Prophets & Dog Farms
It is a long-running joke that when I retire, I want to work at a dog farm.
Don’t get me wrong here – I love working with people! For over two decades now I have spent most of my life in coffee shops meeting with individuals of all sorts or hopping on virtual calls working to solve huge social issues. From age 40 to 60 I have lived deeply with my purpose and call and have had the opportunity to meet so many wonderful people and organizations.
But the prophetic coat often wears heavy and especially in bad weather – climates where the most vulnerable are not served well and all the while we live and breathe in a city of excessive wealth. At times I know too much and don’t want to drench the partygoers with all-encompassing sad news.
How can I go to the Santa Barbara Prayer Breakfast at the Hilton and completely enjoy the breakfast when I know friends currently experiencing homelessness are not in the audience or on the stage? How do I publicly address the system of labor and sex trafficking with modern-day slavery with an economic system that in many ways flourishes because of this very reality? For me these questions are not random thoughts, but real blood, flesh, and bone bodily-felt realities.
And at this time, I know, I can feel my patience and my ability to bounce back waning – and at 60 this concerns me for how I might lose my sense of advocacy in “healthy” ways. I have always wondered about how you define “a healthy prophet.” Is it natural that society just wants a mild dose? And from my understanding of other communities and the scriptures themselves, I consider myself in the mild category, like maybe a five out of ten.
Am I this way because that is what I can get away with while making a living? Have I been faithful to call out the injustice I see?
As I aged, I did not think that this overwhelming call would increase. Maybe because just natural vitality decreases over time – I considered too that this might be true for this inclination. But it is only getting stronger. And so thankfully I work with a team of people who give this space – so my personal thanks to the Kingdom Causes team and to all our core partners who have to work with me on the daily.
Even my own internal monologue drives me to this future of working on a dog farm. I think dog lovers would understand the reasoning so no need to go into details. There is no longer any need to challenge the status quo – but just play fetch with a bunch of furry friends.