{"id":774,"date":"2013-10-20T11:00:09","date_gmt":"2013-10-20T15:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=774"},"modified":"2019-11-19T12:14:05","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T17:14:05","slug":"rules-of-engagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2013\/10\/20\/rules-of-engagement\/","title":{"rendered":"Rules of Engagement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service.<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to hear the sermon only.<\/a><\/p>\n

I am a parent today. Yes I stand in this pulpit as a Pastor whose head and heart have been claimed for years by the joy of ministry with young adults.\u00a0\u00a0 But, today, the title I claim is MOM. I am here for Parents\u2019 Weekend, and I welcome members of my parent posse who have travelled across the country to spend some time on campus with our sons and daughters.\u00a0 Dean Hill tells me that this day is special because we have been granted visitation rights. Welcome to campus, parents.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve had a conversation with me for longer than 5 minutes this fall, you know that my son is a freshman here at BU. All right, let\u2019s be honest, it\u2019s probably more like 2 minutes into our meeting. OK, you have to tell the truth from the pulpit- it\u2019s been a message of my heart emblazoned in neon on my sleeve for the world to see. \u201cMy son is a freshman here!\u201d I\u2019m kind of a proud Mom, who is very close to her son, who\u2019s had a hard time letting him go \u2013 I\u00a0 know \u2013go ahead and laugh- I am letting go all the way from my work place here at 735 Comm Ave across the street to his residence at 700 Comm Ave.<\/p>\n

As a chaplain I\u2019ve led many events over the years for parents dropping their kids off at college.\u00a0 But there is a profoundly different experience when it is your own child\u2026\u2026 I am a parent today. Did I mention that?\u00a0 Has it been 2 minutes into our conversation?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been rereading some of my higher education books on college transitions, specifically passages for parents. <\/i>I haven\u2019t read so many parenting books since the infancy years. But I am honoring this unique time of transition. And trying to get it right on my end.\u00a0 Our lesson from Jeremiah today has a pithy proverb about first generations not getting it right for the next generation. \u00a0Jeremiah admonishes that \u201cthe parents ate the sour grapes, and the children got a stomachache.\u201d\u00a0 I thought- parents – we can do better than that.\u00a0 And Jeremiah thinks so too- he envisions a day when an individual\u2019s actions will have consequences for that person.\u00a0 You eat a bad apple, and you get the stomachache. Mistakes of the elders need not be passed on as problems for the children. Of course it goes both ways, and we have not a little bit of attitude in a couple verses from our Psalter toady- – did you note the line when a young writer says – \u201cI understand more than the aged.\u201d Just an FYI: I wouldn\u2019t recommend students quoting that one to your parents over lunch today.<\/p>\n

<\/i> Since we parents really are trying to get it right, let\u2019s name a place of origin for us.\u00a0 I quote from my Fall Canonical literature: Letting Go<\/i>: A Parents\u2019 Guide to Understanding the College Years<\/i> \u201cWe all know intellectually that this is a time for our children to separate and assert their own independence.\u00a0 But long after they have become taller or stronger than we are, our primal protective feelings are easily unleashed.\u00a0 We carry images in our heads of the curly haired toddler, the gap-toothed 6 year old, and times when a hug could make their world all better.\u00a0 The mature, rational part of us wants them to solve their own problems and believes they can- but another part of us wants to stay connected, be in control, protect them from any pain they will have to face.\u201d \u00a0End quote.<\/p>\n

When our son announced to us, complete with drumroll, that he was choosing BU from the 10 schools at his horizon, we were thrilled. Not the midwest college we thought he might choose, some 12 hours from home- but 9 miles, we were ecstatic.\u00a0 \u2026.My husband and I love this university, having met here, both earning our first graduate degrees here, both now working here on campus.<\/p>\n

Our highly literate son could read the excitement in our faces.\u00a0 He even read that chapter in our minds, that went something like \u201cmaybe the nest won\u2019t be so empty with our youngest living a block away from our offices.\u201d \u00a0Our son then presented us with a carefully premeditated, bullet pointed speech that he coined his \u201cRules of Engagement\u201d for attending BU.<\/b><\/p>\n

Our biblical scholars will recognize that These Rules are apodictic in nature- all the lovely thou shalt not <\/b>commandments. MOM, You will not greet me with your usual outgoing enthusiasm.\u00a0 No unsolicited hugging.\u00a0 If we pass by one another on Comm Ave, you may greet me with restraint, IF I have first acknowledged you.\u00a0 This acknowledgement will be in the form of a nod of the head, perhaps a smile. No Acknowledgement, no greeting.<\/p>\n

If we see each other in the GSU, and you are looking for a table at which to eat lunch, and I give said acknowledgement, you may come over just to say hello, even to my group of friends, but NO \u201choney how are you, I miss you, I love you\u201d talk. \u00a0Communications will be occasional texts and phone calls, and I will be home for Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

I thought for a moment and said, \u201cSo, you want us to pretend you\u2018re in college in Ohio.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly!\u201d\u00a0 was his reply.<\/p>\n

My son is here in the sanctuary today. My son, who has been raised by 2 United Methodist clergy parents, is a PK squared.\u00a0 My son, who has been the object of many a sermon illustration in many a church. My son, whose classroom building shares a Plaza with this chapel. My son, who shares DNA with a BU Chapel Associate and a Professor.\u00a0 So my gift to my beloved, amazing, wonderful son is that I will let him be anonymous.\u00a0 But I have to call him something, so I\u2019ve been calling him HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED . \u201cYou know who\u201d is in the house today.<\/p>\n

Now, \u201cYou Know Who\u201d grew up book by book with Harry Potter and the Hogwarts posse. \u00a0YOU KNOW WHO is a reference to Lord Voldemort himself, the source of all evil and fear and chaos in the world. \u00a0This is where the pseudonym loses some of its utility, because my son is not the Dark Lord. But it\u2019s the best I\u2019ve got. Students, you gotta trust us, we parents are doing the best we can to let go and to set you free for like Robert Browning we know that \u201cthe best is yet to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, \u2018You know who,\u201d while I applaud your dis<\/b>engagement from your parents, I have 3 Rules of Engagement of my own I would like to share today.\u00a0 Without \u201cthou shalt not\u201d<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Look Up. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a02. Get Lost \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a03. Be Unrecognizable<\/b>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Look Up.<\/span><\/b> In my first parish there was a framed Norman Rockwell print, that featured St. Thomas Episcopal Church on 5th Avenue in NY –\u00a0 a gothic revival beauty of a church. Numerous Urban pedestrians are passing by the church, each downcast, slumped over in cement gazing routine.\u00a0 Not a one is looking up. The rector is outside on steps in full vestment, and he has just posted his sermon title on the church sign entitled \u00a0\u201cLift Up Thine Eyes!\u201d\u00a0 You can sense both his Jeremiad admonition, What are you doing ,people<\/i>, and his Jeremiah vision for life that could be lived so much more abundantly.<\/p>\n

    Dean Howard Thurman, who served this Chapel 1953-65, stands on the steps of Marsh Chapel 24 -7, calling out \u201cCome Alive! Figure out what makes you come alive and go do it!\u201d\u00a0 Lift Up thine Eyes. Look Up around you. That will help you to look deep to the hunger within you.\u00a0 Look up. look in. That sounds a little bit like Albus Dumbledore wisdom, what do you think You Know Who?<\/p>\n

    Look up! Yes, the Mom here does want to mention, please look both ways when crossing Comm Ave- 57 bus, BU shuttle, cars, taxis, T, bikes, students on skate boards, not so smart pedestrians glued to smart phones .<\/p>\n

    LOOK Up. Be attentive to your splendor. Live mindfully.\u00a0 With intentionality put down your virtual world so that you may live into the incarnational world of God\u2019s people right here, right now.<\/p>\n

    When my generation went to college we were exhorted to do this newfangled\u00a0 thing called Study Abroad. For this globally connected generation, in a post- modern flattened world, I have no doubt that you are engaging the world.\u00a0 But I exhort you to engage the person right next to you.<\/p>\n

    Sharon Daloz Parks who writes about emerging adulthood and faith, notes that young people are hungry for \u201chearth places.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Hearth places are places where people linger with one another, with invitation to pause, to reflect, to be. They offer an exquisite balance of stability and motion. They are places of contemplation- defined by Quaker Douglas Steere as \u201cA continual condition of prayerful sensitivity to what is going on.\u201d\u00a0 Be attentive to what is going on. This can be in a Marsh Chapel fellowship meal when you discover that inquiring minds really belong in this place, on your dorm floor when your friends throw you a surprise 18th<\/sup> birthday party , when you look up on your walk to class and smile at everyone you meet.<\/p>\n

    Hearth times can happen on the T in serendipitous conversation with a fellow sojourner , at a meal in the Dining Hall when you open your table up to greet a student from another country, studying another discipline, and Common Ground morphs <\/b>from a phrase of Howard Thurman to a discovery of your heart.<\/p>\n

    This is where we parents must nuance one of previous Rules of Engagement we taught you in grade school, \u00a0notably \u201cStranger Danger.\u201d You know how to be smart and safe, but our faith urges us to engage the stranger in our midst\u00a0 – in addition to your 1,452 Facebook friends.\u00a0 Did you know that in class of 2017, right here on campus, there are students from 66 different countries? Look Up.<\/p>\n

    Daloz Parks says that the \u201chunger for hearth-sized conversations persists, and it can be ignored only at the cost of a malnourished life.\u201d Eat well at the banquet of BU community! Be attentive to the Splendor along Commonwealth Avenue.<\/p>\n

    Rule #2<\/b> for He Who Shall Not be Named and all our beloved students.\u00a0 Get Lost<\/span>.<\/b> Sometimes we need to get lost on purpose, sometimes we just need to stop the ego car and admit that we need directions.<\/p>\n

    Now, this is going to sound counter-intuitive to this GPS dependent generation.\u00a0 Where a satellite can talk to the gadget in your palm and your friend Siri can guide you wherever you want to go.\u00a0 Our wisest spiritual guides tell us that pilgrims on adventures get lost a lot of the time- so we best value the process, not just the destination.\u00a0 When \u00a0you are lost and must rely daily on the kindness of strangers.<\/p>\n

    In our worship life this fall we\u2019ve been travelling through exile with Jeremiah. . .Displacement.\u00a0 Separation from home. Dislocation. Life on a foreign avenue.\u00a0 Following political defeat, Jeremiah travels with Judah from home field advantage of Jerusalem to refugee life in Babylonia.\u00a0\u00a0 At first there is the shock and lament of arrival in a new place. Then last week Jeremiah recognized that the Babylonian exile would last a long time \u2013so he advised folks settle in- to build houses and plant vines, to thrive, even to do their part to benefit the welfare of the foreign city in which they now live.<\/p>\n

    Students, you are not here because you are lost, or exiled. You are here by privileged choice to study at this fine University. But what student has not felt the burning loneliness of banishment from all that is familiar, or the paralysis of fear during these midterm evaluations.\u00a0 Am I good enough? Can I do this? Confessed or not, there is a moment of longing for the cocoon of unconditional love at home.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s not only OK to be lost, it\u2019s a condition of our humanity.\u00a0 To deny our moments of exile is to deny our moments of restoration.\u00a0 And here\u2019s the lavish joy of life. My colleague the Rev. Jen Quigley expressed it beautifully when she preached that \u201cGrace is the serendipitous moment of being found.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Sometimes it\u2019s good to Get lost on purpose. Spend a day away from your determined efficient production, and wander.\u00a0 Wander to the shoreline with Dean Hill, wander through neighborhoods of Boston, wander into colleges other than your own, wander beyond your syllabus and get lost in the thrill of an idea. Chase a footnote down its rabbit warren of antecedents until you look up at the clock and an hour has passed.\u00a0 It\u2019ll probably have nothing to do with the thesis of your current project- but it may lead you to the very thesis of your life. To Vocation. Get lost in what you love.<\/p>\n

    Over <\/b>the years I\u2019ve led numerous Alternative Spring Break trips for service and vocational exploration.\u00a0 At each trip\u2019s orientation I name that it will be a week of \u201cintentional dislocation.\u201d\u00a0 We are purposefully leaving what is known and comfortable, in order to see ourselves in a new way, to become a joy-filled Christian community in that long fun van ride.\u00a0 \u00a0We must separate from homefield advantage so we may be fully open to the communities we will serve. \u00a0Kenda Creasy Dean calls it the place of \u201ccreative disequilibrium,\u201d a liminal principle of the Gospel – that the reality of being off kilter may precipitate growth and transformation.<\/p>\n

    Getting Lost is like Falling in Love.\u00a0 You are lost and you are found. Fall in love on purpose. Listen to this short poem by Ignatian priest Fr. Pedro Arrupe:<\/p>\n

    Nothing is more practical than
    \nfinding God, than
    \nfalling in Love
    \nin a quite absolute, final way.
    \nWhat you are in love with,
    \nwhat seizes your imagination, will affect everything.
    \nIt will decide
    \nwhat will get you out of bed in the morning,
    \nwhat you do with your evenings,
    \nhow you spend your weekends,
    \nwhat you read, whom you know,
    \nwhat breaks your heart,
    \nand what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
    \nFall in Love, stay in love,
    \nand it will decide everything.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Look Up, Get Lost, and my final Rule of Engagement:<\/p>\n

    Be Unrecognizable<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

    When You Know Who<\/i> went off to FYSOP community service the week before classes, he was still 17. \u00a0I had to fill out special BU Rules of Engagement forms to surrender my minor\u2019s care to the University, including my own cell number.\u00a0 There was a slight miscommunication and apparently my number was confused with YOU KNOW WHOs number.\u00a0 I started to get texts that week. They didn\u2019t sound like messages that my son would write to me. \u201cHey DUDE, meet at the Plaza at 10 tonight to start our night out.\u201d\u00a0 I wanted to write back \u201cHey Dude, I\u2019m the Mom; I\u2019m headed to bed at 10.\u201d\u00a0 But instead I wrote, \u201dI believe you want You Know Who\u2019s<\/i> number. Here it is. Text him<\/span>.\u201d<\/p>\n

    After about 3 messages from my Dude friend- who was so very friendly and polite- I thought we had it nicely worked out. Until the second week of classes and I got a text that read, \u00a0\u201cI\u2019m on the Quidditch Team, I\u2019m a chaser, \u00a0I am a member of Dumbledore\u2019s Army, and \u00a0I have 2 interviews for staff writing positions.\u201d\u00a0 Oh great, it\u2019s Dude again. Who is this person writing me???? Until I studied the number, and realized this indeed this was HE Who Must not be Named.\u00a0 Unrecognizable to me in two weeks.\u00a0 Fabulous!<\/p>\n

    Students, Reinvent yourself.\u00a0 Or as a friend of mine, Nora Bradbury-Haehl writes in her new book called the Freshman Survival Guide<\/i>,\u00a0 \u201cShed you skin, not your skeleton.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Do something so different that your parents have to google it to figure out what you\u2019re up to.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I had to Google \u201cchaser\u201d (it\u2019s a quiddtich position) \u00a0and I did some research to learn that \u201cBoston University Dumbledore’s Army is a chapter of the Harry Potter Alliance. We will harness our love for Harry Potter to bring about change in the Boston community through volunteering and fundraising.\u201d\u00a0 Wow.\u00a0 I love it!<\/p>\n

    Finally, Jeremiah dreams of a day when we are transformed from the inside out. When our hearts are strangely warmed, and our new lives of justice and joy are practically unrecognizable . Jeremiah gives us these famous words -\u201cThe days are surely coming when I will make a new \u00a0covenant\u2026 I will put my law within them, and I will etch it on their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Beloved students, this is our deepest and most important dream for your engagement.\u00a0 That the love and grace of God will be so close to you that it is tattooed \u00a0on your heart.\u00a0 That you will be in relationship with this God in Christ who accompanies you through exile and into homeland.<\/p>\n

    Friends, Be careful crossing the street. Thank you for visitation rights.\u00a0 And, Fall in love with God, it will make all the difference.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    ~The Reverend Dr. Robin Olson, Chapel Associate<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Click here to hear the full service. Click here to hear the sermon only. I am a parent today. Yes I stand in this pulpit as a Pastor whose head and heart have been claimed for years by the joy of ministry with young adults.\u00a0\u00a0 But, today, the title I claim is MOM. I am […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[30],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":776,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774\/revisions\/776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}