MV Summer 2017 Page 2

By Craig Carr

When a person follows God’s call into pastoral ministry, they are signing up for a 24/7 commitment. The sky is the limit as to the number and frequency of duties and expectations in ministering to congregations and communities. The actual needs are great, but the imagined expectations members have of pastors often far exceed what’s realistic. Thom Rainer discovered this with his board of elders in the church he was serving in Florida.

Around the boardroom table, Pastor Thom distributed a survey asking the twelve-member board to review a prepared list of 20 ministry responsibilities and to write their estimate of the minimum amount of time required for each area. “I’m not sure exactly what I was anticipating,” reflects Pastor Thom. “I just know that I was shocked when I tallied the results.” The conclusion would have been hilarious if it weren’t so ridiculous. In order to meet the minimum requirement of the resulting expectations from that simple inquiry, it would require the following each week:

Prayer at the church: 14 hours
Sermon preparation: 18 hours
Outreach and evangelism: 10 hours
Counseling: 10 hours
Hospital and home visits: 15 hours
Administrative functions: 18 hours
Community involvement: 5 hours
Denominational involvement: 5 hours
Church meetings: 5 hours
Worship services/preaching: 4 hours
Other: 10 hours

Total per week: 114 hours

Ridiculous, you say? Not far from it. An inquiry among our own pastors in Rocky Mountain Conference revealed that many of them average 55 to 70 hours per week. Is it reasonable to expect 10-hour days, seven days a week? Or what about 12-hour days with one day off per week? Clearly, no one can humanly meet all those expectations, yet the tension between “so much to do” and “so little time” weighs heavily upon every pastor.

So where does a pastor draw the line? And who has enough authority to quell the waves of expected productivity in order for the fatigued pastor to rightfully say, “Stop!” The answer is found in the Sabbath. One of the meanings of the word “Shabbat” is to cease or stop. Serving as a natural boundary against ceaseless labor, the Sabbath offers a weekly diversion from our normal labors and endeavors and strivings. In partial answer to the question, “What day is your Sabbath, Pastor?” let’s review just how different the Sabbath is meant to remain from the other six days of the week.

The Sabbath is Different

In the beginning, God divided the light from the dark- ness, the waters from the land. The Creator differentiated the grass, herbs, fruits, and trees, and divided the day from the night. God created a vast array of living creatures to fill the airspace and the land and the seas, each after its own unique kind. “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; (and) let them have dominion . . .” (Gen. 1:26).

After this incredible process of dividing, defining, and distinguishing, God continued that activity in the creation of the Sabbath—a day like no other. “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made” (Gen. 2:2,3). The Sabbath stands in unique contrast to the other days and is characterized by God’s activity of “ending His work” as “He rested . . . from all His work,” as well as distinguishing the Sabbath as holy since “God blessed the seventh day.”

This brief review of creation week is a reminder of how God distinguished everything around us, dividing it into uniquely independent parts. This seems so obvious as we compare day against night, land from water, bass and bird and bear. And as unique as night and day are, the first six days of creation have no comparison with the seventh. Just as the fourth commandment “to remember” commands “six days you shall labor and do all your work,” showing that we are indeed to use our time in productive and meaningful labor on our “work days.” There’s no permission for lethargy or neglect of labor, but the Sabbath gives humanity permission to set aside the busyness of doing work and enter into the rest of God.

The Sabbath Reminds Us Who We Are

The Sabbath is both a memorial of God’s act of creation and His outstretched arm of deliverance from the bondage of slavery: a fitting symbol of humanity’s original identity and redemption from the slavery of sin. [2] It is by entering the rest of the Sabbath that humanity can find its truest identity in the Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a weekly invitation to leave behind the clamor of this world, a refuge from the busyness and demands of productivity. The Sabbath is a divine invitation to a “full stop” from our labors; only then can we find the rest and blessing God intended to regularly quiet our souls and release us from the deception of trying to be Superman or Superwoman. Perhaps you will be equally challenged by this quote:

“Sabbath keeping is the linchpin of a life lived in sync with the rhythms that God himself built into our world, and yet it is the discipline that seems hardest for us to live. Sabbath keeping honors the body’s need for rest, the spirit’s need for replenishment, and the soul’s need to delight itself in God for God’s own sake. It begins with willingness to acknowledge the limits of our humanness and then to take steps to live more graciously within the order of things.” [3]

The challenge is that the distinctiveness of the Sabbath can become a bit fuzzy—not theologically, but in practice—in distinguishing between a “work day” and a “rest day” in the life and ministry of a Seventh-day Adventist pastor. The Sabbath is the busiest, most industrious, and most important day of the pastor’s work week. The practice of ministry dictates that pastors facilitate worship, teach and preach God’s Word, and lead out in a variety of activities and ministries every Sabbath, thus making it the most intense day of their week. From Friday night gatherings to the moment he or she wakes up on Sabbath morning, and until the final “amen” that afternoon or evening, the rigorous engagement of pastoral leadership requires the fullest of energies and commitment. “What day is your Sabbath, Pastor?”

A Tithe of Time

Sabbath rest is a challenge in the lives of Seventh-day Adventist pastors. The question remains: if the Sabbath was meant as a sacred rest for all, but it’s the busiest workday of a pastor’s week, how can pastors receive the refreshment and rejuvenation of the Sabbath in their own lives? The answer challenges us to take a fresh look at another application of Sabbath in which it stands as “a tithe of time.” Remember Christ and His disciples as they returned from laboring for their Master, as recorded in Mark 6:31: “And He said to them, ‘Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.’ For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.” The disciples had been working hard. “They had been putting their whole souls into labor for the people, and this was exhausting their physical and mental strength. It was their duty to rest.” [4] As much as it is our duty to work with Christ, it is also our duty to find rest in Him.

What concerns me for pastors is the temptation to take a “day off” to compensate for Sabbath during the week that turns into a day for errands, such as changing the oil in the car, mowing the lawn, or catching up on paying bills. These are all necessary pursuits that need to be done, yet I wouldn’t save those activities to do on Sabbath, would you? Somehow, amidst the clamor to get things done from week to week, we must also include time for rest, reflection, and rejuvenation. Pastors are encouraged to seek their own “Sabbath time” in addition to the seventh-day Sabbath so that their souls can find rest, renewal, and redefinition. In addition, just as the Sabbath day is one seventh of our week, perhaps we should consider implementing a similar fraction of time into our daily schedules. Instead of working ourselves to death all week only to collapse in exhaustion on Sabbath, perhaps we could learn to seek rest, reflection, and refreshment for a few hours each day.

To my pastor friends: take a moment to review the suggestions in the box below. Perhaps you can incorporate a few more of these into your life and ministry. The rest and spiritual refreshment of Sabbath is essential, but you may need a bit of courage and humility to truly claim it. To my church- attending friends whose work days and rest days are more distinguishable: the next time you see your pastor, I challenge you to ask, “Which day is your Sabbath, pastor?”

–Craig Carr is vice president for administration for the Washington Conference of Seventh-day Adventists in Auburn, Washington. Email him at: [email protected]

By Steve Nelson

Courage is something we often wish we possessed more of. Sometimes, when you least expect it, God brings circumstances into your life that inspire you to be courageous for Him.

It was a Friday morning and my wife and I had gone to a convenience store to pick up a part for our car. As we neared the exit, we were faced with an unexpected crisis. Across the parking lot, we saw a car with someone leaning into the back- seat, their fist pounding on a person inside the vehicle.

I didn’t have time to think about how to react. I only felt a flood of emotions begin to well up inside of my soul as I saw what was apparently a young girl being beaten by a man. Almost before I could think, the instincts kicked into high speed as words came pouring forth out of my mouth. I yelled so loudly, I almost startled myself. “Stop it!” I screamed.

Rushing across the parking lot toward the vehicle, I stood next to the door as the person who was inflicting pain stepped back, straightened up, and turned around to face me.

His size and body mass dwarfed mine. “Cut it out!” I screamed. The anger in his voice compounded by the disdain on his face spoke volumes about the hatred in his heart. “It’s none of your business! Get out of here!” he said.

Not looking for his approval, I returned the reply, “You’ve made it my business because you’ve done it in front of me.”

His next words were a threat—promising to beat the living daylights out of me if I didn’t leave him alone.

While I realized the danger I was in, I also knew that if I backed down, there would be no hope of helping the young woman he was abusing. I looked him square in the eyes and said, “If you do that, it will be the last thing you do before you go to prison.”

Standing next to me, my wife tried to rally her support, but his anger was so great it seemed impossible to turn the tide of emotions that was pouring from his hateful heart.

In the backseat, a young girl was weeping and her grandmother in the front seat echoed the abuser’s tirade, telling us this matter was none of our business and we needed to stay out of it.

Often family dysfunction goes so deep that everyone participates in the dynamics of abuse. A young girl is beaten because of something she says or something she won’t do and everyone rallies behind the abuser. Why? They’re afraid if they don’t, his anger will be released on them.

What seemed like an eternity was probably only a few minutes before the store manager came out to see what the commotion was and to ask what they should do. “Call the police,” I shouted. A few minutes later, the police car arrived, but during the interval my wife had the opportunity to give the young girl our phone number, assuring her that if she needed help, we would be there for her.

There are no passive Christians. You can’t serve Jesus without actively enlisting in Heaven’s warfare against the onslaught of evil that is pressing against God’s children.

Doing nothing is still doing something and when you see someone who is being abused or hurt, you have a responsibility, a moral imperative, to take action—to do everything within your power to intervene.

You may not feel comfortable with getting involved, but certainly the person who’s being hurt is not feeling comfort- able either. It’s not up to us to decide if we should act. We are commissioned to defend and shelter the defenseless victims of abuse. God expects his children to help others when they are being hurt—to act as we would want others to if we were in their shoes.

We never heard from the young woman, but I like to think that perhaps as she goes through life, that day will stand out in stark contrast to many others. That day will be a reminder that someone she didn’t know cared enough to speak up for her. That, because we cared, she might begin to see herself as more valuable than what her physical and emotional scars told her she was worth. My prayer is that, by God’s grace, the actions of strangers would instill in her heart the value that Heaven places on her and to see for herself the real potential she already has and can achieve to an even greater degree if she sees what God sees in her.

When you speak up for those who can’t speak for them- selves, you echo the words of your Heavenly Father who says, “I love you so much that I gave everything so that you could live!”

Commit today to live your life so others can see in your actions a connection to God’s transforming love.

–Steve Nelson is a pastor in Wyoming and has a passion for reaching the lost and hurting for Jesus. Email him at: [email protected]

By Carol Bolden

She abhors human trafficking and her faith fortifies her resolve to fight it. That’s the story of 19-year-old Katie McTavish from Newday Christian Seventh-day Adventist Church in Parker.

Katie was 14 years old when her church held a fundraiser for International Justice Mission, a global organization that protects the poor from violence in the developing world. Moved by statistics, shared by Pastor Dave Kennedy, indicating that the average age of a sex-trafficked girl was 14 years old, she was struck by the thought, “That could be me!” Then she says she “heard the voice of God saying, ‘Katie, fighting this injustice is what you were made for.’”

As a senior at Valor Christian High School, Katie, along with six other students and a teacher, wrestled with what they could do to raise awareness. Their first step, they decided, would be to organize a fact-sharing conference.

So began SHIFT, Empower to Prevent,* a grassroots organization that recognized from the beginning the importance of not only hearing about an issue, but making the shift to doing something about it. Following their name, they SHIFTed into action, recruiting people from six organizations to speak at their first conference. Student organizers were surprised to see almost 300 people in attendance and excited to discover that other schools were interested in doing the same thing.

Several members of Newday Church are involved in fighting for justice, says Pastor Kennedy. Among them is Kirk Samuel, founder of Free Indeed and a contributor to the Justice Conference. “Katie and Kirk are examples of passionate Christ followers who love God and serve people in tangible ways,” says Pastor Kennedy. “They use their gifts to fight oppression and set the captives free.”

Although we typically think of human trafficking as something that happens in countries like Cambodia or Greece, it has sadly become a problem in the United States. Denver is a human trafficking hub. “We’re in the middle of the country, and that makes us a destination state, but also a transit state,” writes Brandy Simmons in an article titled, “Inside Colorado’s Underground Sex Trafficking Empire.” “With I-25 and I-70 connecting us to the coast or to the borders, we sit right in the middle of a lot of action,” she notes.

Now a freshman majoring in communications at Colorado Christian University, Katie has a pretty heavy schedule, making her participation with SHIFT less involved than last year, but she did attend the second SHIFT conference held in March, joining 60 young volunteers from several high schools in the Denver area to continue educating, empowering, and motivating the fight for justice.

The lineup of speakers reads like a list of Who’s Who in the fight-against-human-trafficking. They came from Dalit Freedom Network, Hope Academy, and A-21. They arrived from Free Indeed, Girl Above, Tall Truth, and Joy International. There are at least 70 organizations in existence today battling this human rights scourge.

“Human trafficking is the third largest global criminal enterprise, exceeded only by drug and arms trafficking . . .” shared Laura Lederer, a leading State Department official on human trafficking at a Washington conference.

Held at Valor Christian High School, SHIFT’s second conference provided attendees with a bag of information flyers, along with a SHIFT bracelet and water bottle. As many as 20 vendors set up booths peddling their wares to benefit victims.

With featured speakers and breakout sessions, attendees were bombarded with information and challenged to help. A head deputy from the police system in Denver—part of the FBI—spoke about what they’re doing to stop human trafficking in Denver. In existence since 2012, they participated in Operation Cross Country IX, which was conducted in Colorado and Wyoming. Twenty under- age victims were recovered in Denver, according to FBI officials.

The culture at Newday, explains Katie’s associate pastor Lisa Engelkemier, is geared toward “relieving human suffering in every way within our ability. Several thousand dollars of our Christmas offering went to organizations that are on the ground to end human trafficking.”

“Katie’s work to create awareness of and bring an end to sex trafficking brings purpose and passion into her life,” explains Lisa. “We celebrate young people like Katie, who follow Jesus’ example of serving the least of these.”

After the conference, Krisa Van Allen, founder of Girl Above and a speaker for the conference, spoke with Katie and her sister, Laura, also an avid supporter of the push for justice for victims of human trafficking. “Can I take you guys to coffee before I go to the airport?” Krisa asked, evidently impressed by their enthusiasm.

“The conversation we had over coffee was an answer to prayer,” shares Katie. “I’ve been wondering what to do with this passion and this call.” She fired questions at Krisa and received answers for things burning in her heart: What should I take in college? What is one of the hardest times and what is one of the most rewarding times you’ve had working in this field?

Her answers were encouraging, Katie says. Krisa explained that some days she sits in her office working on spreadsheets, while other days she finds herself working with victims in Greece. “She encouraged me to finish my education and to step into volunteer opportunities.” Looking to the future, Katie explains, “I would love to work for International Justice Mission.” She appreciates their effective approach toward working simultaneously on several important strands—preventing human trafficking, rescuing victims, restoring survivors, and strengthening justice systems.

“Freedom,” Katie says, “is a fundamental, God-given right. Sex trafficking is completely against who God is. If we say we love God, then we have to love His people. We are called to justice, to be a voice for justice.”

Full freedom, Katie says, comes only in Christ. Someone could be rescued from the sex-trade industry and still not be completely free. But, she continues, “If we come in and res- cue them and tell them they’re loved, valued, and unique because Jesus does this, then we can give them ultimate freedom.”

Calling to action the people of the church, Katie says, “Today’s Christians have to realize the need for justice in the world and that it is something God calls us to do. Our congregations need to talk about these things. A lot of poverty as well as human trafficking is based on messed-up justice systems and corrupt governments. People can’t get out of poverty or out of human trafficking, without help.”

–Carol Bolden provides administrative support for the RMC communication department. [email protected]

By Becky De Oliveira

Adventist schools across the country are struggling with enrollment and many have closed their doors in recent years. While the reasons for this are complex and vary from one region to another, closures are not always an indicator that a school lacked a viable market. Sometimes local people are simply unaware of Adventist schools as options for their kids. The board and staff at Vista Ridge Academy (VRA) feel that the school has a lot to offer parents in the northern Denver metro area—especially those who are dissatisfied with public schools and want a smaller environment with personalized attention and an emphasis on arts and music.

Marsha Bartulec, VRA’s full-time marketing director, is optimistic about the future of the school after just one year of intensive marketing efforts. We caught up with Marsha recently to ask her a few questions about her work over the past year.

Mountain Views: What are some of the things you’ve done to market Vista Ridge Academy?
Marsha Bartulec: These are a few of the things we have worked on this year that I feel have been beneficial in building the framework to be able to successfully market our school. 1). We streamlined and implemented a new admissions and re-enrollment process for new and current parents; 2). We promoted the school using Facebook; 3). Clear Summit Productions produced a promotional video for our school; 4). We are members of the Erie Chamber of Commerce and Metro North Chamber of Commerce, and had a ribbon cutting for our preschool program and hosted a business after hours; 5). We have had booths at several community events in Erie; 6). We hosted several events on campus—including a new parents breakfast, pastor appreciation brunch, and grandparents day; 7). We set up our bus ness and search settings on Google, Yelp, Facebook, and other directories.

MV: What have been the biggest challenges for you in increasing public awareness of Vista Ridge Academy? MB: One of the biggest challenges is human resources. One person cannot promote Vista Ridge Academy alone. It has taken a lot of human resources to make this effort successful. We have had help from our board members, teachers, staff, home and school team, parents, and many other volunteers. Everyone connected to Vista Ridge Academy has the awesome opportunity to be an ambassador for the school.

Word of mouth is the number one way to market, so it is our goal to build strong relationships in our Adventist Churches and community. We want people to refer families to Vista Ridge Academy. Every marketing effort we have done has been based on building connections and relationships. If people have a great experience with us and feel a connection, we feel they will tell others about the great things our school has to offer.

MV: What can the average Adventist who wants to see our schools succeed do help support marketing efforts? MB: If members of all our Adventist churches believe in Adventist education, they could demonstrate this by participating in school programs, funding special projects, and being an ambassador for the school. I also recommend the following: 1). Take a tour of the school; 2). Use social media to promote the school; 3) Volunteer at the school—helping with the hot lunch program, cleaning, or have a student read to you, etc.; 4) Participate in school fundraisers, such as Box Tops, Amazon Smile, King Soopers Gift Cards, etc.

Marsha says, “I would love to see the schools in the RMC work together in a marketing effort. We have 20+ schools and have been educating for over 100+ years. How can we join together to make a big impact in our communities?” This is a question we should all be considering.

–Becky De Oliveira is a college instructor, writer, editor, and graphic designer. She also works as director of communication for Boulder Adventist Church in Boulder, Colorado. Email her at: [email protected]

By Carol Bolden

Mission minded from the beginning, Adventists set out to fulfill the gospel commission, sending their first foreign missionary to Switzerland in the early 1870s. Throughout the years, thousands were sent overseas, eventually developing a presence in 207 countries. Those missionaries contributed to the strength of the communities they served and returned as changed people.

Rocky Mountain Conference young people and adults are building their own tradition of service, having visited four countries in 2017 and having had a part (since 2012) in at least 67 evangelistic series, baptizing more than 555 people and helping build 8 churches and schools. Here are their stories from this year: Nate Marin and Jim Hughes, teachers at Campion Academy, took 36 students during their recent spring break to Peru to “do something of significance.” Wanting them to be immersed in the culture, they stayed at Azul Wasi, an orphanage in Oropesa, 45 minutes out of Cusco. While being daily exposed to the language, the food, and the culture, they ran an all-day dental clinic with Dr. Stacey, a dentist from Loveland, providing the local people with free dental care. They held a Vacation Bible School for the town children during the day and another at night for the kids living at the orphanage. They tore down three unused buildings, did the groundwork for installing a septic tank, and poured the second floor for the main building, a major undertaking. The orphanage and its town were greatly helped by the work of these students, and they returned with a new appreciation for the benefits they enjoy in the United States.

Continuing a 12-year tradition, 20 Campion students traveled to the Central American paradise of Belize during their spring break to continue building a junior college in the town of Corozal in northern Belize. Some extended their influence to Ladyville and Hattieville, two small villages around Belize City, where they held a week of prayer in the Adventist schools there each morning and spent their after- noons practicing sermon presentations for the evangelistic meetings held at five nearby churches each evening. The builders finished pouring a slab of about 4,000 square feet and the entire first floor for four new classrooms. These students returned with pragmatic experience in teamwork and an appreciation for the humble, helpful people of Belize who have a passion for Christ.

Tent City on Oahu was the destination for 31 young people from Colorado and Wyoming where they made a difference for this homeless community tucked into the woods behind Waianae Boat Harbor. Here is where 300 of Hawaii’s homeless pitch their tents. Here the students held a day camp and evening programs for more than 70 kids, residents of Tent City, along with an evangelistic campaign. A few miles northwest of Tent City lies Camp Waianae, the Hawaii Conference summer camp. A handful of students working there were able to make improvements on the camp by painting the dining hall, erecting a fence, and taking care of many little things neglected because nobody wanted to do them. The takeaway from this mission trip, according to Jocelyn Curiel, a student from Aurora, Colorado, is that “there’s need everywhere”—even on a Hawaiian island.

Thirty-two people from countries around the globe joined with Cara Greenfield, a Seventh-day Adventist from Loveland, all traveling to Mondulkiri Province in Cambodia to help continue a project she began with her husband in 2006. That was when they were missionaries with Adventist Frontier Missions and before health issues brought them home. The school they opened in 2014 in the town of Sen Monorom with 48 students in grades K–2 is no longer adequate for the 75 students they currently have. A new complex is needed. Their solution is a rammed earth construction with classrooms and a gymnasium, which will easily house their growing student population. Building crew supervisor Walt Sparks, an Estes Park church member, along with his crew, learned to use sign language to communicate with the Cambodian builders when a translator was not available. Cara is thrilled with the progress of the stu- dents as well as the headway made on the new school.

What might flow from the efforts of these young people and adults, only God knows. Maybe, like medical missionary Dr. Leslie, who spent 17 years in the Congo, and who returned home thinking he had accomplished little, others may return to their fields of labor one day to find, like the team who returned to the Congo, a network of reproducing churches in the dense jungle where Dr. Leslie labored.

–Carol Bolden provides administrative support for the RMC communication department. Email her at: [email protected]

By Rajmund Dabrowski

You may owe nothing to nobody. But to some you may be indebted.

“It was like a cult,” Tina writes in her autobiography, Bossypants. “Studying improvisation literally changed my life,” she confesses. “It changed the way I look at the world.”

What the Second City theater was for Tina Fey, the very life in and with the church may be just what we might cite as our Second City theatre experience. For many people you and I know, a life of faith may not be what they appreciate. For a Christian believer, however, the Kingdom of the World is simply opposite to the Kingdom of God. Yet, those around us, whether inside or outside the church, influence us and lessons abound.

Then this question: “What has your cult done for you lately?” Tina Fey gained a worldview. She also found a husband.

On reflection, there is much that I am grateful for from a variety of spaces, times, and people groups which I could name as chief influencers of the world-according-to-me. Brace yourself, as I will now serve a goulash of reflections with a dose of personal spice. They won’t be conclusive, but may be exhausting!

In my early years, my family was the obvious influencer. Consider my sister, Izabella. She tried to scare her brothers, Jan and Rajmund, with shadows-will-get-you-tonight craziness, as she made noises that were supposed to have been ghost-like. Such memories are etched in my head. They shaped my aversion to treating reality as something predictably obvious, and such reminders are still maintained in my fear of some people!

But seriously, it was the push into the in-between world of freedom and restrictions that made an impression on me. All at once they were administered by both my mom and dad, and—to make it equal—dad and mom.

My father was a churchman. He ruled by heavy-handed “thou shalt not” directives. Actually, there was plenty of wise counsel, too. He talked about determination and hard work (later in life, he repeated a couple of times that I achieved what he only dreamed of accomplishing; this could be considered as a compliment, I guess?). The post-World War II reality builder and economist in him often reminded my siblings and me that we should value every penny that came our way. Don’t just spend it. Keep it. Save it. Oh, well . . .

My mother, on the other hand, took me to the theater. As I watched many a play, I was told: “You will get some- where when you embrace the Big World.” I think she meant that living with and within the surrounding culture would bring the best out in who I was. So, I tasted eclectic music, met many a musician and poet. Music serves me best when I serve it with literature. It is most endearing when I hold a hardcover volume of 3,963 poems. As I was meeting different culture animators, I was also learning not to take myself too seriously.

Then enter the church itself. As a religious communicator, I was always dealing with labels. Being involved with my faith community’s corporate public image, I had to be aware of the conservatives, liberals, progressives, sectarians, cultists, fundamentalists, and pagans. . . .Sanity was often at stake. How does one remain sane when hearing that much in life should be about the right doctrine, and that happiness comes by practicing what others tell you to practice? From my experience, unless you closed your eyes and plugged your ears, you may have discovered that your religiosity would often be measured by how many religious words you used in your speech.

Stay in the middle of the road, I was also told. It’s safe there. What this really means is: be bland, boring, embrace what is ersatz. Thus questioning religious recipes and making conscious choices about them made me quite often drawn to the other end of the yardstick.

It was in my church milieu where I learned the meaning of Christian hope. It started with my grandma. On her deathbed she concluded, in a frank friend-to- friend conversation, that Jesus knew timing better than she did. The Second Coming will happen in His time, not mine, she said. (My faith community taught me to capitalize He when referring to Him. Several theologians also taught me to stick with the Gospel, and not a convenient interpretation of it.)

My church gave me such concepts as, “do unto others,” “love your neighbor,” and urged me to stand up for the rights of the poor and everyone else who is treated unjustly. It helped me discover a “one out of seven” approach to time management. The Sabbath day was created for me from the outset of our human history, I learned. That’s what I got from the Holy Word. It works for me. God loves to rest, too. Moving on, some other lessons from many a wise life sojourner include not accepting mediocrity in any shape or form, using imagination, acting creatively, being bold and using risk as the currency that actually has value. Ignore the company of naysayers, became the living commandment No. XI.

“Today is not yesterday” is another gift of knowledge I cherish from encounters with assorted gurus. The wise members of various and diverse clubs taught me not to mistake my future for what is over already!

My faith community introduced me to my wife, Grazyna. (Ms. Fey, I resonate with your story about the improv days!) The gift multiplied and we were awarded a life of wonder and pride with Michal, our son. So, my own family life teaches me to let Jesus keep on refining the journey I am on. Live to the fullest, take one day at a time; practice generosity and affirm people in their own quest for life’s fullness; engage in healthy living as the best investment in healthcare; and of course stand up against greed and anger. To say more will require another cup of tea.

–Rajmund Dabrowski is RMC communication director and editor of Mountain Views. Email him at: [email protected]