Disappointment, Yet Reverence

 I finally arrived in Los Angeles yesterday, and today went by Homeboy Industries to let them know I had arrived and was excited to begin.  The short version of the story is that they were not ready for me, and the coordinator will not be able to meet with me to figure out a definite spot in which to work until mid-June.

 Already the words of François Fenelon—that "the true Christian, whatever the misfortunes which Providence heaps upon him, wants whatever comes and does not wish for anything which he or she does not have"—are testing me.  I will be on-site at Homeboy, sitting, watching, talking, taking notes, and the like, but without a specific job I can imagine 3 weeks here will feel like a waste.  If I am to “want whatever comes,” then perhaps Barbara Brown Taylor’s words on reverence will help me.

 “Reverence is the recognition of something greater than the self—something that is beyond human creation or control, that transcends full human understanding.”

 I will have to remember that my coming out to Los Angeles this summer is bigger than me.  It is greater than my creating; it is not in my control.  Already this thought has dropped my level of agitation. 

 "God certainly meets those criteria, but so do birth, death, sex, nature, truth, justice, and wisdom."

 I intend to spend these first weeks practicing reverence in this place.  When I am eating in the Café, when I am reading in the Bakery, when I am sitting in the Headquarters, I will struggle to prayerfully hold the people who walk by me in the reverence that the imago Dei in all peoples deserves.

 Too, I hope that this type of mindset will help me to see the habitus of community at Homeboy more clearly.  The life that has grown here has been in the works for 25 years.  It is a healthy community, vibrant, which means to me that the mysterious complexity of the Kingdom of Heaven has been revealed here; if I fail in this reverence, I might be one to whom Jesus will say, “The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it… In fact, the kingdom of God is among you!” (Luke 17.22, 21).

 I pray that I might give reverence this summer to the Kingdom of God among us here at Homeboy.