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.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Unexpected Thematics
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.
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?
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?
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Finding God in Flights of Fancy; Part 1.
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!]
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Standing,
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Being Fed
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."
"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.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Response Driven
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?
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?
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Radio Silence
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!
Friday, July 8, 2011
Being Hip
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!
"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!
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Yertle the Turtle
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.
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".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.
Monday, April 4, 2011
One Dimensional
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
True Nature of "Sacrifice"
Last night I found a copy of the 1599 Geneva Bible available for download as an audio book. If you don't already know, begin to learn this fact about me: I love audiobooks. In fact, I already have an audio copy of the NIV on my ipod (along with more books than I've ever had time to listen to and archives and archives of Flood and Cornerstone messages that "I will get to someday.") I've been looking for another one though, because the reader of my current copy tries a little too hard, if you know what I mean. All that to say, finding this translation intrigued me. This is the original translation to make its way from Europe to the Americas with the Puritans. I'd never even heard of it before until coming across it last night, but the comments related it to the King James, so at first I was hesitant, knowing that the KJV and I have never been the best of reading companions, but I decided to give it a shot. First of all, I love it. Second of all, maybe its the difference between audio and text as opposed to a difference between this and the KJV, but the thees and thous and thither and whenceforths just don't seem to make a difference. It's just the word of God being spoken aloud like, I might mention, its authors originally thought it would be (since literacy was rather on the low end back in biblical days).
This section of Jacob's story has a lot of uumph to it, but it often gets overlooked, because what did Jacob do while he was waiting for Esau to arrive? Oh yeah, had a literal wrestling match with God and was renamed a name that means "for you have struggled with God and with men and have won." But seriously, this scripture has a younger brother who has done nothing but bad to his older brother being welcomed back into the fold with no animosity, accountability, or violence, only tears of joy and questions after the blessing of his new family around him. So we can hit on Jacob's humility as a great topic, or Esau's forgiveness, or God's ability to make all things right, or what it means to be a true peacemaker like Jesus. But I want to go to sacrifice, namely Jacob's gift of the flocks to his brother.
The point is, I've been listening to Genesis all evening as I made dinner, fed the cats, cleaned my room, baked banana bread, and worked on a photo book for my UG kids. [Sidenote: one of the things I love about an audio Bible is that it allows scripture to become an integral part of the logistical day-to-day things I have to do. Even if you're not a big spoken word audio listener, I'd suggest trying an audio Bible for a day, just for that reason. If you're interested, I can get you a copy; shoot me a comment or an email and we can work it out.]
Jacob's "Sacrifice" to Esau
One of the major Old Testament figures in Genesis is Jacob, second son of Isaac, swindler, stealer of his brother Esau's inheritance, husband of two sisters whose servants he "knew" at his wives' own behest, father of Joseph (of the techicolor dreamcoat) and the man who wrestled with God and was renamed Israel, after whom the entire nation of God became named. In the following passage, Jacob is returning to the land of his father Isaac, which he fled after stealing Isaac's blessing intended for his brother so that Esau would not kill him. He's been away at least 20 years living and working in the house of his mother's cousin, has married 2 women, has many children, and acquired vast flocks of livestock. Returning, he hears that Esau is coming their way along the road with many soldiers. The following is their final meeting.
Then [Esau] said, "What was the meaning of all the flocks which I met coming this way?" (Jacob had sent all his livestock ahead and had told each drover to tell Esau that they were gifts for him.) And Jacob replied, "I have sent them that I might find favor in the sight of my lord (Esau)."9 But Esau said, "I have enough, my brother; keep that which you have."10 And Jacob said, "No, I pray you, as now I have found grace in your sight, then receive this present from my hand: for now that I have seen your face, it is as though I had seen the face of God. For you have accepted me and are pleased with me!11 Take, I pray thee, my blessing that is brought to thee; because God himself is dealing graciously with me; I have enough." And because Jacob urged him, Esau finally took it.
Prior to this evening, I'd always viewed the giving of the flocks as just another one of clever Jacob's schemes to preserve his own skin. In fact, Jacob himself (in Gen. 32:20) says he intends to pacify his brother with these gifts. And let's be honest, sending vast herds of tribute is a pretty dang good way to butter up your brother you completely betrayed before you run into him again. But that's the human in me (and in him!) speaking. Tonight, I got some Spirit.
After asking Jacob who this group of people with him were (his wife and children), Esau's immediate question is "What the heck? What was with all the cattle and sheep?" Now, if we were to believe Jacob's interpretation of the situation, and the one we all probably would have run into the meeting with, Esau is pissed, self-righteous, seeking vengeance, and deserving of being so, considering everything his baby brother put him through. But God has a different plan for this meeting than for human-jacob to meet human-esau and battle or bribe their way out of a bad situation.
"You have to keep them," Jacob says, "Because when I saw your face today, and saw that you were smiling and glad, it was like seeing God's own face." Jacob didn't insist that Esau keep the herds he had sent ahead as safeguards because he believed that this sacrifice was what would keep him in his brother's good graces. He refused to take them back because he was so excited that God had hooked it up and his brother actually wanted to see him. "God has given me enough," he says, "please take this gift." It's a tribute to their relationship. This blessing, originally intended to be manipulative and self-serving, got taken out of Jacob's hands and turned into a true expression of what sacrifice ought to be. Motive matters, guys.
Time and time again we see the Old Testament cast offering sacrifices to God, to kings, or to pagan gods, frequently without much of an explanation as to why. Sacrifice gets all tangled. It makes God seem very much like the human kings or capricious Baals, requiring sacrifices from their people just so that the people might live. But that's not what God's sacrifice is about. Our God doesn't require sacrifice of us that He might then look upon us with favor. Our God wants us to be like Jacob. That even when we know we have sinned and betrayed and fallen out of all possible understanding and hope for forgiveness, we come forward to him anyways. And, as we are human, he knows that we will bring him sacrifices to try to appease his wrath. We will look on the meeting of God and us after a time away with trepidation and fear, just as Jacob feared his meeting with Esau. But the depth and heart of the matter is this: when we finally look upon God's face we will know that all is forgiven as he sweeps us up in his arms, crying for the joy of being able to hold us again. And it is in that moment that our sacrifice undergoes a transformation, just like Jacob's did. We realize, I don't have to buy my way back in! He loves me anyway! So do we take it back when he offers? Of course not, because now we understand the true heart of sacrifice, now we understand the only reason God wants sacrifice from us at all: We are meant to sacrifice in celebration, giving up what we have been given because we are full of joy to be in the presence of God; not because He requires it, but out of our joy that He does not.
scripture from Genesis 33, a combination of the New Living Translation, the King James, the Geneva, and my own heart understanding.
Pennies and Palm Trees + Lent
Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, a day in the traditional church calendar set aside for remembering that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. In many churches, Ash Wednesday is an extremely somber affair. It is the reminder that we are not the end all-be all. It also begins the season of Lent, 40 days (plus Sundays) leading up to Jesus's death and resurrection on the cross. For many people, like many churches, lent is a very somber affair. It is all about fasting the thing you love the most, giving up your favorite food, disconnecting your cable, removing sugar from your diet. Somewhere along the line, Lent became what we were giving up. The trials of removing a central thing from our lives for 40 days became so forefront that the entire reason for fasting during lent is lost in the process.
This year, I begin Lent in a different place than I did last year. My growth group and I have been discussing how much different we feel from the person who we were little more than a year ago. But strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, how I feel about Lent and the invitation for fasting that God has given me for this year is almost identical to last year. I'm just lucky this year, because the discipline of fasting is something He and I have already been working on. So instead of asking me to Sit for lent this year, he's asking me to decrease my input and increase my output, because sitting before Him and with him has already become a part of my daily routine.
It would be easy for me to sit here and rewrite what lent means to me, spending a half hour spelling out why I love lent, with new metaphors, new language, new anything. But I feel like that would be falling into the pit we have already dug for ourselves in lentan tradition: making it about us instead of about Christ. So instead of doing that, I'm going to copy+paste my Lent-Is-Starting post from last year (pulled of my tumblr, so you may or may not have come across this before).
"As a Luthern, or at least as a member of Trinity Lutheran Church, I grew up spending this night attending a somber service in which our pastor would remind “Woman, remember that you are created from dust, and to dust you shall return” and sign the cross on our foreheads in ashes. For as long as I can remember I wondered why we had our Ash Wednesday service at night and all of the Catholic kids had theirs in the morning before school. Wouldn’t people think that I was a bad Christian if I didn’t have that indecipherable gray smudge on my forehead all day long? I remember one year in middle school when 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?
Fortunately, my strange gravitation to the visibility of the Ash Wednesday forehead cross got left behind with many of my other middle school misconceptions of the world. But my confusion as to the real point of lent took a lot longer to grow out of. My childhood self saw lent as the time when the colors would change on the altar coverings and pastor’s robes and we could start thinking about dyeing Easter eggs. My middle school self remembers Lent as the time when Confirmation classes (from 3:15-5:00, effectively extending the Wednesday school day) blurred into an hour of homework time leading into Wednesday night soup dinners and Lent services and I couldn’t go home until 8:00 when the whole long day was finally over. My high school self started trying to play the Lentan fasting game, giving up swearing, or soda, or candy, or something equally “acceptable” but meaningless, and ultimately failing to get past week 2 or 3 without abandoning the idea altogether. What was the point of fasting anyway? I knew that Jesus died on the cross for me, and I believed, that’s all that mattered. Right?
Well, yes.
But also no. It is by faith and grace alone that we are saved. Fact. If my only point is to guarantee my spot in heaven, I’m good. But woah, how lame of a point is that when there is so much else being offered to us on a silver platter?
But that’s a whole other topic in and of itself. Back to Lent.
On Flood’s opening introduction to 2010’s daily Lent devotional blog, I found this written in the last paragraph. “One of the challenges we face is that we can easily separate God from this season. We prove to ourselves and others that we can handle the challenge. It’s a challenge of the will. “
I think those three sentences sum up for me what Lent always was. My challenge wasn’t (isn’t) accidentally separating God from the season, but putting God into it to begin with. I fasted, because everyone else did. I went to Lent soup dinners, because I could stay away from my parents that way. I wore a cross on my forehead, so people would look at me and think I was awesome (I don’t know how being a weirdo with charcoal on my forehead equated with awesome in middle school, but you know, middle school.) It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I really started realizing that lent was meant to be something more than an opportunity to prove to the world that I could be a “great Christian.” And it probably isn’t until this year that I’ve actually cared enough to do it right.
You see, fasting, or giving something up, for Lent isn’t about whether we can accomplish 40 days without something we love, whether we can beat a vice for 6 weeks, or whether we can follow the strict rules except for on Sundays when we cheat [2011 A/N: Sundays aren't about cheating, which is how "you can eat the thing your fasting on Sundays" has always translated to me in the past. Its about Feasting. The bible is full of the two things paired together. We must fast AND feast. On Sundays in Lent, we celebrate the resurrection every week, with a feast of thanksgiving.] It’s not about beating yourself and growing better self discipline. It’s about spending more time with God.
The advent season (pre-Christmas) is for preparing for Jesus’s birth. Lent is ultimately about preparing for his death and resurrection. We give something up to make more room for Him in our period of waiting. The purpose of fasting, or at least what I’ve come to understand the purpose of fasting to be, is that at each moment when we crave the food, activity, drink, whatever it is that we’ve given up, at each moment when we crave it, we think about God. It’s a trigger, a tripline, a sign post pointing upwards. Or, if you’ve given up some time consuming activity—say TV or the internet—it’s a space MAKER. Instead of a simple reminded to have a chat with dad, it’s creating the time where you before had none.
And all to the point of having a deeper relationship. Nothing has ever gotten me closer to my faith than making space for prayer. And I mean think about it: have you ever had a good relationship with someone when you don’t make the time of day to talk to them? Don’t you think our relationship with God has similar properties? How can we get to know him better if we don’t spend any time conversing?
It’s also about sitting.
This season of Lent, for me, is about making space and about sitting. It’s about reclaiming the prayer spaces that I made for myself in Uganda and about relearning how to sit in God’s presence without doing. It’s about being Mary for a little while instead of Martha. I am so dang good at being Martha. Being Mary is way harder. (See Luke 10:38-42). It’s about choosing what is better.
So excuse me while I turn off my facebook and wake up a little earlier, while I run away to the beach when I should be studying (probably), while I write uselessly long journal entries about a faith that few of my friends who will read them actually share, while I seem to waste a lot of time not doing. Today is Ash Wednesday, and today I, Woman, remember that from dust I was created and to dust I will return, and that it is only by the grace one man gave to me by sacrificing his all too real life that I can claim my birthright as God’s own child and become anything more than molecules and science facts. Today I start sitting."
This year, I begin Lent in a different place than I did last year. My growth group and I have been discussing how much different we feel from the person who we were little more than a year ago. But strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, how I feel about Lent and the invitation for fasting that God has given me for this year is almost identical to last year. I'm just lucky this year, because the discipline of fasting is something He and I have already been working on. So instead of asking me to Sit for lent this year, he's asking me to decrease my input and increase my output, because sitting before Him and with him has already become a part of my daily routine.
Decrease my Input; Increase my Output.
What in the world?
If any of your have taken the Gallup's Strengths Finders test and/or spoken to me about my top 5, you may know a little something about "input" and "intellection". These are simply two vocabulary words that help me to describe something I already know about myself: I obsessively take in information (and stuff) and my brain is constantly turning over all that information in my head (whether it be "knowledge", facts, or people habits I've observed.) I drink up books, audiobooks, blogs, websites, sermons, basically anything, like someone who's been thirsty for years.
Well, God's giving me a heads up that I do a little bit too much of that, and quite a bit too little of talking to Him without the added outside input (this also includes music).
So Step 1 of Lent this year is to turn down the noise. Unplug from being so plugged into Twitter. Don't check my facebook while I'm at a stoplight just because I have a phone that can. Leave/Put the books He hasn't asked me specifically to read in a box. Drive in silence. Go to sleep either listening to the scripture or nothing at all.
But there's a Step 2 as well.
He wants me to stop just thinking and pick back up writing. Write about Him and the amazing things He is doing, every day. Blog. Tweet. Change my facebook status. Paint and upload the pictures. Upload whatever project I've been working on. POUR OUT.
Basically, it comes down to this. Take all the streams that have been pouring into me and reduce them to one: Him. Then, stop simply letting all that living water seep out of the cracks and fill me to bursting; Intentionally pour it out.
The reason I blog this initial post is to explain why you may see me around facebook or twitter or whatever social media interaction we have, but won't see me comment on YOUR status, or respond to YOUR tweet, or read YOUR blog. Sounds selfish and self-absorbed, I know. I'm going to write and not read? Bad relationship patterns there. But it's about continuing to be willing to out pour what he gives me while shutting out the distractions for a time. This is actually going to be more difficult than what I did last year in simply giving up social media. Because this means I actually still have to go to my facebook, login to twitter, check into tumblr, but control my desire to scroll around and see what everyone else is up to.
End point: Refine the Intake; Expand the Outpouring.
Lots and lots of love!
(and a better explanation of what the heck Pennies and Palm trees is to come).
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