Confessions of a Church Girl

Love's Every Word

2012-01-16T22:16:00.003-06:00

March 10, 2010

I have been reminded recently that love is my purpose...

It was a distorted perception of love that enslaved me.

It was a lack of connection to love that nearly took my life.

It was God's intervening love that rescued me.

It was the hope of love that made me a new creation.

Love is the Kingdom of God within me and the Kingdom of God I want to create in this world. Love is the Promised Land that I am called to "take," to live within, to steward, to protect, and to perpetuate. It is a land of milk and honey. It never fails. It can never be taken from me as long as I live into and submit myself to it. It always perseveres. Love is created as I am "obedient" to the laws of love. Love is worked in me as I work my steps. Love is the point. Love is the Promise.

My covenant for life is a covenant with Love and for Love. It is a commitment to Love, to recover from my loveless state and to offer myself to the process of Loving, a process that requires repentance, self examination, and a pursuit of constant personal growth to be made perfect in Love.

Love is an embrace of wisdom, and wisdom has come to me through an understanding of Boundaries - who I am and who I am not, what is good and what is not, what to say no to and what to say yes to, who God is and who He is not, what is His and what is mine, what is mine and what is not. These are the parameters of love and they require my constant attention and perpetual protection. I practice these boundaries through the steps of surrender, inventory, confession, amends, submission, and giving back.

If Love is my point, my purpose, if Love is my Land, then God is my King, my Lover, my Lord. Boundaries are the walls of my land. Repentance and the 12 steps are the stewardship of my land. Personal growth is the expansion of my land, the expansion of Love. But the story in which I live is every word from my Savior's mouth. Love, boundaries, and the 12 steps are "home base." God is my adventure. He calls me to the story before me - which is never the point and should never become the point. Love empowers me for the adventure, God is the adventure, and the story is the expression of the adventure for the season.

Love nurtures my heart. Adventure invites my heart to grow. Growth expands my capacity to love and invites me into greater adventure.

The only adventure I want is God.

The only story I want is the one He is telling.

And so I must hang on His every word.

Longing for Messiah

2011-12-11T13:24:00.001-06:00

The pastor was calling us to do something.

He was asking us to actively seek.

He was inferring that perhaps, with all the craziness all around us, all the busyness, all the hullabaloo, we might actually need to be a little more intentional about listening for the story of advent, the voice of God, the word of light. We might actually need to, I don't know, turn things off. Take time away. Create space. He didn't call us to a fast per se. But he did ask us to write down a specific thing we might do in order to, you know, listen.

Good for him.

Normally I would be elated and affirmed in the chance to delight over the church community moving in sync with that which the Spirit is moving in me. This time, however, I was just a little annoyed.

"Really? Ya think?" is what I found myself thinking. It was more a rueful sentiment than any kind of bitterness. It was like I had been out gathering wood for the winter when, at the first sign of snow, my neighbor finally poked his head out and said, "Oh, I guess we should get ready for cold weather, huh?"

I suppose. If one were going to do something like that, yes, this would be a good time. Though frankly, and I say this without malice: It's a little late. The wood will be cold and a little damp now - not that you can't dry it and use it. But ... what were you thinking???

It's like being a vegetarian and having someone come up to you and say, "That seems like a neat idea. I'm going to be a vegetarian for a week." You might think, "Good for you." But you might also kind of roll your eyes and get back to your life.

Because for you it IS a life.

As soon as the pastor made the call to response, my spirit rejoiced in the sacred, communal moment that followed, as if it was saying ...

Finally.

And that's when it hit me.

O God how I miss sacred community.

How I miss the reverent among the mundane, the divine in the midst of the ordinary, the transcendent among the broken, the beautiful alongside the normal.

I miss the Concert of Prayer. I miss the prayer walks. I miss the brothers and sisters who sat on the floor in the Westside Room, late afternoon sun streaming through the wall of windows, and wept over each other's lives. We were the church to each other. Once. I miss the 'liturgical service' and I miss the band. I miss the place where I could go to worship and be a part. I miss the crazy people whose lives were a freaking mess but who actually heard God's voice and it changed them.

I haven't left my church but I wonder if my heart has. I do not find worship there anymore. I find wonderful people, beautiful people, even. But I do not find the Spirit of God moving in and among them communally, whispering over their lives and hearts, disrupting things.

A friend made this observation: "People don't go to your church to get real," she said. "They go there to hide."

At first I cracked the comment up to the usual accusation of hypocrisy in the church. (In case you haven't noticed, hypocrisy is human nature. Most people are duplicitous. Most of us hide, and often that hiding can be and is appropriate in some ways. But that's a different story.) Then I dismissed it because, well, if people REALLY wanted to hide, why would they go to church at all? They could just stay home. It seemed a bit of a non sequitur. But as I thought about it, I realized that it was true. I don't hear people practicing a whole lot of confession at my church (though it does happen here and there). People don't come to my church and bare their souls or expose their brokenness, you know? They don't seem to come to be particularly real or messy or present. What does one do with that? What does one do about it?

Maybe it is happening elsewhere. Maybe it is supposed to happen elsewhere and my pining is more a reflection of what is lacking in my life than what is lacking in my church. And I love the people at my church. But this is where my advent journey has left me...

Still longing for Messiah.

In the Midst

2011-12-10T19:15:00.000-06:00

Reinvent Advent (part five)
An excerpt from Letters to an Atheist

I don't believe in God because of an argument written by a man who studied Hebrew and the ancient near eastern cultures to present me with a functional ontology of creation. I don't believe in God because our doctrines are particularly reasonable; it is, after all, an issue of faith. Fundamentalism contributed to my oppression as a woman; that is certainly not why I believe in God. I do not believe in God because it is the best answer out there, though it may be, and in many ways I find that it is, particularly in this: It offers me hope. But that isn't even why I believe in God.

I believe in God because a man was tortured and died in order that I might have the invitation to believe in God. I believe in God because I heard about his suffering and it both broke my heart and it touched me in a way that I had not been touched before. Hearing the story of the Messiah, it was as if he were in the room with me testifying to me himself. It was like experiencing intimacy for the first time - intimacy with a man who died, intimacy with a God who lives. It is an unreasonable reason. But life is unreasonable. Humanity is unreasonable. I am unreasonable. Whoever claims otherwise is the most unreasonable of all.

I believe in God because I accepted that sacrifice. I accepted it. That's all. I accepted that it was for me, that it covered me. I believed that I was in need of forgiveness, in need of saving. I agreed with this man and with this God; I accepted his forgiveness and I was filled with love for him, with gratitude, and with a desire to experience that intimacy again, a desire to serve him and be close to him.

I believe in God because I decided to trust him. I don't care about the fallacies of literalist thinking - I mean, I do because I think literalists often act like morons, but I don't care. Literalists did not keep me from God; they did not keep me from believing. They hurt me but God was there. God was with me. God was in the midst.

I believe in God because I learned to trust him. I believe in God because he was there that first moment of believing and he has been there every moment since. I believe in God because he granted me just the tiniest glimpse of his very presence and it changed my world, it changed my very soul. And somehow he continues to do it over and over and over again. I knew him. I can know him. I want to know him.

I believe in God, simply, because he helped me. I did not cry out to him, but he called to me. I did not know I needed him until he spoke. And then when I prayed, he answered. He helped me when I was 13. He helped me when I was 25. He helps me even now.

I have chosen to honor God with my decisions, with my body. And just as God was in the midst of flawed fundamentalism, God was with me and God was in me even though I still carried despair and self-loathing, even though I was a fractured spirit. In this one thing I know who I am.

I believe in God because he spoke to me in ways I could not understand and made me understand. I believe in God because he spoke to my spirit and told me the truth and He continues to do so now. And the truth - it sets me free. When or if he stops, I will die, and I will die seeking him, for there is no other way for me to live. I believe in God because he Himself challenged fundamentalism and showed me its flaws, and he shows me that he is still there.

He is in the sometimes meaningless rituals, because he is not dependent on man's heart or man's understanding, he supersedes it; he is in the midst. He is in the sickening intellectualism, the constant debating. He was there among the pharisees. They wailed and moaned and all the while he was there, saving people, rescuing them, healing them, loving them, challenging them, dying for them. He was there in the midst. And even when they killed him they could not choke him out. Though intellectualism slay me as fundamentalism did, God is still here.I don't believe in God because of people or even in spite of people. I don't care. I believe because I tasted intimacy and I want it. Nothing else is even worth my attention; nothing is worth my time. I want Christ. I want his Revelation. I prefer his suffering. I want his Peace. I need his wisdom. There is nothing that makes this life worth living except for him.

Let others do or say whatever they must, but I must have The Messiah.

Paul had all the right teachings in probably their purest possible form and they did not bring him life or salvation. He had righteousness. He had power. He had religious standing. He had the promise of a covenant! It did him no good. And the Messiah was in the midst of it even so. And it was the Messiah that saved him.

That is the Messiah I know. And as disillusioned as I am with Paul, we have that in common; we are siblings, co-heirs. We are one and the same. Because just as God is in the midst of flawed fundamentalism, God was in the midst of Paul, just as He is in my midst as well.

I don't do this because it gives me life. I do this because God gives me life.

The Lamp-Post and the World in Need of Light

2011-12-04T23:01:00.001-06:00

Reinvent Advent (part four)
An Excerpt from an Essay written for Theology of Creation

The leaves have fallen. The grass is brown and coarse. The light has given up its early mornings and early evenings to cold, to dark. It is as if Death has hung its cloak upon the sun, and the grey and dormant garment has settled lightly but solemnly over the earth. These are the sights in which we look for and to advent. It is a poignant setting, a fitting context for a journey into a creational redemptive theology. The advent story, draped in death, is one that whispers of something new. It offers and speaks life, the hope for it, and the need of it.

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined" (Isaiah 9:2). This passage speaks of a very specific, concrete experience of darkness not unlike that which we see and hear and feel with the coming of winter, though its context is a death born of oppression rather than fallen leaves, and a chill wrought by exile rather than a few more hours of night. It was in this darkness, to the people who lived and walked and made their lives in its shrouds, that light came. And it is no accident that it is light that came, light that was spoken over and into this place and this people. Regardless as to whether darkness is oppression, sin, chaos, nothingness, death, or merely the absence of function and purpose and relationship, it was light that God spoke first and in the beginning, light that God brought to bear to create.

The incarnation is first and foremost an act of creation, whether ex nihilo or otherwise. Is it any wonder that John begins his own advent narrative by returning to the moment of creation and retelling the story so that we might understand the coming of Christ? The very nature of conception and birth is our corporeal participation in God's creative work, his creative charge, and his creative blessing. It is in keeping with that initial design of ongoing, developing potential, re-creation, and the begetting of something new, something different, something more. The nature of Isaiah's prophetic voice is its link between God's first creative word of light to the light of Christ. The advent story captures in its stark simplicity the strains of suffering and darkness alongside the disruptive wonder of creation, and the exquisite yet painful beauty that is the place where these two meet: Redemption.

Consider the juxtaposition as presented in The Magician's Nephew, by C. S. Lewis. The scene is darkness, a distinct absence of movement or life, like an empty stage in a theater in the off-season, closed and locked-up tight. Several characters have stumbled into the scene and stand a moment in the emptiness.

In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing ... Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them ... There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it ... Then two wonders happened at the same moment. One was that the voice was suddenly joined by other voices; more voices than you could possibly count ... cold, tingling, silvery voices. And the second wonder was that the blackness overhead, all at once, was blazing with stars (p. 116-117).

In the midst of that exquisite moment of creation, there stood among the witnesses she who was the potential for this new world's suffering:

Suddenly the Witch stepped boldly out toward the Lion. It was coming on, always singing, with a slow heavy pace. It was only twelve yards away. She raised her arm and flung the iron bar straight at its head. Nobody ... could have missed at that range. The bar struck the Lion fair between the eyes (p. 127).

The reader understands at this point exactly how this evil, this potential suffering, this risk has come. It was a child's mistake, his sin, foolishness, and selfishness that brought the Witch to Narnia in that moment. The Christian studying the story of our own creation gains a greater insight. The very nature of God's creative work is that of giving and allowing the voice of Other to speak, to have an impact on God himself. Thus, the scandal of creation is that it allows the same potential for suffering to find its voice, too. Even as light is spoken into the dark places - in the creation story, in Isaiah's story, and in the story of advent - the potential for suffering is a painful reality, the great risk of God's profound move to create.

Yet, Lewis' tale goes on to describe a remarkable image of redemption, redemption as the effect of creation on the first act of evil:

The bar struck the Lion fair between the eyes. It glanced off and fell with a thud in the grass. The lion came on ...
"Hullo! What's that?" said Digory. He had darted forward...
"I say, Polly," he called back. "Do come and look."
It was a perfect little model of a lamp-post, about three feet high but lengthening, and thickening in proportion, as they watched it; in fact growing just as the trees had grown.
"It's alive too - I mean, it's lit..."
"Don't you see?" said Digory. "This is where the bar fell - the bar she tore off the lamp-post at home. It sank into the ground and now it's coming up as a young lamp-post" (p. 130-131).

The beauty of this image - the image of something dead and lifeless, a bit of metal torn from its own purpose for that of destruction, offered in violence with the intention of death - is that creation is not stopped. It has its way with even this substance, this malicious act, and the result is redemption. The result is new life, light, and purpose, not just in the moment of re-creation, but in the ongoing story of re-creation. This is the lamp-post that greets Lucy generations later. This is the light that guides her into - and here is the image of darkness again - a Narnia in perpetual winter, a Narnia in need of life and light, a Narnia in need of ... advent ... in need of Christmas.

This is what I consider as the leaves fall and the days grow dark; we are a world in need of light, in need of advent, in need of Christmas.

Sex, Vulnerability, and Advent (Oh. My.)

2011-11-29T13:26:00.001-06:00

Reinvent Advent (Part Three)

I have been fascinated by the reference in scripture describing man as the head of woman. Some interpretations of this passage (in conjunction with others) have had no small part in the dehumanization and exploitation of women and the detriment of the human race at large. I have presented it in a previous blog as it appears in the context of Christ as head (who, not considering his headship as something to be grasped, became a servant, a slave) as well as in the context of the mutual submission (we are as connected and dependent on one another as the head is to the body and the body to the head).

So, this may sound crazy, but I'm wondering about this passage and the notion of responsiveness. Like, what if it's hinting at the way we are designed to be responsive to one another? For example, men are renown for being responsive to the body: Theirs; Anybody else's. You get the drift. They have a reputation for being obsessed with sex and prone to self gratification because they are tuned to be responsive to something. So what if this hardwire is a design strategy meant for good instead of evil? What I mean is, in the context of relationship and this whole head/body metaphor, a man's body isn't connected to him - it's running around out in the world with a mind of its own - and unless a man is responsive to that body, how will he ever be able to take care of it?

"This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh ... and what in the hell is it doing now???"

Seriously, the only way a guy is going to be able to respond well is if he learns how to hear and feel what this body has to say. He has to learn the language. He has to value what that body is communicating about what it needs, what is good, and what is going on in the world. He has to take that as seriously as he takes his own body, because if he does not, well, he is like a head cut off.

It seems ironic that Christianity doesn't teach this kind of connectivity; men just generally aren't taught how to use their responsiveness to connect instead of dominate, decide, rule, self-gratify, or isolate. And considering all the shame they are likely to feel when they offer themselves and the response they get is "that is not good," I can't entirely blame them for resorting to control tactics, self gratification, and isolating behaviors. Isn't that what women do when they hear "you are not beautiful or worthwhile"? I don't think either one of us have understood that crucial bit of information that says, "This other person is like your body, your head! You better figure out what is going on with it or, frankly, you'll die."

In fact, isn't that what makes it a great metaphor for Christ? He was responsive to what was happening in his body. And he knew that, unless he responded to care for it, it would die, relationship would die, everything he had worked so hard to create - the ongoing gift of life - would die.This is the kind of responsiveness God demonstrated with creation from the beginning! He gave it the opportunity to have a voice and it had an impact on him. He sought it out, he listened to it, and he responded. It changed everything.

I sometimes wonder if that is why women were called to respect men: If men are responding the way they are designed to, then they are in a unique position to be exploited themselves. Further, I think this is where the language of submission can be helpful if we understand it not as a hierarchy, but as an offering. In other words, one way to understand submit is "to give." I give this to you; I submit it for your consideration. Women have to give their responses to men, the good the bad and the ugly, so that men can know what is good ... and bad ... and ugly.

This puts me in mind of the story of Esther and the way she presented herself to the King. From the beginning she offered herself in humility & vulnerability. Even when she broke custom and interrupted his counsel, throwing herself at his mercy, she used every bit of her authority ... to be vulnerable yet again. She submitted herself. She gave what she had. Not just her beauty. Not just the things that made the King look good or feel good. She gave it all. Praise God that the King was responsive, for she had vital information for his welfare and the welfare of her people - his people.

I think about sex. (Yes, I think about sex.) I think about the fact that men want the sex act to be mutually pleasing and when it isn't, they tend to take it personally. It feels as if it is about them and their inadequacy. They can feel like failures. They can feel rejected. If they are wired to respond and take care of the body, that kind of makes sense. If they are being vulnerable, that makes sense. Ironically, that vulnerability means that they are functioning as designed, and that is why it is so crucial that women respond in vulnerability, too, and NOT hide their responses. It cannot be mutual unless he knows what is good and what isn't. That's what makes sex so freaking vulnerable for both parties. He has to try and she has to say, "Not like this, like that."

Okay, that was awkward, but I thought it pertinent.

Because vulnerability is what the story of Christ - and the passage about headship and servanthood and mutual submission - is all about. We are called to be vulnerable with one another, to be open to risk. And we, both men and women alike, have to learn how to do that in honoring, edifying ways, ways that make it as safe as possible for continued vulnerability. We kind of have to get naked with each other, so to speak, and stop our hiding. It is our way of undoing what was done in the garden.

Now, what does this have to do with advent? Oh, you mean the ultimate story of vulnerability? If God coming in the flesh, being born of a virgin and cared for by a man who is not his father doesn't sound like the same story of demolished hierarchies, responsiveness, servanthood-headship and the giving kind of submission, I don't know what does.

But if this is the message of advent, it is terrifying. How many of us want to be called upon as Joseph was? (But we are.) And how many of us want to put ourselves in such a place of vulnerability, as Mary did? (Yet we must.)

So here is to another advent, and another hope of new life.

* * *

Please note, if anything that I've said sounds anything like an appeal to make oneself vulnerable or submit to abuse, that is NOT what I mean. I do believe that there is a vulnerable, God-honoring way to approach abuse and exploitation. I know for me, it was terribly vulnerable to open myself up to rejection by articulating a boundary. I had to draw a line in the sand and say, "No, you aren't going to do this to me anymore," and it meant that I had to accept his decision when he chose his addiction over me. It was excruciatingly vulnerable to forgive and let him go. Everyone's circumstances are different and must be treated differently.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

2011-11-27T17:06:00.001-06:00

Reinvent Advent (part two)

People scoffed at me for beginning an advent fast before the first official Sunday launching the season. Heck, people scoffed at me for fasting during advent at all. But I confess I consider it their loss, for I am crying out for the Messiah, expecting Him, preparing a place for Him. And what else is advent about? What could be more important or pressing, especially this time of year? For surely I have already seen the space that I have set aside being claimed by the Spirit of God. It is as if, long before I even thought to desire and wait in expectation for Him, He was waiting in expectation, longing for me. And so it was that advent began for me with a Wednesday evening worship service, one that I attended because of a very special offering of amends.

Prepare the way for the Lord...

Interestingly, both the relationship through which that amends came and the service itself were frail and rather unremarkable. Yet in their simplicity, surely they were ordained to bear Emmanuel. That is what I found in them that night: God With Us. God with us - in Humility and Repentance. God with us in Promise. God with us in Confession and Remembering. God with us in Community, Family, Knowing and Being Known. Do not mistake me, these were not ideas that were taught that night. They were not notions that were given tribute in words. These were the things that actually happened while I was there.

And speaking of knowing and being known, in just four short days of celebrating advent, God has already been making things known, making Himself known. I stumbled across a verse from Acts (2:28):

He has made known the way, the journey...

God has made it clear that He has called me. There is no mistaking it. There is no talking around it anymore. There is no doubting it. He reminded me today that He has called me very specifically to speak vision into the lives of others; to see His story, to hear it, and to speak it so that others might see it, be invited by it, and live into it, too. His story, it is adventure. His story, it is life. His story is freedom, it's love, it's healing. His story is transformation. And His story, it is personal. It is speaking all around us and we are desperate for it. We are dying without it - slow, endless, painful deaths. If I am called to minister, this is my ministry. If I am called to preach, this is how I must preach. I have known this for some time now, but honestly, I forgot. And do you know why I forgot? Because I am desperate to hear God's story myself.

He has made known the paths of life...

The very first verse I ever memorized was a prayer from Psalm 25 (4-5):

Teach me your ways, O Lord
show me your paths
guide me in your truths and teach me
for you are God my Savior
and my hope is in you all day long.

Even before the day that I renounced my covenant with death, God began teaching me a new way, a way of life. That was the only reason I could renounce death. And in spite of the last two years, He is still teaching me. This very afternoon I slammed face-first into the fact that I need to be told God's story. I need to hear the narrative that bestows God's meaning - and therefore God - to my experience. It is the very breath of life. It is then that I am quickened. It is then that I am stirred. It is then that I have strength for the journey and love to offer the world. It is the path of life.

I am not just called, I am in need.

In and with joy, His presence will fill, fulfill, complete...

I need it whispered to me in the dark places. I need to be reminded of it in the light. For it is when I can hear and see God's story that I can be where He is. It's not just that I need people to tell me the story that they heard once, the story that they decided to believe. I don't need the story that they think God is probably telling or should be telling. I need people to actually listen, listen to the ongoing revelation of God's story in me as well as how it is unfolding in their own lives, as it is manifesting - giving birth to - Emmanuel. I need them to tell me what they hear and see, lest I miss it, lest I forget, lest I die in need of it even while it is being told all around me.

It dawned on me today that I have experienced this kind of community before in an ongoing nature; I have participated in it, and it fulfilled me. I knew joy once. But little by little the practice has ebbed, even up to the point that I did not share my testimony this year, as I always do on my anniversary of new life, because somehow I could not hear God's story in it anymore.

How is that even possible?!?

And how is it possible that in four little days of reinventing advent God has already offered so much?

Regardless, on this the first Sunday of Advent, I stand knowing these things full well:

1. I am called to minister, to preach, to speak the vision of God's story to others (and as a sub-text, I know I must be involved in worship through music in the community I serve).

2. With my call comes my own unique need to have others hear and speak God's story to me. Oh, it's true. I need people. I need you, my people. I need God with us.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (?)

2011-11-20T16:38:00.001-06:00

Reinvent Advent (part one)

After a fit of weird weather, it is finally getting cold here in Kansas City. A frosty windshield greets me most mornings when I go to work now. The wind has gotten sharp, demanding a scarf and mittens even in the afternoon. Yes, I think it is safe to say that it is officially that time of year. Traffic has doubled and the stores are so crowded that a simple trip to pick up milk becomes an afternoon endeavor. It is the time of year when I start to feel this pressing urge to burrow into a happy, dark hole somewhere and hide - the hap-happiest season of all.

Call it a case of the Grinches but there is something about the holiday season that makes me feel particularly anti-social. Or perhaps it is the time of year that merely spotlights an ongoing antisocial attitude that I otherwise try to smuggle in under the radar. Regardless, my windshield isn't the only thing getting frosty this November. For whatever reason, as everyone else is thinking about getting together, my heart kind of aches to be left alone (though maybe not in solitude exactly).

You see, to me, winter is a time to be silent, to wander in the cold in quiet contemplation, to mirror the muted colors and commune with the barren ground, the empty trees, the pale skies. This is a somber time to me, not festive, and careless crowds and cacophony are distinctly dissonant and particularly obnoxious - irreverent even. If there is togetherness to be had, it shouldn't be harried, tinny, or shallow. It should come after one has lain in bed on a grey morning and, after a while, has finally ventured out into a warm kitchen to sit with a few others and sip coffee. It should start with low, soft tones. It should move slowly. It should be a time of savoring and seeing and listening and being. And all the raucous, the jarring cheer, it so jangles my spirit sometimes that I want to build up a downy, feathered wall about 18 inches thick between me and the rest of the world to mute their carrying on.

This is the time of year that I want to think about what is really important, what is real. I want to actually examine the year that has gone by, what it meant, what it could mean. I want to actually give some thought to the year coming up. I want to pay attention. I want to feel.

And sometimes I feel like I am the only one.

Last year I walked through the weeks of advent in just such an effort to examine, to pay attention, and to feel, in the hopes of finding and/or creating my own traditions, traditions that enrich my life, that connect me to others, that connect me to God. This year I have decided that, from November 23rd to December 23rd, I am going to stage my own minor protest. I am going to fast - fast eating out, fast any and all movies, who knows, maybe I'll even fast social media. I want simple meals prepared and eaten at home without spending a lot of money. I want simple evenings of peace and quiet, that my mind might acclimate again to the world in which I live instead of the over-stimulated land of the non-living.

So, Tuesday next, I am going to go out with a friend after a Thanksgiving service, and when we are done making merry, I am going to give in to my desire to hole up. I am going to claim my hours as my own and my days for the sacred.

Once upon a time I decided that I did not want to watch others live life, but wanted to, myself, live a life worth watching. Turns out that is harder than one might think. I am not sure how exactly I got sidetracked. I think, honestly, I just got sucker-punched in the ring one afternoon and it's taken a while for the dizziness to go away. But it's time to reorient. And what better time to do that than advent?

What a Man has to Offer, Part 3

2011-09-12T12:21:00.000-05:00

I decided that I should at least make SOME effort to finish SOMETHING I’ve started. And this started, as most of my endeavors are wont to do, with a random conversation … that developed into a blog post … that developed into a three-part series about … of all things … men.

So, without further ado, here is a final attempt to describe the valuable things that men have to offer in relationship...

Humility

A man who is secure enough in his identity to see his faults and his failures … nay, a man who can look his failure dead in the eye and stare it down as if he’s Daniel Craig in Cowboys and Aliens, this is a man who is welcome to audition for the hero in my Sci-Fi Western just about any day of the week. But I’m not just talking about a man who can admit when he’s wrong; he has to own his character defects. He has to accept the consequences of his actions and endeavor to rebuild when necessary; he has to understand what it means to make amends and to live a life worthy of repentance.

There is something breath-catching about humility, something that hints of a backbone made of steel, something that flashes the way Conan’s oiled, bulging muscles glint in the sun. Real humility is strong. It’s solid. It’s even a little intimidating.

God told me something once. He said, “It’s not about whether you make a mistake, it’s how you deal with the mistake afterwards that counts.” He doesn’t say that to everyone, mind you. He was specifically challenging my perfectionism, my legalism, my neuroticism. He was teaching me about a humility that doesn’t cling to a fragile idealism, that doesn’t shatter at the mere hint of reality. Humility doesn’t minimize wrongs. It embraces them carefully, respectfully, as one embraces someone with a really bad sunburn. It seeks correction. It seeks instruction. It seeks the good.

But humility isn’t just about the integrity demonstrated in the aftermath of a screw up. Humility acknowledges that one doesn’t have all the answers to begin with. Humility listens, for example. Humility says, “Teach me.” In fact, humility is one of the most formidable weapons one can wield against denial, oppression, and insanity. And it is intricately intertwined with the next item on the list:

Security

I hesitate to use this word, honestly, lest it tap into or connote something that has to do with money or a capitalist idea of success. This is not about financial security. This is about a man who IS secure, who knows who he is and what he’s about, who has grounded his identity in the Creator not the created. This goes back to the Daniel Craig metaphor; it takes a secure man to admit his wrongs, his character defects. A fragile man cannot face them. They are too scary. They mean too many things. They are too overwhelming, too awful, too depressing. They don’t feel good and they obliterate easy answers. A man who finds his security in something bigger than himself can feel and he can feel bad. He doesn’t need to have answers. He can be in difficult situations and not know what to do and it’s okay.

Secure identity, like many things on this list, is not something that one just decides to have or do. It has to be sought. It has to be built over time. It is something for which to be fought. It has to be valued and chosen again and again. It has to be wrought in one’s spirit by a power greater than self. But when it is sought, it can be offered, and when it is offered, I thoroughly and completely agree with John Eldredge: It creates a safe space for a woman to feel and be feminine and to offer herself, too.

But, enough with the vague and abstract, the deep and philosophical! I think I shall conclude this epic with some old-fashioned, concrete, social-science concepts…

The Ability to Tolerate Negative Emotion and to Delay Gratification

A man who runs from difficult feelings is a coward. Take it from a woman who runs from difficult emotions. It’s childish. It’s selfish. It’s unattractive. It’s destructive.

This is not about masochism. This is not about codependency or martyrdom. Those things are not gifts in relationship - they are nasty life-suckers. But a man who chooses to feel and who can tolerate discomfort, anxiety, sadness, and even anger without jumping ship, rescuing, judging, attacking, criticizing, or wallowing has got an amazing strength to offer - a substantive, lasting kind of strength that isn’t blown about like a sailboat in a hurricane.

Directly related: The ability to delay gratification. This is the foundation for that backbone of steel, the whey protein for those glinting muscles. Most guys don’t bother to cultivate these gifts, let alone offer them, because they aren’t easy and they don’t produce instant results. No woman is going to pass a guy on the street and do a double-take, whispering to her friends, “Dang, did you see that guy’s ability to delay gratification?! I want a ride like that in my back yard!”

I may have inadvertently created a double entendre there. Oh well. The point is, well, that IS the point. Who wants to tolerate negative emotions and delay gratification when all it’s going to mean is having to do it, well, more? But this is the gift of long-term relationship. This generates the kind of respect that follows you for a lifetime. This isn’t Johnny Depp as Captain Jack; it’s Orlando Bloom as the new Davy Jones. It’s going to take the right girl being in the right place in a once-every-ten-years-kind-of-way in order to really appreciate it. But oh, the appreciation! Of course, that isn’t even the point, either. The point is to develop respect for oneself, that’s the point.

Now, for those of you who have demonstrated the ability to tolerate negative emotions and to delay gratification long enough to make it this far, I have a bonus for you. The list was supposed to end here but there is one more thing, one more gift a man can offer:

Community

Once upon a time in a white, Euro-American culture, it was manly to be the lone ranger, to go it alone, to prove yourself by yourself by doing it yourself. Perhaps this is a necessary element of some stage of our development as people. Maybe it might even be a rite of passage for men. Okay. I can accept that. And if there is any doubt, be sure to revisit gift number four on the list: Adulthood is a hot commodity. But with just the tiniest bit of digging, we have discovered that no man ever did it alone. A man in isolation is just a needy creeper in sheep’s clothing - sometimes in wolf’s clothing - and no little girl dreams of someday being a man’s soul support. In fact, if a woman has fantasized about her wedding (and not all of them do, mind you), it’s most often about the communal delight. A woman wants to rejoice with others in you, and she wants others to delight with you in her and in your relationship.

Go read Song of Soloman. It’s in the Bible.

But more than delight, this also goes back to a man being an adult and developing his social skills. A healthy man invests in relationships besides the romantic. He invests in the world. He invests in life. How do you think he learns how to be in a romantic relationship? He needs friendships. He needs mentors, brothers, sisters. He needs accountability. How do you think he builds all these character traits I’ve been cooing over? He serves. He finds purpose in that which is larger than himself.

I love it when a romantic interest wants to be a part of my life, wants to meet my friends and include them, when he cares about my world, my family. I also love it when he invites me into his world, a world that is not shabby and neglected and bereft of human contact but filled with people who know him, people who respect him and whom he respects. It tells me I’m not in it alone - we’re not in it alone. It provides safety. It prepares a place for relationship to grow. It empowers me. It empowers us. I want him to have someone to whom he has confessed his deepest darkest secrets, and in general I’d prefer it not to have been a woman. I want him to have friends who can talk sense into him when he’s not thinking straight. I want to know people are encouraging him to follow God, holding him up, and holding him accountable. I want to know he’s taken the time to invest in and create that. When a man offers himself to community and he offers community to relationship, he offers something larger than himself, something more than he alone can give. He offers life.

* * *

Until we meet again,
Sparrow

What a Man has to Offer, Part 2

2011-08-26T10:32:00.006-05:00

This is not my usual attempt at an extensive, cohesive expose with carefully chosen words and hyper-sensitive phrasing. This is me attempting to articulate the things I look for in relationship, the things that I find valuable in relationship, the things that I hope men might want to offer. Inspired by a random conversation (where you can read about the first 3 qualities) and a smattering of dating experiences (as well as one 8-year marriage), here is the next installment of my perspective on What a Man has to Offer:

4. Adulthood (& Playfulness)

Speaking of innate attractiveness, a man who has accepted responsibility for his life is pretty hot. I'm talking about some of the basic tasks of being an adult, like how to manage his time and his space, the ability to go grocery shopping and do laundry and accomplish at least some basic cooking techniques, and endeavoring to do and create the things that he wants in life instead of waiting for someone else to do it for him. A man who doesn't see himself as being half a person waiting for the other half to come do the things necessary for him to be an adult offers the possibility for adult relationship.

Newsflash: Women don't like to be nags, but often times they are ...invited... into that role by a man who acts like a child. Just sayin'.

I sincerely think that part of what it means to be an adult is NOT expecting someone else to do it for you. That's not to say that one doesn't have limitations, weaknesses, particular gifts, graces, and preferences; that's not to say that one should not look for a complimentary partner. But as soon as a man moves into a position of putting off life-tasks and making them someone else's responsibility, he stops offering relationship and starts looking for someone to "fill a role." This is just as true of women as it is of men, and in both cases, it's pretty unattractive.

On the flip side of being an adult, when I studied male temperament and personality theory in college, one author presented the notion that every man has a little boy aspect to his personality. He has boyish energies and boyish delights and boyish playfulness. I think a man who learns how to invite and initiate play in his grown up relationships offers more than he will ever know - joy, fun, personhood, laughter, respite, and repair - just to name a few.

5. A Defined Sense of Self & Good Boundaries

It is a gift to know what a man is thinking, what his values are, what he wants in his life. It can actually be inviting and comforting to know what a man doesn't want, what he has questions about, what causes him angst. It is a pleasure to be in a relationship with a man who has deemed himself worthy enough to know who he is, or at least to engage in the process of knowing, and who is learning how to offer [communicate] that in honoring, life-giving ways. It is also extremely attractive when a man has the self respect to know how to take care of himself, drawing lines to steward his heart, mind, and energy.

In an unusual example, I had a friend with whom I went on a couple dates. As he learned about my story, at a very appropriate time and in an incredibly respectful way, he shared some things with me very honestly and specifically about his own struggles, temptations, and past. He shared because he had faced his own demons, if you will, and taken responsibility for them. They weren't eradicated, but he owned them and owned who he wanted to be. He was actively engaged in the process of accepting and respecting himself even as he fought his own battles to be a man. Even though some of his struggles were similar to those that destroyed my marriage, I only ever felt respected and protected by this man. We were able to develop a friendship as a result, a friendship that meant, when it came time for him to share his story with another woman he began to date, he asked me for my feedback and advice. He had heard me communicate my respect for his story but he had felt rejected so many times before, he was wondering if he should take the risk with her. My answer: YES! You, your story, your gifts and your struggles, are of infinite value to a woman who is healthy and real. Hiding your story or who you are because you're afraid you won't get a particular kind of response or relationship, men, is ugly, dishonest, and manipulative. But a man who has taken 'a fearless and searching moral inventory,' if you will, does not hide from himself or others, and offers something of infinite value in relationship: Intimacy - with a REAL person.

A man who knows himself also knows (or is endeavoring to discover) the lines he needs to draw to honor and protect himself and relationship. What woman doesn't want honor and a sense of being protected in relationship - or the knowledge that her relationship is being guarded even when she's not aware?

6. Partnership

Arguably, culturally defined and generally accepted gender roles serve a significant purpose in that they help people know how to act in socially acceptable ways as they grow up. They can provide a foundation from which to explore the world, self, and relationship. They can be a diving board for identity development and they can also facilitate the development of partnerships when people do not know how to engage in that process more intentionally. It may be easier for me to partner with someone who has the same cultural expectations about the roles we will take in relationship with one another because it means we have to talk about it less and it doesn't require a lot of skills in exploring what our values mean to each of us. It could free us up to do other things. It can make things more intuitive and maybe require a lot less work. And I sincerely think that the nature of creating partnership is overlooked in this innate and sometimes unexamined process.

So I will use a couple word pictures to describe the value of what a man has to offer related to the creation of a partnership...

If a man were to go into business with another man, he probably wouldn't expect someone else to tell him exactly what roles they each would take or how much each should invest. No, upon determining that they could go into business together, they would probably endeavor to find out how much it would cost and evaluate how much each could put down. Maybe one guy has the tools and the other guy has the money. Maybe one guy has administrative skills and the other guy people skills. Maybe they find that they're both good at all of it and they just work really well together on the job.

A man offers the possibility for the most dynamic, most effective cooperation when he brings this perspective of co-creation and partnership into relationship. It's like the contrast between the old-school way of doing church: You teach Sunday School because Sunday School teachers are needed. Contrast this to singing on the Worship Team because God has given you a passion for music and a heart for creative adoration of the Creator. It's not that the former is bad. Sometimes we have to work, we have to do things that are not our preference, we have to fill a role. This is part of being an adult and functioning in the real world (that isn't set up to cater to our individuality, by the way). But how much more do you have to offer, how much more free do you become, in the second scenario?

A man who is interested in getting to know the person on the other side of the relationship, who asks questions for the purpose of finding out what can be created together, offers a once in a lifetime opportunity. A man who is willing to ask and to learn offers himself and others the chance to be more than they can be by themselves.

* * *

Adulthood, playfulness, definition, boundaries, and partnership ... I guess I technically sneaked a few more into this second batch than I let on. I am also keenly aware that life and relationship would probably be a lot better (and a lot easier on men) if women practiced these things as well. In other words, women have a lot to offer in these areas, too, but again, it seems like men feel a greater resonance with other values. Maybe they feel like there are gifts that women can offer but don't. Maybe women don't understand how valuable some things are to men. Either way, I find myself wondering as I compose my last list ... What does a woman have to offer? How would a woman answer that question as opposed to a man? Perhaps that is a topic for another blog. Until then, stay tuned for the final three ... or four ... ideas about just what a man has to offer relationship.

Coming soon to a blog near you.

Near this one.

Here, actually.

What a Man has to Offer, Part 1

2011-08-25T15:29:00.007-05:00

“Men want to feel useful.”

It was a side comment in an ongoing discussion about masculinity and femininity, gender roles and Christianity. I think it was an attempt to describe why some men, particularly more “conservative” Christian men, feel intimidated or threatened by anything that sounds like women’s lib.

Though the statement offered a tremendous amount of insight into and opportunity to understand the person who said it, it did not clarify for me anything that seemed to be innately - or uniquely - masculine. However, in a roundabout way, it did get me to thinking about men, usefulness, and differing values between the sexes.

Honestly, what does a man have to offer in relationship?

It makes sense that traits or characteristics that are esteemed by men may be very different than those women value in relationship. Interestingly, however, some of the most valuable things I think a man has to offer do not seem to be entirely unique to men. In other words, the things I find myself appreciating most about men (relationally) are not things that I would describe as distinctly masculine traits, nor are they qualities that only men can offer. But, for whatever reason, they are strangely meaningful, powerful, and desirable in the masculine context - or perhaps they just feel and mean something a little different coming from men. It might even be that men and women are on different pages about how meaningful certain qualities are, so it is particularly valuable when a man offers certain things. Whatever the dynamic, here are some initial thoughts in what I see as being a 3-part series on

What a Man has to Offer

1. His Word

Words are powerful. Perhaps it is true that women in particular want to know that they can trust a man's word, but when we feel like we can count on and invest in the things that men say, that their word is meaningful and substantive, it is freaking Pirate's Gold to us. Seriously, it is like buried treasure in the back yard, and we are die-hard treasure-hunters. Any adventurer worth her salt is constantly asking things like: Does he do what he says he will do? If he has to renegotiate, does he do it with self respect AND respect for others? Does he value the agreements, commitments and promises he offers others as much as he values doing his own thing and pleasing himself? Is his yes, yes? His no, no? Is he flippant, sarcastic, or a dreamer to the point that those around him can’t take what he says seriously or don’t feel like they can trust what he says? Do his actions and his words match?

If men want women (or anyone else, for that matter) to respect them, it necessitates that they pay attention to their words; what they say (and therefore what they do about what they say) matters.

2. Sexual Energy and Integrity

A man’s testosterone is a gift - when it is coupled with honor, character, and emotional maturity. Sexual energy offered in the form of initiative, pursuit, healthy tenacity, curiosity, care for self and others is needed, wanted, desirable, invaluable. Sexual character that is the integration of sexuality, physiology, emotion, intellect, spirituality, and values - personal, cultural, corporate, relational - is a prize. Seriously, we're talking the World Cup. It revs our engines. It gets our blood going. It's exciting; it's energizing; it's inspiring.

Let's take the example of Christian men who are proud of their virginity but who have neglected their own social development or are often just as riddled with lust, selfishness, and the objectification of women as the more sexually experienced. Virginity isn’t the prize; it’s character, integrity, and maturity that turns our heads. The sex act itself is like the bow - values and the motivation from which they spring are the gift.

Because men are often raised with different cultural (sexual) paradigms, and frankly, because of biochemical differences in the brain, I think men can really overlook the power they possess within the context of their sexuality. In fact, I wonder what would happen if men didn't see their sexuality as being, oh, I don't know, a burden, isolating, out of control, or even solely personal - their prerogative for self gratification and pleasure. I see a man's sexuality as something like the power of creativity. A painter paints partially for himself, for his own expression, but an artist's work is meant to be seen, given, if you will, heard, experienced. It is designed to impact the world, to touch and impact others. Sexuality and sexual integrity is bigger than the sex act and I firmly believe it is meant to be that kind of creative-force gift, offered in and to community. A man's sexuality can be a source of power and edification in relationship - and frankly, should be. If passion is energy then sexuality is a nuclear power source, and it is a power that can be hoarded, squandered, ill-stewarded to the point of destruction, or offered to bring electricity to relationship.

I know, I might get a little carried away on the word pictures and metaphors, but get used to it because there's more to come.

The point is, a man who asks himself what he is doing with his sexuality, who takes ownership of it and its expression, is a man who has a lot to offer.

3. Work Ethic

Let me say with some conviction that a man who isn’t afraid to work hard - whether that be in the form of physical exertion or the sacrifice of time, talent, intellect, and passion - offers some of the most valuable aspects of his personhood: His uniqueness, his will, his effort ... his strength. Just think about the nature of strength: It has to be developed over time, honed, mastered, coupled with wisdom and discernment. Hard work and strength are synonymous. Perhaps that is why, on a visceral level, whether he works hard to accomplish something concrete, to contribute to a greater good, to be self-sacrificial, or to improve a relationship, there is something innately attractive about a man who doesn't shy away from hard work. It is one way he offers his strength. And it can be particularly valuable when it is applied to relationship itself.

* * *

Again, these are my initial reflections based largely on the things that I find valuable and why. Other concepts like "A Defined Sense of Self," "Curiosity," and even "Personal Care and Hygiene" are floating around in my head as possible additions to the list, but I honestly don't know how this will end. What would you include? What do YOU cherish, value, prize?

A Post Father's Day Post

2011-08-20T18:43:00.111-05:00

I am really grateful for men.

I am really grateful for men like the one who described for me this week what leadership looks like to him after years of figuring it out for himself. He shared from the wealth of his experience about things he learned along the way. In so doing, he offered insight and affirmation. He didn't ridicule my experience, questions, challenges, or circumstances. He also didn't try to fix me. He talked to me as if I were a leader - because I am. He talked to me as if I were an equal - because I am.

I am grateful for the man who was big enough to release me from his own ideals and paradigms that I might find God's plan and purpose. That takes amazing strength and security. He treated me like a human being, capable of knowing and following God, created uniquely for God's pleasure - because I am. And I am also grateful for the man who endeavored to understand what it might be like for a woman to want so desperately to know that she was created for God's pleasure - and not man's - because it wasn't enough for him to just feel heard and understood himself. He practiced mutuality as if it really were mutual - because it is.

I am grateful for the man who was so secure and well-defined that he sat me down one day and told me that he wanted to open doors for me when we were out together. Then he asked my permission to do so. In fact, I am grateful for every man who has EVER asked my permission when it pertained to something that was mine. And now that I think about it, I am grateful for every man who has asked. Period. Asked questions. Shown genuine curiosity. Demonstrated authentic interest and the desire to learn and know. I have been treated as if I am valuable and worth knowing - because I am.

I am grateful for the men who aren't afraid to say, "I'm sorry," or "I was wrong"; for the ones who can admit when they've made a mistake and ask for forgiveness; for the ones who can accept their own weaknesses, failures, and limitations and name them as such without making it who they are. They teach me that I am more than my brokenness - because I am.

I am grateful for the man who wrote a book on the relational spirit and the ways we close off, shut down, or shut out one's spirit; for the man who wrote about his journey recognizing his own white, Euro-American, oppressive male culture; for the single dad who wrote about how fathers break their children. I am grateful for the lay leader in my church who was willing to come to my home when my husband was caught in an affair and talk to the two of us in the midst of the devastation, in the midst of the chaos and insanity and mess.

And one of the reasons why I am so grateful for these men is because I never had a father. I never had a father to mentor me, to affirm my gifts or abilities or calling. I never had a father to want what was best for me or to encourage me to live out of what I was created to be. I never had a father to teach me how I should be treated, to advocate for me, or to ask me questions. I never had a father to tell me that I was valuable or to embody values around relationship, emotion, communication, and assertiveness as a man. Through these and many more men, God has been father to me.

So, thank you. Thank you, men, for fighting the battles you have had to fight to be good leaders, to be secure individuals, to love sacrificially. Thank you for whatever messages or obstacles or powers you have had to overcome to care, to get involved, to ask, to offer, to figure out how to be men when there isn't clarity on what that even means half the time. Thank you for being human beings instead of stereotypes. Thank you. I am grateful.

That is all.

Beautiful Feminism

2011-08-18T11:58:00.001-05:00

"Feminists are not a lonely tribe of women fenced off from the rest of society. Feminists read cookbooks and clip coupons from Sunday supplements. Feminists like to dance, flirt and wear high-heels, often doing all three at the same time. Feminists can like men--and enjoy the process of liking individual men for their own worth instead of valuing all men simply because they're male. Feminists enjoy and value the company of other women. Feminists don't wish they were men; they celebrate their womanhood."

"The point of feminism is not to alienate men, but for women to focus on our own concerns and needs, to establish our own values. These may or may not coincide with the already established values of our dominant culture, just as our concerns and needs may or may not fold neatly into a relationship. The point is to work on making decisions based on choices that are really choices instead of following a script--in other words, it means learning to laugh at what we find funny instead of just following along with the laugh track..."

From an adaptation of They Used to Call Me Snow White, But I Drifted ... read the full article here.

Gina Barreca, Ph.D.

Heart of the Samurai

2011-07-17T11:46:00.000-05:00

I was a Samurai once.

Oh yes, it's true.

I have the sword to prove it.

When I was a Samurai, I was specifically in charge of honoring the dead. I would go out to the battlefield and tend to the fallen, to give them a burial fitting their service and sacrifice. Each of my comrades was special; I knew something of each story. All had come to fight for something they cherished in their lives, whether family, purpose, or King. If some had fought more valiantly than others, it did not matter. In death they were all equal. In death they were all honored.

I discovered that I was uniquely gifted for this task. I carried a sense of the sacred with me wherever I went. I recognized it instantly in my surroundings and circumstances, savoring its meaning as flavor in life and a sweet perfume in death. I have always been drawn to the eternal, the epic, the generative. Unique among my comrades, I could honor the stories, honor their memories, honor the peace when others might only see tragedy, endings, and fruitlessness. I did my job quickly, respectfully, and passionately.

Upon reflection, I consider now that this may be why I was called up in the heat of battle one day. We had been at war for some time and casualties had been high. Many had died in what seemed to be senseless skirmishes and I wondered when I would be pulled from my duties to fight beside my brothers and sisters. Would I finally experience the charge of the field only to be defeated by chance instead of skill? We could all feel the tension mounting, the crescendo of our cause building in our hearts and minds and ears. Troops were being called out more quickly. The sounds of fighting were louder, closer. It was time for the full force of our army to be brought to bear on our enemy. That is when I received word.

There was a sudden hush. The fighting ceased. In the center of the field between us and our enemy, space opened. I could see our warriors were weary. Perhaps it was that they were losing sight of what was precious to them, or beginning to wonder if their side was really the right side to be on. Whatever the case, my fight, as it would turn out, my task when I was finally called upon to enter into the fray, became a battle for the heart.

You see, in that moment of respite, I was called forth to speak to the assembled, to read the Samurai Code of Honor, to remind our fellows of all that was meaningful to them, of the oaths that they had taken, and of everything that was on the line. I stood in the center of that field, my face to the sky, appealing as much to the heavens as to those around me. Within a stone's throw was my enemy.

To this day I do not know if my commander saw that moment coming, saw it and planned it that way, or if it was just chance that I was still alive at that crucial point in time, alive and possessing just the heart and gifts needed for what was to come. I suppose it does not matter. What I do know is that I was selected in that moment to stir the hearts and faith of our warriors, and it was the one thing I was uniquely qualified to do. I had seen and commemorated what others gave their lives for. I had cherished the sacred moments in my heart.

My fight was not with swords but words, ideas, and passion. I went head to head with our enemy's best orator, and when I was done no one could remember her words. When the final notes of my voice faded from my mouth, no one could hear anything but the shouts of my people as they plunged back into the battle, and I turned at that moment to find my opponent dead at my feet, not a mark on her body from a blow. In the battle for our honor we had been fighting to the death; let no one misconstrue the power of our passion!

I remembered these things today as I sat around a table with my friends, so seemingly removed from war and death. I cannot tell you exactly what brought the memories to mind or why, but I suppose it doesn't matter. What I do know is that the battle I fought so many years ago - when I was a Samurai - was only ever meant to open my eyes to the battle I fight here and now in this more mundane-appearing life. That war was a testimony to the way that God made me uniquely me and equipped me to do battle in this world for the hearts and minds of my compatriots on the journey. God used that experience as a part of my call to ministry, and not long after my days on that battlefield tending the dead, I conducted a funeral service for my own sister. And about the same time I was anointed to preach and teach at local churches - about death and life and recovery; about the battle for our hearts and how to fight it.

So I suppose I am still a Samurai: A Samurai Pastor.

A Synopsis on Sex and Intimacy

2011-06-23T10:57:00.003-05:00

I have received several requests for the information I included in a post I wrote some time ago about sex and ministry. So, back by popular demand, the following is a synopsis of what I learned about sex, pornography use, masturbation (self stim), and sexual addiction during my graduate studies in counseling.

The Thing About Sex

There are two primary chemicals released in the brain during sex: Oxytocin and Dopamine. Oxytocin is the "peace" chemical created by and in attached, intimate (committed) relationships. Dopamine is the "high" that is also, coincidentally, highly acidic. The two chemicals together create pleasure and a sense of well-being, promoting mental health and providing all of the benefits associated with sex. However, without the right amount of Oxytocin, Dopamine floods the system like heroine and creates an amazing high - all the while eating away at the brain tissue. Then it drains from the system, leaving the brain in a state of imbalance experienced as a "crash," or depression, from which it takes 10 days to return to a normal chemical balance. A that point, however, normal no longer feels like normal as, over time, measurable crevasses and holes are eaten into the frontal cortex.

What that means is sexual stimulation outside of a committed, attached, intimate relationship does not produce enough Oxytocin to balance Dopamine levels. In other words,

casual sex, pornography use, sexual addiction ... literally destroys brain tissue.

The worst part: It destroys the part of the brain where personality and impulse control are managed. So not only does one become addicted to the Dopamine high and anhedonic when one is actually "normal," but the part of the brain that helps one control one's impulses is damaged, making it more and more difficult to manage one's emotions and delay gratification. Incidentally, this is also the section of the brain that facilitates our ability to understand the difference between right and wrong and to create intimate relationships, connection, and attachment.

And people think that it's not hurting anyone?!? Not only does this create addiction (eg. reaching out to a "substance" to feel better, only to feel worse and need more of the "substance" to feel better again) but it literally changes one's personality and thinking over time, destroys impulse control, isolates and then erodes the ability to foster and create the intimacy and connection one needs to be human - to survive. It is not just that pornography objectifies people, it is that it fosters the process of disconnecting and dehumanizing self, others, and relationship physiologically in the brain.

Suddenly, Paul's words "everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial" seem particularly pertinent. It is not a question of what is sin and what isn't. It is not a question of "how far" one can go. It is a matter of that which creates or destroys life in the body, in relationships, in the spirit. This is why accepting, understanding, and stewarding our sexuality is so vital to us as human beings. This is why it isn't just about marriage, too, because destructive, addictive sexuality occurs in marriage all the time, with heart-breaking consequences.

The Good News

The damage caused by sexual addiction is one of the only kinds of brain damage that can actually be undone. The frontal cortex and what is called the "joy center" of the brain is one of the few parts that be stimulated to growth throughout life. The way to promote healing? Intimate relationships! Healthy, attached, intimate relationships stimulate the growth and development of the frontal cortex. This is how babies grow and develop - and another reason why relationship - family, community, the church - is so important to us as human beings from the cradle to the grave. This is part of the reason why recovery groups work - they facilitate authenticity, vulnerability, accountability, knowing and being known - they facilitate the creation of real connection and intimacy (ideally). In fact, the 12 Steps reconstruct one's ability to build relationship, among many other amazing things. But recovery is a process. It is vital to stop the damage by "sobering up" so that the brain can recuperate and heal, and you can learn how to love and be loved again (or perhaps for the first time). That is why recovery from sexual addiction calls for sexual abstinence even in marriage! Abstinence creates the needed environment to begin physiological, emotional, and relational recovery, which is why I believe sexual stewardship starts when you are single.

You can find additional discussions about sexuality and being single here.

We are Adam

2011-05-01T23:45:00.003-05:00

And the Lord God formed man [ha-adam = the Adam] from the earth [ha-adamah = atom/dust particles of the earth] and breathed into [Adam's] nostrils the breath of life, and man [ha-adam = the Adam] became a living being [nephesh = animal]. Genesis 2:7

I am a locally licensed minister. I am seeking God's direction pertaining to ordination. And I am a woman.

The following is an exploration of Genesis taken from Bonding: Relationships in the Image of God by Dr. Donald M. Joy, Ph.D. (Evangel, p. 20-31). I offer excerpts of it here (in black text) because God has used it to challenge me and the doctrines I equate with Christianity - doctrines God Himself challenged when He called me into ministry. This study is one of many that invited me to consider my ideologies (in red) about being a woman, a Christian, and an American fundamentalist. It all began with this:

The unfortunate translation of the Adam as "man" has thrown us into a "bachelor Adam" misunderstanding of God's creation of humans.

The bible text explicitly rejects the idea of a "bachelor Adam" Creation. "The Adam" of Genesis 1:26-28 are clearly the male and female first humans: Image-bearers of the Creator God. It is clear because the repeated pronouns referring back to the Adam are the plural "them." Watch how clearly the male-female Adam species comes through when we ... provide consistent plural terms:

Then God said, "Let us make [the Adam, the human species] in our image, in our likeness, and let them [See the plural? It has always been there!] rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

So God created [the Adam] in his [God's] own image, in the image of God he created [the Adam]; male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

God created the Adam in both male and female models.
God blessed and empowered "them" not "him."

When God created [the Adam], he made [the Adam] in the likeness of God. He [God] created them male and female; at the time they were created, he [God] blessed them and called them "man" ["Adam"]. Genesis 5:1-2

Even the footnote enclosed with that deceptive generic pronoun which has deceived us English readers, "man" takes us to the bottom of the page ... in order to tell us the truth: "Hebrew adam." It is a simple matter to return through the text and replace every masculine pronoun with the Hebrew noun "the Adam."

This "Adam" business is ... complicated by the fact that after the human failure and sin reported in Genesis 3, the male takes the species name. Adam forever after denotes the first male in the human drama. But it is clear that Adam in Genesis 1 and in Genesis 5 includes both the male and the female: "They" are Adam.

God blessed and empowered "them," not "him."

Dr. Joy goes on to say, I drank deeply at the fountain which intoxicated us with the idea that "men are in charge." "Take control" is what we thought Adam heard. And we bought easily into that model of masculinity ... We are especially placed in charge of everything, we thought - the male bonus. This reflective second look at Creation came with a painful jolt. It is clear that God empowered the man and the woman: to produce children and to creatively manage this planet, "have dominion!" some translations read. "Take charge." But nowhere is one of them to dominate [have dominion or take charge over] the other...

The Genesis 2 story describes the formation of "the Adam" as solitary...

Solitary but not male...

then as a final Creation touch to make "them" truly "in the image of God" ...

a God, who the author points out is also referenced by the plural pronoun...

God splits the Adam...

God takes the solitary human creation and makes them two, one distinctly male and one distinctly female.

The surgery opens the tsela [Greek: pleura] and builds up the woman from ... parts of the Adam. When finished, God has formed Woman [Hebrew: Ishshah] ... When the residual, left-over male parts revive, the first man [Hebrew: Ish] awakens...

But isn't it true that Paul teaches that the husband is the "head" of woman?

On the matter of "head" and man's responsibility in St. Paul, notice that translators have not served us well ... inserting a heading between Ephesians 5:21 and 22 which complicates the "head" and "submission of women" passage ... You can see that "submit" appears in [Ephesians] verse 21 and is bi-lateral. What follows explains how submission and care work mutually - both ways. What is frightening is that more careful translations tend to use italics to show where English words are provided when no Greek words are actually there. So, the New American Standard on my desk, which observes this practice, honestly puts submission in perspective ... Inspired Scripture omitted "submission" or "subject to" specifically in addressing the woman's responsibility (verse 22) and allowed the term only in the double-edged verse (21): "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." And the entire focus of the verse is predominantly addressed to men on respecting their "body," their wife.

Note the metaphorical use, not literal. A wife is not a husband's body literally, but they are so intrinsically connected that what he does to her he does to himself, as to his own body. Likewise, the husband is not the head of a wife literally; he is as interconnected with her as a head is with a body - they are one flesh. The head doesn't rule over the body any more than the body rules over the head - they must submit to each other - as the Dr. Joy has pointed out that the text clearly states. In fact, the entire relationship is then paralleled to Christ and the church, a relationship of mutual submission - that's right! Mutual! For Christ did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but instead became a servant submitting to death, death even on a cross. If anything, being likened unto the head in this context means that the husband must lay down his life like a servant to his wife, and she should cherish his sacrifice the way the church cherishes the blood of Christ.

The teaching climaxes in the unity focus and insists that the head and body are "one" in the creation sense!

Furthermore, the end of the argument is this: "Nevertheless, each one of you must also love his own wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." Mutual submission.

So let us admit that our brokenness likely distorts what we see in Scripture. And let us at least ask why translators have ignored the sense of the passage by the way they break it up with side headings which separate a sentence from its only verb. Are they, too, in the grasp of their own brokenness and tendencies to control or their preoccupation with locking women into passive and idolatry roles? Yet the text itself is an elegant corrective to the very errors we have tended to think it teaches.

In every Pauline reference to creation and to headship, his conclusion is always the same: Unity in God's sight. "Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For if woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God" (1 Cor 11:11-12). How much more sense does this passage make when we look at Genesis as Dr. Joy invites us to, stepping out of our English translation paradigm? "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28). And in the one reference Paul makes about women not speaking in the church, he says "I" do not let a woman speak in the church - not that God has ordained such. He references this decision to his cultural paradigm that man was created first (which he has already debunked in 1 Cor 11:11-12) but which is still his cultural paradigm, one he tempers with mutual submission in Ephesians, so he honors it. I would be particularly interested to know if he is referring to the church or the synagogue here, as well, but the point remains.

As I study Paul's letters to the churches I am discovering his attempts to help a people of diverse backgrounds and cultures in pagan, polytheistic world understand what is imperative in Christ. He does not oppose cultural teaching, for example, that says women should cut their hair when they pray (or else cover it) even though he concludes by saying, "If you're going to be contentious about this, the church has no such practice." Throughout his letters he encourages the people to continue in their cultural heritage when their cultural heritage does not corrupt the essentials of Christianity, such as with immorality, because his premise was that gentiles did NOT have to give up being gentiles in order to be Christian. Thus, if your culture doesn't allow women to teach in church, great. That's not what is important as long as you are practicing mutual submission that precludes the exploitation of women as if they are not human. If you're a slave, stay a slave - as long as you don't engage in the practices of the flesh. Paul doesn't advocate slavery anymore than he proclaims a Christian doctrine of male dominance. He continues to bring his point back around to what is important: Unity and mutual edification in Christ.

They - male and female - are Adam. I think if we were to truly understand that, we might be empowered to embody the principles Paul described when he told us we are one, head and body, created for mutual submission in order to survive, in order to live, in order to reflect the image of God in which we were created.

They are Adam.

We are Adam.

Mosaic

2011-04-07T17:51:00.002-05:00

It's been nearly two weeks since my random trek along the Mediterranean, a journey that was nothing like I expected it to be. My answer when people ask sounds pat but it is poignant: "There was so much to take in: Sights, sounds, information; I will be processing it all for a long time yet."

The Island of Patmos

It seems strange to me now, the bits and pieces I come here to assemble like a mosaic in tribute to two short, cumbersome weeks. I have a picture in my mind of a tiny bronze monastery at the crest of a turquoise and green island, Patmos, where the sounds of a Greek-Orthodox chant echo the pull of the Spirit on my heart. A place of mystery and worship, we walked through with barely a glance, even as something inside of me clamored, "Sing. SING."

Me at the Monastery on the Island of Patmos

We did not sing, and I take with me from that place not just a picture but a conviction about leadership, the unique way that God has composed my spirit, and calling.

Another piece in a cacophony of stimuli is the experience of community and corporate faith that wound itself through the days and nights, stringing them together like beads on threads of dry grace edged in silver and gold. Dry grace. That's a typo. I meant to type dry grass, as in the kind peoples of the First Nations used to make baskets. But perhaps it is a Freudian slip best left in print. I'm going to leave it, for dry is definitely the appropriate term for relationship on this tour, and dry grace - well, the term leaves a lot to the imagination. It makes me think of a well, once overflowing with clear rivers of water, filled with dusty earth instead, the only mark of its history and identity being the circle of stones, the rotting rope, the splintered bucket.

The Pantheon

Frankly, that is the church I feel I experienced as I wandered through ancient cities long in ruins. Many people said they were impressed with the way the great and mighty Roman empire fell and was left to deteriorate even while the church, seeds sown by a small Jewish man named Paul, lived on. And they were right to make the observation, one of recognition about the Kingdom. I have in my hand a strand of faith that I can trace back to those ancient, now dilapidated sites, to those strange and distant peoples named in the early New Testament writings. But I also saw the Greek Orthodox cathedrals filled with images and icons that did not look so different from the pagan worship Paul invaded when he walked the streets of Philippi, Pergamum, and Corinth. I saw the Pantheon, built for seven pagan gods, stand in honor of seven saints today, their statues as blank and staring as the ones of Zeus and Athena must have been. It was, admittedly, breath-taking: The stonework, the marble, the open dome that doubled as a sundial. It was also ... dark and just a little bit creepy. This isn't just a building erected to remind us of something historical. This was a place of worship, a place of foreign gods and strange deeds done in their name. Do the statues of Peter and Mary transform or redeem that, I wonder? Do they give witness to the King of Kings, Lord of Lords in that place? What about the witness to Christianity that the ruins speak, when everything was torn down, burned, and demolished in God's name?

The Church outside of Philippi

Along the river banks outside of ancient Philippi is a Greek Orthodox church, pristine in white and gold and the colors of a sunrise. I do not know if there are ever really any services there. But it stands out against the backdrop of the trees along a coursing river, its banks swollen slightly from ice and snow now gone. The contrast is stark. Where once Lydia was baptized in the river that she visited regularly in the course of her work, now there is an empty building with a cistern for the sprinkling of water. What remains of that early church? What remains of that which Paul planted in those days - really? Well, we're still baptizing, I suppose. That's something. And here I am with my strand of faith. But what do I do with the river and its pristine empty building? What do I do with Paul's message to Corinth and the eerie images, statues, and icons that stand where pagan gods once stood?

But more than that, what do I do with the people. Besides the Orthodox guide who wore the emblem of the evil eye (to guard from evil spirits) as she chastised another group member for her lack of respect in sitting on the empty throne in Lydia's church, alongside the Muslim guide who grew up in a Catholic school, I walked with academics and scholars who either remained silent altogether on this trek or were prone to ridiculing those less educated in their eyes. Then, at night, I prayed with another group, a group so bent upon evangelizing their Islamic guide the man had a break-down and got drunk while on their tour. Now, I wasn't there. Perhaps they responded with compassion, but I have to say that my heart went out to a man who was their captive audience, a man who obviously needed more than a teaching moment on a bus by someone who lived on the other side of the world and would go back there the next day (only my uneducated opinion). Yet this was the group that prayed every night, prayed for each other and prayed for their poor, hapless guide, prayed for me even. This was the group that shared testimonies about how God had shown up in their lives and about how He was showing up in their presence as they walked these ancient sites. And here we were, a group sponsored by a seminary, and you didn't hear those stories among our ranks. In fact, I hear very few testimonies in seminary at all.

The Ruins of Philippi

It's just an observation.

I esteem and look up to my community of believers. They have given their lives to the study of scripture. Some of them have given their lives to the church. Something inspires and drives them to search for truth as if it were fine silver, to wrestle with it and allow it to mature them. Many of them are bent on living out a faith that others only talk about on Sunday mornings, a faith that actually means something in how they go about their day, every day. And yet our community was dry: Dry grace. Do they have stories of grace, I wonder? Maybe they do and this just was not the time to tell them?

And I respect the group of believers I met on my journey. They were experiencing a Living God. He was impacting them on a very personal level in ways that were, in fact, transforming their lives. They were wrestling, too, and yet their words could be just as critical of theologians, people who acknowledge that when we come to scripture we bring a world of baggage with us that wants to interpret God on our behalf. They dismiss the study of Calvin, Luther and Wesley and seem to reject some questions of faith as a waste of time. But I wondered as they did, do they know how much of Calvin's voice was reflected in their own? Did they realize they were answering these questions of faith in their dismissal and even in the way they proselytized their guide? Their dry grace sounded like fiery moments of Spirit-led conviction that ended, sometimes, in dismissal of maturity in Christ.

The Colosseum

I don't really have room to critique my brothers and sisters, not the over-intellectualized ones or the over-spiritualized ones. And it is not my wont. I wrestle with the juxtaposition of God and man in my fellow believers. I don't know how to make sense of it or find my place in it. Perhaps the dry grace is mine. All I know is that I felt like I belonged with neither, though one invited and the other critiqued, one accepted and the other wanted to convert. The truth is, they both expressed care for me in very different ways and what is probably most true is that I am a product of a cynical, critical world instead of a relational one. And particularly as Americans, we suck at relationship. I think I can say that with some claim to expertise.

And so I turn my face away from exotic foreign travel and mysterious communion among the saints, both past and present, to look again at the juxtaposition of God and me in my life as one called and frail, as one empowered by the Holy Spirit and broken nonetheless. The mosaic I make with my pieces is me, my life, my faith, my work, a creative venture with God.

Patmos

I did not begin this post to write so much about my experience abroad. I began, actually, in order to explore more about this creative venture - as I find myself longing to create. I find myself called to create, in fact. The speaker in chapel this morning named the feeling when He described the invasive, intervening, transforming force of God in our world. That is what I want to be a part of. Perhaps, if I am given a gift that I may humbly offer to invade, intervene, and transform, it is creativity. And perhaps what I found to be missing in the community of believers as a whole on my trip In the Steps of Paul and John was my own heart, my voice, and the Spirit of God in me. And so my prayer after this journey, perhaps, is that I would not be dry grace, but a well-spring, in my own beautiful yet limited way.

To Everything there is a Season

2011-03-09T01:18:00.001-06:00

I wish I could capture for you the beauty and mystery that is Lent, that I might hold it under glass for you to examine for yourself. Perhaps I could show you, then, the vibrant colors and intricate patterns on its fragile, fluttering wings, or point out the simple grace and peace of its repose. Perhaps even the color cones in your eyes would be flooded and it would change the way you see the world for just a moment. But alas, can I hold repentance in my hand and hand it off? Can I pin down the sacred on a specimen board and label all its parts? Will Sh'khinah Glory be poured into a glass and served with tea and cakes?

Recently I heard fasting defined simply as "the practice of abstinence." The thought delighted my heart. In a world where freedom is slave-master, in a society built on all manner of indulgence, in a culture inundated with over-stimulation, apathy, and anhedonia, the practice of abstinence is nothing more than a controversial curriculum offered in some schools during sex ed. But when I hear the phrase, I think of things like humility, repentance, re-sensitization, sobriety, healthy boundaries and gratitude. I think about creating space for other. I am immediately put in mind of the changing of the seasons, the way that the world sheds its leaves and gives up its harvest to then rejoice in the new fallen snow. I think of Ecclesiastes, one of my favorite books...

There is a time for everything,
   and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die,
   a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
   a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
   a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
   a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
   a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
   a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
   a time for war and a time for peace.

I practice abstinence in many forms throughout the year and I want to practice the ideals behind Lent throughout my life, ideals such as repentance, mourning, letting go, simplifying, and seeking God in specific and intentional ways. But Lent is special. As a part of the practice of the Twelve Steps, I am engaged in a constant inventory and [should be] promptly admitting when I am wrong, offering forgiveness and amends where needed as needed so that I carry no unfinished business. But during Lent, it is as if the whole Church turns its heart toward these intentional practices. Together we let go of those things that possess us so that we may be mastered by nothing but God. Together we repent. Together we embrace the suffering of the cross and of being Christ-followers, which, if we're even trying, is freaking hard, lonely work. Lent is about inviting the sacred to come home with us, to be a part of our every-day lives, transforming those every-day lives in the process. Lent is about remembering and tuning in to that which is larger than us and letting it shape the way we live. Lent is the opportunity to experience need and loneliness and sorrow because these are part of feeling alive. Lent is about turning away from things that do not satisfy in order to be satisfied by what is truly good, in order to appreciate what is truly beautiful.

This year I practice lent in a couple of unique ways. One way I am observing this time is by fasting social media - Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, texting and the like (obviously not blogging). This fasting is intentional because these are the everyday stimuli that can actually flood my brain with dopamine until I am unable to *feel* normal, less stimulating but more beneficial stimuli (like awe and wonder at a sunset or peace and contentment while watching the rain fall outside). It is like fasting food in that every time I experience an inclination to send a status message or surf a newsfeed, I choose instead to pray, to take the time to read or journal, or reach out to friends and community in the real world where it takes more effort but the payoff is love not just in spirit but in truth.

I also have the unique opportunity to spend a portion of this season on the Mediterranean, traveling "In the Footsteps of Paul and John" visiting Greece, Turkey, and Rome. It is a trip that requires a lot of sacrifice - intentional abstaining (financially, relationally, etc.) - in order to embrace something remarkable and extraordinary. And this is the thing that leads me to the most precious part of the Lenten season for me this year...

When I return from my trip, when the Lenten season is over, I will embark on a new adventure, a season of new investments, new relationships, and new work. I have been praying over ministry opportunities in my church and in the church at large. I will face vocational transitions that are yet undefined. I will also be about a season of building, of reaching out and starting over in many ways. As of yet I cannot know what all these changes will entail, but I know this is the season to come.

So what I have right now in Lent, in a time of abundant time to pray and seek and listen, in a season of refrain, and in a once-in-a-lifetime excursion along the Mediterranean, is an opportunity to be alone with God first, to revel intimately in His presence, His love, His word, His world, His heart, His vision. In a previous post I casually and jokingly referred to this time as a honeymoon with God, but isn't that what a honeymoon is? Isn't it a time of going away, of letting go, of saying no to the world in order to say yes to the building of intimacy? Isn't that what Lent is all about? How truly privileged am I, that I have a chance to go and be with God?

Yet we all have that opportunity in this Lenten season, to go and be with God in a very intentional and specific way.

The practice of abstinence, then, is not so much about the giving-up as it is about choosing very clearly what we're giving-in to, giving ourselves to.

So, let the world give itself to whatever it desires. As for me, I will seek to give myself to God. No other Lover will satisfy and no other Master will give up His life so that I might have life and have it more abundantly.

Sentenced and Set Free

2011-02-16T02:13:00.330-06:00

Remember, Seek, Surrender
My Testimony in Scripture

2007 - 2008

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.
Isaiah 40:1-2

No one, as a child, dreams of one day growing up and getting divorced. Most little girls plan their weddings long before they even like boys, but they certainly do not plan their dissolutions or fantasize about their lives post separation. Honestly, I had never pined for marriage growing up, but when I did get married, I knew on some very basic level that I would die before I would get divorced. Little did I know.

Writing about my divorce is not something that I enjoy. Being a survivor of adult domestic violence is not a reality with which I am particularly fond of living. It is an uncomfortable and tense venture, and if it were not for the fact that my testimony of God's faithfulness and redemption is all wrapped up in the story of a failed marriage, I would not describe it here. (There is a reason I use the song Martyrs and Thieves as my testimony song: "I've never been much for the bearing of souls in the presence of any man. I'd rather stick to myself all safe and secure; in the arms of a sinner I am.")

In some ways, I feel about my marriage and divorce the way someone might feel about having served a prison sentence. I do not think that this piece of my past is what is most true about me as a person; I do not want it to define me. It is not what I want people to see when they look at me or to know when they think of me. Yet it is a part of me. And frankly, though once again I would prefer not to admit it, I still experience feelings of shame about my story at times.

There were leaders in the church, leaders I loved and respected, who blamed and reprimanded me for my divorce. Only one ever came back to apologize to me once he had all the facts. I think the others are still convinced that I willfully sinned by saying no to the devastation of addiction and by letting go. So it was that in that first year I was devastated not only by an unfaithful and abusive man, but by those in the community who condemned me for that which was largely out of my control, saying, "Divorce is a sin. God hates divorce."

But I praise God because, as I prayed through that difficult first year, it was God Himself who had something to say about such things. It was as I read scripture and prayed one night that I was given the following dream:

I lay in a hospital room on a gurney staring at the florescent lights and white walls above and all around me. It was a big, open room. The curtains were pulled around in bunches and the medical equipment was clustered in spots. It appeared to be an emergency room. The distant noise of voices and heart monitors and other general hubbub came in from an open door. I felt very alone.

Then someone walked into the room, a man wearing white scrubs. He was roughly in his thirties, dark and lean. I knew him immediately; it was Christ. And when I saw his face he looked very sad.

At that moment I realized there was something else in the room, someone else, beside and behind me. I turned my head and saw that there was another gurney laying parallel to mine and an operating table between us. On the gurney lay my husband, still but breathing, his face turned away. And then I saw, draped over and laying on the table, strands of light - big and small, coarse and smooth - connecting me to him. Many of them were severed, broken, draped like cut and withering vines, hacked and brutalized. But there were many still connected; a thick, multi-cord strand of varied light at our chests in particular still joined our hearts. Something similar connected our minds. A myriad of smaller cords intertwined these two, like sinew and tissue around muscles. It was both beautiful and somewhat shocking.

I began to cry. The man on the other bed did not stir.

Then Christ stepped up to the operating table and looked me in the face.

"This is why I hate divorce," He said, and I saw the tears in his eyes, too. He picked up a scalpel and, one by one, I watched as He gently cut the ties that remained, weeping silently all the while. But when He got to the heart, I had to look away.

Finally, with the last cut, the man on the other gurney, the person that was once joined to me with cords of light, slipped away - like someone slips into the sleep of death or slips down into a pool of water. Christ helped me to stand and walk with Him and He and I departed together, me with cords of light still spangling from body like the tentacles of a star fish, shriveling and shrinking, lost without the relationship from which they had grown. They were not exactly me or mine, but they were not exactly his, either. Even with the Great Physician, it would take a long time to heal.

So let not man (or woman) hack at the beautiful cords of light and life that connect the two who have become one (Matt 19:6, Mark 10:9). Let them not brutalize and do violence on this beautiful, fragile life that is neither one alone but a new creation that only grows from both together. It is a life that must be nurtured, guarded and protected (Mal 2:16). For if God hates divorce, it is that it breaks His heart even as it tears ours apart, and He weeps with us in and over this death and dismemberment of life. If God hates divorce, then what He grieves is the sinful acts that sow a harvest of destruction that end in divorce, this loss of life.

For though I do not find the words "God hates divorce" in scripture, as I prayed about my dream, God brought to me to a passage that says: "I will not be mocked, a man reaps what he sows" (Gal 6:7-8). If you sow to the flesh you WILL reap all kinds of death. You cannot avoid it. But if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap life. It is just the way of things.

And so I would go so far as to say that divorce is not the sin, it is the death produced by the sin, inevitable when sin has been sown and reaches its harvest (James 1:15). The sin is the hardness of heart that sows the seed in the first place (Matt 19:8).

My marriage was still-born. I was released from carrying the dead thing with which I had lived for a significant portion of my life through the divorce that came with God's decree, "Comfort, comfort my people, speak tenderly to her and tell her that her hard service is completed."

For a long time I still felt the man that was once my husband, I felt him in my skin, the way a survivor of war still feels a limb lost in battle. But with this passage of comfort spoken over me in 2007, this was the year that it was gone and done. The severed strands of light had been restored and were once again woven back into the fabric of my being.

It was 11 years from conception to death. Shortly after God gave me the verses above, my ex was sentenced to 11 years in prison for violence perpetrated after I left.

He was sentenced and I was set free.

* * *

A note to the Church:

Do not condemn divorce or its victims. The seeds that bear such fruit are sown long before the day of their harvest, often during the creation of the relationship itself. Help them tear up the seed that produces death in their souls. Help them to sow new seeds of light and life. For souls are eternal, but marriage is not. So you may or may not save them from divorce, but you do a work pleasing to God that cultivates the fruit of His Spirit. This is the work of The Kingdom.

Carpe Diem, Opus Dei

2011-02-04T17:16:00.002-06:00

As I take the time to remember the beautifully invasive story of God and His redemption of 'Jacob,' I find myself in the middle of the spring semester with the snowy, frigid mornings of February already knocking at my door. The two week intensive classes are finished, at least the portion that involves my nightly trek to sit in a room with 20 other students for a nearly 5 hour block. Papers still loom along with preparations for the upcoming trip along the Mediterranean. Lent beckons, my favorite time of the year.

I experience mixed emotions as I look forward.

In the last year I have chosen to balance my entire life on the precarious point where faith, identity, and responsibility meet. I have sought God and His vision not just for a season or a year, not just for a career, a to-do list, or a set of goals, but for my life's work. I have chosen to hold back, to live in the tension, rather than to gallop full-throttle into the practical arena where I have lived to perform, to jump through whatever hoops I find there simply because I'm good at running and I love to jump.

If you've ever seen a nervous horse you might understand how difficult it is for a runner NOT to run or a jumper NOT to jump. In the mildest expressions of tension, the animal will sidle and paw and swing its stately head this way and that, maneuvering its equine nose so that its wide-set eyes can more easily examine whatever might warrant a sudden change of position or a good reason to GO. It might even throw its weight around by leaning or nosing or with a sidestep that simply pushes you away. Or it might take advantage of a good opportunity to nip. Should it stand still, for whatever reason, you might catch its muscles twitching, its tail flicking, or its eyes perhaps growing wide and white.

I have chosen to stand still, however twitchy that might make me. Moreover, I have also chosen to submit myself to the halter and reigns of classes, the disciplines of which are aimed to help me seek and to answer this question of my heart, the question of God's leading, the question of ministry. For just a semester I have given God my head to see what He might do with it.

Literally, figuratively, and metaphorically!

Similarly, I have chosen to travel the Mediterranean, as I traveled Africa once, in search of the movement of God's Spirit. Just as God turned my heart to home and to my people then, I hope that He will turn my heart to His vision now. In fact, now that I think about it, every two years we venture out together: It was to KC in 2005, to Africa in 2007, and to Israel in 2009. Every two years we have gone and He has used the opportunity to turn my heart toward what He will.

What a lovely and unexpected tradition!

And in the midst of these larger-than-life things, I have also chosen my responsibilities in the mundane, in the pressing, in the everyday existence and the demands of the practical where I can be tempted to lose the magic of my soul. I choose to steward my time, my home, my job, my finances, my relationships, and to face the decisions that must be made about each.

And so I have chosen to seek God.
I have chosen to rearrange my life for Him.
I have chosen school.
I have chosen this trip to the Mediterranean.
I have chosen responsibility and the decisions that I must face.

But as I write I suddenly wonder...
Have I chosen God's ministry?

The question strikes me with no small amount of terror, like the realization that God's conception in Mary is no less than what He asks from us all.

It is clear that God has chosen me.
It is clear that I have been in the process of choosing Him back.
But is it possible that all of these years of graduate study angst and wrestling with my identity in Christ has been about another opportunity to choose, and my not choosing?

The truth is, I hate choosing. I suck at it really. It's why I like sudoku puzzles and programming spreadsheets. They're not about choosing anything but about plugging in a pre-existing logic to get a particular and pre-determined result, usually defined by someone else and borrowed by me.

Do I choose God's ministry?

Of course, my first inclination, besides panic, is, "How could I not?" Haven't I been choosing Him this whole time?

But I know that it is not as easy as all that. I must make an intentional act of the will.

Do I choose God's ministry?

Worthy, Not Worthless Words

2011-02-02T22:17:00.000-06:00

Remember, Seek, Surrender
My Testimony in Scripture

"If you will repent, I will restore you that you may serve me;
if you utter worthy, not worthless words, you will be my spokesperson."

Jeremiah 15:19

An Excerpt from a Blog, January 14, 2006

It snowed my first day in Kansas City - great, huge flakes that clung to each other as they drifted through the sky, creating wispy cotton trails in the air and landing in strange patterns on the back deck. I ran out onto the front porch in my "happy bunny" pajamas, the ones that say DUMB DUMB DUMB in a rainbow of colors on a backdrop of bright yellow, my hair pulled back into what is affectionately called my "frump-girl" pony-tail. (For those of you who don't know, "frump-girl," apparently, is my alter ego who tends to surface on bad hair days and early mornings.) After standing in amazed delight (you'd have thought I had never seen snow before), Bailey and I ran around my front yard in mad glee, barking and giggling, respectively...

It was a long drive out to Missouri from California, and an even longer journey for my spirit. It started with a flood, was accented by tornado strength winds and a few attack-tumbleweeds, and ended with a Super Walmart the size of my home town. The snow was my icing on the cake. It was also heart-breaking as it finally sank in with every passing mile and each passing day that the old is gone.

Something inside of me convulses at the thought. The old is gone.

And yet how I wish that the old was gone! The memories, the heart-ties, the child-like hope that somehow things do work out and love conquers all, the haunting rejection, the occasional nightmares; I wish I could purge myself of those things, that I could be rid of the reminders and the loss and the emptiness and the sadness.

Life goes on. Cities come and go, a stream of lights. Days come and go, a processional of moments, uncomfortably unfamiliar, strangely vulnerable. There is unmistakable joy here. But there is undeniable anger and unshakable grief, too.

* * *

Just before I received this passage, just before making the long trek to Kansas City, I sat in a coffee shop with my mentor and her son. In a strange turn of conversation, they challenged the paradigm with which I had grown up, a paradigm that said women had no place in leadership in the church and had no call to ministry.

I had never considered such things before, but as they talked, strange ideas began to percolate. I remembered my confusion at 17 when every university in the western US was banging down my door, asking me to come, and I did not know what to do. I considered law. I considered psych. I considered communications and music and English Lit. But the only thing I really wanted to do, the only thing that really mattered to me, was learning about God.

I remembered high school speech classes in which I took great joy crafting messages that intertwined music and scripture and life. I remembered getting in trouble when I was about 8 - maybe 10 years old - for "preaching" at my sisters. I even chuckled at the thought that, when I was still in grade school, I wanted to push that old pastor off of the podium and tell people what was really going on.

Could it be that I wasn't so confused after all? Could it be that I simply lacked the community structure necessary for making sense of God's equipping, God's passion, God's call?

There is no way that I could know how that simple line of questioning would begin to change ... everything.

But before I could even consider such things, God had more to teach me about what it means to repent. The year prior, 2005, had been a year of inventorying a dead relationship and walking through the stages of grief and divorce. But God wasn't finished; He had to take me further back, back to examine hurts and character defects the pre-existed my marriage. Living in a manner worthy of repentance means looking at the fabric of one's soul, of one's bent, and taking it before God and others to be healed, re-shaped, grown, redeemed. It means making decisions about one's future based on the reality of one's past - not living in the past, but not living in denial of it, either.

The analogy is one of a recovering alcoholic who really has no business walking down the alcohol aisle in the grocery store, particularly if he has little sobriety time or if that is what gets him into trouble. He will never be wise enough to make that decision unless he has faced and owned that he has a problem, examined his particular set of weaknesses, and then accepted that he will have to live his life differently because of it - perhaps forever. This is the humility of repentance. It is accepting what is true about ourselves and living it, submitting to the consequences.

This was the year that God began articulating an unmistakable call on my life - a call to live in a manner worthy of repentance. I look back now and see that this verse was like the first whisper of God's desire to use me, to use what I had come from and through, to use my testimony, to create and solidify the commitment necessary to be a minister of God's hope, forgiveness, and peace. I look back now and this verse embodies my theology of ministry; I have nothing to offer the world but my repentance, my recovery, and somehow as I do that, I have something to offer the world ... worthy and not worthless words ... words that testify to God.

Filled with God's Bounty

2011-01-30T18:39:00.010-06:00

Remember, Seek, Surrender
My Testimony in Scripture

2005

"For the Lord will ransom Jacob and redeem her from the hand of those stronger than she.
She will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion;
she will rejoice in the bounty of the Lord - the grain, the new wine and the oil,
the young of the flocks and the herds.
She will be like a well-watered garden and she will sorrow no more.
Then maidens will dance and be glad, young men and old men as well
I will turn her mourning into gladness;
I will give her comfort and joy instead of sorrow.
I will satisfy the priests with abundance, and my people will be filled with my bounty," declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 31:11-14

I was never really supposed to be a Jamie. Mom had planned to name me Natalie, in fact, or even Mercedes, and I would have been more than happy to have been a "Nattie" or a "Mercy" (but not a "Sadie"). Honestly, I've always hated the name Jamie. I mean, if I'm going to have a boy's name, it should be a good, strong boy's name, one that makes you perform a satisfactory double-take when you find that it is, in fact, a girl. And if I'm going to have a girl's name it should be decidedly feminine and suitably inspirational. My sisters all have beautiful, princess-like names, names that the heroine of any book would be proud to announce. But the best that I can hope for is to be called James, which is one of my favorite nicknames.

In this year of my recovery I began to meet with a small prayer group once a week. Two beautiful women organized it and the three of us were the most regular attenders that year. One such Tuesday it was just the three of us when the pastor of the church for which we prayed came to join in. After we laid hands on him and interceded for his calling, his family, his church, and the community, he did something that no one else had ever quite done before. He got up and stood over us and prayed a priestly blessing on us. I remember it distinctly not just because no one else had ever done that but because of what he said:

"I pray that each of these women would receive the eldest son's portion."

In a culture far removed from that of biblical times, this might seem an odd prayer. But to three women who had experienced some of the more difficult circumstances of life, it was as if he offered a spring of water to thirsty souls. One of us was a widow raising a teen-aged son on her own. The other, I believe, was divorced and a survivor of abuse. I was recently separated, living in a garage apartment while my husband's mistress lived in our home. I would say that we each knew something salient about the frailties of being women, widows and orphans, feeling like "the least of these" and having little power to change it. I am the youngest daughter of a youngest daughter, and my identification with the sparrow is not accidental; I had about as much power and significance in the world as a common, muddy bird sold for a penny to be sacrificed on an altar somewhere.

It was that same week that I discovered the meaning of the name Jamie. It is the feminine form of Jacob and it means "supplanter." In that moment it dawned on me that my name was not an accident. The pastor's prayer was for me, Jacob, the youngest daughter of a youngest daughter who would receive the eldest son's portion. Thus, it was particularly beautiful to be given this passage from Jeremiah where God seemed to whisper my own name...

For God will ransom Jacob...

That is why you will find the rest of the pronouns to be her in the section quoted above. God is not actually speaking to a man in this passage, but to a people, and in this case, He was also making a promise to his daughter, Jacob, to me.

It is challenging to articulate all the beautiful facets of this passage, its promise and its fulfillment in my life that year. God had already called me out of the darkness of betrayal, depression, and suicide. We had already made a covenant of life, He and I, and in my healing He had given me the image of a garden...

You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride; you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain.

Song of Solomon 4:12

Up until that point, I had been a garden without walls, trampled, used, discarded. But my God wanted me for His own. He rebuilt the walls and closed the gates and He and I stood together to assess the damage. (It wasn't a pretty picture. The fountain was dry and so was the ground; any flowers were dead. The place was overrun with weeds and garbage and vines grew over stones marked with graffiti. I had not known how to take ownership of this land that God had given me and it had been destroyed without the one God had created to take care of it. Even the beautiful Tree of Life at its center was dead. Just Jesus and I remained.) He taught me how to take an inventory, taught me how to take the lies I had learned about myself to Him for truth. He taught me how to steward anger and loss with forgiveness and grief. He taught me how to tend the walls, to discern good from evil, by saying yes to love and light and life and no to the bad, to abuse, to lies and destruction.

That is where, at the close of 2004, God called me out of the sick relationship in which I lived. Three days in December I fasted and prayed and three days the message was clear: I was clinging to a dead thing that could only make me sick and kill me in the end. My only hope was deliverance and to invite my husband to deliverance, too. But if he would not come out from his slavery then my call was to serve my God and not death.

Even so, what I had learned about the Bible, about marriage and divorce tied my hands. So I confessed to God that I could not do what He asked. I told Him that He would have to do it.

So He did. Without a word spoken or any plan made, one Saturday morning in January - this week of January, in fact, 6 years ago - God prepared a place and then sent people to my home to gather all of my belongings and move me out.

She will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion...

I did shout for joy. For though it was a sad day, waking up the next morning to a place free from darkness and deception, from depravity and abuse, was like waking to the sound of angels' singing in happy tones of blissful peace.

She will be like a well-watered garden...

The part that makes me most happy about this particular promise is the end of this passage - it is not just for me, it is for all of God's people. In fact, the story of my deliverance is the story of my calling, to be ready to share the hope that I have, the relationship with a God who delivers, and to offer it to all who seek. My testimony of mourning and gladness, of comfort and joy and sorrow, it is my anointing; it is the abundance from which I might serve others, that all of God's people might be filled with God's bounty.

That year I learned to receive. And that year, the year of my 'widowhood,' I was loved beyond anything I have known before or since. In the time of my greatest desolation I was cherished beyond all measure as God fought for me, provided for me, surrounded me with His people, and led me to this place in Kansas City where my greatest delights were made into classes and the secret meadow where I met with God in prayer was a real place called the Sanctuary of Hope.

It is hard to capture a year in words, let alone in one post online. I could tell you about how God called me His rose and littered the path to KC with petals. I could tell you about the crossing of Jordan and the 12 stones I collected along the way. I could write more about the sweet, gentle way God calls me to minister one step at a time, one moment at a time. But these are yet again stories for yet another post. What I see as I look back on this promise from six years ago is the fact that it is still being fulfilled today. It is a vision for my ministry as I seek to disciple and be discipled, my offering to God.

I close with this lovely irony. As I write I realize that the anniversary of my widowhood, March 16th, is the day that God took me on a surprise trip to Israel. It is also the day that I will leave for Rome. Just 45 more days!

"My people will be filled with my bounty," declares the Lord.

Rendezvous with God

2011-01-26T01:10:00.003-06:00

We interrupt this broadcast for a rendezvous with God...

I have been experiencing a growing tension as class has progressed this semester. I have fought it. I have pleaded with it. I have listened to it. I have argued with it. I have tried to give it space. Still I have had no idea what it is ... except a loneliness, a longing somehow, that translates into cheeky anxious compulsions and flippant displays of humor in the light of day. I sat in the classic florescent-lit room tonight, a lecture echoing off of the tables before and around me, fellows on my left and on my right in their various learned poses (largely involving laptops or netbooks tuned to Facebook and/or YouTube).

Meanwhile I longed to be just about anywhere else. I longed for solitude. I longed for quiet. I longed for stillness ... a stillness on the inside.

Upon the conclusion of our session, I trudged to our small group time with some mixed feelings. I had nothing to give, nothing to offer, yet I hoped for something nonetheless. I wanted to connect but I was also ready to bolt. Yet when we were free to leave, I was surprised to find my compatriots lingered.

"What shall we pray for?" was the question asked. The dear one who shares my personality piped up:

"Pray for a rendezvous with God."

He went on to say that if one were in love, one would wish and long for and find secret ways to spend time with the object of his or her affection. One would be looking for a tryst, a cherished rendezvous, to reconnect.

"Pray for a rendezvous with God."

YES! That's it! My spirit stirred. That is my disquiet; that is my longing! That is what seems to be pushed out and pushed away even as I embark on the very studies that are supposed to be my pursuit of God, my act of obedience, devotion, service and dedication. I miss the secret trysts that I have come to cherish with my Savior. I need a rendezvous with the Lover of My Soul.

And so we prayed. Simple enough.

But as we did, as these precious men prayed for me and for each other, my God gently whispered to me...

I bought you lunch this week, He said.

I know. It's a funny thing for God to say. Well, actually, if I were to tell you what He actually said it would look more like HTML code for a memory of a very nice older gentleman who, taking pity on my jury-dutied, poor seminary-studented state, bought me lunch yesterday at the Power and Light Grill as we waited to be released from our civic responsibilities.

Tears immediately sprang to my eyes, not just at the memory of a simple act of kindness from a stranger, but at the then streaming memories of the acts of kindness I have been the recipient of for the last two weeks of class - at the hands of many. Another student scraped the ice off of my windshield on the eve of a blizzard. A random gentleman bought me a coke from the vending machine when he saw me scraping the bottom of my purse for change. Someone told me that my hair style perfectly complemented my beautiful eyes not knowing that I had only just gotten my hair cut and was feeling dreadfully self-conscious about it. And just tonight, dear friends coordinated their busy schedules to take me to one of my favorite places so that I could eat crab rangoon and egg noodles and drink this splendiferous coffee at the Vietnamese Cafe in celebration of my turning old. In the last couple of weeks a friend has even deemed to send me happy little text messages that have brought so much unexpected mirth ... I don't think I've giggled this much since ... I don't remember when.

And that is not even all! I have no groceries yet I've been fed. I have no money yet even my broken DVD player has been tended to with the upmost care.

My God has been rendezvousing with me, has been this whole time, this whole season of busyness. And though I had felt so grateful at each act of kindness, so very humbled at each unexpected show of generosity, I missed Him. I missed Him because, honestly, I have the hardest time receiving. And if I got even more honest than that, I missed him because I felt somehow ashamed, ashamed that, in each of these situations I might somehow be drawing attention to myself inappropriately. Somewhere along the way, being the object of attention was shamed for me, and at that moment a part of my heart went away, withdrew, so that it might never be the object of attention again, the object of affection.

Huh. That's not going to obstruct a rendezvous with a God who wants to meet with the object of His affection. Not at all.

"Remove any obstructions," my prayer partner said, "to her drawing close to you, God."

And there you go. My final rendezvous came in the form of a prayer through the words of someone who knew not what he prayed at the very moment that God was showing me a big fat obstruction to communion with Him.

It appears that I have grown so accustomed to meeting with God in the quiet, to experiencing Him in private devotion or the secret disciplines of the heart, that I missed Him in the world around me. I forgot that it's not all up to me; God is not confined to the personal, inner world. In fact, I had been squirming when my prof posed a question at the end of class tonight: How can we continue to practice the sacred (prayer, the reading of scripture, the partaking of the sacraments) as the demands for our time and attention increase beyond that which we have to give - even for the service of Christ? I did not have an answer (only a yawn, for I'd been up before dawn every day for two weeks). I hadn't had time for those moments of quiet reflect as I would have liked. And if I can't do it now, how am I going to fight for it as the demands and expectations increase?

But Christ had an answer that I did not anticipate. His answer was to rendezvous with me in this external place, this realm of life and action and relationship. I needed only the eyes to see it and the heart unobstructed to receive.

It helped that the class had provided me with a framework in which to conceive of such things, too - to conceive of other ways of seeing.

Who am I that He is mindful of me?
That He would look upon this child and call her Beloved?
That He would find me in the midst of my every-day existence
and offer His affections so lavishly?
I am His sister, His bride, His beautiful one!
His dove in the cleft of the rocks.

I recounted a story today, as I am wont to do, of one of my most embarrassing moments. Much to my surprise, when I was done with my tale, my covenant sister responded in puzzlement, "Why were you ashamed?"

Well, isn't it obvious? I thought. I made an absolute spectacle of myself. I drew the attention of not just one person but like 30 people, and it was SUCH a spectacle that then I had to draw the attention of someone else to come and rescue me!

"Why were you ashamed that you were seen as beautiful?" she asked.

Um. Excuse me but did you not hear the SPECTACLE part???

But now, as I write, it dawns on me, that's how I've seen them - always - the moments when someone shows me kindness, attention, affection; I think, Here I am making a spectacle of myself again.

Um. Excuse me, Sparrow, but did YOU not hear the beautiful part?

Er. The beautiful part???

The beautiful part where God finds you beautiful and delights to rendezvous with you?

Huh. Why am I ashamed that God would see me as beautiful? Worthy of a kindness? As one so beloved that He would go out of His way to stage rendezvous upon rendezvous with me? That's kinda dumb.

I think I shall, perhaps, instead share my "spectacles" as a testimony to the beauty of my ardent Lover God.

And.

Go.

Forgiveness and New Life

2011-01-24T17:48:00.002-06:00

Remember, Seek, Surrender

My Testimony in Scripture

2004

Forget the former things

Do not dwell on the past

See, I am doing a new thing!

Do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the desert and

streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 54:18-19

This passage was offered to me by a woman whose marriage had survived an affair. She spoke it when I came to her because my marriage was not surviving one - an ongoing affair - with sexual addiction. In fact, I had very nearly not survived it, and the fact that I was alive to see 2004 was no small miracle in itself. I know her hope was that we would come through as she had, marriage intact and with some sort of testimony of reconciliation and redemption for others. Surely this was the "new thing" that we hoped and "looked" for. Surely this was the promised oasis in the midst of a desert place.

But we looked and saw the symptoms. God looked and saw the heart. As much as these passages were messages of hope in painful circumstances (that, coincidently, only got more painful, by the way), I could not have known then how God would use them over the year - and over the years - to teach me about something bigger, something vital, something about the stewardship of being human and about the fruit of His Spirit being born in my own.

You see, probably the greatest irony is that...

The only way to forget the former things, to be free in their influence and in authority among their patterns, is to remember them, to look them squarely in the face, to see and accept them as they are. The only way to do not dwell on the past is to take an account of it, to grieve it, and to offer forgiveness and amends for what has happened, offer forgiveness to yourself as well as others, and then to live in a manner worthy of repentance.

Forget by remembering? Move on by living in repentance? What does that even mean? Oh, my friends, ask not that question in idleness, for it is a lifetime's lesson and not carelessly learned. I could describe for you the principles of a fearless and searching moral inventory. I could fill pages about the process and theology of telling one's story as an act of confession and a vital spiritual discipline. And I love doing them both, as anyone in my recovery church will tell you. But it is actually about the bit on forgiveness that I want to write tonight, and specifically about the forgiveness of self.

See, as one who has been abused, as one who has been betrayed, I felt I was somehow at fault. I constantly searched my heart and my mind for some signs, some indication that I could have prevented what happened or that I could prevent it from happening again. Mind you, I worked diligently to forgive my offender; the woman who shared the Isaiah passage walked with me and taught me how to do that. I understood that it was not only an act of obedience to do so, it was a way to stay in communion with the God I needed so desperately during that time. It was my only hope for sanity, for moving forward out of the disorienting world of deception, pain and loss toward the possibility of reconciliation.

But.

Forgiving myself? I didn't even know that there was such a thing as forgiving self. Yet as soon as my mentor confronted me with the idea, I knew that it was born of truth; my inner response was, "Oh no. No. I can't do that. After all, if I forgave myself then, well, it might happen again."

I am going to insert here that God does, in fact, call us to right relationship with self, and perhaps a future blog post (or series, for that matter) might do this concept justice. But for the sake of brevity and focus I will say only that there is theological as well as psychological study behind this, born of the Word and of the Spirit and of the communion of saints. I do not offer idle words. If we have the capacity to "think of ourselves more highly than we ought" or to deceive ourselves, then we are in relationship with ourselves much in the same way that we are in relationship with God and others. And if we hurt ourselves we need the capacity to forgive ourselves, too. Lack of forgiveness for self may not be everyone's sin, but looking back now I see that it was mine, and mine from the very beginning. Just this semester I wrote a "spiritual autobiography" that, as the story of my first experience of God drained from my heart through my fingers onto page, depicted a breakdown in my understanding and acceptance of forgiveness. As I said, God was concerned about matters of my heart, my spirit, and my relationship with Him. He had known all along that I was broken in my ability to accept forgiveness or to forgive self. He had no intention of leaving me broken.

See, I am doing a new thing!

Praise God, my mentor was one who held no punches. I think God gave her just the words to say because, approached any other way I don't know that I would have been able to hear or understand that I was in a state of inhibiting my own fellowship with God. She told me that I could only forgive another inasmuch as I had forgiven myself.

Think about THAT one for a moment.

It put me in a pickle. I wanted to hold things over my own head and beat myself up with them because it made me feel like I could control things I couldn't really control. It also kept me from experiencing the full impact of my grief because it kept me in fear and denial. But apparently beating myself up over things was not really repentance, not really helpful, and not going to help me obey and be reconciled to God. And it meant that, despite all the rigorous and emotionally challenging work I had put into forgiving my abuser, it was only as good as the forgiveness I offered myself.

She told me that any reasons I might pose against such an act, whether they be rational, rhetorical, theological, or otherwise, were all just great big distractions. Forgiveness starts as an act of obedience. I had chosen to forgive the one who hurt me. I had only to choose to forgive myself.

I knew she was right. So as I drove home from our meeting that night I prayed aloud a simple prayer: "God, I forgive me for ..." and I filled in the blank ... until words were tumbling from my mouth and tears pouring from my eyes to the point that I had to pull the car over because I couldn't see and couldn't drive anymore. Every fear, every failure to fight for myself, every decision to give up, every weakness real or perceived, was confessed and forgiven that night by me. God had already forgiven me. But I don't think I was fully able to receive that forgiveness until I had forgiven myself. And as I did, the most amazing thing happened. I saw a vision of two children, two naive kids who made naive and immature choices and hurt each other terribly. Those two children were my husband and I. In that moment of forgiveness I was able to see us as we were rather than the two monsters we seemed to be. And it was as if God returned me to that place when I first made those childish decisions and gave me the chance to choose something different.

See, I have made you a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come.

2 Corinthians 5:17

I can't tell you what it is like to be given your choice back, to be given your life back, to be made a new creation. But I can tell you that it is glorious. That is when I came to understand that God doesn't just make a way through the desert, the way IS the desert, the streams are IN the wasteland. God doesn't lead us through difficult things so much as he leads us TO them to transform them - and transform us - for they ARE our source of beauty, our wellspring, our gateway of hope.

As is my wont, I could fill pages more about how forgiveness and the experience of being God's new creation led me to further remembering, to further repentance, to further desert places and greater springs - and ultimately to love, for it was because of my experience of this passage from Isaiah that I was able to show the greatest act of love to the man who hurt me. But that is another story for another day. I will close by saying that this was the year that I began to forget by remembering, to move forward by forgiving, and ultimately to love by living in the desert.

Alone and in Community

2011-01-23T19:40:00.003-06:00

Let him who cannot be alone beware community. He will only do harm to himself and to the community. Alone you stood before God when he called you; alone you had to answer that call; alone you had to struggle and pray; and alone you will die and give an account to God. You cannot escape from yourself; for God has singled you out. If you refuse to be alone you are rejecting Christ's call to you, and you can have no part in the community of those who are called. "The challenge of death comes to us all, and no one can die for another. Everyone must fight his own battle with death by himself, alone ... I will not be with you then, nor you with me" (Luther).
But the reverse is also true: Let him who is not in community beware of being alone. Into the community you were called, the call was not meant for you alone; in the community of the called you bear your cross, you struggle, you pray. You are not alone, even in death, and on the Last Day you will be only one member of the great congregation of Jesus Christ. If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus Christ, and thus your solitude can only be hurtful to you. "If I die, then I am not alone in death; if I suffer they [the fellowship] suffer with me" (Luther).
We recognize, then that only as we are within the fellowship can we be alone, and only he that is alone can live in the fellowship.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Remember, Seek, Surrender

2011-01-18T03:10:00.000-06:00

for the new year ... continued

The dawn of a new decade is an excellent time for reflection. I consider, for example, that it was the dawn of the last decade that I started an interesting journey. There were many points of beginning on that path, but this time I will tell you about how it began in 2003 with a beautiful lady who was prompted by God to take me under her wing. Though she did not know me, she invited me to be a part of her small group. Because she did not know me, she could not have known the impact that this invitation would have or how that small group would forever change my life. It was called simply Boundaries, and the things that I learned there and the fellowship that I experienced invited me into a relationship with the body of Christ that I hadn't dreamed possible before, a relationship of knowing and being known. It was there that I first experienced discipleship; there that I came to thrive in the practice of accountability. Furthermore, it was in that group that God gently called me to recovery and to ministry in one unmistakable revelation of Himself. God used Boundaries to open my eyes to the slavery in which I lived - and to call me out. I have since been involved in a 12 step program - for almost 8 years now - and I will always be involved in offering Boundaries and the hope of recovery to others, in some form or fashion. It saved my life. Literally. And it offered me hope.

That is a very shortened version of my story because tonight I want to write about something else. My reflections have brought me back to one of our group traditions, a tradition for the new year. Around October and through the holidays we would begin to pray and to ask God for, and to focus our devotional study in search of, a particular verse or passage, God's vision for the upcoming year. My mentor had been practicing this tradition for some time, and many were the stories she could share as to how God spoke to her in this simple act of seeking, study and meditation. As a group she encouraged us to participate with her and now, nearly 8 years later, though I have moved over 3,000 miles away, this is a tradition I continue and adore. Now, many are the stories I can share about God and the ways He has spoken to me through this simple act of seeking. He has been faithful to offer His vision for me and over my year, a focus, a message, a promise or a lesson, for nearly each of the last 8 years.

The title of this blog is actually the title of a "sermon" that God gave me as I studied the passages for 2010, verses from Deuteronomy. But before I get ahead of myself, I confess that I got a late start this year; I am still seeking the passage that will shape and form me and cast vision for this gift He has given me in life circa 2011. As I do, and in keeping with what I have learned - to remember, seek, and surrender - I thought I would take the time to write a series of blogs that reflect on each of the passages that have come before. I hope to find this discipline helpful for establishing the mindset of a new year and a new decade, but perhaps it will also encourage those around me to take advantage of such an opportunity as well.

I may make these posts here or I may put them up on The Crimson Sparrow. I haven't decided yet. But one thing I have decided, in the year and decade to come, I am committed to Remembering what God has done and the covenant He has called me to; Seeking Him, His heart, His purposes, His vision for my life; and Surrendering myself to His plan, His will, and His presence. Remember, Seek, Surrender - that is how you take the land, the Kingdom of Heaven. Amen!