For Thousand Oaks (and the world)

My wife, Laura, has a seminary classmate, let’s call him Charlie. Laura and Charlie are both taking an online class on worship. The typical online class follows a routine: watch the professor’s lecture, read the assigned reading, write a brief paper (from one paragraph to two pages) on the assigned topic. For the last three years, this routine has been pretty much unchanged for Laura and, presumably, Charlie. Like the hands on a clock the routine goes round and round and round, virtually without change from week to week to week. Until this week – at least for Charlie.

You see, Charlie lives in Thousand Oaks, California.
Laura told me about Charlie when she came home tonight, “One of my classmates is from Thousand Oaks. Two of his parishioners were among those shot in the bar.” Public tragedies are always affecting, if our hearts remain open to our shared humanity, and when they become more personal the effect is even greater. Our hearts went out to Charlie and the families of those sacrificed.

A couple hours later, having finished our dinner, we both opened our computers, Laura to start homework and me to write. “There’s an email from Charlie,” Laura announced. “Oh, no, there’s a fire in Thousand Oaks. He’s attached a video clip.” Laura and I watched in horror as Charlie, cell phone in hand, videoed his journey through Newberry Park, a neighboring town. “One of my youth group kids lives in Newberry Park,” narrated Charlie. “Her parents aren’t home, and she has two dogs. The police told her the neighborhood is being evacuated, and she’s freaking out.” Charlie was on his way over to the girls’ home to help her.

I hope the professor gave Charlie an extension on this week’s homework.

Charlie is the most proximate example of the need for pastors, elders, deacons, mission co-workers, youth leaders, Sunday School teachers, church administrators, and people with no official position but with a love of Jesus. Thousand Oaks, and the world, needs us. People who care. People who cry. People who cry out! People who blow off their homework to comfort a teenager and her dogs. People who show up.

I’m not sure I have a deep, complex, sophisticated point to make. True confession: I am tired of the news, tired of bad news, tired of the 1,001 Thousand Oaks that seem to spread like the flu. I’m tired but thankful. I’m thankful for you pastors. And I’m thankful for you parishioners. I’m thankful to be a Presbyterian. We’re not always the most demonstrative folk in God’s kingdom but we do our best to love Jesus. We care and we cry. We cry out and we comfort.

And even on our worst days, we show up.

Here’s to showing up,

Brad Munroe