith.

15 years on I am grateful for this song that's been stuck in my head even as I struggle sometimes to remember the music and lyrics. And my prayer for you is that you have that sort of experience somewhere along the way: where you are a student who humbly discovers that God and the world are far bigger than you could ever imagined.

May it light up your imagination with the possibilities of what could be and haunt you when you find that the world is falling short. May you find a song that you can never get out of your head; just like I found one in Cuba when I was 19 years old.