The Good Life Belongs to the Ones who are Unimportant and Overlooked
Our upcoming week at Hope Heals Camp, and what it teaches me about spiritual reality.
A few years ago, I was seated next to a businessman from New York City at a fundraising dinner. I asked him about his summer plans, and he told me they would travel to Paris for his wife’s birthday and later spend time on Nantucket. I felt a little sheepish when he asked me our plans in return. Our only family adventure that summer was a trip to Nauvoo, Alabama, for a week at Hope Heals Camp.
Hope Heals Camp exists for families affected by disability. Our family participates for one week every summer, and I look forward to it all year long. We don’t go because it fulfills some sort of community service requirement for our children. We don’t go because we feel like good people when we give of our time in this way. We go because it offers us an invitation to live within a deeper and truer reality than our everyday lives. We go because when we are there—bugs and humidity and camp food and all—we are truly living the good life.
On Sunday, the Becker family will return to camp for our fourth summer, and this time I get to share some thoughts with the other volunteers about the spiritual truths embedded within Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:2-13, this list of nine blessings that we commonly call the Beatitudes.
Maybe you’ve heard some of them:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit… Blessed are those who mourn… Blessed are the peacemakers…”
These words seem so blatantly untrue.
Perhaps you, like me, have wondered what these words mean. They seem so contrary to our lived experience. They seem so blatantly untrue.
One translator suggests that the best way to understand these verses is by imagining Jesus saying, “The good life belongs to the ones who mourn…”
It is hard to understand why Jesus would say that life is good for the people who are unimportant and overlooked and oppressed. I can understand why he would say that God loves those people, or why he might promise God’s justice to them in the end, or why he might express compassion for their plight.
But why would he say that their experience, here and now, is a good one, one that embodies the way of blessing, one that points to the realm of God?
Live the values of love and joy and peace and kindness
My desire to return to a sweaty campsite, surrounded by people who have experienced all the rejections and sorrows this world has to offer, has helped me to better understand Jesus’ message.
I want to be at camp because there’s an honesty, humility, and hopefulness embodied within the community.
I want to be there because it connects me to a deeper reality than my everyday existence.
I want to be there because I experience what Jesus describes when he says that the kingdom of God has come among us.
I want to be there because it is a place where social dividing lines start to disappear, where status ceases to function as currency, where everyone is lifted up.
I listened to a great conversation between Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and social-scientist Adam Grant this week, and I was so taken by Grant’s answer when Dr. Murthy asked him how he defines success. Grant said:
“I used to think it was achieving goals. Now I see it as living values.”
The Beatitudes, and the Sermon on the Mount, are Jesus’ way to live the values of love and joy and peace and kindness. For me, a week at Hope Heals is a chance to live those values too.
Jesus’ Beatitudes describe the people who are overlooked and unappreciated and ignored. And then he says:
“You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world.”
I didn’t connect the dots until very recently. The meek, the poor in spirit, the mourning, the persecuted. They are the ones who shine light into dark places. They are the ones who change the world. We—and even the broken and hurting parts of us—are invited to be God’s people on this earth, living out a spiritual reality that, in the words of U2 “has to be believed to be seen.”
An Invitation to Participate in the Good Life
Most of you who are reading this message won’t be joining me at camp this year (though I hope you’ll check out Hope Heals and consider coming next July). But all of us can participate in the spiritual reality Jesus proclaims. Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Enterprises and author of Tattoos on the Heart, says that the Beatitudes are not so much a spirituality as they are a geography. They are words that “tell us where to stand.”
Next week, at Hope Heals Camp, it will be easier than usual for me to stand in my own poverty of spirit and meekness. It will be easier for me to stand with those who mourn and those who hunger for righteousness. But for all of us, in our day to day lives, that’s the invitation...
To stand in the places of hurt and sorrow.
To stay with the parts of ourselves and the parts of those around us who need to be comforted, who cry out for mercy.
To imagine Jesus pronouncing a word of blessing on the ones who you most want to ignore.
To wonder whether there is peace and joy and love for you if, instead of walking away, you enter in.
Reimagining the Good Life
When our daughter Penny was born and diagnosed with Down syndrome, our imagination was shaped solely by fear. But over the past 18 years—through other parents, doctors, therapists, friends, and our faith—our imagination has instead been shaped by possibility. I want to share what I’ve learned with you!
So I created a four-session workshop that offers families affected by disability a way to envision and move toward a good future.
I offered the first live, virtual workshop in May, and the response was so encouraging that we’ve been working behind the scenes to make this workshop available to more people!
Workshop registration will open NEXT week, with brand new options for you to choose from:
Workshop (live, virtual) - Next cohort begins on September 18
Online Course (self-paced)
Video Teaching (group use)
You’ll be one of the first to know when registration is open. Watch for an email next week!
I would love to hear from you (reply to the email or leave a comment).
Blessings to you,
Amy Julia
FREE RESOURCE
10 WAYS TO MOVE TOWARD A GOOD FUTURE
{Especially for Families Affected by Disability}
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EVENTS
July 21-26:
Pastor for Volunteers at Hope Heals Camp
Thank you, Amy Julia, for this recentering reflection on the holy places where “status ceases to function as currency.” Beautiful line. And I love the quote on living values! 🙏🏻
It takes courage to forget about social status and not hide in parochial groups. You could easily do that and choose not to. Thank you!