1988 was a long time ago. It was also the first of nine summers I would spend in Pasadena on an urban project with InterVarsity. Maybe I’m a slow learner. Or maybe something, or someone (aka the Holy Spirit) deep within me knew that there was more for me to learn from living and serving in an inner city neighborhood than I could ingest in one intensive summer... or eight. One pass at Isaiah 58 or the book of Amos was not enough. My perspective kept changing as did the things I kept learning, summer after summer.
Through these urban project experiences I have grown to care deeply for the people who live in inner city neighborhoods like the one where I now live in Fresno. And I have grown to yearn deeply for justice to roll like a river through the broken systems that cause so much pain in our country… race, immigration, the prison industrial complex, sweatshops…. Naturally I wanted to be an activist and do something to work for change in these arenas. I found my niche, at least for a season, in bringing college students with me every summer to Pasadena. Activism felt good, but it wasn’t healing the aching loneliness I was feeling or helping me become less critical and judgmental. In fact it was having the opposite effect.
Working For the Way Things Ought to Be
In yearning and working for things to be the way they ought to be in the inner city of Pasadena and Fresno I am discovering that God is yearning for me to experience the things I have been working so hard for others to experience. God wants for things to be the way they ought to be inside of me… in the anxiety and depression I’ve struggled with and in those parts of me that seem to sabotage the very good I’m working to accomplish. These are the parts of me that are deeper than my conscious thoughts and my will and that often leave me angry, frustrated or disgusted with myself when I am working so hard to do what is right only to find that I’m not a very loving or kind person while I’m doing it!
Experiencing God's Love Through the Contemplative
I do want to experience the love of God for myself and see it transform these communities. Becoming a contemplative, practicing spiritual disciplines that lead to inner transformation, has become the pathway for experiencing the love of God for myself. In addition I’m finding that things are changing for the good in my activism. I am becoming more aware of my inner motivations especially those that have me doing the right things for the wrong reasons. I am becoming more patient and loving, experiencing and exhibiting more of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). My inner and outer worlds are becoming more consistent and my work as an activist is coming from a place of greater depth and clarity.
It took my work as an activist to discover my need for the contemplative, and my inner work as a contemplative is transforming my activism. There is a growing contemplative movement among Christian activists that is anchoring the work for justice and social change in the deeper wisdom of the Christian tradition. As this movement grows we will see more and more activists experiencing and embodying the transformation we are working for. To this I say yes, come Lord Jesus… and won’t you join us?
Todd Minturn is the Assistant Director of the Fresno Institute for Urban Leadership (FIFUL) where he provides spiritual formation and pastoral care. He also serves as a cross-cultural training specialist for the Surf & Turf Division. Todd will writing a monthly column on the spiritual life, reflecting on contemplative practices, spiritual disciplines and how these practices sustain us in urban ministry.
