There’s a Jeff Buckley song — Eternal Life — that’s had me thinking a lot lately about our work with students, especially our sense of connectedness to those we reach out to.

One line, in particular is to blame for much of my consternation — ‘where is the love in what your prophet has said?’

It’s been haunting me.

There seems to be this call to live in the tension of being a truth teller — a HARD truth teller — but doing it in love.

Sharing the truth in love — seems simple, and obvious, enough — but I think we have a luxury today that the prophets of old did not — OUR fate is NOT tied to those we are called to serve — and we know it.

Because of this, I’m probably more guilty of focussing on the words of Jesus — to ‘shake the dust from your feet as you leave their home, if they don’t welcome you in or listen to your words,’ than I am of falling into line with many of the prophets who painfully suffered because of how their hearts broke for those they served.

There have been times when I’ve been told, ‘you needed to lighten up’ or ‘you take your job too seriously’!  Maybe I was caring too much… believing that I was their only hope for salvation.

But I know there have been times when I’ve felt pretty care-free and disconnected in my approach to my work with students… and maybe I was protecting myself — my ego and my heart — because students didn’t seem to be responding in the ways that I thought they should.

I wonder: is there a fine line that we are supposed to be walking , between taking our work (and ourselves) too seriously, and not seriously enough?

I’m sure there is.

I just wish it was a visible line before me.

How do you walk this fine line?

What does a healthy sense of connectedness to students — and their fate — look like?

To what degree, if any, do you ever feel that it’s OK to simply ‘shake the dust from your feet’?