I have been honored to be asked to participate in this writer’s schedule with Metroyouthnetwork. Having agreed to do so, I am now challenged with sharing thoughts on “culture.” So I started this first day of a new work week reflecting on, of all things, our Salvation Army culture.
I idly flipped through an Army publication to start somewhere. “Arts” would be the first in that long culture line; over the weekend I had been excited to receive the news of the highly successful concert offered by the Army youth in the United Kingdom. 140 young folks gathered in Bournemouth, the seashore community made famous by tourists, for a week similar to Central’s CMI. It culminated in what turned out to be an awesome musical extravaganza under the banner “Seize the Day!” That arrested my attention, as “Carpe Diem” (seize the day) has resonated with me for a long time.
With sincere apologies to musician aficionados of this column, I grabbed on to my own usual carpe diem imperatives – usually wrapped around finding the multitude of opportunities for using new relationships with the disenfranchised to bring them to the Savior. Just recently one territory has been conducting their own re-branding of Army housing programs with focus on beginning to view homeless people as folks who have a contribution to play in our society. Hmm!
My mind kept skipping as it often does when I get to these issues. The next stop was a Chicago Sun Times article regarding the appointment of Cheryl Hyman, currently top executive at Com Ed, but soon to be chancellor for City Colleges of Chicago. Her personal story is high school drop out, leaving her home with substance abusing parents to avoid falling into her parents’ trap, following her burning passion “to do better.” She obviously did but continues to mentor teens in Chicago’s inner city. She’s often queried why she was successful while so many are not. I quote her response: “a lot of our kids don’t have that inner strength. Success needs to look like them. Success needs to feel like them….”
So my mind skips onward to our inner city corps and the many teens that are involved with the Army activities. Does the “culture” we minister there meet Cheryl Hyman’s criteria? Do you and I foster those kinds of relationship bridges?
My mind goes back to the “Seize the Day” concert which highlighted the testimony of Paul, the apostle. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13) the territorial youth chorus rendering “His Strength is Perfect.” A later number happened to be “Wake Up, O Sleeper” – coincident or strategic?
Hazel Lee contributes this to the Carpe Diem dictionary that can be found on line: “I held a moment in my heart, brilliant as a star, fragile as a flower, a tiny sliver of one hour. I dropped it carelessly. Ah! I didn’t know I held an opportunity.”
Grab a culture opportunity today!
Youth Department