This issue is the product of a workshop The Witness offered at the National Gathering of College and University Students over New Year's weekend in Estes Park, Colo. (NatGat 2000, for short, an event sponsored biennially by the Episcopal Church's national Office of Ministries with Young Persons). The workshop group included eight NatGat 2000 participants -- Josh Thomas, Erika von Haaren, Jamie Tester, Ruth Monette, Philip Schaffner, David D'Andrea and Rachel Orville. Two experienced college chaplains, Jacqueline Schmitt and Samson Gitau, and Phyllis Amenda, a second-career graduate student and NatGat workshop leader, also participated. In addition to contributing their ideas, a number of those attending the workshop also wrote articles for the issue. We are deeply grateful for everyone's help.
I recently heard a priest speak of a life-changing sabbatical experience in an Alaskan village church. A stranger to the community, he was not only warmly welcomed, but also invited into the life of the place in ways that tapped into his deepest, truest self as never before.
"They welcomed me with no thought of how I should fit in or how I might best serve some plan or program," the priest reflected. "Instead, they embraced me with the unstated expectation that my inclusion in the congregation's life would most certainly change not only me, but them."
Here was an instance, in other words, of radical hospitality. The stranger at the door welcomed as precious, transforming gift.
I found myself thinking of this Alaskan anecdote frequently as we put the finishing touches on this issue about younger adults and their desire to live lives of faith and meaning. Although the vast majority of the young people I encountered at NatGat 2000 had been brought up in the Episcopal Church or some other mainline denomination, most seemed to see themselves as church outsiders -- not as strangers at the sanctuary door, exactly, but certainly as newcomers. Perhaps as strangers within: people raised in the church, but now too old to be programmed as "youth," too young to have worked their way up the church-leadership pecking order and too culturally enigmatic to make meaningful conversation easy.
Not surprising, then, that much of this issue revolves around younger adults' search for sacrament and solidarity in an atmosphere where they feel fully welcomed and valued.
In the institutional church, such places are in short supply. We bemoan the graying of the church with head-scratching confusion about how to change the trend. We believe ourselves welcoming, but resist the requirements of radical hospitality.
I saw it in myself during NatGat and then in working on this issue with our NatGat editorial planning group. I wanted fewer theological clichés. I hoped for more radical activism. I was disappointed by recurring generalities and I yearned for more nuance.
In other words, I was looking for a level of maturity and experience I imagined necessary to meet The Witness' standards. These younger folks were not who I expected -- or, perhaps, hoped for.
Luckily, I hung in, uncomfortable as that proved to be. I was at first tempted to write off their desire for congruence between professed belief and lived reality as a déja vu task of the young. But, as I listened to them speak of their struggle to weigh lifestyle and career choices against a Gospel of liberating love, radical justice and simple living -- and in light of the difficult-to-ignore influence of parental and societal expectations -- I had to admit that by no stretch of the imagination could I say that I've "arrived." In fact, I frequently felt humbled by these younger adults' honesty and commitment. And envious of their deep understanding that, although there's a politics to everything, life is primarily about imagination. I also could see that in some ways they understand today's world much better than people my age do. I found myself wanting to hear more, not less, of what they had to say.
How often we ignore that respectful mutual relationships require self-effacing presence. The gathering's organizers recognized this and asked that participants -- especially the most likely offenders, the elders --agree to not arrive late or leave early. I confess that I arrived in Estes Park wishing I could do just that. If I had, I'd have preserved the self-deception that I had the busier and more important schedule, but lost any genuine idea of what NatGat 2000 and its participants were about -- and risked losing my own credibility.
And so, this issue of The Witness has turned out differently than I thought. My NatGat encounter has opened up possibilities and offered challenges -- gifts for which I am truly grateful.
My hope is that truly embracing her "strangers within" will do as much for the church.
Julie A. Wortman is editor/publisher of The Witness.