Playing Beneath Altars

When I worked as a pastor, Scott was also very involved in a variety of ministries, and we often “passed” each other coming and going from church several evenings a week.   What was like ships passing in the night, transformed, after having our daughter, into well choreographed kid-handoffs.  I remember one evening Scott had band practice, and I had a meeting which overlapped a bit. Scott was hoping to be able to participate in band practice even with a six month old, so he took a blanket and some toys and set her up next to him on the stage at the front of the sanctuary (Ah, the days of children who stay sitting on blankets...)  Because of where everything was positioned with band equipment, there were only a few places to put her.  I have this crystal clear memory of walking into the sanctuary to collect our little bundle and seeing her playing quietly on a blanket beneath the altar.  

The moment happened right towards the end of a decade of being on staff in a church in some way or another nearly constantly.

I so wish I had a picture, though the image is still plain as day in my mind.  It was one of my last weeks serving at the church.  And there, my little daughter sitting, playing beneath the altar, blissfully unaware of exactly where she was, and yet, completely comfortable.   It was at once this intensely beautiful and yet heartbreaking moment, encapsulating all these tensions in my life at the time.   

This new little one, sitting in the place I usually stand, behind the altar, a place that, at that point, I knew God was not calling me to stand in this next season. 

While I didn’t leave my position in church because of the birth of my daughter, I am never unaware that the timing of God calling me away from that ministry coincided with her first year and brought with it the blessing of spending more time with her, which it still does as I work part time.   

And I know how important this ministry of being a mom is.  I really do.  

But still, not serving in a church in this season in my life is a shift in the way I understand my own sense of calling that I struggle with mightily. 

And yet, even as it cast all the emotion of this transitional moment into sharp relief, this image is also somewhat unexpectedly serving to frame this new season.  

Playing beneath the altar.  

In the Hebrew Scriptures, people would make altars whenever something important happened, whenever God revealed himself anew, or made a way when it seemed there was none.  The altars were built as a reminder of God’s presence in that place.

One of my favorite stories building altars is from Joshua 4.  The nation of Israel had just crossed the Jordan into the promised land.  Joshua commands one person from each tribe to get rocks from the river they had just crossed and to place them in the camp.  Then, when the children ask why are these stones here, they are to tell them of all God has done. 

The Israelites were to set up these stones amidst their camp, their daily lives, to literally provoke the question from their children, and have an opportunity to tell of the faithfulness of God.  It was this idea that the kids would wander upon these stone piles, as they go about their day, and then ask why they are there.  It was parents placing things in their child’s path in order to create space to tell the story of God.  They were instructed to claim this normal place, this camp, where they live and eat and sleep and play as a place where God intervened, rescued, and revealed his power and love. 

I’m learning, that in this new season of raising my daughter to know Jesus, that’s a lot of what I’m doing.  Building altars.  

Marking the ordinary places and moments as holy.  Claiming them as God-created, God-given. Revealing the ways in which the presence of God infuses her daily life, even as she plays, unaware.  Filling in the words as she discovers this story of creation and redemption, of God at work all around. 

It’s the work of building reminders into her routine, her life, all kinds of moments so that we can’t help but be swept up in it—this larger than life saga of creation and redemption; marking and naming and claiming God’s presence...as she plays.  Teaching her to tune her ear to the music of the Spirit all around. Giving her the lenses with which to see the work of the Father in the world.

Slowly building an awareness that her whole life is part of a sacred story; weaving the threads of her everyday into the narrative of God's love.

And as I reflect on that work… 

though it often feels worlds away from my previous role,  

maybe it isn’t so different than what I was doing before.