I'm shot out of a cannon into a teaming cauldron of diverse young adult humanity. The Quad at Diablo Valley Community College on a hot August afternoon. Students every size, shape, ethnicity, spirituality. Persian Hip Hop dudes, pagan beauties, quiet cool Latino guys, giggling gaggles of african queens. Quiet pairs of headcovered sisters, eyes not making contact with you. Stealth Asian cell phone guys, talking to countries on the other side of the world. Hollister skinny models and awkward disabled kids. Gangsters and punks. Jesus Freaks and Queers. Homeschool modest, makeuped middle-class, rave brazen urban. Skater cool, gamer greasy, jock confident. All displaced. First day of classes. Left behind by their 4.0 friends, kept behind by their penny-pinching parents. Their worlds converge onto 1,000 yards of hot concrete and splinter into a hundreds of whispering pockets of conversation about where'd ya go to high school and man I couldn't get this class.
The heavens dumped diversity onto a concrete courtyard and it wanders through this random maze of stone benches and trees before it dissapears into outer courtyards, hallways and buildings beyond. The image of God takes it's form today in ten thousand twenty-somethings looking around wanting to dance and waiting for music. Hormones stuffed into that's some t-shirt honey and pants oh too small and pants oh to baggy and shirts oh so saggy. Dreams churning inside, sealed with t-shirt logos and burdened by backpacks. Emotions put away during the walk from the parking lot masked by a cigarette and dulled by what's inside those headphones. So many beautiful, open, lost students. Hope lies in this remnant of radiant, missional collegians in their midst and the Savior they follow. Bands of brothers, circles of sisters synced with the Spirit reaching out to the peoples of the quad. So sobering. So compelling. So mystifying. So dumped onto a concrete courtyard.
I wander through the student union after watching the ten thousand criss-cross the maze all day. Drawn must be by God or my curiosity or my aching heart. Awkard quiet then, "Hello, I remember you" says friendly long-haired raver named Mantis. Mantis of the Pagan student society, yes I remember, I listened to their stories and dined with them open air last fall. He shot me for the newspaper think. I was this commodity, one pagan-loving tall open-air preacher with Indonesian Jesus groupies and the Pentecostal rock band warm up act. That was some day preaching the Gospel by the Pond.
He picks up w/ me like it was yesterday and whisks me into the coolness of the student government backroom. We banter listfully at his desk as he plays me clip after clip of his favorite music genres: Hardcore, Electronica, Happy Punk. Then video after video of twirling, juggling, glowing numchuck Mantis routines. His signature contribution at parties preserved on Youtube. During a throbbing rave of 10,000 young adults in SF's Bill Grahm auditorium he calmly explains to me what's going on inside him and the crowd as he points to where he stood onstage juggling, shooting photos in his glory. It's like he's returning a favor and sharing his Gospel with me. Mantis in this 10k mix feels fully alive. Mantis and his church of ten thousand in the video. Mantis and his ten thousand brothers and sisters on the quad ...are looking. Both Mantis and me in that cool back room are looking for something. We're both looking for Jesus.
Mantis surpizes me and exclaims, "we are the new hippies". We are searching and yearing for peace, love, pleasure and respect. We are looking for it in music. We are looking for it in drugs. We are looking for it in one another. Mantis and his clan are starving, thirsty, and oh so lost. Music unites them in time. This dumped onto concrete clan of music hungry imagebearers are wandering and waiting. This sweaty rave online is my oh so hungry and thirsty. This generation is hungrier and thirstier than hippies in the Haight, sweltering in the summer sun of 1967.
We are ready for the Kingdom. So waiting for the Kingdom. So wanting for a King. All of us, looking for Jesus. Jesus, dump your Kingdom onto all the diversity on this concrete courtyard. Dump it out on ready and waiting me and on raving praying Mantis. -dc
The heavens dumped diversity onto a concrete courtyard and it wanders through this random maze of stone benches and trees before it dissapears into outer courtyards, hallways and buildings beyond. The image of God takes it's form today in ten thousand twenty-somethings looking around wanting to dance and waiting for music. Hormones stuffed into that's some t-shirt honey and pants oh too small and pants oh to baggy and shirts oh so saggy. Dreams churning inside, sealed with t-shirt logos and burdened by backpacks. Emotions put away during the walk from the parking lot masked by a cigarette and dulled by what's inside those headphones. So many beautiful, open, lost students. Hope lies in this remnant of radiant, missional collegians in their midst and the Savior they follow. Bands of brothers, circles of sisters synced with the Spirit reaching out to the peoples of the quad. So sobering. So compelling. So mystifying. So dumped onto a concrete courtyard.
I wander through the student union after watching the ten thousand criss-cross the maze all day. Drawn must be by God or my curiosity or my aching heart. Awkard quiet then, "Hello, I remember you" says friendly long-haired raver named Mantis. Mantis of the Pagan student society, yes I remember, I listened to their stories and dined with them open air last fall. He shot me for the newspaper think. I was this commodity, one pagan-loving tall open-air preacher with Indonesian Jesus groupies and the Pentecostal rock band warm up act. That was some day preaching the Gospel by the Pond.
He picks up w/ me like it was yesterday and whisks me into the coolness of the student government backroom. We banter listfully at his desk as he plays me clip after clip of his favorite music genres: Hardcore, Electronica, Happy Punk. Then video after video of twirling, juggling, glowing numchuck Mantis routines. His signature contribution at parties preserved on Youtube. During a throbbing rave of 10,000 young adults in SF's Bill Grahm auditorium he calmly explains to me what's going on inside him and the crowd as he points to where he stood onstage juggling, shooting photos in his glory. It's like he's returning a favor and sharing his Gospel with me. Mantis in this 10k mix feels fully alive. Mantis and his church of ten thousand in the video. Mantis and his ten thousand brothers and sisters on the quad ...are looking. Both Mantis and me in that cool back room are looking for something. We're both looking for Jesus.
Mantis surpizes me and exclaims, "we are the new hippies". We are searching and yearing for peace, love, pleasure and respect. We are looking for it in music. We are looking for it in drugs. We are looking for it in one another. Mantis and his clan are starving, thirsty, and oh so lost. Music unites them in time. This dumped onto concrete clan of music hungry imagebearers are wandering and waiting. This sweaty rave online is my oh so hungry and thirsty. This generation is hungrier and thirstier than hippies in the Haight, sweltering in the summer sun of 1967.
We are ready for the Kingdom. So waiting for the Kingdom. So wanting for a King. All of us, looking for Jesus. Jesus, dump your Kingdom onto all the diversity on this concrete courtyard. Dump it out on ready and waiting me and on raving praying Mantis. -dc
"That's when Peter stood up and, backed by the other eleven, spoke out with bold urgency: "Fellow Jews, all of you who are visiting Jerusalem, listen carefully and get this story straight. These people aren't drunk as some of you suspect. They haven't had time to get drunk—it's only nine o'clock in the morning. This is what the prophet Joel announced would happen:
"In the Last Days," God says,
"I will pour out my Spirit
on every kind of people:
Your sons will prophesy,
also your daughters;
Your young men will see visions,
your old men dream dreams.
When the time comes,
I'll pour out my Spirit
On those who serve me, men and women both,
and they'll prophesy.
I'll set wonders in the sky above
and signs on the earth below,
Blood and fire and billowing smoke,
the sun turning black and the moon blood-red,
Before the Day of the Lord arrives,
the Day tremendous and marvelous;
And whoever calls out for help
to me, God, will be saved.”
(Acts 2: 14-21 The Message)
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