Unafraid of Risk Without Being a Lunatic

A wonderful side of living motivated by love is being unafraid of risk without becoming a lunatic.

I watched my Mom and Dad model sane risk taking based in their love for each other, us, and for the people they were serving. Some interesting and wonderful people stayed with us and my brother and I, being upstairs, would often go to sleep to the murmuring sounds of late night counseling sessions.  You could not hear (generally!) what was being said, yet it was comforting to hear the sounds of Dad and Mom helping. My parents served people who became friends and other people who rejected what they had to say. . . loudly.

We had one man stay with us (now with God) that has suffered under experimentation as a young African-American “ward of the state” and still had the behavioral problems to prove it.  Mom and Dad gave away our car once because God wanted someone else to have a vehicle. With a group of friends, they started the Christian school where both my brother and I would graduate with nothing but a determination to provide high quality education to all God’s children. Dad was committed to being social and racial integrated and kept driving cost down as far as he could. My parents ended up with their bedroom in the living room for a time so we could use a bedroom for a teacher.

These were good times. My Mom and Dad keep living and risking things out of love for people and in service to Jesus.

And yet they were and are never lunatic. They would consider doing anything in love for others, but often said “no” to craziness. Christian education has always attracted fads and solutions. Dad and our brilliant principal Pastor George made sure we stuck to the best they could find. We didn’t use racist “Christian” textbooks that were and are too prevalent in schools. They didn’t reject modern methods or ideas, but they were not captured by them either. They were a group of risk takers using moderate methods.

It was wonderful. In my childhood, you knew the goal: love God and love His people.  You also knew that if a theological fad came through town (Prosperity Gospel, Word of Faith, evangelists without end, the Religious Right) that Mom and Dad would embrace what was good about the movement, they learned from everyone, but avoided the worst excesses. They had grown up in the church in two families that had Christian roots stretching back to colonial times. The family stories kept us sane . . . and there was a story from the family archives to avoid most errors. When a guru came to town, he reminded us of the country preacher who compared himself to the Apostle Paul. My grandparents had known better, so my Mom and Dad knew better.

Hopefully it has helped me know better.

These are tough times. It is tempting to seize on fads or to hide in our very own private cave full of stored food. We embrace risk to the point of madness, burn it all down, or we paint our lives in daring shades of grey, eating oatmeal, and fearing any change.

Love shows us the better way. To love my friends, I must change because he changes with time. To help the beloved, I must take risks because she cannot always be helped with “safe” behavior. Yet to go on loving, helping, serving, I must take care. Prudence allows me to maximize service and moderation is motivated by the desire to have enough energy to do something awesome the next day. This risk taking must never be for glory or gold and certainly never for ungodly desires. We risk for the sake of the beloved and we are moderate for the sake of the beloved.

And so Hope and I are helping a group of chums start a kindergarten through college. Why? We love this city, the students we get to serve, and the faculty called to be with us. Love guides us, love motivates us, and love sustains us. Where we fail love, we repent and Love has provided mercy and grace. It is the old way: the way we were taught by our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents . . . and the fathers and mothers of the greater family: the one holy, catholic, and orthodox church.

We are trying to take risks for love . . . and the pleasure of the company of the friends leading the quest . . . moderately.

What larks!