Pennies and Palm Trees

2012-11-16T10:15:00.002-08:00

I started really writing in this blog out of a desire to match another blog, written by a guy I had a massive unhealthy crush on. Really stupid reason for writing a blog. Particularly one oriented around the grace and amazingness of God. What can I say, still human, still fallible, still an idiot a lot of the time.

I've since entered into a relationship with a really amazing guy, who is NOT the one with the blog, and stopped spending very much time producing anything of worth, be it writing, photography, or art of any kind. I write for school, sure, and I doodle sometimes, take photos with instagram and portraits of my sister, but nothing... real. As part of an attempt to reconnect with who I am--and DECIDE who I am, not just rekindle parts of old angsty me--I'm going to be turning this blog private. A throwback to livejournal days I guess. You're welcome to ask for the password and if I know you, I'll probably give it to you.

But I'm trying to beat Satan's isolation. Last night I ran into a wall that said "You don't have any friends but your boyfriend, and he doesn't even like most of the things you do...so what's going to happen to the creator, the crazy, the thinker, and the missionary side of you?" Lies and exaggerations of truths, blown out of proportion by hormones and a partially self-inflicted lack of community, but it still stabbed me in the heart.

I'm trying to take a stand again.

To stop seeking comfort and ease and start fighting back against the encroaches of the enemy. Because we do not struggle against flesh and blood, but against powers and authorities that we do not fully understand. But the good news is, Jesus already slayed the monster. We're fighting his convulsive death throes and the tormented tantrums of his generals as they run around like chickens with their heads cut off. The ultimate victory is assured.

If you have an interest in standing with me or reading my heart vomits about all of this, you're welcome to email me/comment on this blogpost.

Brain Waves

2012-07-11T23:33:00.000-07:00

Being bipolar is exceptionally difficult.

Even when it is the manageable functional kind, not the manic rages and suicidal binges kind.

Identifying where I truly fall on the pendulum swing and sticking to it no matter what my emotions/hormones tell me on a particular day. It's a good thing that a. the Lord has given me some exceptional will power and rational reasoning skills and b. I am not asked to face this alone.

But seriously.

I should start trying to write seriously about my battles with depression. Maybe it could help other Christians out there, fighting the internal mechanisms and the stigma all at once. Or even non-believers, though my walk with this biological function is so intrinsically wrapped in God that it might be kind of foreign. Or maybe it will just be clarifying.

Running Ourselves Ill

2012-03-29T07:24:00.002-07:00

What kind of crazy work driven world do we live in that I feel guilty calling in sick to my FOOD SERVICE job when I am coughing and sneezing all over the place? And not guilty because I need the money, but guilty because I feel like I am making excuses and should just suck it up and come in.

No.

This is BS.

And it's weird how this plays into our cultural narcissism and ego-centrism; in a world where me-me-me is the driving factor, you'd think we'd take better care of our health. But instead we're encouraged to constantly go to school, go to work, go to whatever, sick, because... it's not acceptable to take a day off. You are cheered by friends and colleagues when you "call in sick" to go on some grand adventure, but then we constantly greet each other at work haggard and health deprived because we save our "sick" days for ditching.

It's extra funny, because I sit here thinking of Sunday morning, how I woke up with a killer sore throat and knew it was my own fault for exhausting myself over the week and so went into work (and oh, by the way, risked giving it out to all my customers. Though, I was extra especially careful to wash and sanitize my hands all day.) Then I slept, all of Monday. And a significant portion of Tuesday. But the thing about Sunday, was that it wasn't (pardon my grossness) a projectile germs sort of sick; no snot, no sneezing, no coughing. I could pretend. (Though I'm sure Greg is shuddering in his seat right now from the terror of how I was full of germs with sore throat anyway.)

Culturally, our priority hierarchy is pretty freaking messed up.

Work is important. I'm not advocating placing our own desires to rest and slack off above working hard. But today, my best way to serve my workplace is to stay home. And understanding that sometimes, our bodies need a break. They weren't built to drive at an American pace. (And coming from me, this is pretty funny, because my pace is slower than most and I, at least recently, pay pretty good health attention as well.)

All of this to say:

Friday Morning Caffe Veloce Special! Snot Lattes and Germ Mochas. Stir those microbacteria into your coffee and you will never taste the difference. Just suck it right down and reap the benefits! Yum, yum, yum, work and productivity winning the day! Hope to see you again soon. :)

When I externally process in class,

2012-03-08T23:25:00.001-08:00

I think: Sweet, this is all starting to make sense. I can synthesize this information now that I've made this hypothesis outloud.
Everyone else thinks: Dang, that girl has a lot of strong opinions about things. I wonder if I should come up with a pointed question to challenge her.

Seriously though... It's kind of difficult when speaking is one of the ways I actually process information in a room full of other educated seminary students among whom I'm the super young liberal political theory kid. My hope is that by speaking my thoughts I at least make the people who aren't speaking at all think about things? I thoroughly appreciate the fact that I kind of have "seminary parents" now though; three people in my OT502 class have taken it upon themselves to affirm or challenge the young kid. It's two women and a man who are all my parents age; guess which one is challenging and which is affirming.

Seminary is a very interesting place.

"The Intimacy Container"

2012-02-28T23:38:00.000-08:00

Tonight we tackled "the big one" at the Hub, again. Sex, sexuality, God's intent for it, our society's craze around it, and just plain anything associated with the letters S-E-X have been all over the place in February 2012. This time though, I found Charlie and Heather Ruce (the speakers; a husband and wife who are both counselors working with Soul Care House) full of awesome information, equipped with candid but deeply compassionate voices, and indebted to what they were sharing concerning God, healing, and their own stories for the lives (and marriage) they live now. I also deeply appreciated that they didn't mask the topic with too much humor (this is a pet peeve of mine; oftentimes, if a speaker is incredibly funny, once you get past the laughs, what was said is confused or pretty surface level.) They made sexuality a real topic and a topic that we shouldn't be uncomfortable talking about by being comfortable but also being real.

I had a feeling things were going to go well when Charlie started the night defining sexuality for us, not as simply "genitals, orgasm, you know, SEX" but as our deep human selves that long for intimacy, wholeness, union, and bonding. This is how I have come to understand myself as a possessor of God-given sexuality, as a sexual being who is not yet supposed to be engaging in sexual acts. I, before marriage, in relationship or out of it, am still as sexual a woman as I will be within a marriage; my sexuality is a part of my identity and is much more than my decision to or not to engage in sexual activity, who I want to be sexual with, and how.

In pursuing this topic further, between the sermon and our seminar tonight I read an excerpt from Philip Yancey's book Rumors of Another World in which Yancey takes a really human look at sex in the world and at how it might have actually been meant to be. Within this he quotes an author I am now very intrigued to read:

"The human being is constantly straining towards this infinity: a thirst to be filled, to be recognized in one's uniqueness, a thirst to be free, to be loving, to be a source of life for others... Our thirst is infinite but it is carried in fragile vessels." (Jan Vanier, Man and Woman He Made Them.)

This straining towards infinity is a beautiful way of illuminating aspects of the whole idea of our sexuality. Sexuality is much more than sex. If we can understand it in its wholeness, sexuality becomes far more beautiful, pointing to deep centers of our selves and beyond us to the divine, far more important, as it is an aspect of the reflection of God, and far more daunting to encounter, understand, heal, and live. We live in fragile vessels. Charlie and Heather took it a step beyond our personal fragile vessels to our relationship dynamics, where our individual fragile vessels seek to merge with others and create "intimacy containers" in the form of relationship.

Intimacy is meant to be part of the human condition, a beautiful part. But any moment in which we open the box of intimacy and vulnerability, we also open the door to the messy. We cannot seek to merge our lives with another completely separate entity, alone in our own selves as we are, without tension, strain, awkwardness, discomfort, and probably some pain. Because intimacy is fraught with mess, the Ruces point out that it really needs a special place to dwell. In order for intimacy to not simply cause pain and heartache, we need to open to it within a container that is built for the purpose, a container of commitment that is large enough to handle the levels of intimacy that are being breached. They were specifically talking about physical intimacy at the time, but my own heart was struck by how true this is for emotional, spiritual, and conversational intimacy in my life.

I have a bad habit of getting myself into a position where I have been much more vulnerable with another person than they are, or desire to be, with me. I desire deep connection, authentic relationship, and real conversation so I just go for it, almost all the time. Many a time this has created unbelievably amazing friendships, encouraged others to open up when they otherwise would have remained reserved, and overall been a pretty dang awesome wreaking ball for the Holy Spirit to throw at the fortress walls barricading souls from sunlight. But there are other times, and let's be honest, cross-gender times (yes, that means with you, men), where my penchant for vulnerability meets with confusion, uncertainty, manipulation, or outright rejection.

Years ago, I found myself in "fake relationship" after "fake relationship," giving vast amounts of time, emotional energy, and intimacy to guy-friends without asking for, or demanding, any sort of commitment or definition on our "friendship." Much of this (I have recognized over much thought and prayer) came from my own history that predisposed me towards having low expectations in relationship ("don't ask for anything, it only causes problems, go with the flow, simply give") and my own fears, which led me to "wait" for the guy to want more, to define it, to "ask me out," all the while digging myself deeper and deeper holes of emotional attachment. (Now let me tell you, these men were there own kettle of awesome brokenness which I, in retrospect, am slightly horrified to have poured myself out over, but brokenness and abandonment seeks affirmation where it can find it, even if its self-created and completely misplaced. )

Where am I going with this? The container of commitment is the only place in which intimacy can live without perpetual fear of abandonment. And unfortunately for fearful hearts (mine), containers need to be verbalized. Fortunately, for all hearts, Jesus makes the best container of all.

We were made to share our hearts. Man and Woman compatible with each other so that only in pairing are we completed. And yet, even in that pairing, we are only able to reach a secondary level of completeness in this life. Complete wholeness waits upon union with our God which we cannot experience still living in this world. But we're lucky, because with Jesus, we have the opportunity to be just that close. After Christ's ascension, the Holy Spirit was given to us, as counselor, best friend, mediator and intercessor. God literally dwells within the bodies and minds of his people. Great, you say, that ought to make my completeness then, right? Wrong. (And seriously, if I made that claim, you'd know from your own experience of life that I'm only lying.) In some way, this having of the spirit only increases our longing for union with another. How better to experience God than for two pieces of him to come together, a heart meeting a heart, through intimacy and vulnerability, the spirit within me and the spirit within you communing?

This is where that container becomes necessary. Suddenly, because of Jesus, I literally have an ability to interact with my God by interacting with the heart of another human. We get to partake in community with Jesus on a daily basis. But this communion in intimacy is still fraught with the potential tearing and pain that baring yourself to another ever has. This is where Heather and Charlie challenged me tonight. My desire to meet my spirit with the spirit in you is God given and beautiful. But without open words, real determination, and explicit commitment, that wreaking ball has more potential to completely cripple us than anything. This is why, in a vulnerable space like a life group, we covenant with each other. Explicit, verbal commitment to trust, confidentiality, compassion, and support.

I am challenged now to pursue explicit verbal commitment in my individual relationships before barreling in with my vulnerability-crane. Before I give you a piece of my soul, do you intend to receive it and love me? "What are your intentions?" And what are my intentions? (I, too, have not only felt the hurt of my intimacy being manipulated or taken for granted, but have accidentally caused pain with it by seeming to establish a depth of relationship that I did not intend.) We have to be careful where we bare our souls. Simply knowing within our own minds that we do it in the arms of a compassionate Father who will always receive and love us no matter the outcome is not enough. We must be verbal with each other.

I find myself at once incredibly liberated and stone terrified by the implications of these things.

On Restoration and Surrender

2012-02-25T21:45:00.000-08:00

I have no words.

Actually, I have too many words. I could sit here and spill them out, knowing that I committed to writing and posting as a discipline for Lent, but I find that a better thing tonight would be to step into surrender. Unexpected reconciliation of the most brilliant kind wants to wrap my brain up tightly, running around like a child in a candy store, a chicken with its head cut off, and all the other bad cliches. My mind wants to unwrap this surprise gift and spend hours and hours dwelling upon it, picking apart details and possibilities and explanations.

But I want you to have it, Dad. It came from you, anyways. Help me hand it into your keeping so that it may grow instead of stifle in the grasp of my obsessive brain processes. You're the best keeper of precious things anyway; I want you to have this.

And, Dad? One more thing.

Thanks.

On Poems

2012-02-24T17:13:00.001-08:00

Today I wrote an email that turned into a poem.
Another email was poetic, but quite on accident.
Both, accidental,
actually.

Where do they come from,
words that paint and sounds that dance and punctuation that speaks on its own?
It's been quite a while since I've written a poem.
It's been so long,
in fact,
that I thought I forgot,
Thought I'd lost it together with age and with living better.
Thought it had gone the way of teenage angst and RPGs,
of stories written for different Me's.

But there it was,
sitting on the screen,
And here it is again...

It's funny though.
I've still forgotten.
Poems don't sound beautiful
after they've been written.

2012-02-24T04:30:00.000-08:00

Have you ever played with one of those toys at the Discovery Channel store (or basically any gift shop) that are basically a plastic tube full of liquid and sparkles that you can squish around and it slips over and over itself? They kind of remind you of a sea cucumber for some reason? And when you were a kid it was fun to stick your arm all the way through it? And you could squelch it around and around and it would just keep turning itself inside out?

Did you know that a heart could feel like one of those? I didn't either.

Who We Are

2012-02-24T00:00:00.000-08:00

"The psalmist would say that the riddle of [man] is hidden in the mystery of God. Only faith can envision the point of convergence. Humankind recognizes itself fully only in the recognition of the Being from whom all reality arises. The claim of the psalm is that we can say "human being" only after we have learn to say 'God.'" -James L. May on Psalm 8

For my final hermeneutics paper, I'm writing on the imago dei, or the image of God. This means that about three weeks ago I started spending an inordinate amount of time reading about, learning about, and thinking about what it means to be human and in what way we might reflect God. Specifically, I'm confronting a verse in Genesis that states "Adam begat a son in his own likeness, in his own image," causing me to believe that I, in fact, was not born in the image of God humanity was originally created to bear, but instead was born in the image of Adam.

But wasn't Adam made in the image of God and thus the image he passed would be likened to passing on that very image?

What if it wasn't a "fall" that made evil occur on the earth, a serpent's tempting that opened pandora's box, or a woman's weakness who unleashed the first sin that doomed us all? What if, instead, the simple act of taking from the tree of knowledge of good and evil thrust a knowledge we were never meant to bear inside a vessel that simply was not made for such a purpose? And because of that ill-fit, the vessel was cracked, misshaped, melted, warped. And then two of these vessels came together and made a new one, in their own image. Would it be the image from before, or the only image they could see now?

I digress, though.

I believe the Psalmist has the key to the "what is it to be man?" question. In order to establish myself, to discover what these sinews and neurons and water molecules all add up to besides a big hulking mess, to look inside of brain jumbled with bright flashes of joy and deep pits of despair and see vocation, calling, and glory, I must first look to my father. I must find this one who created me, originally if nothing else, to be made in his image. I am made of stuff that once, at least, was a mirror to him. And I believe I am being remade into that mirror. But to know my materials, to know what they even have a chance to add up to, ought I not look instead of within my own clay, to the foundry from which I was drawn? I want to learn to say "human being."

Lord, help me learn to say God.

Psalm 25/43

2012-02-21T23:17:00.000-08:00

My eyes are ever on the Lord, only he will release my feet from the snare.
Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.
The troubles of my heart have multiplied; free me from my anguish.
Look upon my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins.
See how my enemies have increased and how fiercely they hate me!
Guard my life and rescue me; let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.
Send forth your light, Lord, and your truth, let them guide me;
let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell.

Why so downcast, O, my soul? Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

I put my hope in you, my God, for in all, I will yet praise you.

Mysteries in Tradition

2012-02-20T23:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at Flood we gave a nod to church tradition, celebrating "Ash Sunday" (instead of Ash Wednesday) by giving our congregation an opportunity to have their foreheads marked with a cross of ashes. Growing up Lutheran, I've participated in Ash Wednesday services nearly my whole life and thus really appreciate that Flood incorporates this tradition into the beginning of the Lenten season.

However, sticking a short explanation to the end of a sermon not specifically related to Ash Wednesday, lent, fasting, repentance, etc, then telling everyone "okay, go" doesn't really... work.

On Ash Wednesday, each individual is marked with ashes upon their forehead accompanied by the invocation "Woman/Man, from dust you were created, to dust you shall return." This is a pretty dang somber tradition if you ask me. Why are you smudging charcoal on my forehead? I thought we were getting ready for Easter, why does it start with reminding me I am as chaff in the wind?

I recently re-read my "Lent is beginning" blogpost from last year and was reminded of my own adolescent confusion at the ashen forehead crosses. "One year in middle school I ran to the bathroom between walking to school and attending first period so that I could smudge my own cross on my forehead, the charcoal art pencils in my backpack replacing the symbolic ashes. I had no idea what the point was, but wanted to be dedicated enough to be one of those weird kids with the ashes on their foreheads all day. Or at least I wanted people to think I was that dedicated. What was the point in having Pastor smudge ashes on my head at all if the only people that were going to see it were the ones who I already went to church with anyway?" No one gave me any indication that there was something more going on than looking like a weirdo trying to play pre-princess Cinderella, picking my meaningless fast item, and "looking forward" to Wednesday night soup dinners which functioned as a further excuse to escape from my parents.

In Israel, when a time for great fasting or repentance would come on a person, he would tear his clothes and throw ashes on his head, or, as Job, sit in ashes all day long. Doing this was an outward physical sign of the spiritual humility within: in comparison to you, Lord, I am ugly and as humble as those who must sit in the ashes (the crippled, outcast, etc.) I disfigure myself so that your glory is all the brighter. I take from my day the consciousness of my own glory, walking about with my head downcast that you might be known as the marvelous one and not myself.

Now, Jesus teaches that we are now to go about fasting so that our outward appearance does not draw attention to ourselves (many "religious types" during Jesus's time were loudly fasting and disfiguring themselves so as to draw attention to their good religious deeds, effectively doing the opposite of what wearing sackcloth and ashes was meant to do: propping up their pride rather than manifesting deep humility.) Further, because of Christ we are called to recognize ourselves as beautiful and radiant, reflections of God's glory. But on Ash Wednesday we remember the tradition of wearing ashes to display a repentant heart, a heart that recognizes that even in the state of resurrected heir, our enemy seeks our destruction and our flesh runs amok. Even as a reborn creation, a brand new child of the King, clean and white as snow, I sin; we all do it--choose away from God, be it in big stereotypical no-no sins or in misdirected thoughts and spiteful minds. On Ash Wednesday we recognize that we want to be more, want to fully be that child and that resurrected saint, and display our humility in that we cannot accomplish this as ourselves by smearing our foreheads with ashes.

We remember that if it were not for God, we would be no more than dust, and to dust our worldly bodies will return. The great news is that we get to look forward, 40 days (plus Sundays) from now to the triumph of Easter. And in the triumph of the cross, the return to dust has been obliterated. We are freed, forever, from the binding of death and the descent into oblivion.

On Ash Wednesday, we recognize that if it were not for God, we would be literally nothing. But with God, we get to dance and shout and sing and cry; the Joy of the World dwells within us, and we have to mourn no more.

2012-02-19T20:31:00.000-08:00

Ever have those nights when everyone who knows you looks concerned and asks if you're alright, when you thought you were before they all started asking?

There's a point at which when people start to think you're just brushing them off by pleading exhaustion, you begin to wonder if you actually are alright.

But there's blessing in the concern, for all that. It all stems from love, after all.

Valentine's Day

2012-02-15T00:57:00.000-08:00

It's kind of unbelievable; the time I spent thinking about the fact it was Valentine's Day today (very little) was legitimately entirely taken up with hoping that I would get to see, hang out with, love on and be loved by my life group. And then the boys gave us candy and playdough with little Valentine's cards, some of us ducked out of the main Hub event to have a really powerful prayer time followed by simply hanging out with each other in the dark (Sarah had a migraine), Lisa wrote me an incredible note while praying for my aunt's sister, and to top it all off, at the end of the night Dan made me cry with a text message which simply said "How are you?"

Then I watched Beastly (which I've been tried to identify in photos, finally found, and really enjoyed) and half way through the credits I started sobbing.

Was I lonely? Mourning the fact that I had no significant other to treat me on Valentine's day?

No, actually.

I was bawling because it hit me that I am loved so much better by my life group than by any of the things I have ever imagined or wanted a boyfriend to do to/for me. I mourned, in that I realized for all that I may have had a crush or two these last few years, I have not even come close to understanding the depth of the kind of relationship God actually wants for us. I mourned my superficiality, my unambitious desires, my failure to really take God up on his promises, even just in my own heart. But through the sobbing, my face was split with a maniac grin and I choked on my air as I laughed out my tears, because I want none of it like I want my Fugees. I have never experienced being loved like they love me. I'm not sure I've ever loved like I love them. (I know this all sounds pretty dramatic, but I can't find another way to put it.) The work that the Holy Spirit has been doing, hand-picking each of us to stitch together this hodge podge of people who desperately need each other, to love and to be loved by, shatters my equanimity every time I stop to think about it.

In the fact of love like this, who has the energy, time, or desire to mourn for a bouquet of roses and a fancy dinner date? Sorry, future hubby, God's given you some really big brother-sister shoes to step in to.

What's great is that I know you can fill them or you aren't meant to be. Because God created me (us!) for this kind of loving, to be able to pour out my entire heart into people knowing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it will be slathered back onto me multiplied by a hundred-fold, even when that wasn't the point to begin with! Because, you know what? That's how HE is. That is who He is.

How the hell did we get so lucky to have a God like this one?

2012-02-13T11:11:00.000-08:00

Got my first real seminary assignment back today; 100%.

Things I think about that:

I care too much about my grades. (Because I am legitimately stoked about this 100%.)
It's kind of unfortunate that I can pull a 100% in a graduate program on a 2-day reading of a book.
What do you do when you're told "I don't have any comments on how you can improve"??? (Answer: work on harder things than a book review!)

Ending thoughts: What would my work be like if I actually started it ahead of time like I should? (Answer: I tried this in undergrad and actually did worse on all my papers that I started reading for way ahead of time. sigh.)

2012-01-17T00:23:00.000-08:00

Am I worth someone coming out of their way to meet me just to read a book in the same room I am studying in? Sure, the probable possibility of conversation is there. But, really?

To just want to be around me?

Are any of us worth that?

My answer is an emphatic yes! until I suddenly have to apply the question to myself and then I go, "wait a second, that's kind of... arrogant/absorbed/egotistical..." I'm not that awesome.

How do we conquer wanting to be loved and then not knowing how to handle it if we are? We claim to want to be chosen first, over others, to be someone's beloved over everyone and everything else... but when faced with the reality of being chosen over someone else, my immediate reaction is revulsion. Don't put me first, I don't need to be chosen like that, don't give me that weight, stop, stop, stop.

How can we love sacrificially with abandon and still accept sacrificial love, which we all truly crave?

It's funny, and I almost feel blasphemous to say this, but I feel like knowing how to be loved first, above almost all else, is the one thing that God has never been able to model for me. I know I am sacrificially loved by him. Loved, cherished, adored. Enough to die for. And yet, so are you, and my roommate, and my pastor, my best friend, my boss, my awful next door neighbor, for all that he's drunk, high, or shredding awful metal at the volume of 11 at all hours of the day. The one thing about love I really, truly, do not receive from my beautiful everything, my Jesus dying on the cross for me, is how to be loved more than my next door neighbor. How to be chosen over someone.

I wept bitterly about this to him less than a few months ago. "Lord, I want to be chosen first! I want someone to want me like that. I know you want me. I know you're enough. But right now, I just want to be cherished like that, in a way that only I am, not in the way that all of humanity is. I want you to be enough, I want your unfathomable depths of love to be enough, but right now, honestly? Selfish, probably, definitely, but I just want to be loved as an only, as a first, not as one child unquestionably and equally loved among many. How can that exist if you, the God of the freaking universe, don't love me like that? But how could you, the God of the freaking universe, possibly love me like that?" He does, somehow, paradoxically, I know, love me the most of all things, like he loves you the most of all things (he really does, you know.)

But I asked him, Lord, Father, I want someone to put me first!

And now I have come face to face with that question, in what a few nights ago I thought was raised theoretically by a out-of-the-blue deeply fantastic movie (HappyThankYouMorePlease) and what a few hours ago became a shockingly real possibility. Can I even accept that if it comes to me? I don't think I want to be loved more than those that I love.

What do we do with this deep desire to be cherished when all we want to do is cherish, adore, develop, and otherwise lavish love?

(Aside. If anyone miraculously reading this thinks they know what this was brought on by, talk to me before drawing any conclusions. Most of this occurred extraordinarily hypothetically in my brain. And that which didn't exists on a loved dramatically as a friend and sister level, at least to my knowledge. Still, even, or even especially, on that level... all applies.)

2011-12-21T02:26:00.000-08:00

I literally do not know how to be loved like my life group is loving me this week.

I am completely overwhelmed by them. In entirely good ways, but still; I never thought something God would need to teach me is how to be loved.

What makes it even better is the undeniable truth that what they are loving is HIM in me. Because I've been a wreck this quarter. Felt out of control, useless, depressed, attacked, apathetic, miserable, idiotic, and a failure more times than I can count. And yet He is rocking the heck out and our group has become the most incredible, tight knit, loving, laughing, joy filled, relationship desiring, God seeking group I have ever had the privilege to be a part of. And I cannot even explain how ridiculously privileged I feel to be called the leader of this dazzlingly eclectic group of individuals. And God's using what he's built up in me, even while I feel like I'm asleep and dead, to do better work than I can do when I'm trying.

And now He's overwhelming me with their love. And, I kid you not, I do not know how to respond. There are even three specific people who have taken it upon themselves to tell me, frequently, the exact words "You are loved." (Granted, one of them is not in the group and took to doing this much longer ago than this week, but still. The three of them together is... unreal.)

All I can do is hug their letters in my arms and weep. It's like my soul's breaking open in sunlight.

Unexpected Thematics

2011-11-29T23:11:00.001-08:00

Tonight, as we shared about favorite things, Jeremiah pointed out a theme strung throughout my favorites, which I thought were pretty diverse and relatively unconnected. "I am sensing a theme here," he tells me, laughing. "You like new ideas. It's all about new, creative, interesting ideas."

Let me share with you my favorites, so you may agree or disagree.

Food: Shepherd's Pie or Mexican
Color: Green (currently, but you know how colors are)
Baked good: Banana Bread
Genre: Science Fiction (this is where he began to be surprised and amused.)
Scent: Vanilla Extract
Flavor: Vanilla Almond (in desserts/breakfast).
Snuggly Things: My cats or heavy blankets
Font: Cambria
Cartoon Character: The Catbus from Totoro (which I had to explain to him, both Totoro and the Catbus. And then admit that they aren't really "characters" as much as ideas/constructs.)
Superhero: Green Lantern (The Green Lantern Corps as a whole, not Hal Jordan. I love the light in the darkness and the harnessing of the power of will, that what you create is only as strong as your character and strength of heart, but that within those limits they can create ANYTHING.)
Place to drink a cup of coffee: Lestat's on Park or at my kitchen table over really good conversation
Inspirational Quote: "You might say that the difference between us and you is that we have been infected by a vision of another world... It lives in our souls and we can't help striving toward it." -Fraa Erasmus in Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
Thing to do when you have literally nothing else to do: curl up with my cats and read a really good book that I have picked out for the sole pleasure of enjoying reading it.

It's funny. In rewriting all of them, I am amused not only by the theme of "interesting ideas," the power of ideas, and creativity, but by the contrast that all of my crazy brain favorites have with my physical body favorites. Foods, flavors, scents, and snuggly things are all comfort and safety based. Shepherd's Pie, Mexican Food, Banana Bread, baking with Vanilla, all relate directly back to things I have been eating and making with my family since childhood. They are staples of my life. My cats and my heavy blankets are also staples of home and security.

Current summation of my thoughts on this: I like to send my brain on far flung adventures to the edges of its capability through reading, writing, conversing, etc, but in order to balance out the constant stress and tension of new ideas churning and growing and stretching and changing in my head, I create a physical world that is stable, secure, and comforting. If my brain isn't safe where it is, at least my body is.

The more I've written about this, the more I feel like there are layers and layers here. I think this even ties down into my depression making my own head an unsafe or unhappy place to reside full time. I wonder how my artistic outlets tie into this. So far we've got that I love to be absorbed in new and interesting ideas and like to surround myself with the secure and stable. Both forms of input, really.

What about my output? And what about my faith?

Finding God in Flights of Fancy; Part 1.

2011-09-22T23:36:00.000-07:00

Why the Fascination?

I read. A lot. And a lot of a specific genre. I also watch a lot of movies and television shows within this same genre. Yes, I fall in the 10% of Syfy Channel's female viewership. From the time I was old enough to understand sentences, my parents read books to me. From the time I was old enough to really listen, I memorized my favorites and pretended I was really reading (books like Are You my Mother? and The Star Bellied Sneetches by Dr. Seuss were the order of the day back then.) By the time I had my own bed--graduated from the crib--I had my own book shelf as well, full of wonderful picture books, including a Precious Moments illustrated bible, a large-print copy of Hans Christian Andersen's greatest works, an extensive collection of Dr. Seuss and Bill Peet, and, my favorite, Jane and the Dragon. (Yes, I get to blame my parents for my Fantasty/Science Fiction problem. We all know I love it though, so thanks, Mom and Dad!)

While the imaginative minds of Dr. Seuss and Bill Peet might have helped push my desires to the extra fantastic, I am not alone in having a fascination with stories wrought in other worlds. In fact, I think we'd be very hard pressed to find someone who doesn't enjoy at least one of the Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars, or the Twilight Saga (yes, even that). Or at the very least, who didn't grow up enjoying fairy tales or knights of the round table, reading comic books or acting out the slaying of evil super villains. And let's be real here, video games--ALL video games--have taken stepping out of our world and into another to a whole new, and mainstream, level. Each of us, in whatever individual capacity, is inexorably drawn to the fantastic and to the otherworldly.

What is that about?

When I was younger my friends and I used to joke about this as our escapist tendencies. We looked around us and found the world boring and cruel (we were very angsty pre-teens and teenagers), so we buried our noses in books that gave us black and white battles between good and evil and watched anime upon anime featuring kids saving their universes in the company of talking cats and giant robots. As we grew up and out of teenage dramas, we came face to face with the fact that while much of our previous aches and pains had been created, the world really wasn't the prettiest place we could be living in. As adults (if we are so lucky to be sheltered this long), we are confronted with real hurt, real pain. Is running from this what drives us to the fantasy of other worlds? Are we really, constantly, living the escapism of my teenage years every time we gather for a midnight showing of Harry Potter?

The problem with calling our inclination to the fantastic escapism is that it suggest a bad habit. Escapism is, can we agree, something not entirely healthy; escapism, a tactic to ignore that which makes us hurt, is something to be avoided. The healthy response to a realization that we are simply tuning out the bad in favor of ignorance of it is to turn off the "distraction" and return to the "real world." Put away your novels, turn off the television, come back from your daydreams of a better place, and sink your teeth into the gritty reality, whatever yours may be. And once you have identified what it is that is making you run away, confront it, and then, well... then, be happy. Be happy in the materialism, the bitter sniping comments, the wars going on around the globe, the children being sold into slavery, the high schoolers selling drugs to each other in a desperate attempt to forget how much life sucks at home. Escapism suggest we are just running away from all of this. Escapism suggests that we are supposed to somehow be okay living in this mess.

It just isn't true.

And, don't get me wrong; this world is full of beautiful things and beautiful people. I will be the first person to tell you that every situation has a gleam of hope and every person has a light and a beauty just waiting to burst forth. Most of my writing will center around these things, because I believe there is far too much concentration on the dark and far too few lighthouses in the midst of all of it. But think carefully: in any of those glorious moments, those good and joyful things, is there not still a longing, a something left unfulfilled? A something that, after the initial joy (be it a moment, a week, or a year) we calm down into the day-to-day and again are seeking something else? We run after whatever things seem to raise a positive flare in our lives, seeking to fill some hole we didn't notice growing along with our bodies and our minds.

This hole, this desire that we cannot quite name... I believe it is this, not escapism, that attracts us to the fantastic. It is not a running away from the bad, but a running towards the good that we know deep within us we were created for. I think C.S. Lewis, and after him Brooke Fraser, put what I am trying to say best: "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, I can only conclude that I was not made for here." (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Brooke Fraser, "CS Lewis Song.) We were not made for the world as we know it.

When we dive into Rivendell, into epic tales of knights rescuing damsels and mages destroying demons, we may be ignoring reality for a minute, but instead of running away, what we are doing is seeking to feed our souls with little glimpses of another world we know we were built for. Our hearts know in their depths the purpose and the glory that the creator of the universe intended for us and they know that this, even in the beautiful moments of joy and love and friendship, is just a shadow of the real world that we are destined for. Our souls long for, cry out for, the kingdom that is to come.

We were created to be in a place of perfect communion with God, walking, as Adam and Eve were initially, in simple friendship with our Father. Cast out of the garden, after the first fatal choice made between something of the world and God, we attempted to make of the world the same home that God had crafted for us, but can never achieve the same end. And once God found a people willing to choose him once again, in Abraham and Sarah, in their children, His people "lived like strangers in a foreign country... For they were looking forward to the city with foundations whose architect and builder is God... And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If what they had been thinking of was the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them." (Hebrews 11:6-16)

And our deeper eternal purpose has been expanded into the multitudes by Christ's coming, death, and resurrection. Through him, even though we still walk on this planet, interact with and have the opportunity to be a part of all the doings of the people of the world, we no longer simply yearn for a heavenly place, but now we are not even a part of the same world. In John 17:14-16, Jesus prays "I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it." We are not made of the same stuff as the earth and we are not made for the purpose of being here. We are pilgrims and aliens, living within but not becoming of, a foreign land. There is a city built by God that beckons us; our hearts wait eagerly for the opportunity to reside there.

But until then, we seek encouragement that the kingdom is here, now, even amidst the evil that runs rampant in our world. Until then, we continually seek out glimpses in the form of other things. I do not believe that any author or screenwriter has come close to capturing the kingdom of God, even those who have tried. But what I do know is that more than in any other genre I have read, authors of fairy tales, fantasy, and science fiction use their invented worlds, their grandiose imaginative prefaces, to reveal the inner spirit of what it means to be human and what it means to truly love, both of which are rooted in God. Its almost ironic that in order to catch glimpses of the true nobility of humanity we turn to stories that weave elves and aliens as our counterparts, to be reminded of how much love really matters we read about robots who may or may not feel at all, to satisfy, for a moment, the longing in our soul for real immediate relationship with our God we laugh at the impertinent relationships characters have with their created gods. I do not claim that any novel can bring us closer to the Lord than He can himself. Neither through this do I mean that in response to the pain of the world we should hide in fiction to bolster our bleeding souls. I simply theorize the why of our attraction and preface my forthcoming "Finding God in Flights of Fancy" posts with these thoughts.

For "now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face." (1 Corinthians 13:12)

[Possible Finding God in Flights of Fancy things to expect in the future: Things to expect from the future: understanding kingship, being a lady--strong but gentle, standing up against the powers and principalities without Jesus (aka, how much that would suck), and... whatever else God reads to me!]

Standing,

2011-09-20T01:07:00.000-07:00

against powers and principalities.
together.
firm on my identity.
at the foot of the throne.
still.
strong on my 2 x 2 square of dirt.
on Christ the solid rock.
against the wind, and the rain, and the crashing waves.
in awe.
after having done everything else, just.
in freedom from the chains of bondage.
in Christ alone.

For it is only in his power that I can even find my feet, find my heart able to raise its head within my chest, find my soul a place to dwell, and find my hands a hand to still them. There is too much here for one writing and too little cohesion currently for more. I need a day full of silence with the Lord to allow everything that has been building up in my head to spill out on paper and in paint. Paper actually being a keyboard and text document. Paint... being paint.

No power of hell, no scheme of man,
could ever pluck me from His hand.
'til He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand.

Being Fed

2011-09-13T23:32:00.000-07:00

Today, after work, I was supposed to drive over to Oak Park to meet with Mr. Tran, my fifth grade student's dad, to work out a new tutoring schedule for this school year, as we start back up after a month long break for vacation.

As I pull up to their house, Hau's middle-older sister peeks her head out the door, waves, and disappears inside. As I'm parking, Hau scampers down the sidewalk between the brick red paving stones that serve as their front lawn and puts his face to the passenger side window of my car.
"Hey bud, I missed you! How are you, how was Arizona?"
"Good, good. My dad didn't tell me we were tutoring today!"
"Oh, well that's fine, because we're not. He and I are just meeting up to talk about what we want the tutoring schedule to look like for this year."
"...my dad's out eating lobster right now." The lobster would come back up multiple times in the next hour. Something about it being lobster was very peculiar/important to all the family members.
"Oh. Okay.... welll... I guess you can just have him call me then," as his face is mixing between acceptance and hope and disappointment and he's just standing there. "...unless you want to tutor today?"
"Yeah! You can check my homework and then we can read!" Me, blinking, brain trying to catch up to what's happening here.
"Well, okay, but I didn't bring any of our books with me..."
"That's fine! I have my book. And I'm onto SIXTH GRADE math now; I finished the fifth grade book. And you can check my homework and make sure I did it okay. And then we can read my book, cuz I didn't get to read it while I was in Arizona, so we should read it."

A year ago, I was bribing this fourth grader to memorize his alphabet. This is the fourth grader who would only do what I asked because he knew that if he behaved we would read an article about the Chargers together at the end of tutoring. And then when we got there, who demanded I help him through every sentence. Who I had to continuously battle with over quitting early so that he could watch My Babysitter's a Vampire or whatever sporting event his dad was yelling about in the room next door.

This is the graduated-from-fourth-grader who no more than three months ago sat in a room with me in sullen silence for 45 minutes, refusing to open his life science work book, look me in the eye, or explain to me why he was so furious he was crying. And who then explained to me how incredibly much he hates science (an hour after he had been proclaiming the awesomeness of molecules and debating with me about the reality of matter), which really meant he hated staring at the cal-state science-prep full page essays which his second-language English wasn't strong enough to wade through and his endurance of his dad's desire to push him, failing.

And today, as I was talking to his mom before leaving, he asks me if I still have the phonics book from the 1930s that I'd been making him learn his sounds from over the summer. Because "You want to keep working on phonics, Hau?" "Yeah, and those other word books too! My teacher says he has really seen an improvement because I can read better now."

Jesus Christ, Lord of Lord, my life for these days. All the pain and frustration and obnoxious days of warring against 4th-grade-boy-ADD, for today. Thank you, father, for knowing us, knowing what we need, and for feeding us when you know our strength is failing. I cannot get enough of you and what you do.

Response Driven

2011-09-04T00:27:00.000-07:00

I find myself contemplating the need to extricate myself from social networking, from facebook and twitter and tumblr, though each for different specific reasons, all for a general concept.
I am made by and defined by and live in Christ. But when I feel needy or miserable or excited or frustrated or sad it is as if it isn't enough to simply share it with Him; I additionally take it to the wide wide world of the internet for validation. As someone who acknowledges and accepts that she is in large part an external processor, this didn't use to bother me (this concept that I feel the need to share an experience, thought, or moment with someone else in order for it to matter/be real/actually have happened.) There's something very relational about this and relationships are what matter to me. And God has built us to be that way, in community with one another, sharing our hopes and fear and joys and distresses with one another. I think the hitch is that living in and sharing with community is different than flinging our cares abroad.
And that is what the internet is: an opportunity for us to fling our thoughts and feelings abroad, letting them drift down to be received or fall between the cracks. (As I write this I continuously consider whether it ought to belong in a journal rather than a blog.) But when we fling them, we have a small (or rather large) piece of us inside that simply sits and waits to be responded to. We wait for a mass of people each wandering in their own worlds, having their own revelations, their own struggles, their own late night heartbreaks and hurts, to suddenly cast their gaze upon ours and respond with the depth of a true friend. We pretend it isn't so, that we write for ourselves, share for the joy of others knowing, but we--I--must acknowledge that we are seeking to be responded to. We are seeking a voice that calls out and says "Yes! You are worth my time and effort!"
But He has already said that.
He has already said that in the loudest voice possible, a voice that shook the earth, eclipsed the sun, and tore the veil. With the agony of His death, Jesus reached out to like every status and reblog every post and reply to every tweet and, ultimately, cry out against their necessity. That may sound blasphemous, or at least ridiculous, to account the Christ's blood as a social media click, but He is in and has accounted for even the tiniest things. And this is how we think now, in these media messages.
I want the blood of the Lamb to wipe out all of those messages.
I want my God to be the only server I turn to when I need to shout my joy, anguish, pleasure, or distress. Not simply the first, but the only. He and His angels, his servants here on this earth, who he has blessed me with. These women, and a few men, have changed my life into a life I can envision standing before the king, casting off the cares of this world, and dancing with abandon, rather than bowed heavy with the weight of shame and sorrow and apology.
Oughtn't we to cast off the things that make us ache for a validation outside of the glory of the King?
We house the fullness of God, who is the creator of the universe, our bridegroom, brother, and father, who is the judge of all good and evil in the world, the mighty healer, the compassionate and wrathful warrior, and the most merciful existence. And He loves. Me. Specifically. and YOU, specifically.
He loves me.
What is a facebook status like in comparison with that?

Radio Silence

2011-09-03T01:21:00.000-07:00

I haven't written in this blog since July. I'd like to change that, since writing here requires me to actually sit down and think full thoughts, craft the way I write them, and organize my brain-spew (in contrast to tumblr which consists entirely of brain-spew and impulsive reblogging of all my input). It would be good to get back in the habit of blogging before starting school again (Bethel in January!) and while gearing up to lead a life group (hopefully ministering to refugees in City Heights) and have co-ownership/responsibility for the 180 Exp Tutoring Program at Kearny with Andrew. I have very little to say at this current time because it is late and I am not thinking full thoughts. Just a heads up that I want to return to writing; if there's anything anyone out there would be interested in reading my writing about, please let me know!

Being Hip

2011-07-08T15:24:00.000-07:00

At Flood's all church community group on Wednesday, I made the following comment to Hanna:

"Man, it seems like everyone goes to the Serra Mesa Post-College group... kinda makes me want to go to a different one."

Now, Serra Mesa people, this is not because I do not love you and do not understand why you choose to go to that PC Group. A ton of really awesome people are involved in that one. It makes a heck of a lot of sense. Hanna responded by laughing, and:

"Wow. You really-- Well, if its wasn't so cool now to be a hipster, you really would be the biggest hipster."

This statement, in all its unassuming glory, is probably true, if you get back to what the original facts of being a hipster (before the plaid and the v-necks and the fixie bikes) were. In fact, there weren't facts back then because it wasn't a thing. Because "Being Hip," in my understanding, grew out of the amusing tendency of some people to listen to music no one else had ever heard of and read books no one else ever read and like weird art no one else ever liked. These tendencies are often still true of the best hipsters I know (yes, Henderson, I am looking at you.) And they aren't a bad thing.

Regardless of hipster-ism, Hanna's comment got me thinking today while I was running my errands (to Michaels, to pick up 59 cent acrylic paint which I intend to use in my paper bag wrapped cardboard canvases that I paint on because "I like found canvas". Good lord, add to my hipster tab??)

Why do I always feel disinclined to join the group, like the color, listen to the music, read the books, whatever the whatever, that everyone else really likes?

My entire life there has been a subconscious commentary that says "What's my favorite color? Well... everyone likes blue and purple and pink is a girly color and... I really think I like brown. Yeah. Brown. And I can justify it too!" Essentially "Everyone else really likes that thing... is there a thing no one else likes that you could like instead?"

On the topic of colors, Hanna said another thing yesterday to add to this conversation. "When she was little Emily [Hanna's sister] decided orange was her favorite colors because orange needed friends too!" Precious little kids, right? But it actually illuminates one of the reasons that I think I think this way. I am an includer. (In fact, Includer is in my top 5 strengths, if you know the Gallups Strengths Finder thing). I constantly feel a pressure to seek the person who is left out, disregarded, ostracized, or "weird" in some way and attempt to bring them in or at least befriend them on an individual level. I truly believe that every single person in this world has AT LEAST one really cool and worthwhile thing about them and that thing is worth finding and appreciating. Somehow, it may be that this desire to be inclusive has rubbed off on my interests. I want to go to the community group that ISN'T full of my friends and full of people really involved at Flood, not because I don't want to hang out with those people, but because I feel there's already enough of it there. I want to love that song that no one else has as their favorite because it deserves someone's appreciation too. I want to give my attention to the places that have the most need of attention, be it mine or someone else's. I want to love the unloved.

However, I think there's a little more to this hipster thing than that. And even more explanation to that in and of itself.

I think the aversion I have to "going with the crowd" might stem from a desire to feel specifically treasured, wanted, and loved. I value intimacy, one on one conversation, small groups of people. I also have a desperate desire to be special or unique, and loved for it. I feel like there is a very good chance that many of us who actively fight against trends may feel the same need. Where this void we think we're filling with uniqueness comes from has to be determined on an entirely individual basis. I'm pretty sure mine is part defense mechanism (actively embracing oddity to avoid being self-conscious and picked on about being a bit of a nerd), part family habit (no joke, both of my siblings are the same way about doing things differently), and part... part something I have yet to uncover.

Don't get me wrong, the things I like, I actually like. I don't go so far as to run after things I find boring, annoying, or completely off-putting just because other people aren't (this is a little bit different if we're talking about people, but we're not at the moment.) And I find that it's often really fulfilling to choose to be a part of the offbeat group.

But it is still a thought-pattern worth examining. It can get you into a lot of trouble, particularly if you have any level of self-esteem self-worth being-an-outsider issues already (which, if we're honest, most of us do.) It can be really isolating if it goes too far.

Just some thoughts. Now I'm off to rinse out the tank-top I tye-died with a bunch of girls last night between ating chocolate lava cake and having goofy photobooth sessions. I do love community, you know, even if I'm the weird girl who knows that a wedding venue with a private zoo has a menagerie and can't stop myself before the word slips out of my mouth. Love!

Yertle the Turtle

2011-04-06T23:11:00.000-07:00

While visiting my grandma in Santa Cruz a few weeks ago, I found our old collection of children's books still in tact in the playroom room, furnished not only with books I read as a kid but with books my dad read as a kid. I've been slowly re-collecting my favorite children's books, in digital and paper format, and so asked her if I could take a few of my favorites. This led me to the copy of Dr. Suess's Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories, published in 1950, and enscribed with my 2nd grade father's name and phone number inside the front cover. Needless to say, this one came home with me. And today, I took Yertle the Turtle with me to City Heights, to Tewen and Awot.

Tewen is one of my students, a tenth grader who is currently marking As and Bs in all subjects except History, in which her negligible reading comprehension skills are preventing her from keeping her scores up. Did I mention she and her family are Eritrean refugees who only moved to the states a little over a year ago before which they lived in an Ethiopian refugee camp and hardly if ever had the opportunity or the need to use English? Awot is her 4th grade brother. I could tell about a hundred stories of how amazing it has been to work with Tewen and her family, but tonight Yertle the Turtle gets the stage.

I sat down with Tewen to finish work on her History vocab before bringing out Yertle the Turtle and Awot sat down with us, chatting away with me while I tried to help Tewen write coherent sentences about Militarism and the Triple Alliance. This is what Tewen and I typically do, a little work on her homework then read a new book, asking questions at the end of each page. This is often difficult for her and we have downgraded from the Island of the Blue Dolphins to my favorite picture books to help with that. Yertle the Turtle was the best choice I've made. Frequently throughout the evening I felt like I needed to be video-taping our reading as an advertisement for Dr. Suess's work crossing cultural boundaries and sharing important messages through laughter in spite of age, race, gender, or nationality. We read two of the three stories within, "Yertle the Turtle" and "Gertrude McFuzz".

Yertle the Turtle is about Yertle, King of the Turtles who live in the pond on the far-away Island of Sala-ma-Sond. He proclaims himself ruler of everything he can see. In order to see more, and thus rule more, Yertle shouts at the other turtles and builds himself a throne on their backs. In the end, he tries to build a turtle tower tall enough to reach above the moon, but Mack, the turtle at the base of the two-hundred turtle throne, burps, shaking the tower and sending Yertle hurtling into the mud. In the end "the great Yertle, that Marvelous he, is King of the Mud. That is all he can see. And the turtles, of course... all the turtles are free, as turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be."

Gertrude McFuzz, on the other hand, is about a bird with one small puny tail feather who sees Jolla-Lee-Lou, another bird, with two beautiful long tail feathers and jealously desires to have the same. Her uncle informs her of a berry bush which will grow more feathers on her and Gertrude greedily gobbles down 3 dozen berries. She proceeds to grow a beautiful tree of tail feathers, gorgeous beyond all other birds. However, the feathers weigh 90 pounds and she can no longer fly, nor run, nor even walk, and must be transported home over the course of two weeks by a dozen other birds. She takes another week to pluck out the extra grown feathers. "And finally, when all the pulling was done, Gertrude, behind her, again had just one... That one little feather she had as a starter. But now that's enough, because now she is smarter."

Reading with them, they were both excited by every page. More emphatic and enthusiastic than with any other book we've read. Commenting on Yertle or Gertrude's actions and feelings at each page. "He crazy turtle" and "But she can fly with one?" and "Why she want to be like Lolla-Lee-Lou? She's not ugly; Just only has one." At the end of each story I asked Tewen what the characters learned and what she learned (Awot volunteered his own opinions too, of course.) Yertle the Turtle evoked: He thought he was better than the other turtles but we are all supposed to be the same. He can't stand on other people just to get higher. Gertrude McFuzz called up: She looked around at her friend and thought "I need to be just like her," but we don't. We shouldn't think like that. We are just ourselves.

Finally, I asked the two of them which story they liked better. Tewen preferred Gertrude McFuzz emphatically while Awot liked Yertle.

"Why, Tewen?" "She tried to be something else, but she went back. Yertle, he was just bad. I mean, she was bad too, but she realized and corrected. She went back to who she was and was happier in the end being who she was before. He was just a bad king who kept doing bad things and never corrected. He--can I talk about it like people? Okay. He just did things for himself. He's the king. He cannot do things just to be higher; He should act like whatever is better for *gestures to the turtles in the pond* I mean, all people."

Awot liked Yertle because in the end all that stepping on his own people got him was ruling over the muck.

I love Africans.

One Dimensional

2011-04-04T23:29:00.000-07:00

It's becoming evident that I can no longer have a conversation about anything remotely important to me or my life without it relating back to Jesus or God in at least some minor way. I'm going to be vulnerable here, so be prepared for some less than polished thoughts and processes. I don't know how to feel about this.

On the one hand, if I am truly living out the Gospel, this absolutely should be true. If I have given up my life to Christ like I claim, everything I do should be motivated by the gospel. If I am daily taking up my cross, I should have to relate everything I do each day to Jesus. Biblically, what I am experiencing in my conversations should be happening.

The problem is that I live in America. Actually, it's bigger than that. The problem is that I am a human being. We are easily distracted. In order that we might not be constantly feeling guilty for living in this perpetual state of distraction from the love and sovereignty of the almighty, we embrace the distraction. Living out the state of distraction and turning to God in specific moments is much more acceptable than truly turning to Him in every moment of every day and every word of every conversation.

I used to feel very awkward about evangelizing or telling Christ's part in my story. Everything that I did that was motivated by Christ also had a humanly motivated answer. Why do I feel compassion for the homeless? "Just because that's how I am." Why would you ever want to work at a crappy school in a mid-city ghetto where you might get shot and you won't even get properly paid? "Well, we need better education. Nothing's going to get better if some people won't do it." Why are you so nice to everybody, all the freaking time? "I don't know, I just think that people need someone to be smiling at them." On and on it goes. It occurs to me that this list of things could appear arrogant and boastful about "all the good works" I do. It's not supposed to be like that. I just can't make the demonstration of how I create human justifications for the things I do without verbalizing which of those things are called into question. (Which is it's own point, actually. How better is our over arching decision to live outside of Christ's calling demonstrated than the fact that me trying to just be as caring and loving as I can is questioned as something weird?) Furthermore, all of these "good works" are simply the way I live, now that I've decided I really do want to be like Christ.

So, it used to be awkward. I used to make up stories about how I made decisions because I didn't want people to think I only did Jesus stuff. I wanted to be accessible. I wanted to be down to earth. I wanted to be real. I wanted to be just a normal kid.

But by acting to achieve those things, I became inauthentic and a liar. Yeah, all those human motivations for things were true. But at the heart of it, I only even know that I should care about and care for other people because God does and asks us to.

And so now, after going to Uganda the first time, and particularly after these last few months, I've completely surrendered who I am into the hands of the Holy Spirit. We say words like that in church all the time. We talk about our surrender and our desire to be emptied out before the cross and recommit to following Christ every time we sing a worship song. But I for one know that as much as I've meant the words on Sunday, frequently by the time that Monday rolls around I care more about the newest episode of Castle than trying to be fully tuned into the spirit in each of my conversations. And I still struggle with not falling back into that. I'm sure I always will. But that's the most interesting part of my battle tonight; I feel like it would be more acceptable for me to do that than to continue pursuing Christ's pre-eminence in my life.

I feel like even many of my Christian friends would rather talk about something else, would rather my art be more than scripture based, would rather my blog keep rambling on about the Giants, would rather talk about each others defects and the things that attract us or deter us from the opposite sex, than be constantly in communion with what Christ asks of us. And do you know the most compelling reason I think that?

Because that's what I used to want.

My friends who seriously ran after Christ used to talk about Jesus in every aspect of their lives. Only read C. S. Lewis and Henri Nouwen. Only watched TV strictly devoid of violence, sex, or swearing. Only listened to Christian artists. And I used to say: "Sure, all of that has it's place, I love Jesus too, but couldn't they be a little more well-balanced? They don't have to be thinking and reading about God ALL the time. It's like they're just letting these Christian authorities dictate what they can and cannot intake and are shutting out all the other really great things in the world just because they aren't strictly Christian."

It sucks to evolve into something you used to scorn. Because you know intimately why the thing that you are becoming is alienating to others--even others who legitimately truly and deeply have the same faith as you. Especially when you know in your heart of hearts that the evolution is into something better and towards something better. Because then you not only know exactly what about you is alienating but you also intimately know that the past you was judgmental and wrong and you cringe thinking about what you thought about people like who you are now. And further, you desperately want to explain the goodness of what you have now and the truth and the why of it to those who are just like the old you, but you know that having that spoken by another human being does no good, because it did you no good.

All I wanted to do tonight was share my conflicted heart in regards to the apparently one-dimensional story my life is turning into but instead ran off on many tangents. I'm still confused and I still feeling guilty about feeling confused. I know in my deepest heart that the relationship I have with Christ is supposed to be my end-all. It should be the only important topic of conversation. But I am still plagued by the desire for the world to like me, so I shudder at the idea of becoming that "one-dimensional Christian girl". It's a false fear, because I know that I am becoming more truly and authentically multi-faceted the deeper I allow the holy spirit to take me... but we live in a broken world and we are a broken people. I am a broken person; my mind will always rebel against the truths my heart knows and my body will always run into the arms of people even as my spirit yearns to simply rest in the arms of my father.