five small stones

life together

2010-08-29T12:30:00.003-04:00

Simple thought:

Running is often times my metaphor for life... it is where God often times meets me, teaches me, hangs out with me, and reminds me of things that he has already taught me. The image of running a race as a metaphor for life has been very powerful for me, in teaching me perseverance, patience, training, endurance, silence, honesty, sacrifice, selflessness, and many other things

And yesterday I remembered, once again, that I run better when I run with others.

Apply as you will.

FINE! I'll make you happy!

2010-08-27T00:16:00.005-04:00

Three months later, and many dollars shorter but memories richer, I return to the blogosphere. I could apologize for many paragraphs, but we'll just leave it with, "friend, it's good to be back!"

The other night I went running, as I have many nights this summer [reason #951 to love the cooler northern summers]. As I was running through one of the crowded areas of the city, I passed a woman in her mid-twenties, talking on [and when I say talking on, I mean screaming into] her cell phone. I'm not entirely sure what the conversation was about, but I do know that the average conversation soundbite that I can actually catch while running the opposite direction is about 10 seconds. This one, I caught about 30 seconds of due to high volume of said individual and the language in that 30 second soundbite alone would have required a R rating...

So I'm guessing the conversation wasn't necessarily a happy go-lucky one.

At any rate, the one phrase, screamed into the phone, that most caught my ear was this:

"FINE! I'll make you happy. I won't be [...] happy at all but I'll make you [...] happy. I hope you know how [...] miserable this makes me."

Man. What a picture of love. Truly the self-sacrificing martyr that one... chances are high that she will [and by that I mean, will not] receive a metal of honor for that sacrifice...

Yet, as much as I roll my eyes and am shocked by her angry, loud, ugly response [to an unknown prompt, in an unknown situation], I wonder how often my own heart response is very similar...

"FINE! I know it's the right thing to do, so I'll do it, but I'm not going to like it..."
"FINE! I know I need to be talk to her/him, so I'll do it, but I'm going to hate every minute of it."
"FINE! I'll go, because it matters to you, but I'd really rather be anywhere else."

I might not verbalize those things... in fact, given my semi-southern culture, you might never know what's going on inside. But the ugliness is still just as ugly.

May I be as convicted of my own bent-ness, as I am of hers...

Have mercy.

thank you, mischiveous friend...

2010-06-28T12:33:00.003-04:00

Someone out there deserves mega kudos for a fantastic prank against me. Friend, I do not know who you are, but I'm impressed.

Allow me to give you a sampling of the emails and mailings that I've received in the last two months, arriving each and every day:

- Babies R Us Catalogs
- What to Expect When You're Expecting
- Newborn Photo Gallery portrait options
- A 3 day sample pack of Enfamil Newborn Baby Formula (my personal favorite)

- Emails entitled:
"Congratulations, You're now in your 3rd Trimester!"
"Dealing with your postpartum body"
"Your baby is almost here!"
"Delivering your baby naturally"
"The Pro's and Con's of Epidurals"
"How to Avoid Stretch Marks"
"Congratulations on your new arrival!"

So, anonymous friend, thank you for your sass. Your wit. Your class. And apparently my newly-born child, which can be credited to you. That was the most effortless delivery pregnancy and postpartum possible. Thank you. And I applaud your creativity. :)

It is what it is.

2010-06-23T09:21:00.007-04:00

"It is what it is."

A phrase of uncertain origin, some say appearing as far back as 1949, is a well-known sports cliche, often used to describe unfavorable outcomes or circumstances in games or competitions. Coach John Fox of the Carolina Panthers, for example, frequently included it in his arsenal to describe his team's performance... sorry Panthers, better luck next season.

Regardless of its origin, it is a phrase that I have heard a lot lately...

... I just lost my job, but... it is what it is.
... My start-up company failed and we lost 11 million dollars in 11 months, but...
... I am really lonely and would love to be in a relationship, but...
... I have a lousy relationship with my family, but...
... I haven't slept in four days, I am completely overwhelmed, but...
... my elephant has a sinus infection, and is lame in three legs, but...

"It is what it is."

[note, all real examples except the last one]

What does that even mean?! It is what it is. It's like saying... "See that squirrel over there? That's a squirrel." True. Not helpful. See, the way that I see it, there are three possible things that we could be meaning when we utter this particular cliche:

1. Eh. I don't know what to say, so I'm going to fill air space by not really saying anything.
2. Eh. I don't want to engage with you with the fact that this is horrible, so I'm going to just pretend that I'm in control of the situation and okay with it all.
3. Eh. I am currently trying to persuade myself of an alternative reality and parallel universe theory isn't doing it for me, so instead, I'm just trying to pretend that this current situation isn't lame.

Really folks, we can do better than that.

It's a cliche phrase that attempts to fill a space that would have a far more profound impact if we just said, "it sucks" or were silent. It brushes off things that matter in a frivolous attempt to be cavalier and nonchalant.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of many cliche phrases. Just Manny being Manny. That's the way the cookie crumbles. She's moving slower than molasses in January. That's what she said. Bless her heart. Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle. All's well that ends well. No problems with cliches. But "it is what it is" is a cliche that can go...

Father's Day

2010-06-20T09:21:00.004-04:00

I went into CVS the other day, to look for a Father's day card for my dad, which is always interesting. Hallmark cards these days, man. Ridiculous. But what was striking to me this time was the categories into which the cards were broken down, within the "dad" section...

"great dad"
"supportive dad"
"good dad"
"any kind of dad"
"mom's significant-other"
"mom who was strong in dad's absence"
"like a father to me"

This morning my facebook news feed wished me happy Father's Day in many different languages through the words of friends who are profoundly grateful for their fathers, their children's fathers, etc. And it made me smile. I am grateful for my father, and I am delighted that so many friends have extraordinary fathers for whom they are, and should be, profoundly grateful! :)

But, on this day, reminded by Hallmark, I am also deeply aware that there are many, with many different reasons, for whom Father's Day is not a happy celebration... for whom the idea of father brings painful, not joyful, memories, images and thoughts. As my dear friend Alex* pointed out, we are hard wired for good family relationships and, centrally in that, relationship with a good father, of whom God is the original. But, for many of us, that has not been or is not our experience. And so, Father's Day is a complicated, if not grievous, occasion.

And so this Father's Day, I just want to take a moment to acknowledge that fact. It's OK if it's hard. And whether today is hard because your relationship with your dad is strained to non-existent, or because he's no longer present, or never was, because he was your hero and is gone, or because you still bear the wounds of his failures, because you miss him, or because you wish that he'd go away, whatever the reason might be... it's OK for today to be hard.

See I think Father's Day reflects well the fact that we are were created for good family relationships... and within that, we were wired for good relationship with our earthly fathers, who are intended to be a reflection of the character of our good Father in heaven. And when those relationships are absent, or broken, or bent, it reflects a part of life that is not as intended.

So in a strange way, I actually want to encourage you to celebrate today, even if that means allowing yourself to mourn, that Father's Day is hard because even that mourning reflects the fact that you were created for and long for good, whole, and holy relationship with a good Father. And that's a holy longing, which is fulfilled, and satisfied in relationship with your perfect Father. That ache you feel is a longing for things to be as they were intended, and if it leads you to press deeper into trust of your heavenly Father and hope for and anticipation of all things made new when Jesus comes again, it is a holy thing.

So, whatever your circumstance today, I think Father's Day is or can be a celebration for you. Whether it's celebration of the good gift that your earthly father is or was, or a longing and hunger for consummation of all things made new and the restoration of things as they should be, it is a day to celebrate. Either in anticipation or in realization.

So Happy Father's Day, to one and all! May it be a day of complete celebration one day soon!

* Alex also has several other excellent posts on God as Father, found here, here, and here.

[tranquility]

2010-06-17T16:13:00.004-04:00

[Baltimore, Inner Harbor, June 6, 2010]

To sit with bare feet dangling over the water and feel the breeze off the shore caressing your face, watching the sunset in the distance.
To hear the jazz ringing gently in the background.
To sense the presence of your best friend beside you, no words necessary, just being.
The cool of evening surrounding you as darkness begins to take possession of the day.

Sometimes life moves too fast.

why I talk to strangers...

2010-05-19T15:22:00.002-04:00

I have a very clear memory of one particular night in college, when I was babysitting for a particular family with three sons, ages 9, 6, and 3 at the time. The parents and I were talking about traveling... Without thinking about the audience, I inserted honestly, that I really enjoyed having opportunities to have meaningful and real, as well as totally random, conversations with strangers when I travel. The middle son looked startled, and said to me,

"But mommy says that we're not supposed to talk to strangers?!"

Whoops. Case number 5713 in which I need to think before I speak.

For a 6 year old, it's a totally valid question. It's wise. Safe and healthy. Kids, obey your parents in that. And sometimes, it's even super healthy for grown-ups. Not all strangers are nice wonderful warm fuzzy people. And of course, caution is a good thing. Use your head, trust your instincts. But at the same time...

I think sometimes we use that as an excuse. And so we miss out on opportunities to receive from others. And we miss out on opportunities to encourage someone else or even just listen to them.

Not to say that we need to talk to every stranger who winds up next to us on a plane. That could be slightly creepy, not to mention overkill, and let's face it, there are some weirdos out there. Let's covertly side note the woman who poked me with the spork for an 8 hour flight. But at the same time, I think if we're honest, the reason that we don't talk to strangers, 95% of the time, has nothing to do with their creepy factor. If the truth is told, I think 95% of the time, we're just plain lazy. Talking to strangers, taking interest in their lives, takes effort. It takes enough time with our friends, let alone a random plane buddy that we're never going to see again.

But maybe just maybe, there's something you could offer that random stranger who is sitting next to you on the plane. In today's culture, you are hard-pressed to find someone who is willing to listen. That is a gift which we can easily give to any stranger, any day. Or perhaps, there's something that that random stranger has to offer you. Some of the wisest tidbits that I have ever gotten has come from random individuals who I happen to bump into, sit next to, or get stranded with.

My point? Strangers are people too... and it might be that there's something beautiful that you could gain or give by letting your lives collide (if they're also acquiescent). Might take a little bit of work, risk being awkward, and require some conversational/listening skills. But it also might be well worth it! Or we could just pop the ipod back in... choice of the day. :)

running a marathon

2010-05-15T16:44:00.004-04:00

When I was about four to six weeks old, I stopped taking naps. Mom always said it was because I was so eager to take on the world at full-speed ahead that I was unwilling to stop for even a 30-minute shut-eye...

As I've aged, this full-speed ahead tendency has not diminished, but continues to be a primary part of my operating system. I'm a runner by blood-line [my father once knocked out a tooth by running into a moving mini-van racing his mother home from college... yes, college]. But even as a runner, I live for the sprints. I love the adrenaline rush of pushing so hard that your muscles begin to burn, you can't breathe, but you can feel the wind rushing by and you're barely touching the ground, and you start to feel like you're flying... yeah, basically my favorite feeling in the whole world!

My sophomore year in high school, I began running cross-country competitively in order to stay in shape for soccer. And when I started running cross-country, 3.11 miles felt super long, just to be able to sprint the last quarter mile. But I learned to pace, because I learned very quickly that I couldn't finish the race unless I learned to run at a sustainable pace. Sprinting is exhilarating... but it does you very little good, unless you can also cross the finish line.

And this lesson has carried over to life as well. While I would love to [and sometimes do] jump into a million different exciting new opportunities and take on thousands of delightful projects simultaneously, that pace tends to be completely devastating to all operating systems. As much as I would like for it to be a sprint, life is not a sprint... it's a distance run.

Now, I find myself at another major crossroads in life, it seems only fitting that I am also running my first marathon. Because life and relationships are not a sprint, but a distance run... and with the exception of the most elite runners, marathons are not a matter of how fast you run, or how beautiful your form is, or if you have to walk for a bit, or even about being better than everyone else... marathons are about going the distance, and finishing the race, not about the sprints... or so I've heard.

So here I find myself, in training. Jumping into the unknown. Building up endurance and preparing to run the race... You just might have to remind me to slow down every now and then... :)

Summer Reading List

2010-05-05T14:47:00.004-04:00

Well friends, the summer is fast approaching, and you know what that means: Summer reading lists! [this is exciting to me!] [Perhaps some of you aren't as nerdy as me...] [you would not believe how many books I have on my shelf that I'm "waiting for the right moment" to read.]

As an InterVarsity staff, one of the ways that I utilize my time during the summer is by studying and reading [both Christian and secular sources] to improve my own knowledge, and to enable me to minister more effectively during the school year.

This year, as I prepare to embark into the summer, I find myself with a rather ambitious looking reading list [which I'm pretty excited about!]. If anyone is interested in reading with me, by all means, let me know!

Summer Reading List 2010

A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving
The Divine Comedy by Dante
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
A Beggar in Jerusalem by Elie Wiesel
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken
The Great Divorce by CS Lewis
The Problem of Pain by CS Lewis
He Has Made Me Glad by Ben Patterson
Good News About Injustice by Gary Haugen
Real Sex by Lauren Winner
Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas
Stretch Out Your Hand Tilda by Norberg and Robert Webber
The Deeper Journey by M. Robert Mulholland
The Gift of Being Yourself by David Benner

spring has arrived

2010-05-03T09:45:00.004-04:00

Last night, when I went running, I literally had to leap over a pair of ducks in the middle of copulation. We're talking feathers flying, full-out process of be-fruitful-and-multiply.

I was running along the river, minding my own business, engrossed in my own thoughts, enjoying the cooling breeze, right before dusk, when all of a sudden they appeared out of nowhere. Conjoined. Fully engaged. And plopped down in the path, right in front of me.

And I could not just run around them. I did not merely pass them by. Nor was I afforded the luxury of seeing them from a distance. I literally had to jump over them. Jump.Over.Them.

And they were so engrossed en-act that they didn't even blink an eye. Just let me soar over-top like the cow jumping over the moon (and I ask, where were the cat and the fiddle??). Really, birds? REALLY? No shame.

Despite temperatures which might indicate otherwise, spring has in fact arrived in Boston...

Silent Disco

2010-04-28T20:17:00.004-04:00

Picture the scene with me: a club full of people, moving and gyrating to music, tapping and spinning to a beat, hot and sweaty, multicolored lights flashing, more bodies than befits the space... typical club. Except for the fact that no music is audible. Every club go-er is outfitted with a pair of wireless headphones, and they and only they can hear the music.

Each one dancing to their own beat. Together, yet not. In the same place, all dancing, yet isolated from one another. How awkward if your dancing buddy is swinging to Celine Dion while you're rocking out to some Black Eyed Peas.

The scene that I am describing is a semi-recent and growing phenomena known as the silent disco. It's more popular in the UK/Europe than in the US, but still present in both.

As I have been thinking about popular culture, specifically within the college and young adult demographic, this image has repeatedly stuck in my mind, and I think it is a somewhat apt descriptor of trends that I see more often than not.

This generation is exceedingly communal. They hunger to be in the same place with others, and are always looking for groups of common interest or a sense of belonging. They gravitate towards "connections" with others, be that through social networking sites, common interest groups, advocacy groups, or even the rise of mobile communications devices. We are a generation of connectors: we want to belong, we want to be in the know, and we do not want to be "loners." See for example: Facebook, Twitter, the blogosphere, texting, websites relating awkward and embarrassing (yet humorous) personal stories, and the party culture on college campuses.

Yet at the same time, there is a degree to which, even in that "together" culture, we want to do so on our terms. We retain the right to choose how much information we share, where and when (c.f. facebook privacy settings and the invisible option for gchat). We select when we want to be "networked in" and when we want to be "invisible." And we seemingly want a "no-strings-attached" sense of relationships. The hook-up, one night stands, and casual sexual encounter culture are prime examples. Or I can "sext" you when I want you, or even just sign into a social networking site like Chat Roulette for a few hours, if I want a seriously string-free "connection." On a platonic level, let's talk about all the facebook friends that we have, but don't really actually talk to or stay in contact with. We want the connections, but we want it on our own terms, to our own tune, to fit with our schedule and our lives.

Silent disco. Together, yet not. Everyone dancing, together, yet each to his own beat on his own ipod. Able to maintain complete individuality, in the context of presumed communality.

I do not mean to appear cynical... I think there are a lot of positives to the culture of this generation. But I think there are also dangers... see in this culture, I think we settle for a placebo of being known. Of belonging. And my contention is that ultimately that is not satisfying. Which is why, above and beyond all else, the deepest hunger of this generation is still to belong. To be known.

We were made to share life together, in a way that community has the ability to shape and refine, to influence and impact the ways in which we live. And vice versa, us to our community. But we cannot seek that without also being willing to open ourselves up to the inconvenience and authenticity of really being known. And knowing others. People are messy. You are messy. I am messy. Community is messy.

But the beauty of real community is that we dance this messy dance together, learning together, laughing with one another as we look ridiculously off beat, but learning from one another's mistakes, talents, gifts, and experiences, and maybe just maybe, having a little bit more real and honest fun because we're dancing together.

talking about the m-word

2010-04-22T12:11:00.003-04:00

[So, I'm going to talk about sexuality for a little bit, if you feel the need to censor, feel free].

So, in my job, I end up having many conversations about different issues, behaviors, brokenness, and habits, that wouldn't normally come up in a "regular" job. It is a privilege and an honor to hear about people's struggles and depths; one that I do not take lightly.

Among those, often times, conversations about sexuality will come up... we were created as sexual beings, and that is a good thing! To struggle with sexual brokenness, I think, is inherent to the fact our best and most human needs and desires are often those most deeply bent and marred by sin. And so, our sexuality, a good and holy thing, is often twisted and bent in ways that are not holy as a result of sin: lust, abuse, masturbation, idolatry, pornography, fear, shame; just to name a few... And let's be frank, people: this is not just something that men struggle with... let's debunk that myth, here and now. For real.

At any rate, I find often times, as we get into the topics of sexual brokenness, specifically around the issue of masturbation (the dreaded m-word), we, in Christian circles are taught that it is wrong, and we shouldn't do it, but the "why" is often not as clear... "just don't do it." And then the topic is shut down, because heaven forbid that we actually get caught using the m-word [even onomatopoetically, there's a sense of "dirtiness" to the word]. And I think there is a fear and foolishness associated with that, that is ultimately not satisfactory. If it's wrong, there has to be a reason...

And so I share this quote with you, because I have found it particularly helpful in processing this particular issue... in particular, I find it helpful because it gives us a reason why masturbation is less than God's design, even in the absence of lust or pornography. CS Lewis uses gendered language, but feel free to extrapolate the principle. And while you might not agree (that's fine), hopefully it will at least provide some good food for thought.

---------------------------------

For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back; sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides.

And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman. For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no real woman can rival. Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover; no demand is ever made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity. In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself...

... After all, almost the main work of this life is to come out of ourselves, out of the little, dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison.

- CS Lewis, Letter (March 6, 1956) to a Mr. Mason, Wade Collection, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois. [as quoted in The Broken Image: Restoring Personal Wholeness Through Healing Prayer, by Leanne Payne, Crossway Books, 1981]

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leadership

2010-04-18T11:19:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, we had our annual leadership interest brunch, on campus, telling the story of what has happened with InterVarsity in the past year, and casting vision for what could happen, what we long to see happen, and inviting students to dream with us for what God might do!

My co-staff, Kaitlin, gave a great overview of Nehemiah, in inviting students to think about being part of the vision lived out on campus ("rebuilding the wall"), and then talked about how the beauty of Nehemiah wall-builders is that they are all different with different gifts and skills. There are priests working next to the daughters of Shallum son of Hallohesh; there are perfume makers (who knew they had wall-building skills) working next to goldsmiths, next to commoners. The identities of each are radically different, the skills of each are radically different, but they work together for one common vision (rebuilding the wall). And the wall cannot be completed without each and every one of them.

So to it is with campus leadership: leadership looks different for different people. There is no one mold of a "good" leader. Rather, the task of "advancing the kingdom through whole-life conversion to Jesus" requires extroverts, introverts, science majors, English majors, international students, greeks, seekers, techno-geeks, those with great social skills, church-kids and new Christians... rather leadership involves common vision, and a willingness to step out and allow God to use you; to say, "I don't have much, but here's what I do have."

"Now, let's rebuild that wall..."

in a spacious place..

2010-04-17T10:43:00.002-04:00

So, as I have engaged with a semester of slowing down and pressing in to those areas of vulnerability and weakness, learning how to be a woman on my knees... one of the things that has become very clear to me (was previously clear to my supervisors and friends, but I'm a lil slow) is that I am very performance-driven.

My greatest temptation is to define myself based on what I can do. If I'm succeeding, then I am worthwhile, I am a success. If I fail, then I am a failure. The insidious part of this flawed operating system, is that it perfectly correlates to the American dream... pulling yourself up by your bootstraps (physically impossible, by the way), "Just do it," hard working, innovative, success-driven, climber mentality. So often times, rather than being recognized for the unhealthy mode of operation that it is, I am applauded for it, encouraged in it, and even positively reinforced in that pattern.

And don't mistake me, there is nothing wrong with wanting to succeed. There is nothing wrong with being hard-working. In fact, those are both really positive things! But when our identities are so wrapped up in what we do, that we're afraid to cease doing, we're afraid to fail, because we're not sure that there's anything to us, other than what we do, then there's a problem. And that was me, at the end of last semester.

I would not do things, unless I thought could succeed, because my fear of failure was all-consuming. I was afraid of taking risks. And most crucially, I didn't know how to stop working-- I would work 60-70 hour weeks-- because I didn't want to slow down and actually have to face myself, to figure out who I was in the absence of doing. It was not a place of freedom... and all too often, fear and anxiety were the governing motivators.

Yes, yes, I know, I'm a campus minister, we're supposed to have things together. Wrong. We're often times the most messed up of all people, because we press into our unhealthy patterns in the name of serving God; we run away from facing ourselves by doing "holy" work... and our souls, my soul, become atrophied in the process. Because at the end of the day, under this mode of operation, who we are depends on our ability to meet a standard, to perform well, which looks a lot like a living under the law, yet again.

And friends, that is not living in freedom. You were not set free for the sake of becoming a working machine, defined by what you do. You were set free for the sake of freedom, to serve in freedom, out of delight, not out of a desperate search to define yourself. We, I, you, have an identity already, given by the Father. And any identity that we try to manufacture for ourselves will only a poor reflection of the one intended for us.

So this semester, thanks to the wisdom of my supervisors, has been a semester of slowing... of facing myself, my images of myself, my ways of defining my identity, and in that weakness, falling to my knees, and asking the Father, "Who do you say that I am?"

His answer? "You are my daughter in whom I delight."

Not an identity based in doing, but an identity of belonging and being. A child, a little girl, is loved not because of what she can do, but because of who she is... whether she's Michelangelo or a 5 year old finger-painter... whether she's singing Vivaldi or Veggie Tales... whether she makes Creme Brulee or homemade oatmeal with baking soda instead of sugar... she is loved and delighted in because of who she is.

So too is my identity. Delighted in because I belong to the Father. I am his daughter, known by him, created by him, and loved by him. And in that place, my performance has no weight on my identity. There is freedom to fail. To take risks. To try things that I might not be good at. To acknowledge places in which I am weak. Don't get me wrong, I still want to succeed. I still want to do well, but I want to do so to delight the Father, not to define myself.

That, friends, is a place of freedom. :)

not on mighty steeds..

2010-04-15T13:30:00.003-04:00

I had a long conversation with a good friend of mine a few days ago, and in passing, she utterly these profound and eloquent words. It was striking to me, and has stuck with me for a few days since because it was so radically different from our typical mode of operation.

"the battle is won, not on mighty steeds, but on our knees... not in our greatest strengths, but by acknowledging our greatest vulnerabilities. and pressing in, in our weaknesses, clinging even, to the One who possesses the strength we lack." A.E.W.

Her point was this: our greatest moral and spiritual triumphs in life occur when we finally see ourselves in our true vulnerability and weakness, and press into God more fully. The battle is not won through demonstrations of our profound strength and courage or mighty weapon wielding, but in those moments when we fall to our knees before God and say, "here I am; I need you."

This semester has been an interesting one for me, because I have been required to slow down and re-examine my modes of operation... my past brokenness'... my fears... my false self... and my unhealthy habits.

These are the things that I most seek to hide. To avoid. To pretend are not there.

And yet, in acknowledging these and pressing more fully into God's strength, therein lies my greatest strength.

Here's what I've learned in my last 25 years: the greatest testimonies... the greatest transformation... the people who have been most influential in my life... are the ones who are unafraid to speak of their own brokenness and utter need for God with absolute freedom. And the moments when I have understood my own absolute need for God, and fallen to my knees in honesty and desire, are the moments in which I have seen the most transformation in me, and through my retelling of those stories.

It is completely counter cultural. But oh so true.

Lord, help me to be a woman on my knees...

Grown-Up

2010-04-03T18:12:00.003-04:00

Today, as I was walking down to the river, I passed a father with his two young daughters, each tugging at a hand and chattering oh so exuberantly about this and that... nothing important, but to look at the father, you would have thought that he was listening not to the aimless chatter of young children but to the most scintillating and captivating of all performances or speeches.

Among other topics, the two small ones were discussing being grown-up versus being a little girl. One was of the opinion that being small was the way to go (she was the smaller one); the other ardently claimed that she was advantaged in being "all grown-up" (she was the older one at a ripe old age of six).

Their childish banter and gleeful delight gave me pause, and made me stop and consider this idea of being "grown-up." It's such a silly phrase: "grown-up." What does that even mean? Certainly it does not refer to reaching maximum height capacity, as an indicator of completeness... if that is the case, then I am sorry to say, I think maturity might need to be redefined.

Yet, even as I pondered these thoughts, I was struck by another thought: I can barely remember a time when I did not consider myself "grown-up" and "mature." For as long as I can remember, I have acted as a small adult. Even now, I see out my window a small child, hopping around for no apparent reason, simply because it is delightful to her. I long for those days, but they are foreign to me. Surely this is not what it means to be mature. Surely there is more to maturity than putting off or losing childlike delight and freedom and becoming "sensible" and "realistic" and "businesslike." This is a "maturity" that often is stuffy, and certainly lacks joy and freedom.

Yet in converse, as I watch and interact with 20 somethings who act as though they had no cares in the world, resisting adult responsibility, depending on others to sustain them, and avoiding anything not fun--childlike freedom, if you will-- my gut reaction tells me that they do not understand maturity any more deeply than the rest of us. This is a "maturity" that lacks an understanding of purpose or meaning beyond self gratification and satisfaction; it is shallow in nature.

See, I don't think maturity, or being grown up, is about losing childlike freedom or delight. Nor do I think that it is falsely clinging to childish ways. And decidedly, it is not about arriving at the pinnacle of maximum height capacity... otherwise, you would presume that professional athletes would act decidedly more responsibly!

So what does it mean, to be mature or "grown-up"?

Here's my alternative thought: what if being mature had less to do with gaining or losing something (stuffiness/responsibility/childishness/freedoms et al), and more to do with coming into fullness? In that sense, maturity, or being grown-up has less to do with leaving behind childish ways, and more to do with coming into the fullness of who you were created to be- with the fullness of childlike delight and freedom, full participants in the work of the Kingdom, the fullness of your gifts and calling seen and lived into, yourself fully known, and your purpose and role fully identified.

Under this definition, none us is ever fully mature or "grown-up." We're never done growing, changing, or coming fully into our created identity, until we are made full and whole in consummate relationship with our Creator, which we long for with all of our being. And with each passing year, we will certainly understand how little we understand more fully.

But I would argue that this is actually a maturity that has some meat on it, some life in it, and some worth in pursuing it. This is a maturity that is lifelong, holistic, purposeful, and life-giving.

In that sense, perhaps being "grown-up" or "mature" is something to be longed for...

Ah, Holy Jesus, How Hast Thou Offended

2010-04-02T22:17:00.003-04:00

I had never heard this hymn before, but we sang it tonight at the Good Friday services and the words have stuck with me... aside from a great melody, the words are just really powerful, so I thought I would share them with you, fitting for the solemnity of Good Friday:

Ah, holy Jesus, how hast Thou offended,
That man to judge Thee hath in hate pretended?
By foes derided, by Thine own rejected,
O most afflicted.

Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon Thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone Thee.
’Twas I, Lord, Jesus, I it was denied Thee!
I crucified Thee.

Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered;
The slave hath sinned, and the Son hath suffered;
For man’s atonement, while he nothing heedeth,
God intercedeth.

For me, kind Jesus, was Thy incarnation,
Thy mortal sorrow, and Thy life’s oblation;
Thy death of anguish and Thy bitter passion,
For my salvation.

Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay Thee,
I do adore Thee, and will ever pray Thee,
Think on Thy pity and Thy love unswerving,
Not my deserving.

[Ah, Holy Jesus, How Hast Thou Offended. Words: Johann Heerman, 1630, Herzliebster Jesu; translated from German to English by Robert S. Bridges, 1899]

What's your story, friend?

2010-03-28T17:34:00.003-04:00

Wednesday night, I was on a night flight out of Boston, significantly delayed because of wind somewhere elsewhere, like Chicago, keeping our plane from making it to us. As we 60+ slightly peeved passengers sat waiting at the small gate, with the squalky child and two yappy puppies, we were soon distracted by a different hullabaloo.

About 20 feet to my left, our offender was easier to smell or hear than to see. Camouflaged behind a pillar, he was heatedly debating health care policy with anyone within a 10 foot radius, welding insults and opinions as if it they were life or death matters. His scent betrayed the fact that he had in fact been indulging at at least one neighborhood bar rather liberally... multiple times.

While he seemed to think that he was well-beloved by his neighbors at the gate, they seemed to wish for a slightly higher fence between them... especially when he asked "do you want to fight about it?" (I think "it" was Nancy Pelosi's attractiveness, if anyone cares) and took off his jacket, albeit rather clumsily (navigating sleeves becomes exceedingly complicated with double vision), as if to start said fight... finally, the flight attendants in residence intervened and he left the gate briefly, hypothetically to cool down. Within about five minutes, he returned to the gate, beer in hand, and happily plopped down next to the same neighbors, greeting them as if they were dearly loved friends, completely befuddled by their less than warm welcome. Short term memory seemed to fade quickly for this one.

Long story short, when given the option of choosing between his beer or taking the flight, he chose to fight the matter over the moral liberties and rights of having his beer and flying too, and the state police arrived shortly thereafter to inform him of his rights therein and escort him from the premises. Needless to say, he did not fly the friendly skies with us that night...

Regardless, the story gets more interesting to me because, as I flew home this morning, on an exceedingly early and very on-time flight back into Boston, this same gentleman was sitting across the aisle from me, on the flight this time. This time, much subdued, red-faced, and looked tear-stained, as if many a tear had been shed very recently. He slept most of the way and otherwise stared aimlessly into space, not talking to anyone...

And it just made me wonder... what happened between Wednesday and Sunday? What's your story, friend?

How did you make it down to Virginia?
What happened while you were there?
What's the tragedy behind your bravado?
Why were you drinking?
Why were you crying?

See often times, I'm tempted to release these narratives as merely humorous escapades demonstrating how I tend to encounter the craziest people (which is a true fact). But I forget to ask the question "why"? Or, I miss the fact that these narratives are about real people with real stories and real stuff going on below the surface. And I think in some ways, I realized this week that that's actually very arrogant and self-centered of me. I use someone else's story for my own repertoire. And I neglect them in the process. Not that I'm going to stop relating humorous anecdotes (that feels wasteful). But perhaps I should learn to look at them from more angles than just my own...

And ask the question, "What's your story, friend?" Why were you drinking? Why were you crying?

Turning

2010-03-21T09:58:00.006-04:00

So I suppose that I should follow up on my last post by telling the rest of the story... you need not fret dear reader, God is the ultimate lover, and he pursues his children, even when they very much do not want to be pursued...

On Friday afternoon, still very much angry, I decided to go for a walk... as I began to walk, I felt like God's presence was walking with me, and what ensued thereafter felt very much like a dialogue between me and God... this is how it felt like it went:

Me: God, I don't really want to talk to you right now. I'm pretty angry. Please go away.

God: That's ok. We don't have to talk. I just want to walk with you.

Me: I don't want to think about these questions that are making me angry any more. And I definitely don't want to talk about them.

God: That's ok. Let's just walk together.

[so I continued walking. not talking, not thinking, just walking]. [a little bit later]:

Me: God, I'm sorry, I feel really ugly right now, both inside and out, in the midst of my anger.

God: Do you know that my delight in you is every bit the same now, when you are ugly, angry, and closed off, as it is when you delight in me. I love you and delight in you.

And that was the end of our conversation... but that gentle love and steady presence was what I needed at that time. I still don't have answers. I still don't like my options. And the questions are still frustrating to me when I think about them for too long. But what has changed is that I've decided to turn and bring my hurts, questions, and frustration to God, rather than running away from him in my anger. To wrestle with him, rather than against him.

I am still in the painful process of dying to self. But I am also being pursued, carried, and led by a God who loves perfectly, and deeply, even in the times that are painful.

And I am choosing to turn toward Him, rather than run away.

Dying to Self

2010-03-19T10:29:00.003-04:00

Anger is a strange emotion. It can be aggressive. It can be passive. It can be for no reason, or for very deep reasons. Often times it is merely sadness moved into offensive position.

And today, I am angry.

And, I think, if I'm honest, my anger is primarily directed at God.

"But you KNOW me!"
"Why do you only ask me to consider things that are hard, painful and difficult?"
"Why would you even think of asking me to do that?"
"I thought you were a God of new life, abundance and joy, of spacious places, but this feels trapping, confining, bitter and like returning to the grave-clothes."

And yes, I do know that he is God, that he knows better than me, that he is good, that he acts on my behalf, and that ultimately his plan is the best.

But at the moment, I'm still angry. And my anger comes from being asked to die to self. To let go of my plan, my ideals, my agenda, my desires, and my hopes, and let Jesus lead. Wherever, Whenever, and Whatever that means. And no matter what Christians will tell you, the act of dying to yourself is a painful process. It does not come naturally, and we fight against it with everything inside of us, even as we know that it is exactly what we need to do and even what we want to do.

And I will get to that point eventually, of dying to self, of letting go, of free falling. But at the moment, I'm still in the death throws.

I tried so hard /And got so far /But in the end /It doesn't even matter I had to fall /To lose it all /But in the end /It doesn't even matter [linkin park, "in the end"]

latex

2010-03-18T22:12:00.003-04:00

Conversation overheard on the T tonight:

Girl: I'm allergic to latex.
Boy: So glad that I hate wearing condoms.
Boy: But don't worry, I tested HIV negative...

I'm not even entirely sure how to react to that...

Someone's son

2010-03-12T20:11:00.003-05:00

This morning I was riding the T home, after meeting up with my spiritual director. As usual, when I changed trains at downtown crossing, there were a large number of both homeless men and women and very strange men and women on the platform. For whatever reason, this particular station seems to attract that crowd.

But today, one gentleman in particular caught my eye. He was upper middle-aged, wearing a white T-shirt that was at least 3 sizes too big, and pants that barely stayed up, carrying a heavy winter coat over his arm. He was weaving and reeling like the late night crowd leaving a bar after closing time, even though it was only 1pm.

He talked to everyone, but not in real words or sentences, just mumbled and sometimes shouted garbled blather. He seemed angry, frustrated, but mostly just crazy. He had no sense of personal space and his odor did not remain personal either.

He then began to spasm and seize as though he was having a seizure, but he wasn't. His body would writhe and then stop; writhe and then stop; writhe and then stop. The effects of his spasms were magnified by the 100+ cans that he held closely behind him, making the sounds of trash collectors or tympani, you pick. Then he would pick up his bag full of cans, in total perhaps summing to $5.00 in value, and move, weaving and reeling, rattling, to the next seat on the platform, where he would once again invade the personal space of the disturbed passenger who would try very hard to pretend that he was not there.

He was obnoxious. He was a little frightening. And in all honesty, I was very glad to be on the opposite platform, going the opposite direction.

But as I watched him, I was struck by one single thought:

"He is someone's son."

And in the middle of Downtown Crossing, standing on the train platform, I began to weep.

Simple reality.

And for the first time in a long time, I felt like I had new eyes to see with deeper compassion: he's someone's son. She's someone's daughter. Obnoxious, irritating, frustrating, ugly, beautiful, rich, poor, homeless, public figure, handicapped, Olympic athlete, peacemaker, warmonger, diplomat or debutant, prostitute or Nobel Prize winner, he was once loved by someone. She was once loved by someone.

And if he or she was loved by no one else, they were and are loved by God.

He's Someone's son. And she's Someone's daughter.

Have mercy, Lord, and give us new eyes to see.

sleepless in...

2010-03-08T05:53:00.005-05:00

Airports that I have slept in: Stansted, Luton, Heathrow, Dusseldorf, and now add O'Hare.

It's 5:14am local time in Chicago and I am waiting on a standby flight home... in the last 10 nights, I have slept in a bed 8 nights, gotten 4 or less hours of sleep 2 times, and gotten more than 6 hours of sleep 2 times, slept on a bus, slept in an airport, slept on a creaky bunk-bed, slept through a party, slept through a fight, slept with two different strangers, and seen the ugly side of 4am 3 times. :)

And the verdict is in: KG can sleep through anything, in any position, and any location.

Such is the adventure of my spring break [27 hr bus ride and service trip from boston to new orleans with students, then college friend's wedding in chicago].... and I wouldn't trade it for anything!

Last night I dreamt that I was attempting to decorate a nursery in the theme of the Princess and the Frog and was very nervous that I would set my child up for frog-failure. Not sure what "frog-failure" meant, but that was the 2am fear. I also dreamt that I was a ninja. Not sure how those two fit together, but that is the perk of sleeping in strange places: very strange dreams!

And news flash, airports: as helpful as those security alert warnings are when we are flying, at 3am, when there are no flights leaving and all the residents of Hotel Airport Floor are attempting to grab 40 winks, they are less than helpful.

None-the-less, fun as it has been, I must say, I am more than eager to finally see my own bed again. :)

the death of a mouse

2010-02-24T14:13:00.006-05:00

For the last three weeks, my room has smelled somewhat questionably odious. Somewhat like a combination of wet sneakers and dried blood and dirty animal fur, with a few rotten eggs thrown in for good measure. It reeked.

And last night, I discovered the source of the rank odor.

See, I had lost an earplug, so I was reaching down behind my bed (between the bed and the wall) where it is very dark and dusty, to attempt to find said earplug. Since I could not see particularly well, I was running my hand along the floor board, navigating by feel... [note to self: bad idea].

And then, my hand touched something soft and somewhat squishy. Life-like, if you will. Except very much not so.

After briefly succumbing to my weak stomach and hatred for all things small and dead that involuntarily leads to screaming ever so quickly, but oh so girlishly, I pulled out my cell phone light to investigate the soft small form of my formerly furry friend, Rasputin. Yes, in fact dead and now three weeks into the decomposition process under my bed. Ashes to ashes, dust unto dust. Or in this case, entrails now leaving the body and mingling with the dust on my floor. Rest in peace, Rasputin. Please take your insides with you next time. Yuck.

G.R.O.S.S.

But as I reflected upon this, I was struck again by how something so small which is dead and rotten, can pollute such a large space with such a large odor, yet remain so hidden, until you dig down into the dark and dusty places.

And from that, how like our sin this is... we know that something smells, we can see the ways in which it permeates our lives and relationships in not-so-delightful ways, but we often miss the root of it, because it is so deeply hidden in dark and dusty places. Or, worse, we become so accustomed to the stench, that we cease looking for the source and we don't even notice the odor, unless someone else happens to smell it or point it out.

And that, in a nutshell, is one of the reasons that we're called to be in community. Because God is more concerned with our holiness than our contentedness or happiness. He doesn't want us to settle into a comfortable place amidst the stench. He laments when we begin to think that the smell of death is "normal" and "okay." We need other people in our lives who can smell the stench clearly and are willing to root around with us, into the dusty and dark places, to pull out the decaying and rotting goop of mouse entrails and sin.

Someone who walks into the room and says, "Man, that wreaks! Smells like something died in here. You should do something about that" is observationally helpful, but beyond that, just kind of annoying. And more of a critic than a friend.

But a real friend, who smells the stench, and is willing to root around in the dark and dusty places with you, who is fighting with you against that sin, that stench, that death- that, friends, is a needed, desired, and beloved community.

May we become more like that.

And may I never have to touch another dead mouse ever again. Please God.

humble me, Lord.

2010-02-23T17:16:00.003-05:00

Humble me, Lord.

Forgive me for the ways in which I love your gifts more than I love the giver...

Forgive me for the ways in which I am silent out of fear, when you ask me to speak with boldness...

Forgive me for the times in which I speak, when I should listen or be silent instead...

Forgive me for the times when I do not love well those whom you have called me to love...

Forgive me for the ways in which I think of myself as better, more skilled, or more holy than I ought...

Forgive me for thinking that I must always be the teacher, when often you want me to be the student...

Would you humble me, Lord?

what could we improve on?

2010-02-14T10:07:00.005-05:00

... my favorite question on any group survey. But you know what I realized this morning? I think that 9 times out of 10, when I have answered these or received these surveys back, the answers have centered around an idea of "I wish the community aspect were [better/deeper/more real/more prevalent/present/stronger/fill-in-the-blank]."

And this isn't just an observation: I just finished filling out a survey where I answered the same thing. But this is a curious phenomena to me... Are we really just that lousy at community, in most organizations, Christian ones in particular? Or is there something deeper going on there?

I vote there's something deeper going on here. Shocker.

See I've been in some groups where there's been pretty darn awesome community: my women's small group in high school, my current apartment, my small group in Chapel Hill, my apartment senior year of college, the small group I led for three years in college, just to name a few of a long list. But even in those really healthy and good places, I think I still would have answered the survey question with: I'd love more community!

Why?

I think there is something in us that longs to be fully known, and fully loved. Unconditionally. Naked and Unashamed, so to speak. And thus, even when we taste really good community, we long for more of it. We are "wired for intimacy" (to steal a book title from William Struthers) and built for relationship.

Which brings me to your favorite holiday and mine, which we celebrate today: Valentines Day!

Here's the headline, shocker, but I don't think we long for a valentine's day schnook'ums because we really want the chocolates and pink and red card complete with lacy frill, or red roses by the dozen.

I think the longing there is the same longing we experience when we return surveys saying, "I want to have better community." I think it's the same longing that leads some marriages, 5 years in, to fall apart because, "She just doesn't know me anymore" or "I don't even know him anymore." It's the same longing that we feel when we're giddy just beginning a relationship, or devastated, ending one. And, I even think it's the same longing that leads some of us to isolate ourselves and withdraw from any form of community. We long to be known and loved, fully. We long to be naked and unashamed.

We long for the Garden again.

So here's my point: I think this longing is a good and holy one. And I think it's great for churches, groups, marriages, relationships, friendships to strive for really good community and really deep "knowing and being known." But I do not think that we will ever find that "perfection" of community that we long for, this side of the kingdom of God. And I think often times, we will miss out on really amazing community because we are looking for, in humans, the kind of community that only God can provide.

And God will provide. We hold on to hope for that. And we rejoice when we see that holy community imitated, however well or poorly, here and now! But in the meantime, I think there are a few helpful tips for us in the here-and-now:

1) Affirm that the longing for real community is good! It is true. It is good. It is one of the most real things about us in our humanity. But also affirm that human community is flawed, imperfect, and a work in progress. Give up the wish-dream of perfection in a spouse, significant other, friend, community, or church.

2) Recognize that community starts with you. As you look for a good spouse, significant other, church, campus group, etc., ask yourself, "Am I initiating good community?" "Am I being the type of friend/person that I'm looking for?" Community is made by joint effort, not acquired.

3) Look to Jesus for the deepest community. Because he alone fully knows you and fully loves you. He is the perfection of community. And before him, you can stand naked and unashamed. He is the consummation of your longing. :)

a minister's confession

2010-02-13T18:54:00.000-05:00

taken from the "Valley of Vision" (collection of puritan prayers and devotions), excerpts p. 187, entitled "A Minister's Confession"

O God,
I know that I often do thy work without thy power,
and sin by my dead, heartless, blind service,
my lack of inward light, love, delight,
my mind, heart, tongue, moving without thy help.

I see sin in my heart in seeking the approbation of others;
This is my vileness, to make men's opinion my rule, whereas
I should see what good I have done,
and give thee the glory,
consider what sin I have committed and mourn for that.

It is my deceit to preach, and pray,
and to stir up others' spiritual affections
in order to beget commendations,
whereas my rule should be daily to consider myself more vile
than any man in my own eyes.

But thou dost show thy power by my frailty,
so that the more feeble I am, the more fit to be used,
for thou dost pitch a tent of grace in my weakness.

Help me to rejoice in my infirmities and give thee praise,
to acknowledge my deficiencies before others
and not be discouraged by them,
that they may see thy glory more clearly.

Teach me how I must act by a power supernatural,
whereby I can attempt things above my strength,
and bear evils beyond my strength,
acting for Christ in all, and
having his superior power to help me.

Let me learn of Paul
who presence was mean,
his weakness great,
his utterance contemptible,
yet thou didst account him faithful and blessed.

Lord, let me lean on thee as he did,
and find my ministry thine.

Contempt for Contempt

2010-02-12T16:12:00.002-05:00

With regard to relationships of any nature:

"Have contempt for contempt."

- Francis de Sales, "An Introduction to a Devout Life," cited in "Sacred Marriage" (Gary Thomas), p.54

Discuss.

is it God or is it me?

2010-02-02T15:47:00.003-05:00

All of us, in some way or another, long to hear from God. But how does one tell whether what you are hearing is merely your own thoughts projected on God, or actually the voice of God?

I've had a number of conversations recently about discerning God's voice, and so, in light of that, I thought I would share a few "check-points" taken from an article by Laura Thiel, entitled "Hearing God's Voice" (Prayer Ministry Manual, p. 37) which I have found to be very helpful.

--
1. Does what you are hearing contradict Scripture? All leadings from God are consistent with His Word, the Bible. When we listen to God, we do not expect God to say anything new doctrinally.

2. Does the voice gently lead you in a direction, or is it commanding and harsh? God’s voice gently guides and encourages, giving you hope.

3. Remember:
a. God leads, Satan drives
b. God convicts, Satan condemns and brings guilt
c. God woos, Satan tugs hard
d. God does not use fear to motivate

4. Simply write down what you hear and wait for confirmation. Joyce Huggett suggests asking God for 3 confirmations (through God’s word, through circumstances and through other people) before moving forward with what you are hearing from God.

5. Bill Hybels' “Cautions for Leadings”
a. If a leading requires you to make a major, life-changing decision in a very short period of time, question it.
b. If a leading requires you to go deeply in debt or place someone else in a position of awkwardness, compromise or danger, question it.
c. If a leading requires you to shatter family relationships or important friendships, question it.
d. If a leading creates unrest in the spirits of mature Christian friends or counselors as you share it with them, question it.

8. Be very careful when you say, God wants… God is saying… Having access through Jesus to God is a very powerful thing so with it we must exercise great caution. It is often wiser [specifically when praying for others] to say instead:

a. It’s my sense that…
b. I wonder if God…
c. Or make a question from what you are hearing
--

what Disney gets wrong.

2010-01-31T13:45:00.006-05:00

As a child, I remember loving Disney movies, for an extended period of my adolescence. My personal favorites were movies like Mulan, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast, because the heroines could pretty much beast the entire playground and my female empowerment days started young. I was not, and let's be honest, still am not really, a romantic.

But at the same time for me, as for many young women, there was something beautiful about the stories of romance contained within the fairy tales that Disney movies portray: Cinderella, pursued and rescued from her ashes by Prince Charming; Beauty, softening and winning over the beast, who then fights to rescue her; the Prince riding in on his white horse, and waking Sleeping Beauty from her death-sleep with a single kiss; and the happily ever after which inevitably comes. And, like it or not, I think in some way, many of us carry those fairy tale understandings of relationships into our real relationships.

We expect that we will be the Beauty who changes the Beast or the Prince who rescues Cinderella. We look for Love's kiss to awaken new things in us that will enable us to "live happily ever after." We expect that once we work out the legs/flippers exchange, that life will be hunky dory and singing seagulls will croon lullabies in four-part harmony to us as we sail off into the sunset. And we expect that we'll "know" that it's the "right one" when the conditions above (our fairy tales) are met, either in us, or the other person.

And those are not necessarily bad things to long for, to hope for: in fact, I think the fairy tale story often points to our holy longings for real, whole relationship, consummated only with Jesus (minus singing seagulls). But I think when we place those expectations on real-time, real-people relationships, or on our real selves, we often end up with real disappointment.

If I expect my significant other to be Prince Charming all the time, I am going to be disappointed when I wake up one morning and find out that he's Shrek, complete with smelly layers. And vice versa, if he expects Belle, the perfect princess (literate and feisty too), he's going to very disappointed when one day he finds out that he has the Beast instead. And, while I have a pretty healthy self-esteem, if I have expectations for myself that I will be Ariel, always giving up my gills for legs for the man of my dreams, always loving selflessly, then I set myself up for failure, and vice versa.

As my friend and former mentor, Alex says, it's the difference between hopes and expectations in relationships... Hope is good. Expectations can be quite costly.

Fairy tales are great, in that they spark our longings for a bigger story, with a happily ever after and the ideal play-out of all situations. But they make lousy guides for relational expectations. And they set us up for failure when we place those expectations on ourselves or our significant other.

Let me just cut to the quick:

You are messy.
So is your significant other [or future significant other].
We do not live in a Disney world and that's a good thing.
Placing Disney expectations on your relationship is not wise.

But, friends, there is hope! Because happily ever after does not come from you or your significant other or even your nearly perfect relationship. It comes from Jesus taking what is messy and redeeming, restoring, and renewing it. Our hope and our expectations come from the fact that we are part of a bigger story, one with the real Prince (Jesus) wooing the real Princess (the Church), winning the real war, and establishing his real kingdom on earth.

That is both our hope and our expectation.

living in hope

2010-01-30T09:10:00.001-05:00

So a friend of mine has this theory that you feel more confident when you wear fun underwear. I'm not much of a dressy type of gal, so I've never really bought into the fun panties thing. But she recently convinced me to reconsider that stance on life, so I gave in and bought a few pairs of fun panties. Among the bunch I picked up a pair that have the word "HOPE" written all over them. Reminds me of being 5 or 6 and wanting to wear the ones with Disney princesses on them...

Too much information? Perhaps.

Why am I telling you this? Great question.

Because these days I am trying to live in hope. And I figured I could start with a literal translation of that life goal (Har Har Har!).

But seriously now... lately I've been thinking a lot about the idea of living in hope. Not as a groundless, idealistic, irrational idea, but as deep and life-transforming way of living.

Hope, to desire with confident expectation for that which is not yet had or seen, is something which is rather foreign to me. Hope, as my spiritual director puts it, is the opposite of worry. It is desiring or expecting good, rather than expecting and imagining all the things that could go wrong. It is the other half of a balanced, logical, rational approach to life: considering the possibilities of what could go wrong BUT ALSO allowing ourselves to consider the possibilities of how it could go well.

Hope is expecting good things to come. Worry and anxiety are expecting bad things to come. Hope is grounded in the fact that we believe in a good God who loves his children and acts for their good and his glory, not their harm. Worry and anxiety are grounded in logical questions, yes, but more deeply, a profound distrust that God is actually (a) good, (b) for us, and (c) capable.

I tend to live more in the realm of worry and anxiety. Let's be honest. But because I do believe that God is good, is for us, and is capable of acting, in recent days, I have been trying to live more in hope, even in the little things. Both tangibly and practically.

May that become more and more my mode of operation.

And no, I will not be pulling out the Disney Princesses any time soon.

running the marathon

2010-01-29T16:33:00.006-05:00

So, for those of you who know me well, you know that I love to run. Hate it at times too, but mostly just love to run. But I am not by nature a distance runner. I run for the sole purpose of the sprint to the finish. I love running so fast that you cannot stop to breathe, feeling the wind rushing by, and the burn of muscles that you know will push you through and across the line. I've always been a sprinter, and have only in the past decade begun to train myself to be a distance runner.

Even so, I'm always in it for the sprint to the finish. That last tenth of a mile is my absolute favorite, and I will always sprint it, no matter how tired I am.

Not a patient one, this one.

But I think God has been teaching me a bigger lesson, as I change my running habits from sprinter to distance runner. I think, in many ways, I want life to be more like a sprint as well. Fast. Exhilarating. Breath-taking. Adventure-filled. Hill-free. Ache-free.

But life and love are not a sprint. They're more like a marathon.

The Boston marathon begins out in Hopkinton, a small, non-distinct town, 26.2 miles outside of Boston. The enthusiasm in the morning is indescribable and palpable, as runners begin their course. The marathon then runs through Natick and Wellsley, through Newton and then the Fens and the Back Bay, finally into Boston. Parts of it are flat and marked solely by large fields and trees, other parts are suburban and hilly. Parts are populated by posh houses or run down trailers, some with rows of people standing and cheering, others with no people standing and cheering. As it runs its course through Newton, near Boston College, there's heartbreak hill, the fourth of the major Newton hills, perfectly timed at the place that most runners "hit the wall," the painful and steep ascent of which sends many runners home. And then 5 more miles to the finish.

It is only after these 26 grueling miles, that runners hit the sprint for the finish, down through Copley Square and across the finish line.

Of course, there are some runners who can sprint a 5 minute mile pace for the entire 26.2 miles without literally having their legs turn into monkey poo and tumbling feet over head onto the ground. But for most runners, the marathon involves steadfastness, pushing through the pain, choosing to continue to run, committing to making it across the line, pacing ourselves, and continuing to engage in both the exhilarating moments and the painful moments.

Same thing is true with life and love.

There are moments of exhilaration and sprinting. But most of it is choosing to faithfully engage, to continue running, to enjoy the scenery as it passes, and to press in, rather than stop running.

A non-professional sprint is easy. You only have to engage briefly. A marathon takes work. It takes time. You are guaranteed to have heartbreak hills. But the reward of choosing to do it is life-long, defining, and character-building. And the finish line is that much more exciting!

After all, when's the last time you heard a non-record breaker, non-Olympian brag,

"Oh yeah? Well, I ran 100 meters the other day."

learning to love sushi and hate octopus

2010-01-27T14:03:00.003-05:00

So when I around 7-8 years old, we discovered that I was allergic to fish. My family was never entirely sure exactly what kinds of fish I was allergic to, suffice to say we knew that in general, it ran the gamut from shrimp to crab to lobster, halibut, flounder, mahi-mahi, etc. Some more severe than others. Every type I tried, with the exception of canned tuna, I had some form of reaction to. Nothing life-threatening, I would just throw up or get severe stomach cramps somewhere between 3 to 5 hours later. Not pleasant, but it was what it was...

And every few years, I would try it again, just to see if the allergy was still present. And it always was. So I just wouldn't eat fish regularly... for the last 18 years.

And then [this is the part that is still slightly bizarre], near the end of November, I was wrestling through some pretty deep issues with God, while doing a quiet time, where I felt like he was really asking me to step out in faith and not fear... and still in prayer, near the end of processing through those things, I had a very strange image in my mind of a bright blue fish swimming along in really beautiful water, and I felt like God was saying to me,

"I want you to eat fish again, free from effect. This is my hand. No more fear."

Bizarre. Yes, I am aware. This is an allergy that I've had for 18 years... and what a weird thing to hear from God? Bizarre, yes. Potentially just my mind playing tricks on me? But, I made the leap of faith and gave it another shot. Albeit, very skeptically from the get-go, but still trying.

And, two months later, I am happy to report, I am fish allergy free. I am discovering fish that I never knew existed. I am trying things that I never thought I'd like, and loving it! And I have definitely found some that I'm not super fond of. Octopus, no matter what they tell you, not so tasty, definitely really chewy.

Maybe I just outgrew the allergy. Maybe New England fish don't contain the allergen that I had reactions to earlier. Maybe this is a fluke and it will end sometime soon. Or maybe this is actually a gift from God. Either way, the lesson still remained behind:

If the Lord calls you to step out in faith, step out in faith without fear.

Thankfully God has been just as faithful in the other areas where he asked me to step out in faith as he has been in this one... such is his character. Where he asks us to step out, he always meets us.

time to stop being a hummingbird

2010-01-24T16:15:00.003-05:00

Did you know that, according to wikipedia, hummingbirds are the smallest of all birds, yet they can fly at speeds exceeding 15 meters/sec, they can hover motionless in the air, they can flap their wings 12-90 times per second, and they are the only bird that can fly backwards? They are called hummingbirds because of the "hum" their wings make as they flap so rapidly.

Why this needless information, you might ask?

I was thinking about hummingbirds this morning... and all the needless energy they exert, just to remain in the same place. Think about it. They flap their wings at 12-90 times per second, so that they can hover in the air, in exactly the same place. Not going anywhere. Just hovering. Of course, they can also fly super fast backwards and forwards (who wouldn't want to be able to do that), but they're most known for their ability to hover. Seems silly, really. All that energy expended, just to say in the same place.

Yet, how many of us do exactly the same thing?

We are constantly striving, running around, doing, just so that we can keep ourselves afloat. Just so that we can keep ourselves busy enough doing, so that we don't have to stop and face ourselves, as we truly are. We are terrified of what we will find, if we ever slow down.

So we flutter and flap, doing all sorts of good (and bad) things, in order to avoid silence, solitude, or facing ourselves. We attend meetings, we are part of committees, we save children, animals and the environment, we plan events, we work extra hours, we work too little, we play meaningless games, we tune out, we smoke up, we are constantly improving something or someone, we read self-help books, we avoid anything that makes us think, we plug in our ipods, we vent it out to our peers, we drink too much, we party too little, we proclaim everything permissible, we create restrictive moral codes, we surround ourselves with people, we avoid our friends, we fix others to avoid ourselves, we serve, we blog about it, we... the list could go on.

Guilty as charged.

All this fluttering, just to stay afloat.

Guilty as charged.

But I think the invitation that I've been realizing this past week is that just staying afloat is not what I hunger for. Being what I do, is not being who I am. Avoiding facing who I am is not a viable alternative. And I think there is an invitation, for both you and me, to something greater.

But that requires that we stop fluttering around like little bee-sized birds. It requires that we face who we are, in it's brokenness and beauty, and allow Jesus to rename, renew, redeem.

I want to be who I was created to be, not defined by what I do. Not kept afloat by meaningless efforts. But that requires that I honestly stop and face who I am in all of my brokenness and beauty, and invite Jesus to be the one who speaks identity.

It's time to stop being a hummingbird.

Shards of Broken Glass

2010-01-23T23:26:00.002-05:00

Author's note: I wrote this poem almost exactly two years ago, as a form of intercession for a dear friend who was going through some pretty intensive and often times seemingly insurmountable brokenness. I pulled it out yesterday, in preparation for a seminar I was leading on using poetry and prose as a form of prayer. Re-reading it, I was reminded of the ways that God had done and is doing exactly what I prayed in this poem... for me and in me. It was neat to see the same piece transformed into a new moment of worship, years later. Jehovah Rapha. God is my healer.

shards of broken glass,
the mirror lies shattered upon the floor.
a pale and broken fragment,
slivers of what she is meant to be.
I stoop to the floor,
hands out-stretched to rescue the
pieces of her soul.
grasping, holding, gasping,
as my hand became bloodied,
and her image, no more whole.
i fall to my knees among the pieces,
knees and hands torn, I
plead to the heavens,
GOD, I cannot mend what has broken,
I cannot heal a broken soul.
then from above
as I weep for her entirety
I hear another weeping,
as my perfect Father sobs
for his broken daughter’s
shattered soul.
and yet,
as he weeps, I see
the blood on the floor transform,
disappear
appearing on his white robes instead,
while the fragments of image
disappear
and his whole, solid, beautiful
daughter stands.
not an image, always doing,
but a fully formed daughter, being.

Lord, I cannot, but you can.
by your stripes, we are healed.

in need of...

2010-01-20T23:01:00.005-05:00

In the spirit of continuing to blog more regularly...

Simple observation of the day:

Women need a version of the fist-bump or chest bump (and of course, the double pat on the back).

Life really is duplicitous. and by that I mean vulpine. devious. slippery. and tricky.

[do you like how I'm attempting to use big words, only half correctly, just to honor/irritate my sister the English major?]

Case in point, if you're meeting someone for the first time, you shake their hand. If you know them really well, you give them a hug (unless you're from the UK or the northeast, and then protocol is slightly different). This is true regardless of gender, on either side.

However, should you intrepidly find yourself in the situation of "casual-but-not-deep" friendship/acquaintance, as a woman, you're in deep trouble. You know the relationships I'm talking about: the facebook poke-er, the gchat friend, that older co-worker (often of the opposite gender) with whom you have deep conversations but no shared experiences, your landlord who you repeatedly phone about fire alarms but really don't have a relationship with, your next-door neighbors that you don't really know, or your sister's boyfriend's sister-in-law. Whereas for the man, a simple fist-bump will suffice, a woman is left with no such options. Potential alternatives are:

go for the hug and then awkwardly abort at the last moment, if it appears the other party is not going to reciprocate
awkwardly shake hands, which feels far too formal for a borderline-almost friendship
do the nod (Tilt chin up rapidly at a 45 degree angle. Beware of neck strain-age.) It's more effective when you can appropriately throw in a "w'assup?"
just smile and nod and stand a good 5 feet away from them
go for the hug and don't abort, no matter how awkward it is

Needless to say, all of which leave something to desire... So I will rest my case, women are in need of a version of the fist bump. Unless of course, you have suggestions?

Unleashing desire

2010-01-18T14:09:00.005-05:00

As a part of my spiritual formation journey for this coming semester, I've been reading a book called "Invitation to Solitude and Silence" by Ruth Haley Barton, which I would highly recommend. I thought I would share a snippet from my reading this morning, that really struck me:

----

... desire is what stirs underneath our fear... many of us are not very good at acknowledging our desire. As Christians we tend to be skeptical and suspicious of desire, for it is not easily controlled; experience tells us that desire can be like a quiet little campfire that sparks a forest fire engulfing the whole forest. What if I let myself feel my desire and it gets out of control? What if I begin to desire things I can't have? How do I live with the pain of unfulfilled desire?

But the truth is that desire is the life-blood surging through the heart of the spiritual life. You may not realize it, but your desire for God is the truest and most essential thing about you. It is truer than your sin, it is truer than your woundedness, it is truer that your net worth, your marital status or any role or responsibility that you hold...

... when we cut ourselves off from awareness of our desire, we cut ourselves off from the very invitation of God into the intimacy we seek. And so desire, the very human dynamic that often confuses us and muddles our thinking is part of what we carry with us as we walk through the gateway to solitude. If we don't know how to attend to it, we may make the mistake of trying to set it aside or minimize it when instead we need to pay attention to it.

... when we pull back the curtain on our fears and resistance, we are left with our desire-- pure, naked, quivering desire-- which is the surest guide for the spiritual quest. In the end, the human soul will choose what it most wants. If we are brave enough to stay with this experience of wanting something we do not yet have, we discover that underneath all other desire is a desire for God, for love, for the true belonging.

"Invitation to Solitude and Silence" Ruth Haley Barton, excerpts p. 50-52
----

For me, it was actually really helpful to journal through: "OK, what do I desire? The good, the holy, the bent, the deep?" To be honest before God... scary, but good.

Letter to the Fire Department

2010-01-18T11:23:00.003-05:00

Dear Three Friendly Firemen-

Thank you so much for responding to our phone call(s) so promptly, even though it was 6:30 in the morning. It is so nice to know that you can make it to our house, even though there are 4+ inches of snow on the ground, in under 10 minutes. Glad that you called off the second truck and your four slightly sarcastic buddies that came along last time; that might have been a tad bit of overkill considering there was NO fire. Oh and thanks for not using the loud sirens this time, the neighbors really appreciated that. And I am so sorry that you felt over-dressed in your full combat gear... at least you were warm in the pelting snow, right? And really, the gear is rather fashionable, albeit bulky (the axe might have been over-kill though?)...

We are so sorry that it was a false alarm yet again. Seems our fire alarms are well-versed in the ability to go off, but not so strong in its discernment gifts as to WHEN to go off. e.g. at 5am, 6:09, 6:32, 6:47, 7:56, 9:25 and 10:51am on a national holiday when there is NO fire might not be the best ideas. Rest assured, while we are not well-rested this morning and in fact rather bleary-eyed, we are very much on the same page as you- this needs to not happen again! We already called the landlord.

So, while it's been lovely seeing you twice in the past month-- please don't take this the wrong way-- I really hope that we won't be seeing you in our apartment (us in our PJ's, you in full combat gear) any time in the near future. Unless you would like to take charge of removing the pigeon tribe who seems to be nesting in our ceiling and literally obeying the divine mandate to be "fruitful and multiply."

Of course, if there ever is an actual fire, we are entirely grateful that you already know the way to our house and hope that you won't be so tired of false alarms that you will automatically mute our call button.

Sincerely,
the Residents of Suite High Life

"Do you want to get well?"

2010-01-14T11:00:00.002-05:00

A few months ago, I had a conversation with a friend who has had a specific physical disability since birth. At one point in the conversation, my friend asked our friend, "would you ever consider asking for healing prayer, with regard to that specific physical disability?" Our friend's response has stuck with me since that time. They replied,

"Honestly, no, because I'm scared of having to re-learn how to live. I don't want to have to re-learn how to do everything that I've learned how to do with limited capacity. I am comfortable with my current means of navigating life."

It was striking to me, because it wasn't a fear that nothing would happen. Rather, it was a fear of what would happen if healing were to occur. It was a fear of wholeness, because it would require re-programming, re-learning, adjusting, not a fear of being let down. And I have to admit, I was very tempted to be judgmental. Why wouldn't you want to be made well, even if it required a new operating system?!

The book of John tells a story of a paralytic, that strikes a very similar chord:

Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?" [john 5:1-6]

And here as well, I've always wondered... why would Jesus ask this question? Isn't it a given that you would want to be healed? But as I've sat with this question a bit more, specifically considering it in my own context, I think I've begun to see it on a slightly deeper level.

Let me be transparent. I had a conversation with my supervisors this past week, in which they challenged me to deal with some personal issues, relating to performance-based identity and fear of failure, during this coming semester. At one point in time, I made the comment,

"I just don't have a lot of hope to change in this because this has been my operating system for as long as I can remember. I know it's not ideal, but I've learned how to function and even thrive in this. It's been present for so long that I cannot imagine anything else. I don't know that I want to dig in here."

In a nutshell, "I'm pretty content with my method of dealing with things. It's working okay- not ideal- but okay. So, let's not deal with this right now."

In other words, I too answer "no, actually, I'm okay." Thanks, but no thanks. Go heal someone else.

But Jesus is persistent. He is not content with our mediocre solutions. He did not come to bring "moderately surviving" but sight for the blind and freedom for the captives. He said to the paralytic, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk!" [john 5:8]

It must have been terrifying for the paralyzed man to get up and walk. No, really. I bet it was terrifying. And I bet it required a lot of life-style adjustments. Like, oh say, leaving the pool area. Getting a job. Buying shoes. Not being able to excuse things based on his inability to walk. I'm sure it was terrifying.

But I bet it was also one of the most amazing things that he'd ever experienced. Freedom. Walking on his own. Running. Leaping. Tripping, and then being able to get himself back up again. Being able to ride a camel without being specially belted on. Being able to kneel to pray.

And so the question returns to us: Kristen, do you want to get well? Dear reader, do you want to get well? Will you allow Jesus to press into those areas of brokenness, to call you to new things, to re-program your operating system, to bring life back to the ruins, and rebuild the places long devastated?

Terrifying, yes. What we need and long for, yes.

Faith. Hope. Love.

2010-01-12T14:35:00.003-05:00

New year, new attempts to update the blog regularly? We shall see how long this lasts...

This morning, I was thinking about faith, hope and love.

So much of my job is about just that... having faith in the unseen and for the unknown; hoping beyond present reality, for what seems impossible by human means... and loving people and God in the midst of all of that. "Now these three remain, faith, hope, and love..." [1 Cor 13:13] In a nutshell, this is what ministry entails: faith, hope, and love.

... faith that God will act, is acting, and has acted on behalf of his people
... faith that God is who He says he is
... faith, for my students, when they find it impossible to believe for themselves
... hope for the transformation and wholeness of students that I interact with
... hope for things that are bigger than I can personally accomplish
... hope for the development, faith, gifts, and formation of my students
... hope for students who find themselves without hope
... love for who my students are presently, even as I hope for whom they will become
... love for my campus, even as I hope for redemption and transformation therein
... love for anyone I interact with, no matter how unlovable they feel, act, or seem

Faith. Hope. Love.

All of these require vision beyond our present tense. They require hope for that which is currently unrealized and perhaps impossible by human standards, faith for what is currently unseen and bigger than human comprehension, and love that runs deeper than just the situation at present and is beyond human capacity.

All three require transformation by God. None of them are possible on our own. Such is ministry. It cannot be based on our capacities. Otherwise, it will be shallow, limited, and kind of boring. We must be transformed before we have anything of real worth to offer in ministry.

So, that's my prayer for today: "God would you transform me? Would you give me your eyes to see today, seeing beyond what is in the present tense... seeing instead with faith, hope and love."

Death of a Plant.

2010-01-10T22:13:00.004-05:00

Just got home from two and a half weeks of traveling, encompassing four states, three regions of the country, multiple modes of transportation, five different overnight locations, including one airport bench, many giggles, too many memories to count, and far too many clothes wrinkled from suitcase dwelling for too long. Must say, it's good to be home again, even though I wish I could be in multiple places simultaneously.

At any rate, I returned home earlier this week to find my plant-that-never-dies completely withered and dried up. Thus far, I have been unable to resurrect it. KG, the plant killer, strikes again. I suppose 2.5 weeks of no water, no light, and no love will do almost anything in, no matter how tough, weathered, or indestructible it might be.

I'm holding out some hope that it might rise again, because the roots still seem strong. But at the moment, it is deader than the lab rats that one of my mentors may or may not have baptized in liquid nitrogen and then thrown against a brick wall. Kaputz.

So why do I share this? What's the take-home?

There are parts of us that are incredibly strong. Parts of me that are incredibly strong. And often times, not always, but often, those parts are strong because they've had to be. They've seen abuse, neglect, absence, hardship, etc. They have not been sufficiently watered. And so they survive. Often times for years on end. Out of necessity, they are hardened, weather-worn, survivors who can endure, often times without appearing even to be fazed.

But life without water is no way to live. It is no life at all. And eventually those parts of you, those parts of me, like my plant, will wither and die unless healing actually happens.

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." [john 4:13-14]

I don't know about you, but I desperately want those "strong" parts softened in living water. What does that look like? I don't know. But I know that I need it... and I know that it will require changing mode of operation, vulnerability, lots of care and intentionality, and some hard re-programming.

But life without water is no way to live.

Urbana 2009

2009-12-26T12:14:00.003-05:00

Greetings from St. Louis, MO!

In literally just a few hours, nearly 18,000 individuals, students and staff, will be making their way out to St. Louis for URBANA 2009! For many of them, this will be one of the most influential experiences of their lives, as some of them gain bigger vision for missions locally or abroad, others gain deeper passion for the fields that God has called each of them into here, some will realize a calling into full-time or occupation missions, and ALL of them will hopefully have a life-changing encounter with the Holy Spirit!

Would you join me in praying for Urbana!? Specifically, you can:

Pray for protection over the delegates attending Urbana
Pray for life-transforming encounters with the Holy Spirit
Pray for rest/health/balance (Urbana can be like drinking from a fire-hydrant!)
Pray for safe travels (train, plane, bus, automobile, here and back again!)
Pray for openness to receive whatever God longs to speak…
Pray that the experience here would be multiplied 100 fold when we return to campus! That we would return with renewed vision for the campus!

If you’re interested in following along (speakers, content, etc) with what’s going on at Urbana, you can visit the following link: Urbana 2009. :)

tis the season

2009-12-22T19:14:00.000-05:00

repentance comes before revival.

2009-12-10T20:56:00.004-05:00

So tonight, I walked into a prayer meeting that I thought began at 6pm.

Walking into the only occupied room in the building, I was shocked to see nearly 200 people sitting in folding chairs, all attentively focused on the person in the front of the room. The energy in the room was electric, even though everyone was sitting down... One man was bluntly, directly, and specifically sharing about his sins, failures, and ways that he had hurt others, from the front of the room. When he finished sharing, the entire room burst into applause. And then the next person stood up to confess... and the next... and the next... and each one began with:

Hello, my name is ____ and I'm an alcoholic.

The actual prayer meeting started at 7pm. It was attended by less than half that number. Confession was private and about 5 minutes long. And the energy picked up at the end, when we began to pray for transformation and revival in the church...

It wasn't a bad prayer meeting by any stretch of imagination... in fact, I've been in many that were far worse... and the people there legitimately love the church, grieve their own sin, and have a heart for those outside of the church... please don't get me wrong...

but I wonder... what would happen if our prayer meetings were a little bit more like AA meetings? what if we were actually confessing our specific personal and corporate sins and struggles, rather than vague and general sins that we all kind of struggle with but no one is willing to own? What if we applauded when sin was confessed, rather than just sat in awkward silence? What if we actually walked alongside one another rather than just talked about it?

Maybe we would actually understand that the gospel is good news...
Maybe we would really repent together and really get grace together...
Maybe the hypocrisy of the church wouldn't run quite so deep...
Maybe we would actually have deep community...
Maybe our prayer meetings would be more full of life and heart-felt prayers...

and maybe, just maybe we would actually see the revival that we all long for, happen...

Repentance comes before revival.

That isn't just a vague nicety...

Charlie Brown, 1.

2009-12-08T16:29:00.003-05:00

I was in CVS the other morning and the lady behind the check-out counter was bitterly and legitimately complaining that Barack Obama's address earlier in the week had disrupted her planned television schedule for the night. She was quite irate and very deeply upset about this fact.

The program that she had missed? A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Her comment about Obama?

"Who does he think he is? The president or something? Someone who has something more important to share than Charlie Brown does?"

I might have laughed a little bit on the inside.

Score 1 for Charlie Brown.

the word became flesh.

2009-12-02T17:14:00.003-05:00

the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. we have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. [john 1:14]

the Word.
became flesh.

God. the one who spoke all things into existence. who was before time. exists outside of time. took on human flesh. allowed himself to be bound by time and space. limited by human constraints and boundaries.

ridiculous.

and not just a few minutes to "see what it felt like." this was a 30+ year commitment of love to humanity. entering in. making his dwelling among us. not a social experiment. but moving into the neighborhood. love demonstrated in deepest fashion.

the Word.
became flesh.
and dwelt among us.

Holy Holy Holy.

Emmanuel: God with us

2009-12-01T08:51:00.003-05:00

As we begin the advent season, take the time to actually read these lyrics and let this be your prayer today. O come, O come, Emmanuel, today.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice, rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Thou Lord of Might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height,
In ancient times didst give the law,
In cloud, and majesty, and awe.
Rejoice, rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan's tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save
And give them victory o'er the grave.
Rejoice, rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice, rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice, rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
And order all things, far and nigh;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And cause us in her ways to go.
Rejoice, rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of peace.
Rejoice, rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

[O Come, O Come Emmanuel]
[author composer unknown, translated by John Neale 1851]

Prayer: God's answer

2009-11-22T21:12:00.002-05:00

We've submitted.
We've honestly, vulnerably, transparently requested.
We've waited.

Finally, God answers. No given time frame, but he always does...

And his answer is... (grossly over simplified)

Yes.
No.
Wrong Question.
Wait.
"Let's work on ____ first."

It's always the right answer... and He always answers... it just might not be what we expect, what we're looking for, or what we think fits the scenario the best...

And, I think there is a temptation, when God answers in a way that does not suit our personal tastes or desires, to want to reject it out-right, because it's not the way we would do it. But I think God's question to us here, is the same question that he gives us at the beginning of the prayer process, and asks throughout:

"Do you trust me?" "Are you praying to me, or just saying empty words?"

Because I am the God who promises that I am for you.
...that I love you.
...that I will work all things out for the good of those whom I love.
...that I know you and all the desires of your heart.
...that I have good plans, the best plans, for you, in my timing
...that I love you.

"Do you trust me, to be the one who answers your prayers?"

So, thus, we come full circle, in prayer... it begins with trust, it ends with trust. Prayer, by nature, requires trust and dependence, saying yes, to a God who is bigger and holier than either you or me. It requires submission of my will to God's, both in our requests and in God's answer.

At a fundamental level, prayer requires letting God be God and considering ourselves in our true light, desires and identity. This restoration of holy order between God and mankind is called worship. It is a full recognition of who God is and who we are. Glory, honor, credit, authority, rightly bestowed.

Prayer, therefore, begins and ends and is characterized throughout with worship.

Prayer: waiting in hopeful expectation

2009-11-21T21:43:00.000-05:00

OK. So we're finally submitting... and we're being completely transparent with God in our needs, our hopes, and our deepest heart-longings.

All this happened quite easily and quickly, of course. No struggle. No blood, sweat, tears.

Right.

But we're there... now what?

At this point in time, God instantaneously always sends me a bullet-pointed email with 3-5 action steps that I can easily take to realize all my hopes and dreams and to resolve whatever pertains to my current life situation drama.

Right.

See, I think I would be far more comfortable with that option... or, I would love to just pretend that we never had this conversation... that those needs/wants/desires aren't there, and I am a-okay fine! But I don't think that's actually where God invites us. Rather, I think the point of desperation prayer-- of real heart-longing prayers-- is that they leave us in a place of waiting, dependence, and expectation.

"I have no where else to turn." "I cannot do this for myself." "I need you!"

I like to call this the "point of no return" because here and now, we've expressed a heart-felt deep need that we ourselves cannot meet. There's no where else we can go... it's either God or nothing... there is no back-up plan.

And so we have a choice: either we wait in hopeful expectation OR we stuff it and pretend it doesn't exist, medicate in our usual ways, and allow our unmet desires to ferment into overflowing wells of bitterade and cynicism.

There's something holy in the waiting, hard though it is...

It's far easier to stuff it. To run. To bury things like a skinny squirrel from a large family in the midst of a cold winter. To pretend that it doesn't matter. To "move on." To "be strong." But it is far better to press deeper into God...

This waiting is our act of worship to God.

So we wait in hopeful expectation:

"Please bless me, Lord. I have no where else to turn. I need you to act on my behalf."

Prayer: what do I really long for?

2009-11-18T10:00:00.006-05:00

OK. So we pray, "God what do you want to do?"

... if you're me, it's probably super hard to pray that way, because admitting that God might have a better plan than you, even though he's God and that's a "duh," is just difficult. More so than that, submitting to his will, without knowing what it is, rather than just intellectual ascent that "oh yes, you might actually be wiser than me," is antithetical to most of us super competent control-freak types... kinda like starting a snowball fight in Florida in August. It's not that you don't want to; it's just that you're really not sure how to go about doing that, or if it's even possible...

But we've gotten there. Freak low-pressure system. Snowballs in August. We're submitting...

Now what?

Here's the crazy, absolutely nutty part of prayer... about 75% of the time, when I finally reach this point, of being willing to submit to God's will, asking him what he wants to do, he will turn the question around on me:

"OK, KG, what is it that you really long for?"

And you would think it would be an easy question to answer... right? But here's the nuance: God still isn't asking for my plan, he wants to know my heart-longing. My plan would be easy; my heart-longing requires me to trust him with my deepest desires that even I, on a real level, don't really expect to come to fruition.

But such is the nature of God: He is more concerned with being known by you and knowing you, than he is with the details and plans by which we govern and structure our lives.

Put another way: he gives us our daily bread, he covers our nakedness with garments of skin, he provides manna in the desert, and he gives marching orders for war, betrothals, and crossing the Red Sea, but that is NOT the meta-narrative of scripture and neither is it his greatest desire for our lives.

No more fig leaves. What is it that you really long for? It's a harder question than you think it is... it is NOT praying the correct prayers or finding something that sounds good or righteous... in fact, the opposite, it's about stripping off the "look good" layers and standing in our nakedness and need before God.

But when you reach that point, such are the prayers that God delights to answer... because prayers than come from that place of deep trust and vulnerability are prayers of the heart, not prayers of circumstance or fear or obligation or duty or control. Such are the prayers of a child to their Holy Father in heaven:

This is me, totally unashamed in my need, I have no where else to go, no one else to turn to for this, I cannot supply this on my own. I will still trust you, if you do not answer, but this is what I long for: Father would you hear me?

I trust you. But I'm still learning, Abba... this is hard for me.

Prayer: what do you want to do?

2009-11-17T17:02:00.004-05:00

Ever have the feeling that you're pounding on God's door, asking for answers, and He just doesn't seem to be answering?

Yeah, me too.

But today, I had a thought-provoking realization...

What if God doesn't answer, not because He doesn't want to or because he can't hear us or cannot act, but because we're pounding on the wrong door, asking the wrong questions?

Rather than really asking Him to act, we're just asking what we should do. Reality is (often times)... we've already made up our minds, so we're not really asking him; we're just asking for validation of our own decisions. An exit stamp on our passports, if you will.

What if that's not the right question?

What if the right question is "What do you want to do here?" "Where are you at work?" "What question would you love to answer?"

"What do you want?" rather than "Here's what I want; what do you think?"

Adventures in Laundry

2009-11-13T21:43:00.003-05:00

So this afternoon, walking back from the laundermat, with my suitcase full of clean clothes in tow, wearing the only things which were clean (let me assure you, not attractive), a middle-aged man and a roughly 10 year old boy drove by me...

The ten year-old, in the passenger seat, rolled down his window and yelled some variation of "hey, hottie!" and cat-called out of the van window at me.

So many things wrong with this picture.

Have mercy.

On a bright side, however, I did have an interesting conversation with the teller at the bank because she thought my suitcase full of dirty clothes was actually meant for a world-wide trip (yes, the suitcase is that big), and proceeded to tell me about her life-long love for travel and all the places she wanted to go. She looked legitimately sad for me when I told her, no no, I was just going to do my 3 weeks of laundry...

Got to love laundry day...

"I produce, therefore I am."

2009-11-10T18:03:00.006-05:00

Our first response when we truly encounter God in all his holiness and ourselves in our essence is not a sense of delight but a sense of utter ruin. - JD Greer (paraphrased by me)

So this morning, I pulled out my handy dandy "Discovering the Enneagram" (Richard Rohr) book to re-evaluate, study, and attempt to continue a process of growing through, against, and into holier places in my personality, character, and core tendencies. For those of you not familiar with the Enneagram, it's well worth checking out... think improved MBTI, with hope for growth and change.

At any rate, the older I get, the more I am persuaded that I fall into one particular category... partially because I read through it and simultaneously identify with and loathe it. At once, my sin is identified, my weakness highlighted, and my battle laid forth. The lie that I believe is:

I produce, I achieve, therefore I am.

It is devastating. It's like looking in the mirror and seeing that huge zit that you knew was there but were adamantly pretending wasn't. Confrontation of reality. Yes, this is who I am. Yes, these are my core tendencies. And I'm good at it. And I'm comfortable with it.

When you look your sin in the face; when you see how far you are from holiness, the result is this sense of ruin. Utter and complete. I know it is lie. But woe is me, I still operate under these guiding principles. I am undone.

But fortunately for me, that is not the end of the story...

[They] "... long, sometimes without knowing it themselves, not only for praise and recognition, but for real love. They get so much applause for their successes that in the end they think that's all they want. It takes a long time before they understand that there is more than deserved recognition: unmerited, unconditional love." [Discovering the Enneagram, Richard Rohr]

And the beautiful part for me, is that as I look back over the last year, I can see how God has begun to write that redeemed narrative for me, where I am not defined by what I do, how much I succeed, what I can achieve, the applause of the multitudes, but by something far deeper. A type of love which is entirely unmerited, based not on what I can do, but completely unconditional. And to experience that is to long for it...

It is the freedom to fail.
It is the freedom to take risk.
It is the freedom to not be guarded, not pretend to be something that I am not.
It is the freedom to give and receive love freely.

I'm still on a journey. I'm still learning. I'm still growing. But I am not where I was a year ago... or even 6 months ago... and that's a good thing!

Here's to celebrating the little things...

In Gratitude

2009-11-04T00:11:00.004-05:00

I started another blog post, complaining about something that I had seen-- an injustice committed, a human error left uncorrected-- but in the midst of it, I was struck by how entirely often I complain when I should be grateful. I point out wrongs when I should applaud qualities that are truly God-given. And I am critical when I should praise God for the good things that he is and will be doing through the situation, person, activity, or task.

Have mercy.

So, in light of that realization... and as a spiritual discipline...

Tonight, I am grateful for:

... student leaders who get the mission and are 110% partners on campus
... students who are generous and quick to repent, who are faithful and eager to serve
... a boyfriend who is way wicked sweet and generous in unexpected ways
... a small group that has quickly moved from strangers to friends
... roommates who generate random giggles
... Tostito hint of lime potato chips
... working internet
... friends who both celebrate and cry with me (and invite me to both cry and laugh!)
... a job and bosses that care about how I'm doing spiritually and emotionally
... donors who have supported me to 91% of budget and pray for me faithfully
... living in a city with public transportation
... a sister who answers my phone calls, no matter how long it's been since I last called
... hot water
... cold weather and seeing my breathe in the air
... soft toilet paper

So many more things... but I'll stop there... Today has been a wicked long day, and there are many things about which I could complain, but when I stop and think about it, there are also so many reasons to be grateful. Perhaps I could learn a lot more from practicing gratitude more often...

Grab bag: of mice, sleep-deprived zombies, and the Phillies

2009-10-29T11:30:00.006-04:00

It's been a while...

I have a few serious posts that I've been thinking about, but no time to actually write them, so that will have to wait for another rainy day. In the meantime, just a few things I've been thinking about lately.

- Mice match their environment. The mice that run around in the grime of the T tracks are different in color from those that run around in my apartment, as a result of their environment. I wonder if that's true for humans as well: our hues and personalities are colored by our surroundings.

- On cold days, people in the city tend to be less friendly that usual when outside, and more friendly that usual when inside.

- It is astonishing to me how many people in Boston are rooting for the Phillies in this World Series. It seems that hatred of one thing unites people to another thing. I wonder if this is also true in other areas of life. And I wonder if this is a good thing... or not.

- October is the month in which students decide that their lives are over, fear of failure sets in, sleep deprivation sets in, tests become more frequent, sickness more prevalent, and grouchy sick zombies start to walk the campus. By December, life returns to normal. This happens every October. I wonder how things would change, if we could hold perspective by remembering from the year prior? I wonder, on a larger scale, how much more hope we would have, if we held longer term memory in general...

Public Transportation

2009-10-22T17:33:00.005-04:00

If you know me, you know that I love public transportation. A lot.

See, I think, in many ways, public transportation is the great equalizer of all people...

Tonight, riding home at rush hour, bodies crammed together without regard for "personal space," I was struck by how many different types people (who would never otherwise coalesce) were literally rubbings shoulders with one another.

Behind me, the two college-aged women, laughing at one another while secretly (but not so secretly) checking themselves out in the windows.

To my right, the woman wearing solely designer clothing, the latest hair styling and coloring, and the Gucci shoes, sitting next to the teenage boy who hadn't had a hair cut in months if not years, wearing thrift shop flannel and sneakers.

To my left, the autistic man, who was repeating "I'm not so awkward" in repetitions of threes and going into fetal position every time the T made a loud noise.

Down the car, the work-men in dust covered boots, standing alongside the business men in their spit polished leather shoes, next to the students in their odd assortment of fashion and "style," across from the tourists of all the world, awkwardly falling into one another as the T lurches and stalls, and the homeless woman, clutching her bags containing all of her possessions.

All breathing the same air and sharing the same space. For the commute of 5 minutes to an hour, all basically on a level playing field. All experiencing the same delays, germs, frustrations and crush of human flesh.

I'm not naive enough to assume that public transportation levels the playing field. In 15 minutes, the doors open and people stream out to their individual lives, many without even noticing, let alone engaging with, their fellow passengers. There are those who cannot afford even the $2.00 fare necessary to ride, and there are those who would never lower themselves enough to ride on public transport. But for a few brief moments, I can dare to dream.

And then the doors will open, and everyone will go their own way, into their own worlds, once more...

From the Mountain Top

2009-10-13T09:13:00.003-04:00

This is why I love going hiking:

Hell of our own making

2009-10-09T19:28:00.004-04:00

inside a hell of my own making
sunlight outside,
I see the open door...
but somehow, I remain
inside the prison cell.
not bound by authority or sentence,
but by self-condemnation
and fear.
this has been my home for so long
these lies I believe,
these walls that I have built,
this has been my home for so long
that I do not know how to leave...
and I wonder, at times,
do I even want to?
or have I so acclimated to the darkness,
that I run away from the light?

open door,
still I remain
in the moldy, stark, dank
prison cell.

what is it that keeps you bound,
in a hell of your own making,
hiding from the Light...

Wisdom from Augustine

2009-10-05T16:20:00.002-04:00

Shamelessly lifting this quote from one of the blogs that I read regularly:

"If you believe what you like in the gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe in, but yourself."

- St. Augustine

I need a bigger God than that... and my guess is that you do too.

Fivel moves into Suite High Life

2009-09-27T23:40:00.003-04:00

So, the mice have become bolder...

Tonight, we had a party with many guests, and the poor little bleepity bleeps decided they wanted to come too. All four of them, Rasputin, Trojan, Anastasia, plus some Fivel as a party guest.

So they came out to play. In the midst of the party. Never ye mind that there were people all around. No no, they apparently are claiming squatters rights.

Irate, I decided to reset a trap for them, fully laden with delicious peanut butter. So tightly sprung that I almost lost a finger in the process of setting it. Literally.

Now, party guests all gone, I am sitting here, watching Anastasia, the smallest cutest most delicate of the four, eat the peanut butter OFF OF THE FREAKING TRAP without springing it while I'm sitting less than 4 feet away.

Cheeky little bastards.

It seems that our first alternative, the humane and rapid system of mouse decapitation, might need to be replaced by another system.

On a side note, my roommates and I decided that if we do decide to go the feline route of mouse-control, we will most likely name the cat Gus Gus, just for the irony of it all. No sweaters or cute booties will be provided to either mice or cats.

Lessons from the wreckage

2009-09-25T22:04:00.006-04:00

Sometimes things don't go the way we plan...

It all began as a simple trip to Ikea...
I picked up a super-flowered comforter...
slightly more frou-frou than I typically like...
Success!

And then, in an instant, colored by abruptly flashing red tail-lights,
squealing tires and the sickening crunch of glass and metal,
all things came to a screeching halt. Literally and figuratively.

The full story is not necessarily important, suffice to say, everyone is okay, no injuries, but the cars were, in the words of the police man, "uniquely redesigned." Shall we say that my compact car became "more compact"? It's trying to morph into its inner hot-rod...

But in those few earth-shattering moments, I think I realized a few things:

When life turns into chaos, all you can think about is the small details like what speed you were going, what the name of the tunnel was, a random thought you'd had earlier in the day, the name of the policeman, your now-certain-to-be-failed car inspection.
At the same time, you realize how completely unimportant those details are... but it's all you can think about.
Sometimes our split second impulses are surprising (who you call, how you react, what your immediate thought is, your ability to stay calm in the moment, etc)...
Often times our disasters feel like other people's spectacles and that is not a good feeling
There are so many things to be grateful for... and the little things that seemed so significant earlier in the day, are now minute in comparison...

Earlier in the day, I had texted my sister, after my leaving my routine doctors appointment. Any time I go to the doctor, we have to go through family medical history, which is long and contains many diseases, maladies and quirks, things that make my super bouncy doctor frown and furrow her brow. I had jokingly texted my sister earlier in the day, "You know, after repeating our family medical history, at times, I'm really surprised that I'm still alive!"

Now, at the end of the day, all I can say is... yes, on two accounts now, life is a gift, not an expectation. And I am very glad to be alive. May that gratitude continue, even after the shock of the accident becomes ancient history...

Don't get me wrong... this is not, in the cliche phrase, an entreaty to "live every moment as if it were your last." That's ridiculous. Then you always live in light of the pending end, rather than in gratitude for the life that you have now. It is, rather, an entreaty to be grateful for the fact that you're alive. And to live life in that gratitude. At the end of the day, the acne, the stressful details of work, the cable not working, the traffic delay, the mice running through your apartment fat-fed on the peanut butter from your non-working traps... at the end of the day, those are details which fall mundane and to the side. At the end of the day, it's good to be alive.

May that gratitude continue, even after the shock of the accident becomes ancient history...

Fix-it Culture

2009-09-22T16:00:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago, I overheard snippets of a beautiful husband-wife conversation. It's stuck with me, even now, weeks later, as such a beautiful picture of what it looks like to love one another well... so I wanted to share it with you:

One of the two was very stressed out, trying to figure out the details for something happening later in the day. They were also deeply concerned about how other people would respond and perceive what they were going to be leading...

The other partner listened well, and affirmed the first's gifts and calling to speak and act, empathized with their struggle, and then said,

"Honey, I love you, but you don't need to be listening to what other people are saying about this. Nor do you need to be talking to me about it and listening to what I have to say. I think you need to take it to Jesus, and ask him, not me or anyone else."

See, I think our instant tendency is to try and solve our friends', our boyfriend/girlfriend's, our spouses', our students', our children's problems. We're a fix-it culture...

But I think the reason that this interchange was so beautiful to me is because it wasn't used as a cop out to neglect engaging... it wasn't an excuse because the spouse didn't have an opinion or know what to say... it was legitimately a redirect from trying to be the answer for the other person to standing alongside them and pointing them to the one who has the answers...

I wonder how our relationships, our ministries, our friendships, our families would change, if we practiced this more often?

"... I think you need to take it to Jesus and I will stand alongside you as you do."

Public enemy #1

2009-09-21T09:47:00.006-04:00

So, the news of the day is:

It's official! We have mice... cute, small, gray, fuzzy ones... and apparently quite a few of them! Word on the streets is that living above a restaurant often leads to an invasion of these species.

Last night, as I was preparing to go to bed, one of the brazen little bleepity bleeps decided that it would be great fun to complete an Olympic sprint across my feet. Not past them, not close to them, across them. I screamed like a little girl. And then he turned around and audaciously made eye contact with me, as if to say, "What? You're displeased? You don't think I should be here? Catch me if you can."

Game on, Rasputin, game on. Those are fighting words and your mom's a hairy rodent. This means war.

Public enemy number #1 has been named: Rasputin, you must die. Pretty sure Anastasia and Trojan are running around somewhere there too, but so far they've been a bit more shy.

Now, the question is... quick and messy (traps) or savory and slow (borrowing a cat).

Either way, the epic battle of mice and men has begun...

I am not a Prostitute

2009-09-18T14:18:00.002-04:00

So Wednesday was a fun day for me.

I sat down with two of my supervisors, in two separate meetings, both of which involved me getting snotty-nosed and drippy, as they called me into deeper places and point-blank called out some areas in which my understanding of myself, of God and of God's relationship to me was fundamentally as nutty as a fat squirrel in autumn. Without going into too much detail, here's the basic gist of my broken understanding:

I do not think that I am intrinsically a delight to God or to other people. I think I am prized and valued and of worth for what I can do, rather than for who I am.

It's the difference between being a prostitute or a lover. A wife or a concubine.

One is loved and valued for who she is, for her relationship with her spouse or lover, her character, her personality, her strengths and weaknesses, through good times and bad.

The other is loved and valued for the commodity that she provides. She is dispensable. She is replaceable. And her worth is largely determined on how good she is at her role.

And, all too often, I live as though I am a prostitute rather than lover, both in relationship to God and in relationship to others...

valued for what I can do, what I can provide, how I can care well for the needs of the other, rather than for who I truly am
disposable and replaceable
weakness is right out, vulnerability close behind it, because those are places in which you expose yourself as incapable, inept, and under-qualified (by proxy, undeserving and undesirable). If I am to be weak or vulnerable, it needs to be well-processed, and neatly packaged.

It's false. It's broken. And I know that. But that is the place that I always seem to return to...

In the words of my friend Carolyn, I've hit my wall again.

But it feels like God is saying, "No more. This wall is not the stopping point..."

A few months ago, my friend Daniel prayed Isaiah 62 over me, and I feel like these words really resonate for me at this point in time (moreso than they did when he prayed them) (vs 2,4,12):

The nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will bestow...

No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah (my delight is in her) and your land Beulah (married); for the LORD will take delight in you, and your land will be married...

They will be called the Holy People, the Redeemed of the LORD; and you will be called Sought After, the City No Longer Deserted..."

God seems to be saying to me:

I long to give you a new name, a true name.
I have called you daughter and delight; stop living as though you were a harlot.
I call you my bride, married to me; stop returning to the harem as if you were a concubine.

At the end of the day, I am not a prostitute.

Jesus' invitation to me is to allow him to be my lover, to radically pursue me, to delight in me, for whom I am, rather than what I can do. And that makes me really uncomfortable because it feels so... intimate... so foreign... so inconceivable... but I think that's his invitation.

That's why he calls me Beloved. Delight.

Now I just need to learn how to live in that place, rather than return to the harem.

Scarcity in Generosity

2009-09-16T12:46:00.003-04:00

As a preface, generosity is not my strong suit or natural reaction, but it's something that God has been challenging me to grow in... to give when I'm asked and able (and when appropriate!), to not consider money something of "my own, my precious" but to develop a heart of generosity...

Yesterday, like many recent days, I found myself running from meeting to meeting. Leaving campus, transit included, I had about 15 minutes to spare before heading to small group, so I walked through the Boston Common, enjoying the beautiful almost-fall weather and made a quick stop in a Dunkin Donuts to grab a cup of coffee as my dinner substitute.

As is typical for the Boston Common, I ran into many homeless men and women along my way, most of whom asked for any spare change that I might have. As I entered Dunkin Donuts, there was a woman sitting right by the door, who also asked for my spare change. As I rarely carry any cash or change, I typically don't have anything tangible to offer [and I have mixed feeling about giving money on the street], but as I was already going into the DD, I said, "I don't have any cash, but can I buy you a cup of coffee?" to which the woman readily assented.

As I was waiting in line, the woman came into the DD and asked, boldly, if she could have a sandwich as well. She wasn't pushy or demanding, just boldly asking...

And I, in all my moment of generosity, have to confess that my gut reaction [all internal, in the span of about 10 seconds] wasn't particularly holy, and in the spirit of vulnerability and honesty, I wanted to share some of that with you:

... "I'm already being generous. How dare she ask for more!"

... "Well, from the looks of it, she's not starving by a long shot; why is she asking for more?"

... "Doesn't she realize that I'm only buying coffee for myself because I can't afford to buy dinner out; my budget is already tight this month... I raise support for crying out loud! I don't have that much to begin with!"

See, I think, at least for me, there is a scarcity to my generosity. It has to be on my terms. It has to be my way. And it's all about someone being "worthy" to receive the tremendous gift of my altruistic kindness.

And last night, I feel like God said "no."

... it's not about her "worthiness"
... it's not about her "need"
... it's not about her gratitude or reception of your gift or what she does with it.

Instead, he said, "It's about your heart. And right now, you are scandalously begrudging in your generosity. And this is not about her. This is about you."

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating that we should dole out cash to every panhandler or giving to every scam that asks- I don't know that that's actually beneficial to anyone and I do think we are called to be wise with our resources.

But I am saying, I think often times, the invitation to generosity has more to do with us and the attitudes of our hearts, rather than the worthiness or legitimate need of the receiver. Giving, or generosity, represents a posture in which we recognize that our resources are not our own. It is recognizing that we likewise have received generosity that was not merited.

It is a posture of gratitude, not begrudging.
It recognizes that the resources we have are not our own.
It is a heart attitude that has less to do with worthiness of the person, and more to do with worship of the God who has given us everything, and with whom there is no scarcity.

I bought her the sandwich. But I think it was I who gained far more...

... returning to real life

2009-09-15T11:50:00.000-04:00

As InterVarsity staff, you know it's the beginning of the school year when...

you haven't seen your roommates in multiple days, and they begin to wonder whether you actually exist anymore or if they should try to sublet your room.
you have nightmares/dreams about hundreds of people coming up to you excited about getting involved with an event, but you can't remember what that event is, you can't remember any of their names, and you are pretty sure that you've forgotten to plan said event.
you eat a twinkie and cheese doodles for dinner and get super excited (a) to have time to eat something and (b) that you get to eat a twinkie again.
your number of facebook friends doubles.
you area already a coffee addict, but you yourself note that your coffee intake has significantly increased.
a common phrase for you is "oh man! i forgot about..."
you have explained multiple times in the last week, "no, I'm not a student, I graduated a few years ago..."
you've worked more hours in the last two weeks than you've slept.
you've probably lost your voice at least once, as a result of talking so much to so many people.
the Walmart/Costco/Kmart candy aisle people know you by name.
you've met hundreds of really awesome new and returning college students, and are really hyped up to see what God wants to do during this school year!

Good times! Really. One of my favorite times of year, even though it's one of the craziest times of the year! And now, new student outreach (NSO) is drawing to a close, so I am preparing to return to real life, sleeping, breathing, eating things other than twinkies, having conversations about things other than InterVarsity... glad this season is almost done, but at the same time, wouldn't trade it for the world, and looking forward to doing it again next year! :-)

I'm still alive...

2009-09-07T14:59:00.003-04:00

The freshmen are here...

Enter the chaos of New Student Outreach and the beginning of the school year...

[So exciting!]
[So busy!]
[So exciting!]

More to follow...

where else would i go?

2009-08-29T10:20:00.003-04:00

faithful is our God:
he is Jehovah Jireh- my provider
he hears the cries of my heart.
he answers the prayers of his people.
he is compassionate and just.
he answers truly, without bent or flaw.
he will answer my cry,
as he sees best.
Lord, attune me to the sound of your voice,
your yes. your no.
let me hear your voice and rejoice,
when your timing is right.
until then, Jesus, and after, i will submit.

[the image is one i drew in my journal this morning, but have been reflecting on for a few months now]

the text [if you can't read it] says:

Where else would I go?
falling on my knees...
clinging to the edge of your robe-
all of my hopes, desires-
Jesus, bless me;
i have nowhere else to go.
if you say no, i'm still here:
where else would i go?
but i'm falling on my knees...
clinging to the edge of your robe...
begging:
Jesus, bless me.
you know these desires,
deepest of my heart...
bless me.
please.

Saying no to weak-sauce strength...

2009-08-27T10:23:00.004-04:00

Through the open window, I can hear my neighbors watching "the price is right." This is their routine every morning... It's unreal to me...

I've been reading through John 1-4 these last few days, as preparation for Chapter Camp, and yesterday, John 4, Jesus' interactions with the Samaritan Woman really stuck out to me... Jesus has this bizarre interaction with the woman, in which she asks him a lot of really good questions, such as "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (4:9). Or, "Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." (4:20)

In other words, "Jesus, let's work through our racial and ethnic tensions of the last 500+ years. There's a lot of [doggie doo] there." or "Jesus, explain to me your theology of worship and the temple. Can you help straighten out our denominational differences and tell me who is right and who is wrong?"

Not bad questions. Great theological questions. But they're the wrong questions. And Jesus isn't buying any of her smoke screens. In the words of Alex Kirk, Jesus refuses to stay warm and fuzzy; he isn't willing to stay at a safe distance, allowing her to stay in her hidden, but comfortable, personal space.

He steps right into the awkward, getting personal, and asking precisely the one question that she needs to hear, but would really prefer not to answer:

He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back." "I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true." (4:16-18)

In an instant, Jesus invades. He pushes in. He asks the questions that we don't want asked. He asks the questions we need to answer. And yes, that is not normally "nice" or "warm and fuzzy." But it is life transforming. Listen to the woman's simple testimony of faith, after her transforming experience with Jesus:

"Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" (4:29)

The fact that he pushes through, that he did not allow her to stay comfortable, that he invaded her personal space... that is what sparked her conversion moment. It is her testimony, as what is dark is brought to light, and Jesus in an instant offers her a chance to step into the light and become more whole in her brokenness than she has ever been in her hiding place.

So, I was sharing with 3-4 friends yesterday, in a couple different conversations, how I've realized that I'm not particularly good at sharing my processing with folks. I don't ask for help often, and when I do, I'm either (a) incredibly circuitous about it, hoping that my friends pick up on my casually dropped hints, or (b) already falling apart, unable to hide my need, and pretty much feeling like I've been pre-processed into menudo. I'm really good at appearing "put together" or "competent." (This is the weak-sauce portion of my strength.) I don't let people see the brokenness often, unless there is high trust and/or a divinely appointed moment. I, like the woman at the well, would prefer to ask great theological questions and leave the personal stuff at the door. [I'm sure this resonates with some of you].

But Jesus says, that's no way to live.

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light... But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." (John 3:19,21)

I think Jesus' rebuke and invitation to me is this... "Step into the light, Kristen. Do not hide any longer. As your brokenness is exposed, so too am I glorified even as you are made more whole."

So here's to the light and an attempt and transparency: I am emotionally constipated right now. I have not cried, really cried, in almost 2 months, and haven't been able to when I needed to. Not sure why. I am processing a lot of my fears, past, present, and future, and that's been hard. And a lot of things feel chaotic in my life; and I do not deal with chaos well. Simply put, I am a mess. Sorry to disappoint, for those of you who thought I had it all together... but, the truth is, weak-sauce strength, false put-togetherness, is no strength at all...

So, here's the invitation I gave my 3-4 friends yesterday:

Would you ask me good questions? Would you probe deeper? Would you not let me get away with weak-sauce strength? There might be times when I don't respond well, or when a given situation renders it appropriate for me to not answer a particular question, but ultimately, I need people to speak into those places of hiding, to invite greater wholeness in stepping into the light.

And my question for you is:

Are you willing to let Jesus ask the questions that you might not want to hear, but that ultimately bringing transformation and wholeness? are you willing to let your friends speak into those places for you? What would it look like for you, to step into the light?

I don't want to be weak sauce...

2009-08-25T11:19:00.001-04:00

"You know, Kristen, you're a very strong woman."

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard this phrase. And, to a certain degree, it's true. I am a strong woman. Headstrong, in many ways. Capable, in others. Independent, yes, although God's been working on that one. Pretty certain of who I am, my identity and the gifts that God has given me, yes, most of the time. And I'm inclined to believe, subjectively, that those strengths can be a good thing. Not always, or without fail, but they can be.

But, and let me just be really honest, more times than not, when those words have been spoken over me or to me, they have been followed or preceded by,

"You should probably tone that down a little." "That's not very feminine." "You need to need to be more _____(humble/quiet/submissive/womanly/etc)." or, my personal favorite, "You know, men don't really like strong women." And please don't mistake me, these are never words that are intended to be hurtful; they always come from a very sincere heart legitimately attempting to care for me well.

But often times, well-intentioned or not, my strength has felt like a curse, not a blessing.

And certainly, one of my areas of greatest weakness is my desire to be control. To know what's going on. To have voice or authority. To succeed. Arrogance. And I do struggle to trust others enough to depend on them, yes. Often times strength is just a masquerade to protect myself from being real. So yes, there are sinful and broken elements of me, that manifest themselves through the false-appearances of strength.

But at the same time, I think are really good things about the fact that I am a strong woman. I don't think I'm less feminine because I have a opinion, or because I can speak and lead well. I think discernment and boldness in speaking truth are good gifts, that are a blessing not a curse. And in many ways, I think strength calls out strength, and invites greater, deeper, stronger response from the men [and women] in my life. I am not ashamed of whom I am, strength included.

And please, make no mistake, there are many people in my life who have blessed that strength and identity, speaking truth over me, rebuking me, and calling me into greater holiness. And I am so grateful for them.

But here are some of the questions I'm wrestling with right now:

What does it look like for me to be free and blessed to be all of who I am? To believe that my strength is a blessing, given by God, not a curse?
What does it look like to allow God to shape that into greater holiness?
Are there parts of my strength that are not holy that need to be winnowed and refined?
Are there times in which I need to lay aside my abilities, in effect, lay aside my strength or "become less of who I am" for the sake of others? How do I know when/what those are?
How do I lead from dependence on Jesus, not on personal abilities or strength? Yet at the same time, not neglect the good gifts that He has given?

I'm going to venture a guess at the answer, although I'm still in process even as I type this, but here goes my best guess:

Greatest strength comes from dependence on Jesus. In effect, then, greatest strength comes from greatest weakness or greatest recognition of need.

The places in which my strength comes from a dependence on Jesus, those are holy places. And not things to be ashamed of or to negate. Speaking truth with boldness, leadership, discernment, prayer, calling others into deeper places of faith, confidence in identity, I think there is a holiness there that comes from deep relationship with and dependence on God.

The places in which my strength is not holy... those come from places of self-assertion, self-protection, and, ultimately (big surprise), fear.

Punchline: true strength comes from dependence on God, freedom and certainty in our identities as his children. Weak-sauce strength comes from trying to define and protect ourselves based on our abilities and strengths. In effect, NOT trusting in Godfor our identity.

Certainly there are places of repentance for me (and for you) in that... but at the same time, I think there is an intrinsic blessing there as well:

To follow Jesus, does not mean that we need to be weak-sauce. To the contrary. Strength, in both men and women, can be a blessing when it is derived from and offered to Jesus. For me, that conclusion is breath-taking, eye-opening, worship-filled, and incredibly freeing.

I hope it is for you as well!

Buried Treasure

2009-08-23T21:57:00.005-04:00

I love the fact that people think you cannot see them when they're in their cars. Today, I drove by a spry young thing gold-digging up a nostril. And we're talking serious excavation... Next car up, a wise old sage, graying at the temples, engaging in a very similar treasure hunt. Some things never change. Really, people?

I promise, serious post sometime soon... but for now:

Why do gorillas have such big nostrils?
... because they have really big fingers...

Fin.

I believe in the Resurrection (cont'd)

2009-08-22T13:19:00.002-04:00

So, those of you who know me well know that I am not particularly gifted in horticulture. In fact, I tend to have a unique ability to kill plants quickly and relatively painlessly (at least for me; I have no idea what plant death feels like for the plant).

But, like the good farmers daughter that I am, I continue to try to grow things.

And this summer, that project has actually worked fairly well. I have a little back-porch garden, consisting of cayenne peppers, tomatoes, chamomile, lavender, parsley, and a few flowers. And surprise of all surprises, they have both survived and thrived. Apparently remembering to water things does wonders. Who knew?

At any rate, when I arrived back from my most recent three week travel stint, I discovered that these miracle plants (with the exception of the plant-that-never-dies) were pretty much done-in. (My roommates share my watering forgetfulness.) And so at the moment, I am in the process of pruning, watering, fertilizing, and attempting to salvage any whisper of life, prospects of which look pretty slim.

But as I was pruning my tomato plants today, cutting off dead leaves and branches, I was struck by the metaphor for us as well:

In order to bring new life to us sometimes Jesus has to cut off a lot of the dead stuff, even though we cling to it. In order to call out life, to restore to life, the grave clothes have got to go.

Yet, we cling to remnants of the old self, our grave clothes, because they make us feel less naked, more whole, and like there's "more there." They are stinky, nasty, dead, rotten, but oh they are comfortable. They hinder and prevent true growth, sucking our energy and our focus from real life. In the same way that dead branches on my tomato plants suck energy away from the life of the plant, so too our "grave-clothes" and places of death that we hold on to hinder us from experiencing real life.

Perhaps they are an unhealthy relationship, perhaps that's your sense of pride or the safety of fear (this is a big one for me); perhaps that's your shame at past failures or sense of perfectionism that will not let you accept grace; maybe that's any number of addictive defense mechanisms (pornography, alcohol, unhealthy obsession with body image, gossip, drugs, an unhealthy need to be needed); perhaps it's lies that you believe about yourself, or positions of comfort that you know God is calling you out of... I don't know what your grave-clothes are, but I do know this:

If we stay in the grave clothes, we will never fully experience the power of the resurrection.

I don't hold much hope for the restoration of life to my tomato plants: as aforementioned, I do not have a green thumb, nor the power of restoration. But I do hold a lot of hope for the restoration of life for YOU and for ME, that comes from cutting off the grave clothes.

The power of the resurrection changes everything.

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go." [john 11:43-44]

I believe in the Resurrection

2009-08-21T13:12:00.001-04:00

So I just got back from our New England Regional Staff conference Wednesday night... among many topics, the primary theme was, "Do we believe that Jesus, that God, can raise the dead?"

Ministry, faith in Jesus, is costly. It appears ludicrous to our culture. It comes at great personal cost to all of us. It does not, in true form, earn you brownie points with anyone. And if Jesus is not who he says he is, then our culture is right: it is wasteful, ludicrous, and down-right dumb to believe in just another smart teacher.

But if Jesus can raise the dead, make life out of death, it is radically worthwhile to believe. If Jesus can raise the dead, bring new life to things that are dead and dying, then he is the only one who offers to true hope. If he is who he says he is, and does what he says he does, then to NOT believe in him is wasteful and ludicrous.

Resurrection power changes everything.

Wednesday night, when I got back from Regionals, I got a text from a friend, saying that their mom and mother-in-law of 8 weeks had just died of liver failure as a result of cancer. Minutes later, I got an email from another friend, saying that her mom had just received the "terminal count-down" notification. Her cancer was past treatment, after months of chemotherapy. Another friend, at age 23, after having an emergency spleenectomy is now in danger of total heart-failure as a result of an infection she contracted on an overseas project.

I categorically hate cancer, disease, death, dying, pain, suffering, etc. It makes me angry, because as I watch those I love suffer, hurt, cry out, I realize that there is something categorically broken in our world.

And I see that same brokenness, in different degrees, on my campus every day. Eating disorders, hatred, racism, unfair judgments, immoral economics, economy of "who-you-know" rather than hard-work ethics, sexual harassment and assault, abuse, hook-up culture, cheating, unforgiveness.

This whole disease thing? The whole brokenness thing? Not good. Not right. Not part of the original plan.

And I think it's actually okay to be angry. To hate death itself. To get angry about the fact that there is disease in the world. To hate brokenness in the world. I think there's actually some holiness there. But the question is... where do I go from there?

Cynicism says, that's the end of the story. It sucks. Live life for yourself while you can because death and brokenness are an inevitable conclusion.

Hope says, that's not the end of the story.

Resurrection power changes everything.

We believe in a God who brings new life with his breath.

Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.' " [Ezekiel 37:4-6]

We believe in a God who has calls forth life from death.

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go." [John 11:43-44]

We believe in a God who triumphs over the power of evil, death, disease, brokenness. The imperishable who clothes us, not with our smelly grave clothes, but with his wholeness.

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." [1 Corinthians 15:54]

We believe in a God who has come to make all things new.

"Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" [Revelation 21:3-5]

Resurrection says, death is not the end of the story. Disease and death and dying will one day cease.
Resurrection says, these things which appear dead, hopeless, wasted, Jesus can redeem.
Resurrection says, those areas of campus, areas of ministry which appear dead, Jesus can call out life there too.
Resurrection says, these places of personal pain, fear, and death, Jesus offers hope that this is not the end of the story.
Resurrection says, those areas of me which are dead and dying, Jesus can breathe life into.
Resurrection says, the cost of following Jesus is worthwhile, because he offers hope for total restoration with power guaranteed by his own triumph over death.

Resurrection power changes everything.

The Sirens of Power

2009-08-17T23:27:00.001-04:00

I was back in Richmond this past week for a couple days, and while I was there, I spent a little bit of time visiting my old haunting grounds at U of R. One of the things that I did was visit a lot of professors of mine, including those in the physics department.

For those of you who have not been privy to my academic history, I was one of those students who came in to college knowing exactly what I wanted to do: science policy diplomacy, specifically nuclear policy, specifically Eastern Europe. Studied nuclear physics and political science. Had my life in the hat. Forget the 5 year plan, I was working on the 60 year plan. And I was well on my way to the plan; I was good at what I did, was published, lauded, networked, and well-liked. And then God intervened, and I ended up in campus ministry instead [ask me about that story sometime]...

And I do not regret that decision. I have no doubts that this is where God has called me for this season in my life and I honestly love my job...

But there are moments in which the Sirens of power, fame, money, and prestige still call my name. This past week was one of those times.

This past week, when I sat down with my college physics advisor, he made a comment about, how, if I decided to come back to science policy, he would be glad to make a phone call for me, to connect me with a good job. And for just a moment, I allowed myself to day-dream as to what that could look like:

Respect from my peers when I tell them what I do, rather than an awkward "well that's nice" and a quick change of the subject...
Financial stability, even affluence, not having to raise my own support.
An economy of merit-based success in which I CAN earn praise, fame, prestige, etc.
An opportunity to "be someone" and have people notice and praise me.
An opportunity to "make a difference" in ways that all my peers would applaud.

One phone call away.

The Sirens of power, fame, money and prestige can sing pretty sweetly. And not all the things that they say are innately wrong. There is nothing innately wrong with being the sciences; in fact, I think there is a huge need for the people of God to be in the hard sciences, particularly physics. And perhaps one day God will call me back there, I don't know. But here's the one thing I do know: the call of the Sirens is all about me and making me comfortable, feeling good about myself. And that is not the economy of the kingdom.

God is not a God who only calls us into thing that are hard; he delights to bless us, and often times calls us into things which fit us more perfectly than we could ever imagine. But he always calls us as a part of a bigger story than just us. The kingdom is always about what he's doing and not about how good we feel about ourselves or how comfortable we are. At the end of the day, it is not about me.

In the same way as Homer's Odysseus was tempted by the Sirens' call, so too, I am tempted by the promises of security, prestige, and money. But at the end of the day, I know that living just for myself is not what I was made for; there is something intrinsic in me that longs to be part of a bigger story, about something bigger than just me. And I have found that in following after Jesus, being about his Father, his Kingdom, and his economy, not my own. He is the only one capable of the restoration of all things, from the inside out; he is the only one who can call me into a place of change that really matters.

If he calls me back to the sciences, I will go. But to follow the Sirens, outside of the plan and call of God, is a shipwreck waiting to happen. And ultimately, the place he has called me, while not necessarily always comfortable or easy or luxurious, is the place in which I want to be. Being part of a bigger story is the only life worth having.

And this is where he has called me for now. :-)

Holiness in Homelessness

2009-08-16T09:30:00.005-04:00

Driving back into Boston last night, gorgeous orange and purple sunset behind me, red blinking tail-lights ahead of me; the lights of a city that I love sprawling and twinkling ahead of me, 2500 miles of places that I love behind me; a present-tense life and wonderful friends ahead of me, history, stability, comfort, and questions of the future behind me; questions of the future ahead of me, ghosts of the past behind me; the contrasts could be endless... The splinching of my heart and life equally so.

They say that home is where the heart is... but mine seems to be in constant transit...

My friend Beck and I have this conversation fairly often actually, that home is hard concept to define for both of us. It is, fortunately or unfortunately, not geographically defined for either of us. I love Boston deeply, but even still, it does not have the sense of permanence associated with true home. For me, the two places that I feel most at home are in an airport and on campus at U of R, but beyond that, there are many many places that I could call home. And that state of being, while intrinsically a blessing because I can be equally at home anywhere, simultaneously means that I am equally a visitor everywhere. This is the sometimes painful tension that I live in. And the cry of my heart is: where is my home, God?

While I was in NC, my friend Krystal shared one thing that really stood out to me. She was talking about how God did not give the Levites (the Old Testament tribe of priests) a land of their own [Joshua 14:4]. Their homes were to be with the Tabernacle, cared for by the people of the land [origins of the tithe]. This echos then with the New Testament words of Jesus when he reminds his disciples that the Son of Man has no place to lay his head [Luke 9:58], the instructions of Jesus, when he sends his followers out to the towns "without bag or purse or sandals" but depending on the generosity of those they meet [Luke 10] and the parable of the Great Banquet [Luke 14:15-24] in which those with fields, oxen, and family miss the call and the poor, crippled, blind and lame are the ones who respond.

Perhaps I should be a little bit more clear?

I think there is an invitation here for us (for me) as ministers of the gospel to find holiness in homelessness.

In the same way that the Levites had no home, other than with the temple, I think there is a call for us to identify likewise. Rick Warren, bless his heart, gave Urbana 06 a great paradigm for our response to God's call: it cannot be conditional. It has to be wherever, whenever, whatever, God asks. We are not a people called to be bound to a land, a home, or our possessions. In the paraphrased wisdom of Brenda Salter McNeil [Urbana 06]: don't settle in Haran when God calls you to follow him to Canaan.

Our home is with God; our invitation is for the Kingdom, not for Comfortability.

Don't get me wrong: I long for a sense of "home" more than almost anything. This blog post comes from that place of deep yearning. And that yearning has not gone away in the 30 minutes it's taken me to write this post, nor will it in the subsequent 60+ years that I hope to live. But I do think that there is a greater invitation present, to find our true place of home in God not in a "send-the-mail-here" type of place. And I think that invitation is to both those of us who would self-identify as splinched, and those who have a clearly defined sense of "home."

There is holiness in homelessness for the sake of the Kingdom.
Don't settle in Haran when God calls you to Canaan.
Our invitation is for the Kingdom, not for Comfortability.

So we live in the tension...

"For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." [Matthew 16:25]

Well, hey y'all!

2009-08-10T17:02:00.006-04:00

So apparently I no longer have 20-20 vision. But, my right eye is more blind than the left, explaining my odd quirks and unbalanced walking patterns. Also means that I now wear reading glasses. Lord, help me, I'm getting old.

In other news, I'm still in the midst of my southern adventures, and so I thought perhaps it would be prudent to dedicate at least one post to my Southern observations. Also known as, "Toto, we're not in Massachusetts anymore." So with no further ado, here we go...

11. When driving, slow is best. Actually, scratch that, in general, slow is considered better.
10. Everyone and their cousin has either a pick-up truck or an SUV. Or two.
9. Lard, oil, and butter are staple ingredients in every food item.
8. You actually see bumper stickers which advocate for McCain-Palin 2008.
7. Y'all is used with reckless abandon. Y'all'all is used slightly less frequently, but still used.
6. When you walk into a house, the first question you are asked is "Are you hungry?"
5. Vegetarianism is relatively unheard of. Hunting for your own meat is fairly normal.
4. The TV show "Jackass" is considered reality TV.
3. One has to be careful not to hit deer, hedgehogs, rabbits, dogs, and possums when driving home late at night.
2. One occasionally sees a confederate flag flying.
1. The majority of the women my age are already married. Many of them already have children (plural).

Such is my heritage; and in it, there is great beauty as well as great brokenness. But I suppose that is the way it is with all cultures and all heritages. Potentially more reflections to follow...

But in the meantime, have a great night y'all.

... stand in the ruins (cont'd)

2009-08-06T11:24:00.003-04:00

Along the lines of "the man eating tiger has got to go," today, my former IV trainer and friend Alex Kirk (incidentally, a very wise man) posted on life brought forth from death. I thought it was well put, so I thought I would share an excerpt with you. You can read the whole post here.

"...The dynamic of things dying and new things springing up brought me to this prayer: Lord, what in me needs to die so that something new might spring to life?

This, of course, is the Christian story. The hope that we proclaim is a messy hope. It is life that only comes on the other side of death.

Jesus goes to the cross, endures the shame, dies a brutal death, and then three days later is raised victoriously. The victory is the last and loudest word. But it only comes on the other side of the death.

As with Jesus, so it is with us. We live only as we die. We discover more and more life only as we willingly put things to death in us that are themselves death--the gangrenous, poisonous, corrosive activities and thoughts and beliefs that rob us of joy and life [...]

And it's scary. Because putting something to death hurts like hell--it's a real death, not a surface fix. So we run away from the very path that would offer us life because at least we know what we have--even if it's a poor substitute for a real life, at least it's a known quantity.

But the economy of the kingdom is that life comes from death. That's how the exchange works. We have Jesus as our brother and king who has led the way--he is not calling us to do anything that he himself has not done already."

In order to kill the weed, you must cut out the root. In order for new life to spring up, sometimes things in us have to die. And so we stand in the ruins, asking,

"Lord, what do you want to do? Where do you long to uproot and make new?"

Step into the chaos; Stand in the ruins

2009-08-03T11:24:00.001-04:00

So friends, today is the day that you get a bit of raw, personal, and only partly processed stuff. If that doesn't sound like fun, then I would recommend (continuing) facebook stalking, purchasing random weird items on eBay, or you know, drinking a tall glass of a very tasty beverage instead...

"let's talk about fear..."

Damn it. [and I mean that entirely literally].

I wish that fear were not a topic with which I was familiar, but unfortunately, it is very much a part of my reality. I grew up with it. It's been in my family for years. It's been part of my OS as long as I can remember. I fight against it. Jesus has won, but sometimes I lose. And put me in a situation with chaos, and fear becomes a pretty big enemy. Control becomes my safety net because it allows me to hold fear at a safe distance, and avoid actually having to deal with it.

It's kind of like a zoo, holding a huge man-eating tiger. The fences keep you safe: they keep the tiger at bay. Control keeps you safe. But it doesn't deal with the fact that there's a man-eating tiger present. And fear is very much like a man-eating tiger... it eats you from the inside out. It holds you captive rather than sets you free. And it runs counter to what the kingdom is all about: "it is for freedom that Christ has set us free" (Gal 5:1).

Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Fear of being revealed as a fraud. Those are some of my big ones...

And my guess is... if you think about it, you have places in which that fear rises up for you as well (some of you more than others): New situations. Wondering whether people like you. Financial stability. Family situations. Death. Heights. Public Speaking. Love. Small people or large woolly mammoths. You name it; we each have places in which fear becomes a dominant factor.

Let me just be categorically clear: (most) fear is not of God.

Now, there is such a thing as holy fear (or complete and total awe, reverence of an entirely holy God). And there is such a thing as healthy fear (hesitation to do stupid things, or reservations about jumping out of planes without a parachute). But 90% of the time, when we encounter fear in our lives, it is not holy or healthy. It is a fear that at root says, "God will not take care of me here; God will not provide for me here."

For me, that translates into, "Therefore, I need to take care of myself." I think my second sentence as a child was telling: "Me do it me's self." As long as I'm in control, fear stays under control. But, even though the tiger is caged, I find that all to often, I am the one who is bound.

Enter God in his grace and mercy.

For the last three years, God's invitation to me has been to relinquish control, to allow him to lead, to submit to him, to follow the Holy Spirit and to lay down my independent-self-protective walls, trusting him and trusting his people. He has been tearing down my walls, with the power of a wrecking ball and the delicacy of an architect.

But this last month, my sense is that God's invitation to me has been to "step into the chaos" and to "stand in the ruins" in the context of work, friendships, and family. In other words, to return to the places where fear reigns, sans protective walls, and let God do his thing. To return to the places long devastated in my life, and allow him to rebuild. And that is terrifying. Control, my favorite thing, is lost. And, as a result, I find myself facing the man-eating tiger. And I want nothing more than to cut and run, let's be honest. But I think, at the end of the day, God wants to deal with the tiger... Unhealthy, unholy fear has got to go.

I had a dream a few weeks ago, in which I saw a ginormous weed... in the dream, I kept trying to cut off the top of the weed, but it kept growing back. When I woke up, the phrase, "In order to kill the weed, you must cut out the root" was stuck in my head... weird as it is, I think there's some truth there:

God is not satisfied to just deal with the symptoms of our brokenness. He invites us to step into the chaos and stand in the ruins because He wants to rebuild not glaze over. He longs to cut out the root. And he longs to say to fear, "Get out of here scum-bag! You have no authority here anymore!"

For me, I'm still in process. I do not do chaos well. I don't like the ruins. But I chose to step forward because I believe that it is better to stand in the ruins with him, than to run and hide from them by myself. He is a God of restoration. I chose to step forward because I believe that it is better to step into the chaos with him than to try and battle it myself. He is a God of redemption, power, and authority. He wins. And I chose to step forward because the man-eating tiger has got to go...

That's me at the moment. But what are your ruins? Where is your chaos? Where does God long to do his work of restoration and redemption in your life?

"They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations." [isaiah 61:4]

"This is what the Lord says: you say about this place, 'It is a desolate waste, without men or animals.' Yet in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted, inhabited by neither men nor animals, there will be heard once more the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those who bring thank offerings into the house of the Lord, saying "Give thanks to the Lord Almighty for the Lord is good; his love endures forever." [jeremiah 33:10-11]

when I think of heaven

2009-07-26T15:06:00.003-04:00

years of walking in poor shoes
have left her feet twisted, crippled.
she walks slowly, with limp;
too much walking, standing, renders great pain.
gnarled and twisted, calloused and corned.

when i think of heaven, i think of grandma's feet-
the master tenderly washing them.
and as the years wash away,
grandma dancing, leaping, running;
lame feet, no more.
all things made new.

born storyteller, years of learning and life experience,
struggles to recall the most simple of words.
his frustration is evident, but his memory will not cooperate:
memories, details, yesterday, gone.
the brilliant man, fantastic storyteller, frustrated.

when i think of heaven, i think of grandpa's memory-
the master smiles and says, "Walter, do you recall the time..."
and grandpa grins with ease and begins to recount the tale:
the two, laughing with delight;
mute tongue, no more.
all things made new.

years of pain, washed away.
frustration, angst, doubt, gone.
brokenness made whole.
loved ones, reunited; families, restored.
injustice damned and sent away.
love, made complete.
the scales fall away, things seen as they truly are.
disease, pain, mourning, death, no more.
all things made new.

"Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like deer and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert." [isaiah 35-5-6]

"He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" [revelation 21:5]

Individual Rights

2009-07-23T15:16:00.001-04:00

“If it’s true that only individual rights matter, then our descendants really don’t matter because they’re not individuals yet. This is what the West just has not been able to deal with. This is why the West pushes off to the future: environmental pollution, global warming, government deficits, the energy crisis, the global food shortage, the global water crisis, and so on. It’s taxation without representation across time. The truth is: we have not inherited this earth from our parents; we are borrowing it from our children. And we are leaving nothing left for them. The idea of individual rights is likely to be the fatal flaw of the West.” - M. Nagasawa (partial credits, P. Singer)

Thoughts?

Child-like prayer...

2009-07-20T16:31:00.003-04:00

This past Sunday, I sat down in church next a mother and her son. The son was roughly 25, but you could tell after a few moments that he had the mental capacity of roughly an 8-10 year old. No filter and very overt in his actions (and attentions). He was the type of pew-neighbor that [if I'm really honest] I often try to avoid:

Claps too long, even after everyone else has stopped;
Laughs loudly in awkward places in the service;
Continually scoots closer to me on the pew;
Hurdles himself back down into the pew with the energy of an 8-year-old boy but the pound-age of a 25-year-old man leading to large pew vibrations;
Loudly whispers to me throughout the service;
Sings off-key very enthusiastically.

And there was a very large part of me that wanted to pull the pew-scoot out of there. Not proud of that, but just being honest.

But here's what struck me. The pastor finished the sermon, and began to pray. In the middle of his prayer, he stopped and gave the congregation room to pray silently for those in need of God's healing touch. And from my right side, I heard this 25-year-old kid unabashedly pray:

"Oh God, please heal me."

And I, in my righteous social appropriateness, had to take pause for a moment to consider those few small words.

"Oh God, please heal me."

Can I (do I) pray in that way? Or when the pastor tells us to pray for those who are in need of God's healing touch, do I always exclude myself from that need? See, for all of his social inappropriateness and awkwardness, this guy understood something that I often times don't. He prayed as a man in need of healing, without fancy words or protocol, without shame in his need or conditions to his request. Child-like expectation.

So here's my thought: maybe, just maybe, some of those "social proprieties" need to get chucked from our prayer lives. We pray nice prayers. We pray pretty prayers with good rhetoric and even keel. And we pray for God's healing in others, in the world, assuming that we can take care of our own issues. Or, worse, presuming that we are not ourselves in need.

Wrong.

I think the invitation to us, friends, is remove the filter; to pray with honesty and rawness, not the sanitized prayers we often pray; to actually talk, using real words, to the God who made us and loves us, unabashedly, in certainty of his love for us; to pray with child-like expectation for adult-sized issues; to relinquish control and place ourselves fully in God's hands.

Maybe Jesus knew what he was talking about when he said:

"I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:3-4)

likes me... likes me not...

2009-07-18T12:26:00.003-04:00

Last night, a few friends and I were hanging out at a pub near my house... we were catching up, reflecting back on college years, and laughing about some of the random antics that we had performed "when we were younger." At one point, we were talking about a particular friend, who shall remain nameless... Good friend, really great guy (well-beloved), but classically "scientist" with all the implications therein. For example:

... at one point, he crystallized pure caffeine from coffee just for fun.

... another time (or should I say, multiple times), he lit random objects on fire (or blew them up) through a series of chemical reactions. Often times, in the dorm room.

... at another point in time, his RA was concerned that he was growing illegal substances in his room, because he had a water garden under his bed, typically only used in a college setting to grow one thing. He, however, was growing herbs and plants for botany experiments.

... and the list can go on and on, but I'll stop there. Bottom line, my friend is unashamedly exactly who he is, and that does not change based on people's opinions, favor, or approval. And I love that about him!

As we were giggling over these stories and others, I was struck again by the idea that:

"It is far better to be disliked for who you truly are than it is to be loved for something that you aren't."

Confession? I am a repenting people pleaser, at core. And for many years, I would play the game of trying to be exactly who people wanted me to be in a given situation. Intrinsic in that was the fear "If they really knew me, they wouldn't like me..." As a result, I wound up playing a lot of different roles, wearing a lot of different hats, and in the process, lost a sense of who I really was. Not healthy, because ultimately it places a lot of authority in the hands of those whose favor we (I) seek. When, in reality, the only one who has real authority has already said of us:

"I created your inmost being; I knit you together in your mother's womb. Praise ME! because you are fearfully and wonderfully made; my works are wonderful!" (paraphrase Ps. 139:14)

He didn't make me to be like Micah or Billy-Bob or Susie or LuAnna or Melchizedek. He made me to be Kristen. And he said that that was good. All the time, not just when it's convenient or popular.

Don't get me wrong, there are places in which adaptation can be good and holy. Certainly, there are situations in which we need to soften certain characteristics in order to care well for those around us. And there are definitely places for repentance and change in our identities and, often times, good friends are the ones to call those out for us. But that is entirely different from shape-shifting, or trying to make people like us by transmogrification of ourselves... ultimately, role playing should be left on the stage.

"It is far better to be disliked for who you truly are than it is to be loved for something that you aren't."

[I'm still workin' on it.]

IM::Porn

2009-07-16T11:40:00.005-04:00

So I've never been a particularly large fan of instant messenger, gchat, tweeting (side note, who decided to call it "tweeting"? Really friends? Really?), yahoo chat, facebook poking etc. If you've ever talked to me online, you probably know this about me. Don't get me wrong, I love the convenience. But at the same time, I think there are some dangers inherent to depending on them too much. And yesterday, it dawned on me, some of those dangers, are actually remarkably similar to those of pornography. How's that for a tag line?

Oh you want me to explain... just what I was hoping for!

Side note, going to take a guess that my hit counter will jump about 100 fold because I used the word porn in the title. That's kind of sad.

Anyhow. Here're some of the dangers of online chat:

It can create a false sense of the other/self. Any time editing/airbrushing is allowed or possible, it creates something that's not entirely true. Those blemishes, imperfections, and inhibitions which we have in real-time, real-life, are way less present in online chats (and porn). The real thing has no backspace or edit button...
It can create a false sense of intimacy. Because inhibitions are lower (because you're not face-to-face and don't have to deal with the social awkwardness in the real), it's far easier to share deep personal things than it is when you're actually around another real person who will respond verbally, physically, emotionally/expressively, and sometimes inappropriately.
Because it's non-verbal, you get (to a certain degree) to determine what the other person is thinking or feeling (although emoticons help out a little bit). For example, person A and person B are chatting. Person A is sharing something deeply personal and troubling. Person B takes forever to respond, so person A assumes that they are weeping alongside them, praying for them, and scouring the Internet for words of comfort from some dead poet. Reality is, person B has just noticed that LOST has come on, and they've gotten so sucked into the plot that they have missed everything that person A has just said in the process of trying to figure out whether Juliet lives or dies. Person A is getting their emotional fix, person B is absent. You get to create the response and read the emotion into it.

So, that I don't sound entirely cynical, bitter, and hypocritical for ever signing onto any form of instant messenger, allow me to qualify my critiques, speaking exclusively about chat (no more parallelism). I do not think online communication/chat is inherently bad. I will probably be online again very soon. I think there are a lot of good things that can come from it, such as:

staying in touch with a lot of folks that I wouldn't otherwise be able to (out of state-ers, out of country-ers, folks travelling on the international space station, etc.)
a non-awkward way to get to know cool strangers better
touching base quickly about something; as such, it's very convenient
telling someone you care about them, instantaneously, while they're doing other things
allowing real communication for folks or in areas where inhibitions are otherwise high

But, here's my point: Online communication should never be a substitute for the real. It can add to, build, and bless deep friendships, as an accessory to real, but it cannot sustain them. Real people are far more interesting that pixilated ones, because they actually have flaws. And the flaws and quirks are ultimately part of what makes that person real [we are not perfected yet]. So, no need to sign off, disconnect, unplug, etc (although it could be a good thing)... but do set good boundaries. Recognize the pitfalls and limitations. Use in a way that is healthy.

And bring it into the real. It's messier, but it's far more rewarding.

I'm done preaching now.

Other people's trash...

2009-07-15T11:19:00.003-04:00

Today is recycling day. Even as I speak, I can hear the recycling truck with its annoying yet constant beeping to warn me of its presence. Cans are rattling and bottles are breaking as they are heaved into the large truck by a huge man with burly arms and many colorful tattoos.

But this is not the first time I've heard those cans and bottles rattling today.

In the wee hours of the morning on Wednesdays, around 3am, the homeless men make the rounds of my street, going from recycle bin to recycle bin, pulling out old beer and coke bottles and cans, sometimes sipping the final dregs of a not quite empty bottle. But really, they're not after the beverage. They want the bottles themselves. That will be their income for the day...

At five to ten cents a bottle (return for cash at the supermarket), it takes a lot of bottles to make enough for a meal. Cash from other people's trash. Sustenance for the day.

I wonder what other "trash" I have that could be someone else's livelihood.

Happy Birthday

2009-07-10T17:36:00.003-04:00

Happy Birthday, John Calvin. Finally hitting the big 5-0-0. Today is a big day.

I called my mom this morning, after missing like 4 phone calls in a row from her. She began the conversation by wishing me a happy birthday.

::Uhh, Mom, today's not my birthday... about 5 months off yo... and I feel like you should know that, considering that you were the one most intimately present on that day. When push comes to shove comes to squeeze, it was you do the pushing and squeezing::

Being my tactful self, however, I merely responded, "huh? what?"

She reminded me that today was the day that I made my initial decision to follow Jesus, fourteen years ago. Happy re-birth-day, in her words. And so it was, and is.

::Guess that makes me an teenage, prepubescent Christian these days.::

::that could explain so many things::

Go team. It's been a good journey. Here's to expecting another good year...

meeting flipper

2009-07-07T15:04:00.003-04:00

I think I'm having a regional identity crisis. There. I said it.

::whew:: ::wipes forehead::

Glad that's off my chest.

Hanging out in Madison has been fantastic beyond my wildest expectations, including the one where I hoped that I might meet Flipper while here. No no, much better. But at the same time, it has raised a certain number of unexpected thoughts and questions, most specifically, where do I really belong? And it's not so much a question of not belonging anywhere, but conversely, belonging in part to too many places.

::cause I'm the wanderer, yeah the wanderer, I roam around around around::

Bonus points if you can name the song.

And while there are certainly advantages to having lived and served in a number of different places, "belonging" in a number of different places, there are also moments when I wish that I knew for sure where home was... maybe that's one of those "not yet" moments.

Or maybe I should just hold out hope for meeting Flipper.

masterpiece in microcosm

2009-07-05T12:11:00.003-04:00

* written as personal reflection, after prayer ministry class 2009, kG 7/2/09

masterpiece in microcosm
seeing the very big, in the very small.
the finger of God
touching the fragility of mankind-
the master craftsman
reshaping his creation.
author, illustrator, maker, Lord,
gently touching.

we see but in part:
then we shall see fully.
he allows us to see just a piece
of his healing,
his heart,
his power.

and audacity of all audacity,
invites us to participate
as instruments in his hands:
the potter's wheel;
the sculptor's knife;
the scientist's equipment;
the artist's brush:
useless, even dangerous,
outside of the master's hand.
no authority or artistry
outside of the master's hand.

would you rain down, Holy Spirit,
ye even reign down in us.
we the microcosm long for your touch-
dry bones, without your breathe-
smelly grave-clothes, without your call forth-
one day's worth of oil, without your blessing.
we long for
the finger of God
touching the fragility of mankind.

come Holy Spirit.

Jehovah Nissi: the Lord is my banner.

2009-06-25T19:33:00.003-04:00

Kristen here, reporting from Madison WI, at IV Mecca! While it's been two years since I was last here, in some ways, it feels like just yesterday...

Yet, this year, this experience really has felt like a place of Ebenezer for me, of celebrating redemption, in how far God has brought me in the last 2 years, since I was here for my ONS.

Then... I really wasn't sure I wanted to be on IV staff... and was actively praying that God would show me that he had made a mistake in his calling and didn't really want me on staff. I was looking for a way out, and nearly had that elevator conversation with my supervisor many many times. Had the "I quit" ("before I even begin!") speech memorized.

Now... I can say with certainty that the last two years, while hard at times, have been an immense blessing, and have caused me to grow in beautiful ways that I wouldn't have otherwise. And I can say with certainty, that I am supposed to be on staff for this time.

Then... I was at 0% of budget, with God's promise that he would raise it by September 15th. I was terrified, shame-filled, and in 100% avoidance mode.

Now... I can testify to the fact that God has answered that prayer in abundance, every year that I have been on staff. The Lord has never let me be in want. He has been my Jehovah Jireh. My provider. And I trust that he will be again.

Then... I hadn't even begun to deal with my perfectionism, and had dealt with very little of the hurts and brokenness of my past.

Now... I can honestly say, God has been refining me like silver in a fire, burning off the dross. It has been painful, hard, and long, but oh so deeply rewarding. It's not all gone by any means, but he has given me a greater sense of my own sin, an eagerness to repent, and has begun a long [and continual] process of speaking freedom over me, in the areas of perfectionism, and past hurt.

Then... Two years ago, Keith Hirata was commissioning us to go out to serve on the campus. He anointed my knees (something which seemed strange at the time), and blessed me to become a woman of prayer. I thought it rather bizarre, and out of the ordinary, but took note anyhow.

Now... God has really challenged me to grow in prayer, and as a result, I'm in Madison for a prayer ministry course. And my dependence on the Holy Spirit has only increased as the Lord has blessed my desire to know him and depend on him more. I don't think Keith knew how prophetic his words would be, but I still feel deeply blessed by them.

Then... I was an un-experienced, nervous 22-year old who thought she knew everything, fiercely independent, and not so good at trusting.

Now... I am still an un-experienced, slightly less young person, but the Lord has been teaching me a lot about interdependence, waiting on him, and listening for his voice. In that, he has taught me how little I know, but how much he delights to use me anyhow. And as I step out in faith, he has increased my capacity and hunger for trust, intimacy, and vulnerability.

Jehovah Rapha. The Lord is my healer. Jehovah Elohim. The Lord our God.

Here I raise my Ebenezer. The Lord has been faithful to me.

DTR...

2009-06-21T09:39:00.003-04:00

Last night, I was sitting talking to one of my friends here in Boston...

We were discussing the difficulties of moving and making new friends, and I was telling her that in every stage and location of life, which has been many at this point, I have a different "best" friend(s). At this point, I have many many best friends, from many different stages and locations in life. They're kind of like roll-over minutes... depending on your carrier, sometimes you can keep them from location to location, month to month.

There was a pause, and then she asked the question, "So, who's your best friend here in Boston?"

Another pause, and then I replied, "Well, not to be sentimental, but, it's probably either you or so-and-so."

:: mutual smile::

And another pause, and then she responded, "Yeah, I think you're my best friend here too."

There's something entirely freeing about having that DTR talk, and knowing the other person thinks you're cool too. It was just a small thing, but it made me smile. And just goes to say, DTRs don't have to scary, negative, or strictly romantic. It's always a great thing just to tell the other person that they matter to you, that they are significant to you, and that you think they're super spiffy awesome. And if that ends up with you getting a smooching partner on the other end, double bonus. But if it just results in you and your totally platonic friend feeling mutually encouraged, well, that's a bonus too...

Tell people that they matter. It's important.

Sweet Ginger and Peach

2009-06-17T11:10:00.004-04:00

When I requested my first cup of coffee, at 11:21am, she scowled at me and barked a "hrmph" in response to my morning greeting. She'd already been on that train for 5 hours, and cheery was not her middle name.

An hour later, I plopped myself down in the Cafe car to begin the 400+ pages of reading that I needed to complete. She was still bustling around, oscillating between sitting in slow spells, and dolling out overpriced train foods during the lunchtime rush.

Sitting there, for the next 9+ hours, I was struck by the different interactions taking place in that car. Every time she would sit down, someone would come up, needing, life or death, their cheap quality but supremely overpriced beverage. Customers weren't rude per se, but they had an agenda and their interactions with her were limited to seeing their needs met. Any thought to her was secondary, if that. Barely a cursory hello. She was, in essence, nameless, faceless, and identity-less to them. I found myself picturing Rosie the robot-maid from the Jetsons.

Yet, in the course of 9+ hours together, especially after being locked in the Cafe car together over the stopover in NY, my understanding of her really morphed.

She was on the second half of her 3 day work week: a 17 hour train ride down to Newport News from Boston, 4 hours of sleep, and then back up again. She would go home and sleep for 4 days, and then do it again. And again. And again...

She had been a flight attendant until 9/11, on duty that day, but in her words "I was done that day" and "oh honey, working on a train is so much worse than a plane!" She'd been everywhere in the world, but her favorite location was a small town in the northern part of England, right across the Channel from Paris.

She had three sons, nine grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. Her husband was gone.

She loved fruit flavored teas, not coffee.

She was brisk, but not unkind. She was merely doing her job, with people who could not, or just chose not to, see her. My favorite was the woman who wanted her to hold her trash because she desperately had to use the bathroom after consuming four beverages in rapid fire. All this, while standing next to the trash can. And I was struck by how often I say hello, but don't really see the person serving me. I am more concerned with my famished need for a $20 hot dog or a cup of coffee than the story of the person serving me. I don't even make eye-contact a third of the time. My take-home for the day?

People in public service are people too. Treat them as such. Everyone has a story, and their actions make far more sense when set in the context of their narrative.

When we arrived in Boston, we parted ways. She gave me two of her favorite fruit flavored teas (Sweet Ginger Peach) and said, "I'll see you soon!" I replied, "I'll look for you next time I take the train." We weren't friends, but I felt like we had seen each other, face to face, not just in passing.

I only wish I had asked her name.

iceberg ahead.

2009-06-06T19:37:00.002-04:00

[inspiration at a minimum, so we'll settle for a confession...]

I have never seen the movie Titanic.

Ever.

[but]

I might watch it tonight.

[please do not shame me, disown me, or shun me.]

Thank you.

man, I feel like a woman.

2009-05-27T12:34:00.004-04:00

I am a very independent and competent woman. Almost to a fault, but not quite. And as such, often times it is assumed that I can take care of myself, that I don't need to be treated like a lady or, worst case scenario, that I will eat anyone alive who tries to help me out. Freshman year of college, that might have been the case, but thankfully my guy friends and Carolyn staged an intervention. Thank you, again.

At any rate, because of this, sometimes it's rare for me to be treated like a lady or have someone express concern for my well-being. I take full blame for that; I give off an aura that I don't need it. But all the same, it's still a pleasant surprise when it occurs.

I was reminded of this last night, when one of my guy friends expressed concern for me making it home alright, walking alone at a late hour. To me, I have to do this every night, and have really only felt nervous twice (ask me about the bicycle riding banshee), so I don't even think about it anymore. But in his words, "twice is twice too many times." That genuine concern and even chivalrousness of offering to walk me home, way out of his way, meant a lot. I was thinking about this last night, and two things really stuck out to me:

1) I am grateful for the gentlemanly men in my life. Really. Even though I am a strong, independent woman who doesn't necessarily need help, it means a ton when it's offered freely. Gentlemanliness is entirely different from chauvinistic imposition of power, and does not minimize my feminine strength, but blesses it with masculine strength and concern. I am grateful for you guys and I need to tell you that more often. Thank you.

2) It is a spiritual discipline for me to depend on other people. I have spent my entire life training myself to be independent, and I am good at it. I actually need to allow people to help me, care for me, or express care and concern for me. This is hard. I push back against it. And I am scared of it. But ultimately, we are called to interdependent- needing one another- not independent. This has been my lesson of the year, and I think will continue to be...

That's all for now.

when what is obscure becomes clear

2009-05-26T11:55:00.003-04:00

Hiked Franconia Ridge Line over Memorial Day weekend with some friends... it poured for the first 2 miles up, and the view was completely obscured by lots and lots of clouds... but as we hit the ridge line, summiting Mt. Lafayette, the clouds began to break.

There is nothing quite like that moment, when what is obscure becomes clear.
Take the metaphor as far as you like.

I think sometimes this is why there are clouds in our lives. So that we are more in awe, more astonished, and overjoyed, when we see the view, for the first time, clearly. Otherwise, we (and by this I mean "I") would take it for granted.

signs of the times

2009-05-12T12:49:00.002-04:00

Best theological question thus far this week:

Does (or can) the Holy Spirit work or exist via facebook or gchat?

In reference to Matthew 18:20 "for where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."

Such is our generation, friends. Such is our generation.

My question is: what would the Holy Spirit put on a facebook profile or gchat status message? Not sure that I want to go there, but... oh wait... I just did.

NO credit card accepted here.

2009-05-04T15:43:00.003-04:00

Life is funny at times.

This past weekend, Boston was host to a Project Bread "Walk for Hunger." Some of my students and friends walked the 20 miles and I was a financial sponsor for a few people walking it. It's a great cause, and I was really excited to be able to support!

And then tonight, as I was walking to a campus, a homeless man holding left-over fliers from the walk asked if I would be willing to give him a few dollars, quipping that it was for an "post-event dinner" from the walk for hunger. I smiled and shook his hand, looked in his eyes, said truthfully "I am so sorry, I have no cash." He thanked me for my smile and handshake, and I walked away.

Same cause, middle man eliminated.

We are funny people at times. We prefer to keep our hands clean while "fighting for a cause." It is much safer to give money to a cause than to a person. It is much more sanitary and clean-cut to donate electronically than to give of our time or to a buy a burger for someone. We like pictures of needy people, but given our druthers, in real life, we find our shoelaces far more attractive than their faces.

I claim no superiority here. I am guilty as charged. And I don't fully know what the right answer, the right way to care well is... to give money directly or not... to buy a hamburger or not... to sit and talk or not... Is it enabling or is it helping? Is it dangerous to me or loving to them? I'm wrestling. I don't know. I think in some ways it's both and. There's a lot that I don't know; that I'm still wrestling to rest comfortably in.

But I do know this much: the very very least that I can do, is lift my eyes from my shoelaces and look my brothers and sisters in the eyes, and smile. The very least that I can do is treat them like human beings, not just objects along the road.

the cost

2009-05-01T11:46:00.003-04:00

"then Jesus said to his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. for whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." - matthew 16:24-25

security. safety. the known.
all the things which protect me,
the fig leaves that i wear:
friends, family, reputation, the known
the comfortable.
not bad necessarily, of themselves,
but a sorry excuse for following God.

what has it cost me, to follow this Jesus?
to shed my fig leaves and say yes:
wherever, whatever, whenever?

it has cost me my conditions, set to the side now-
my following cannot be dependent on companionship,
comfort, security, or "my plan A."

it has cost me me financial and personal independence-
no more maverick for me.
each year, humbled, dependent on the generosity of others.
utterly dependent, no safety net, no chance to claim self-sufficiency.
sometimes, what could have been still haunts.

it has cost me my proximity to friends, and family, my comfort, my culture-
1000 miles away from home...
don't let me lie and tell you it's always been easy.
i had good, even great, community,
but God had bigger plans.

it cost me respect from my secular authority, people i wanted to please-
"why are you throwing away your life-
so talented, so smart! you could do anything...
why this?"
if Christ is not risen, then it is utter foolishness:
it's hard to appear a fool.

my life, my plans, my identity, forever to be molded by his hands.
is it painful at times? absolutely.
is it worth it? absolutely.

lay down your life.
take up your cross and follow me.
what is my cross?
compassion and care for the lost,
a dedication to point them to Jesus,
regardless of the personal cost.
my life, identity, plans,
laid entirely in his hands.
my burden: truth, prayer, discernment,
exercised under his authority.
my gifts, my praise, my honor,
offered to him alone.

my life... lost... left alongside the road.
costly, yes.
worth it, yes.

for whosoever loses his life for me,
shall find it.
fuller.
more whole.
deeper, more vivacious, alive.
worth it.

Protest

2009-04-30T09:40:00.003-04:00

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." - First amendment to the US Constitution

The first time, I ever remember being in a situation where an organized protest directly impacted me occurred when I was studying abroad in the UK. The teachers union was on strike for higher, more fair, wages and they picket-lined around the edges of the school, in front of our classrooms, and threatened not to grade our work, if they weren't granted their requests. To have my professors semi-blocking my way into the classroom was a new experience. Since then, I've been privy to that experience several other times (living in DC, working at UNC, living in Boston, etc).

Earlier this week, I found myself again in that situation. Protesters shouted their views, threw fliers in our faces, and pounded on windows, doors, and other objects. Their passion was admirable. Their perspective was certainly worth listening to. They certainly caught my attention with their strategy. But ultimately, their method was ineffective and counter-productive. It made me want to listen to them less.

In that moment, I was reminded of the "Jesus or going-to-hell-fire-and-damnation" street preachers that I dislike so much. While the two groups would never sit down and have tea and crumpets and light and frivolous conversation together, in that moment, they were surprisingly similar. They both sounded angry. They both yell. They get in your face. And ultimately, both of their success rates are relatively low.

What is it in us that turns us into creatures when we feel like our beliefs are being threatened or challenged? Or when we encounter someone of a different ideology that cannot co-exist with ours? Where does tolerance go then?

Shame on us, if we, supposedly one of the most tolerant societies in the world, have rendered a situation in which both the religious right and the secular left, both liberal evangelicals, and secular conservatives feel that they cannot, will not, be listened to as intellectuals and individuals, rationally presenting their cases.

Shame on us, if our understanding of truth is so weak that having someone else disagree with it, creates huge fear and anger. If something is true, it stands, regardless of how many people disown it or disagree with it. Defensiveness often times comes out of fear, not freedom in truth. Truth is bigger than disagreement. We should stand on that, not lash back.

Shame on us, if our tolerance has in fact weakened our ability to care for others well. Someone once said, "For all our tolerance and talk, we have lost our generosity and willingness to help. We do not minister, but we applaud. We have lost our ability to care and have compassion in order to have open tolerance for anything."

Shame on us, if our personal vendetta against a belief or lifestyle or choices has led us to lack enough compassion for the persuade them in a way that they can actually hear.

Shame on us.

Don't get me wrong; I think freedom of speech is great. And I think there are times for righteous anger, turning over the temple tables, so to speak. I think there have been plenty of times in our history in which protest has brought about good and holy change. I think it's a valuable tool in a democratic society. But at the same time, we have to think about our methods:

What is most effective? What is most persuasive? What actually cares for people well? What moves people in healthy directions? What creates good and holy social and personal change?

I don't pretend to have all the answers. I don't know what the most effective method is... I'm just offering a healthy rhetorical challenge to the status quo in this particular situation.

[gulp] Money.

2009-04-23T16:31:00.004-04:00

It's the end of the month, which means that I have exactly $64.91 in my checking account, with $64.00 worth of bills to pay between now and April 30th.

So, today, I had had enough... I went to the grocery store and bought french fries, ketchup, frosting, cake, bananas, granola bars... you get the point. Food that is (mostly) neither healthy, nor actually needed. But I was so tired of having to budget dollar by dollar that I just felt the need to splurge. Put it on my credit card. Pretend it didn't exist.

And while it felt instantaneously satisfying, and yes, I will enjoy those french fries tonight... within minutes of leaving the grocery store, the guilt set in. Shame. I failed in terms of living within my budget for this month.

Now, friends, this is a pretty minor failure. I have the money in other accounts to cover it. I will get a paycheck at the end of the month. My splurge only totaled $16.56. I still only bought the generic brands. (I'm sure some of you are laughing at me now). In reality, I probably need to be a little bit more liberal with my money (I can be pretty penny-pinching). BUT, here's my point:

I think with regard to money, we all at one time or another fall into one of two camps:

We get frustrated by living within our means. We want to throw off responsibility. We hate having parameters or limitations to our financial capacity. If we want to put it in practical context, I think this is one of the reasons why our economy is in trouble these days. Many of us enjoy the freedom of living beyond our means: enter the dilemma of credit cards. Another unfortunate out-play of our "I want it now; I want it my way" culture.

I don't think this is what God meant when he said, "Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce." (Proverbs 3:9)

Now, lest you think that you're off the hook if you don't overspend, or splurge, let me briefly address the other side. For others of us, we're actually too tight with our money. We hoard. We scrimp. We save. And we rarely share. We're great at living within our means. But we're terrible at generosity. And this is not honoring God with our money either.

So what does it look like to "Honor the Lord with your wealth"?

Let me take a brief stab at that, with some things that I've found helpful in the past few years:

1) Tithe. Just do it. We say that we don't have enough, but then somehow it magically appears when we want to go on a ski weekend or out to dinner, or your daily grand latte. Honor the Lord with your money. If you don't want to tithe to your church, then at least give to a missions organization that you support. Less 6% of households self-titled born-again "Christian" actually tithe (Barna research 2003).

2) Budget. Plan out ahead of time what expenses you have on a month-to-month or week-to-week basis. Put in some "fun" money. And it's OK to not always stick to the plan... but a plan helps set healthy, reasonable parameters, making it easier to be held accountable and to live within your means.

3) Give Generously. I make it a practice to give when I am asked, if I am at all able. Since I started this practice, my giving has nearly doubled, easily. But somehow there has always been enough. And it has forced me to think about how dearly I value money, and how tightly I cling to it. It's also forced me to give up some things that I would love to be able to do for myself, but have re-prioritized. And it has made me value, more than ever, the people who give sacrificially so I can do what I do. I am entirely supported by the generosity of others. I think it's very biblical for the response to generosity to be generosity.

4) Splurge Occasionally. It's okay. Ecclesiastes 5:19 tells us to enjoy what God has given, without guilt. It's okay to buy something you don't need occasionally. Live in the freedom that you have been given. Otherwise it will become a law unto itself and you will still be enslaved to money, not as one form of idol, but the opposite extreme.

5) Be satisfied to live within or below your means. We have this mentality which constantly wants more than what we actually have. When we first graduate from college, we make menial wages, yet we survive. Then we get promoted, and we make more money and somehow things are still tight. And part of this reality is that as we get promoted we get more stuff. We get bigger stuff. And we increase our living expenses and lifestyle. And it ends up being futile and very unsatisfying. Take my word for it: it is far more satisfying to live at or below your means and practice generosity than it is to constantly worry if you have enough to keep up with a lifestyle beyond your capacity. Striving is wearisome.

Okay. I'm going to go cook my french fries now (and enjoy the splurge!). But I'd love to hear your thoughts... :-)

...Is to Live.

2009-04-13T12:33:00.003-04:00

jesus is risen.
he is risen indeed.
dare i to believe
resurrection power
also bestows he on me?
new life,
my darkness conquered,
my brokenness put to an end,
my dead flesh defeated, done in.
how then respond we?
it is for freedom that I
have set you free.
free to live, move, breathe.
free to leap, jump, fly, run.
free to embrace, love, forgive.
freed to be a child again.
it is for freedom that I
have set you free.
free at last.
now go, therefor(th)e and live.
filled with My life:
full...
abundant...
joyful...
free...
loved (unto death).
redeemed (fully in all things).
delighted in.
rejoiced over.
the full embrace of the
good Father
awaits, yea runs, with open arms:
come forth, daughter.

Galatians 2:20, 5:1

Betrayal

2009-04-09T23:13:00.003-04:00

Luke 22: 17- 21 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me." After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, "Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table.

Tonight, at the Maundy Thursday service, I was struck by this last verse... this idea of betrayal.

I don't know if you've ever felt betrayed. This evening, as I was thinking about it, I could come up with three major times in my x number of years, when I have felt betrayed, turned against by someone close enough to me for it to hurt. And it hurt deeply. I felt wounded for months. Years even. I found it hard to trust the individuals who betrayed me. Hard to even be in the same room, without anger and rage. And, what's worse, their actions made it hard for me to trust others, who were, for all accounts, innocent, except for similar identification factors such as gender, age, position of authority, or proximity of intimacy.

And yet, in these four verses, we see Jesus, sitting at the same table with his betrayers. I use the plural here intentionally. It's not just Judas; the rest run out on him too. He sits at the table with his betrayers. And, tonight, I was picturing the conversation:

"Hey, Judas, would you pass the bread this way?" (The loaf I will use to represent my body, broken for you, which, as a result of your betrayal, will be nailed to the cross).

"Nice robe, Peter." (Do you realize that you'll shed it in a few hours, running away from me?)

"Hey, John, looking a little bit peeked tonight! Trek into town today did you in, huh?" (Don't you know that I need you to intercede with me tonight? Don't you know that I will be at my loneliest, and you will fall asleep on me!?)

These would be my comments. Trite. Biting. Painful. Intended to point out their upcoming betrayal before it could happen. But these are not Jesus' comments... Instead, he says:

This is my body given for you... [you is plural here, it is not exclusive to the "good ones"]
This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. [I do this willingly]

It is striking to me that Jesus sits with his betrayers, and does not accuse. He does not give them the silent treatment. But he proffers himself to those, who only hours later, will betray him.

And I am tempted to think that I am different or unique, but the truth of the matter is, in the same way that he offered himself to his betrayers centuries ago, he also offers himself to me, who also betrays him daily. He offers freely. He offers willingly. He offers without reservation. And he offers regardless of the fact that I will betray him. His death, his sacrifice, for my betrayal.

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.

* Maundy, for those curious, comes from the Latin, Mandatum, meaning "commandment" referring to Jesus' last commandment before he died. We celebrate the last supper on Maundy Thursday, as a way of remembering what Jesus did, remembering the cost, remembering our own brokenness and sin, remembering Jesus' promise of the new covenant in his blood, to be fulfilled only days later.