On Graven Images, Our Children, and Back-to-School

Last week, I was en route to Meet the Teacher Night when the screen to my iPhone went black. 

After a late night run to both the wireless provider and local Apple store, it was confirmed beyond repair. 

What was worse, I had been too stingy for the $0.99 monthly iCloud subscription and lax in regular backups…for about 12 months. Instead, I had entrusted a free app to automatically save my photos- and it did not. Countless photos and videos were now lost.  I would not have been so bothered if it were not for how many of them were of my kids.  

After spending more than enough time wallowing in my stupidity, shifting blame to the free app, downloading the Facebook zip file of all photos/videos posted circa 2007 (yes, you can do that), and scrolling through my shared texts for pix sent to family and friends, it hit me: I had become obsessed with the loss of the digital images of my children. In some ways, the images of my kids had become almost as valued as my kids themselves. 

As I thought through all the events that had taken place over the last year, I realized how much time I spent trying to capture the moments versus living in the moments. My interactions reduced to the five-inch screen and preferred IG filter. This is not to devalue images, for they can indeed be holy. I have often scrolled through my camera roll in meditations, praying through the moments as a form of an Ignatian Examen. I will continue to do so. 

Yet these images are just that, images. They are not to be mistaken for the beautiful and tangible lives of each of our children. Maybe this is a bit of what God meant when God said, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image…” (Exodus 20:4). God knew sacred symbols could quickly be mistaken for the things to which they pointed, reducing the relationship to that which could be possessed, contained, distorted, and even lost. 

And God and God’s relationship with God's people could not and would not be any of those things. 

Our children, who bear the very image of God, cannot and should not be either. 

Still snap those photos and record slo-mo videos. They’re so fun! We should back them up, too. 

This week, my Facebook and IG feed are dominated by images of my friends’ and family (and my own) kids headed back to school. I love it! This is one of my favorite social media weeks. Back-to-School week is a brief respite from other digital trends. Instead of polarizing commentary, I see the faces of those who most wonderfully reflect the love, compassion, generosity, and playfulness of their Creator. I frequently pause to pray for them, remembering the mixture of excitement and angst that comes with a new school year. 

I also pray for the teachers who will be walking alongside these young bearers of the divine image as they learn and discover, question and wonder, struggle and forge a community within their classroom. I especially pray for them in these days, when our schools have become all-too-familiar with violent acts that require our teachers to spend great energy on safety drills, assemblies, and other practices to create as safe of a learning environment as possible. I pray for them because, between the hours of 7:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., teachers are like the Otterbox to our most precious images of the divine and holy. 

But mostly I pray all would know, whether in the classrooms or at lunch tables, the hallways or gym classes, playgrounds and bus rides, or when they forget their homework or that it is picture day, they are loved beyond measure- as high as they can count plus one.  Even more, they are bearers of the divine image, which makes them holy, set apart, and eternally beloved. 

This is a truth not able to be contained in a photo. 

Happy Back-to-School! 

A brief meditation that has been carrying me of late. May be helpful in the days ahead, for teachers, students, parents, and any adults caring for children, too. 

Life is a lived paradox, 

A holy question,

an experiment with conflicting experiences,

meanderings between hope and despair.

The only constant 

you are loved to love 

by the Holy One 

who is Love.

Link to previous back-to-school posts: http://gregklimovitz.blogspot.com/search/label/backtoschool 

Gateways, Glory, and the Gospel in the Midst of Empire: Psalm 24 and Mark 6:14-29

Airports and Airlines. 

They can be the glory of expedited domestic and international travel. They can also be the symbols of some of our more stressful and anxious moments. 

For my recent trip to the 223rd General Assembly in St. Louis, it was the latter.  It all began when I was the last to be dropped off at Terminal F by a local shuttle service. When the driver handed me my bag, I froze as I noticed- it wasn’t my bag.  

“Where’s my bag?" 

"I must have given it to the gentleman at…Terminal A." 

Yes, the terminal a half mile before mine. 

In what I believe was my fastest mile pace to date, I hauled to Terminal A just in time to intercept my bag from being checked by the gentleman who was unaware he had the wrong luggage and headed to Florida.   

Then it got worse- like I was living out the children’s story, Alexander’s Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day,  

Because some days are like this- especially at the Philadelphia Int'l Airport. 

My flight was canceled at 11 p.m. because of computer glitches that failed to schedule a flight crew. My bags were lost only 90 minutes later to be found.  The hotel offered by airline was in Bala Cynwd.  No restaurants were open for post-stress snack. I missed the General Assembly’s opening worship. Then, just as my rescheduled morning flight was about to touchdown in St. Louis, I could have dangled my legs out the window and touched the ground, the plane made a quick re-ascent as an unexpected plane was on our landing strip.  

I was never getting to my destination.  

Needless to say, I eventually made it. As my Lyft driver drove down the highway, I saw the St. Louis Arch that welcomes you into the city. Then I breathed.  

The Arch stands 630 feet high and is a beautiful feat of architecture adjacent to the Mississippi River. Originally designed as a symbol of America’s gateway to glory through Westward expansion, each morning as I ran by the monument I could not help but wonder if there was another side to the story of America’s quest for glory and expansion? What about the Native Americans who had lived on that land long before we arrived? What about Africans who would be enslaved on these lands? Is the Arch really a symbol of glory and a gateway of hope for all? Depends on whom you ask.  And in the shadows of this Arch are both a historic courthouse and an old Christian cathedral.  

Which begged more questions, hence snapping this photo. 

Where is the church in the midst of it all? 

Whose glory do we pursue? 

What kind of gateway are we daring to open? 

Are we a gateway to the glory of empire or the glory of God and the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven? 

These were also some of the questions raised in their own way by the faithful gathered for the General Assembly.  This was also the question posed by Psalm 24 that called us into worship this morning- fling wide you gates so the King of Glory may come in. 

Now for some context. The people of God were called out of Egypt to be an alternative community to Pharaoh and his empire and gifted by Yahweh with their own rituals, laws, and sacred practices that hinged on the worship of God who will be who God will be.  And who will this God be? One who cares for the poor and oppressed, widows and orphans, hungry and enslaved, and all who look for refuge and safety from emperors, empires, and their own expansive quests for glory. This God was also calling out a people to fling wide their gates to this God’s glory and become an archway of jubilee for those so often exploited by the Pharaohs of every generation.  This is why the Psalmist writes, “who shall stand in God’s holy place? Those with clean hands and pure hearts and who do not lift up their souls to what is false.” 

I could go on. But the lectionary story to be engaged this morning comes to us from the Gospel of Mark Chapter 6, with the likes of Psalm 24 as backdrop for the events leading to the rather gruesome beheading of John the Baptist.