barefoot bohemian

Vday Song #1: a wrangler & a rambler

2012-02-01T18:25:00.003-06:00

I've traditionally celebrated Valentines here at Barefoot Bohemian, and I am not one to toy with tradition. This year I thought I would go low maintenance and post 14 classic country songs about love (not necessarily love songs, mind you).

Wish you could come, but I don't need no woman tagging along...

~ soundtrack for a new year ~

2011-12-31T10:14:00.003-06:00

I would kick things off with the songs that began my Advent season over at Y'all Settle Down (or, as I referred to them on Facebook, my "Life is Shit, Yet We Survive" EP).

Once I got that out of my system (or, at least good and settled in to my soul) I would transition with a bit of naked hope via the lovely Sarah Masen:

Hope (LP Version)

And then I would dive head first into songs about living life to the fullest and daring to take chances, be vulnerable and risk:

May as well kick it off with some cheesy pop (don't judge...),
"Live your life with arms wide open."

Toss in a motivational classic,
"If you want to sing out, sing out!"

And a reminder to live in the now.
"Don't hide your eyes, it's time."

Be reminded whose life you're living,
"This is your life, and today is all you've got now, and today is all you'll ever have."

And shout it out for emphasis.
"I ain't gonna live forever, I just wanna live while I'm alive."

Raise a little hell in the midst of it all,
"Might be laughing a bit too loud, but that never hurt no one."

And reaffirm your faith in humanity.
"Give in to love or live in fear."

Never underestimate your potential,
"Do you want to come out and play the game? It's never too late."

And open yourself to all of life's possibilities.
"I do not want to be a rose, I do not wish to be pale pink, but flower scarlet, flower gold and have no thorns to distance me."

And in the air the questions hang,
Will we get to do something?
Who we gonna end up being?
How we gonna end up feeling?
What you gonna spend your free life on?

Happy New Year, Y'all!

Cranberry-Almond Scones

2011-12-24T11:20:00.005-06:00

So, I'm playing with new scone recipes for Christmas Eve & I was pretty pleased with the yumminess of my first selection, cranberry-almond. As with the chocolate peanut butter I posted in February, and the oatmeal raisin I've baked several times but never posted, I pulled from several recipes to get the combo I wanted. So, recipe is below - let me know if you try it & how you like it! (Next up - orange scones, per my brother-in-law's request...)

Ingredients:
3 cups unbleached flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 cup half and half
2 eggs
1 tsp almond extract
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup Craisins (dried cranberries)

Before you begin, place your stick of butter (wrapper on) in the freezer, preheat your oven to 350 degrees, measure your Craisins into a small bowl & cover with warm water to plump, and line a jelly roll pan with parchment paper.

Now, in a large bowl, mix your flour, sugar, baking powder & salt together.

Take your butter out of the freezer, unwrap it, and slice it into thin squares on top of the dry ingredients. Cut the butter into the mix by hand until you have a slightly sandy mix.

I use a 16oz glass measuring cup to mix my wet ingredients, because it makes it easier to pour them onto the dry & you can measure your half and half directly into the cup. Combine half and half, eggs & almond extract and whisk with a fork.

Pour your wet ingredients onto your dry and mix together well. Knead the dough together by hand in the bowl to ensure it is well combined.

Drain the water off of your Craisins and fold them, along with the sliced almonds, into your dough until they are evenly distributed.

Sprinkle some flour (and - heck, it's the holidays - a little sugar) onto your counter surface and seperate the dough in half.

Form one half of the dough into a ball and pat out on the floured surface to form a flat circle. Slice the circle like a pizza into 8 wedges. Place them on the parchment lined pan, alternating direction to fit more across. Do the same with the second half of the dough. (All 16 wedges should fit on the pan - they do not require much space in between.)

Bake the scones for 24 minutes, turning the pan halfway through for more even heating.

Once the scones have cooled, if you want a sweeter scone, make a simple glaze with powdered sugar, a splash of half and half, and a touch of almond extract.

Merry Christmas, y'all!

And you are...?

2011-10-31T07:24:00.007-05:00

Last night I had the privilege of wrapping up the Little Miss Sunshine series at Eikon church. I thought I would go ahead and post the poem I opened with on here, though it may not make sense if you haven't seen the movie... or if you're not familiar with Mark Driscoll.

(I feel I should pause here and say the morning sermon at R Street Community Church did at least make me second guess reciting a poem about Driscoll, but I went with it anyway. Lord, have mercy.)

Who do you think you are?
A poem for Little Miss Sunshine, and Mark Driscoll

God
Hates you.

God. Hates. You.

Some of you…

At least, that’s what I heard this preacher say

Not to me directly… on the internet

Just set out there for all the world to see

To hear

To taste:

God hates you.

On a video

Received by ears

Attached to hearts

He has never listened to

Yet he is looking them

In the virtual eye

To let them know:

God hates you.

Not to me directly

But I receive it just the same

You see,

They say in this world

There are winners

And there are losers

There are chosen

And there are damned

There are those who matter

And there are those who just don’t

It’s not enough

That we gather at the table together

Independent lives huddled

Around a bucket of chicken

I hate everyone

Pass the salad

It’s not enough

That we gather at the table together

And stare at our plates

And cringe

At everyone else’s

Obvious quirks

Let’s get out of here!

Let’s squeeze our odd little lives

Into a rundown van

And hit the road together

Let’s laugh with each other

Let’s get annoyed with each other

Let’s embarrass one another

Let’s set off on a journey toward winning

And let’s be utterly surprised by what winning actually looks like

Because our teacher

Is awfully good

At turning expectations on their heads

Let’s let each other be who we are

And when one of us jumps on the stage

And dances to drums others may not hear

Let’s not hang our heads in disappointment

Let’s join them on that stage

And dance that wild dance of communion

With ourselves, just as we are

Let’s invite others to the stage

Let’s not fret about what came before

What lies ahead

What others must be thinking

You

Are the light

Of the world

God loves you.

GOD loves you.

God LOVES you.

God loves YOU.

So dance up on that hill

Shake what your mama gave ya

Let your little light shine

Let the eternal fire of the spirit

Consume your life

And glow and spread and engulf

Everyone you touch

Your light

Doesn’t have to look like mine

It just needs to be

Felt

Seen

Heard

Smelled

By those within your reach

Your reach

Doesn’t have to look like mine

It just needs to be

Outside of yourself

Because we are loved

I am loved

You. Are. Loved.

And we are called

To love one another

Just as God loves us

Good Life, take 2

2011-10-23T22:34:00.002-05:00

When I was young
My neighbor and I
Would build elaborate dollhouses
From shoeboxes
And random objects
Cutting out doorways
And taping rooms together
Each with a separate purpose
Each creating space between
Individual paper dolls
Giving our imaginary friends
Things our families could not afford
The space we did not enjoy
In our rooms with sisters
Who would prefer us
Out from under their feet
Out from following their shadows
Out from stealing
Their favorite blue eyeliner

The paper houses
Became dreams that died
Became dreams that burned away
Became dreams that fell short

The paper dolls
Were replaced by friends in flesh
Were replaced by boys with hands
Were replaced by strength of character

The paper instead
Gave way to written words
Gave way to stories on pages
Gave way to living, breathing thoughts

When I was slightly older
And filled with simple wonder
I tore an article
From a glossy magazine
Of a woman
Who lived in a tiny apartment
Filled with colorful trinkets
Paying cheap rent
To a landlord
In exchange
For yard work
Working in a restaurant
Where she lived
Off free bowls
Of noodles
Wearing chopsticks in her hair
And long, flowing skirts
That kissed the tops
Of her bare feet

She became my icon
Of freedom
Of life well lived
Of shaking off encumbrances

She became my patron saint
Of bohemia
Of creative pursuits
Of sucking the marrow from life

She became my ideal
This model of simplicity
This symbol of satisfaction
This concrete example of serenity

After college, I tried
To craft the image
Of a bohemian life
With thrift store couch
And dollar store dishes
With framed squares
Of calendar art
A vintage chair or two
Some flea market
Accent pieces
All add up
On a credit card
In the budget
Of a social worker
A grad student
With a part-time job
At a CD store
That receives all her so-called
Disposable income

I’ll gladly pay you tomorrow
For some furniture today
For a well-deserved vacation
For dinners out with friends

I’ll gladly pay you tomorrow
For a car that runs
And clothes that flatter
And foods that comfort

I’ll gladly pay you tomorrow
Because it was on sale
Because I deserve it
Because this chance won’t come again

The problem
With living in community
Is other people
And yourself
Other than that
The concept is great
Shared resources
And relationships
And burdens
Or multiplied
However you look at it
When your life decisions
Affect mine
Our intertwined lives
Become a timebomb
Waiting to explode
From the weight
We rest
Upon them

Love your neighbor
For richer
In good times
In health

Love your enemy
For poorer
In bad times
In sickness

Love one another
As you are
In reality
Not in your wish dreams

I came back home
To release some burdens
Of debt
And expectations
On myself
And others
Some of whom I’ve known
Some of whom I’ve yet to meet
To reorient myself
To the woman
With chopsticks in her hair
Who preferred
A third floor walkup
Filled with found objects
And eating ramen noodles
She swore as a child
She would never
Force herself to eat
again

Everyone's Beautiful

2011-10-21T09:39:00.004-05:00

Tomorrow night, Lori and Don Chaffer will be in town and, as always when an opportunity to hear Waterdeep presents itself, I am very excited. This morning, as I was rushing to get ready for work, I had one of my favorite tunes, He Will Come, running through my head. (Let’s pause here and agree to a willful suspension of the need to acknowledge the unintentional innuendo rampant in this song, just for the sake of this post.)

Waterdeep is one of those bands that holds deep significance in my life. They appeared while I was in college and traveled with me into adulthood. Two shows in particular, Everyone’s Festival (Memphis, 2001) and The Last Eyewitness (Good Friday, 2006, Pine Bluff, AR) also introduced me to Chris Seay, who would be my gateway drug into the emerging church.

But I was singing He Will Come, and I was struck by what a statement it was on the body of Christ, the ekklesia, that this is the hope we so often hold out:

Soon it will be hammered into what she calls her silly head
That she really isn’t silly but she’s beautiful instead
But every time she gets a hold of something pretty it slips away
So she keeps hoping that someday soon He will come

The Word became flesh and walked among us. God couldn’t seem to get the message across in 140 characters, so face-to-face contact became necessary. Jesus was the light of the world. Patiently, he grew up and lived among the people, he taught them and demonstrated his way and told stories and shared meals. Jesus looked people in the eye and said: YOU are the light of the world. YOU are the ones to tell people they aren’t silly and worthless. YOU are the ones that have to love each other and help each other understand how beautiful you are. Right here. Right now.

She spilled her coffee in her Chevy on the way to work at 8:05
She always thought that she was clumsy and she hated it and wondered why
She can handle any tragedy that happens but not little things like this
So she keeps hoping that someday soon He will come

Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Are we so busy rushing past each other to get where we’re going that we fail to see our sister, our brother, our neighbor, our enemy breaking down on the side of the road, crying out for someone to help carry their load? Are we so tightly holding on to control in our own lives that we are unwilling to be vulnerable, to release our own burdens to others who will help lift them?

In the world of a girl the words she hears can mean an awful lot
And the music in her mind when she gets older has the lyrics she was taught
But when she gets to Heaven all the right things will be said
And He will look on her with favor

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law.

No one should have to wait for someday, sometime to hear healing words spoken into their life, to hear the words: You Are Loved. To see the words put into practice. To see the words put on flesh and walk among them.

He will come, He will come
He will comfort all that’s hardened
Make the deserts into gardens
And we all will see His face
He will come, He will come
He will soften all the starkness
Break the chambers of our darkness
And we’ll all be overwhelmed

When Jesus ascended into heaven, his disciples were left staring at the sky, confused as to why his kingdom hadn’t been restored on earth. The angels appeared (likely shaking their heads and rolling their eyes) and asked why they were standing there looking at the sky. The implied question being (in my imagination), did you not hear what he just said to you?!

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes to you…

(But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.)

And you will be my witnesses among your own people, among your neighbors you like, among your neighbors you detest, and to the ends of the earth.

(A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.)

He will come, He will come
He’ll remove his flaming garment
Place it on the lowest harlot
And we’ll all be overwhelmed

Let us go and do likewise.

On God and Dirty Dancing...

2011-10-13T06:50:00.003-05:00

The first time I watched Dirty Dancing, it was 6th grade, I was at a slumber party and the movie had just come out on HBO. It was mesmerizing. It's one of those movies you do not want to watch with me if you are bothered by people quoting every-other line, singing along with the music (albeit, off-key), imitating the awkward motions of characters, or reenacting dance moves.

All that to say, Dirty Dancing, for better or worse, has a deep presence in my psyche. So it should be no surprise that I as I'm reading a frustrating passage of scripture, something that doesn't seem to line up with the way God walked in the flesh among creation as Jesus, that doesn't seem to line up with the way God taught creation to walk among each other, that the following monologue pops into my head:

I told you I was telling the truth. I'm sorry I lied to you, but you lied too. You told me everyone was alike and deserved a fair break, but you meant everyone who is like you. You told me you wanted me to change the world, to make it better, but you meant by becoming a lawyer or an economist and marrying someone from Harvard.

I'm not proud of myself, but I'm in this family too. You can't keep giving me the silent treatment. There are a lot of things about me that aren't what you thought, but if you love me, you have to love all the things about me.

And I love you. I'm sorry I let you down, I'm so sorry, Daddy.

But you let me down too.

Sometimes I don't get God. I think I understand the overarching story, but when I start digging around in the details, and listening to others picking up the particularly frustrating parts and holding them up to the light for us all to focus on, I get a bit pissed.

Somedays I think God hung the moon, and others I think God's nothing but a sham.

Yet my love and my faith remain.

And I know God can handle my questions.

God welcomes my wrestling.

And I'm having the time of my life...

Wow.

2011-09-20T11:57:00.002-05:00

This post right here? (Much thanks to Monsignor Monk.)

This is why I wrote Go Your Own Way.

And this is why I started Y'all Settle Down.

This is why I'm talking about the idea of slow church at the Outlaw Preachers (Re)Union.

Step back.

Listen.

Rest.

It's ok to take the time to reconsider where we are heading, what we are doing, who we are becoming. It is healthy. It is good. May we hold out that grace to one another.

Damn you, Jay Bakker...

2011-09-04T18:19:00.004-05:00

So, in July I wrote a post in support of my friend Jules & her lgbtq challenge to emergent church leaders. I encourage you to go back and read that. In the days that followed, there was a lot of back and forth on various sites that made me weary and brought out my cynicism.

Cue mid-August, and Jay Bakker decides to ask the twitterverse a question: #areyougayaffirming

For those not versed in twitter-speak, that is a hashtag asking: Are you gay affirming? His question was posed to congregations & Christian leaders to get the to answer definitively. I, as is my nature, filtered his encouragement/challenge through the lense of my most recent experiences, and below is the twitter conversations that took place with friends (I left out the response tweets, but I think you can get the gist):

“I was part of a church that insisted all churches must be truly racially diverse, yet used the ‘adam & steve’ line… (1 of 3)”

“I would ask those insisting everyone be LGBTQ inclusive immediately if their local gatherings display true racial diversity… (2 of 3)”

“And then I would ask us all to have a little patience with & grace towards each other as we seek to grow… (3 of 3)”

“YES – I fully affirm my LGTBQ friends & their faith, but I will not be bullied into making that my cornerstone. LOVE & GRACE fill that spot.”

“After reading several posts on what allies do wrong I was intimidated to just be a vocal friend.”

“Too many rules & regs. I speak up, gently & firmly. It’s not about me, right? I don’t need a # to say, yay me, I’m affirming.”

“I’m an introvert. Conflict makes me physically ill. I’d rather just continue using my voice, calmly & consistently.”

“I’m just offering another perspective for those who choose not to jump on every challenge bandwagon.”

This morning at church I was telling a friend, who leads a ministry called The One, Inc., about a tweet I had seen recently from Jay about leaving the 99 to find the one, and that I had yesterday watched one of Jay's speaking engagements from several years ago, and what he had said about leaders being able to leave the 99 to go after that hurting person that needs them. Next weekend our little congregation is observing a Feast of the Reclaimed, sharing stories of renewal in our lives & celebrating baptisms. Next Sunday we also are starting our children's ministry classes back up and today, as I was cleaning carpets in preparation, I decided the kids should have a party as well - and we should read together the Luke 15 parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep & the lost son, stories of people reclaiming things that are valuable to them. I emailed a couple people & threw that idea out there.

Later in the day, as I was cleaning my own house, I noticed Revolution Church NYC had posted today's sermon, and thought that would be a nice accompaniment to the task at hand. After all, the whole reason I'm cleaning today is because next weekend I will be super busy with a weekend that includes not only the Feast of the Reclaimed, but the annual fall conference at Open Door Community Church, of which Jay is the speaker. (Additionally, some of my Outlaw Preacher friends from Memphis will be in town for the conference & we will get the opportunity to see Brian McLaren at another church in town... busy, busy, busy.)

Turns out, the sermon was about Leaving the 99. Turns out, it was damn challenging. Turns out, I'm eating my tweets. Damn you Jay Bakker... (now, go listen.)

When I Grow Up...

2011-08-01T07:30:00.002-05:00

“When I grow up, I’ll be stable.” ~ Garbage

MTV is 30 years old today.

Where was I when the moon man landed? Eagerly awaiting following in my big sister’s footsteps at Cato Elementary School. That’s right kids, in mere weeks I would be a kindergartener. Look out world.

I grew up with MTV, and music shaped my life. Music was a constant in the midst of an unstable life. And as the people & places around me changed, the music traveled with me. If I had trouble adjusting to a new school or situation, I had no trouble whatsoever appreciating new music that was laid in front of me, and my appetite for new styles and artists was unquelled.

Reading Rainbow promised me I could be anything, but MTV exposed me to the buffet of possibilities.

Back then my plan was to be married and have eight kids (like the family in the Babysitter’s Club books). My career choices ranged from Marine Biologist (science was not my strong suit) to Fashion Model (I never sprouted past 5’2”), so I obviously had clear expectations for my life.

As I have remained single these 35 years, I have been forced to define myself beyond what I do (question number one on everyone’s list) and who I belong to (our relationships being the other prominent classification of individuals). I’ve realized the career I thought would be most fulfilling was the most draining & damaging to my emotional health, while what may appear to be a mundane job can actually bring a lot of joy. I’ve also made a concerted effort to be more than simply a “lady in waiting”.

What I also find if I really open my eyes and look around is that this is true for those with jobs they love, and those searching for jobs. It’s true for those who love their spouses and children, and those who are still learning to be vulnerable in relationships. We all need a definition and a purpose beyond those external circumstances, because so much in this world is beyond our control.

The good news is, kids – I finally know what I want to be when I grow up. And it’s not predicated on how I earn money to pay my bills, or who I cuddle up to at night, or if I produce offspring. Those are all good and beautiful things, but it seems that so much of my early experience in the Church was focused on the importance of avoiding sex until you find someone to marry, and then having sex so you can produce and raise moral children. True love doesn’t wait. True love has been mistaken for sexual lust and repressed to the point that we’re scared to live and move and have our being in its midst. Screw that.

So, what do I want to do with the rest of my life?

(No, Twisted Sister fans, the answer is not “I wanna rock”.)

I want to live simply, below my means, in a way that frees me from the stress of gluttony & greed, while freeing me toward gracious giving.

I want to value stability, truly planting myself into a people and place, without fearing inevitable change.

I want to lean into community, embracing all of its messiness and chaos.

I want to practice discipline, in my spiritual practices, in my health, in my pursuit of creativity.

I want to write and wrestle and pray and wonder.

I want to listen deeply to those who are seldom heard, and to find the hard truths present in their stories.

I want to notice the burning bushes all around me, to find God in the midst of the daily and the ordinary and the simple.

I want to ask the really hard questions of my Creator, even if it takes a lifetime of listening for the answers to unfurl.

I want to take each day as it comes to me, and learn to let the future worry about itself, to follow the Word Made Flesh one step at a time.

I want to abide in the Spirit, to allow fruit of love and peace and patience and joy to grow roots in my life and produce sustenance for those I encounter.

I am less concerned about where the journey leads, who will be with me and how I will get there – I just want to enjoy (or at the very least learn from) the experience as it opens up before me. After all, the present and my interactions therein, is the only thing within my grasp. What has been, what will be, what if… none of this is within my realm of command.

Recently, I’ve come to terms with the fact there is more potentially great music out there than I can wrap my mind around. I can’t afford it all. I can’t ingest it all. There will be some really great artists whose words I’ll never hear. And there are some really crappy songs wedged in my heart, claiming an inexplicably permanent spot. It’s enough to enjoy to the music I will encounter, to listen to the lyrics I am privy to, to be shaped by the stories of a few artists, to be moved by the rhythms that will wander across my path.

I want to be content.

And I want to be utterly delighted.

And that is enough.

Chip Stains & Grease

2011-07-21T10:09:00.001-05:00

I’m going to tell a story, and I’m going to try to make it as brief as possible. As is, you may need to print this out and curl up in a chair to make it through.

Know that at each bend in this story I could sit you down, pour us a cup of coffee and add layers & details & depth to that chapter. Eventually, perhaps I will. But for now, I mean to move us along the path at a steady, if not rapid pace, to address a more current plotline.

To start at the beginning, I was not raised in the Church. And, while my family was not a model of diversity (I grew up around your standard, off-color jokes), my siblings and I were raised to welcome all people, and not to stand in judgement of others.

I was not raised in a bubble, but when I began to follow Christ in high school, I had a bubble built around me by his well-intentioned Church. “Don’t listen to that music.” “Don’t associate with those people.” “Keep yourself pure.” “Oh be careful little ears what you hear.”

Our failure to listen was not limited to those outside the Church, but even to those within our own congregation. When we took mission trips to Houston and Mexico, we were required to learn songs and phrases in Spanish so that we could lead others to Christ. Our large, wealthy, white church “sponsored” a Hispanic congregation that gathered in a small building right behind our large facility. Yet in the weeks and months leading up to our trips, we failed to utilize the greatest resource we had – our brothers and sisters in Christ with whom we shared tithes and a sense of place. Rather than practicing our conversations with our Spanish-speaking sisters, we ignored their very existence. Rather than learning songs and stories from our Spanish-speaking brothers, we went on as if we did not need them.

In college, I was introduced to one of my greatest heroes of faith, John Perkins. Ignored, oppressed, beaten, this man did the unthinkable and returned to the community that had abused him to live out grace. From him I learned the importance of planting yourself in a place. The reality, that some of us have a position of privilege that could be used for oppression whether we realize it or not. I learned that I don’t have to be ashamed because I have resources and connections that others may not, but I do have to be aware – and that I can not help others by swooping in from the outside, dumping my resources upon them and retreating back to my safe place. Change occurs when I become a part of a people, when I willfully place myself in a position of learner, and give the powerless the place of teacher (even here, I have the luxury of being the one to choose to relinquish power, and that is not lost on me), to bring my resources to the community not as I would have them used, but as those who need them would see the best usage.

One summer in college I lived and worked in the Mississippi Delta, and I had the opportunity to put some of Dr. Perkins’ teachings into practice. My summer missions partner and I attended the white congregation in town only one Sunday – that was enough for us to realize we did not belong there. Several of the children we were working with at the community center attended a small country church where the pastor drove in every Sunday morning to preach. The only things whiter than us in that church were the dresses and hair clasps the little girls wore, and yet we felt at home. A visiting congregation came into town to put on a Vacation Bible School at the community center, and one of the songs they lead the children in was “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”. At our debriefing meeting that day, I commended the group for all of the fun the kids seemed to be having. I also took the time to explain why “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” may be an inappropriate song for this community of children, and perhaps it could be replaced with something more appropriate. After all, when the black households sit, literally, on the other side of the tracks and are still referred to as “the Quarters” and given that the Hispanic children’s parents are primarily (if not exclusively) migrant farm workers, singing about the “land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride” may not hold any significance for them. Later the pastor was sure to corner me in my office and reprimand me harshly for questioning his authority in front of his team. Who was I to tell him how best to lead a service?

As a single, twenty-something female in the Church, I was given leadership responsibilities, but not leadership rights. In my college/career group at the congregation where I attending youth group, I was asked to be a part of planning committees and focus groups. Every time we would be asked what we wanted from our classes and activities, and I would express a desire for more depth – perhaps studying spiritual disciplines? I was not alone in wanting to go deeper. Every time what we got was another round of “Song of Solomon” sex-is-great-in-marriage talks and cheesy Christian comedy coffeehouse nights no one wanted to attend, much less extend invitations to friends. It was becoming clear that I would be seen as nothing more than a raging ball of hormones who needed wholesome church-designed activities in which to meet a husband and corral my sexual tendencies. Then I could graduate to the adult classes and learn about being a good wife.

I was weary and burnt out from struggling to find my place in the Church, so when an opportunity to be a part of building a new congregation presented itself, I took my time but eventually decided it was time to make a move. I served that congregation for years as a lay leader, watching it grow and building lasting relationships with individuals and families. But it also became clear over the years that something was not right. As one person, older and wiser than me, observed – people were drawn in because of a leader, and people left because of that same leader. While at a young adult conference out of town, my eyes were opened to how deep some of the tensions and wounds were, as person after person sat me down and bent my ear, sharing stories about concerns and hurts they had. People felt helpless, but they felt like they could say something to me. I realized that I was in a unique position – I was in a position to listen to their voices, and I was in a position to communicate with the leader who needed to be aware of these concerns. Against my natural inclination, I decided to step up and try to initiate a conversation. Fast forwarding through the efforts and the exhaustion, my eyes were open. This leader had no desire to hear the concerns, and received them as a personal attack. The elders insisted that any concerns go directly to the leader, and not to them, and that they were there to support him. It was his church, after all.

Shell-shocked, I spent about six months outside of any formal gathering of the Church, wondering if I had any place there, wondering if I could learn to trust community again. Luckily, I did eventually take friends up on their invitation and found myself in the midst of a unique congregation, a congregation where I was equally comfortable raising my hands in worship and voicing difficult, daring questions. It was while there that I took the opportunity to attend the Great Emergence conference in Memphis, and was given a glimpse of what it looks like to share my voice. Granted, I was sharing my written voice, but blogs and webzines still grant you a certain degree of protection and anonymity. While in the lunch buffet line, the towering Doug Pagitt invited me and my friend to join him at his table. Not being one to deny a request to people twice my size, we found ourselves sharing a meal with several strangers, most of whom fit a common theme – we were all lay leaders, most with a past of hurt or rejection in the Church. The question was inevitable – why are you here? You’re not a pastor, you’re not paid staff – why did you travel to this conference, why did you choose to be a part of this conversation?

Before we really knew what was happening, we were being asked to participate in a panel immediately following lunch. None of us jumped at the opportunity, but slowly it became a compromise of “I will if you will.” We soon found ourselves exposed, perched atop stools across the stage in front of a packed sanctuary, microphones in hand. And people were asking us questions. They wanted to hear our stories. They wanted to hear our voices. We were not the pastors. We were not the elders (or even the elders’ wives). Why are you here? What does being a part of the Church mean to you? What do you have to say?

Later, the organizers of the Great Emergence would conceive of another conference, C21, which would bring the voices of female leaders to the forefront. Much like the type of community development Dr. John Perkins had taught me about years before, here was people in a position of power, with resources and connections, willingly placing themselves under the teaching of those whose voices are often silenced or ignore, redistributing what they had to help others who have the message but not the means to get it out there. And this was not a women’s conference, by women for women to talk about things only stereotypical women would care about. Much like the general conferences so many of us attend where the featured speakers are primarily, if not exclusively, white men, this was a conference for everyone – but it was a conference where the voices of women were highlighted. Why are you here? What does being a part of the Church mean to you? What do you have to say?

Yesterday, my friend Jules issued a challenge to those emergent leaders who are allies to lgbtq brothers and sisters in the Church. Come along side us, bring your resources and your connections so that we can have an opportunity to share our voices. Not as the token lesbian or transgender who may be asked to present on a panel and give our point-of-view on an issue of sexuality or gender equality, but as a member of the Body of Christ with a powerful perspective to share on faith. We have a message, and as someone who acknowledges that, help us with the means. Willingly become the listener, and ask us: Why are you here? What does being a part of the Church mean to you? What do you have to say?

Who told you you were naked?

2011-06-02T11:11:00.003-05:00

Between Rebecca St. James’ comments in reference to the Slut Walk, that women are “asking for sex if they’re dressed immodestly” (which generated considerable weighty discussion at the 701 Club) and a godawful article recently linked to by my wise and beautiful friend Rebekah Berndt, I felt it necessary to devise a chart that would clarify the rules of holy dressing for those who are perhaps unfamiliar with the evangelical subculture or with the particular burdens carried by females therein. May it be noted that this is merely a first draft, as flow charts are not one of my skill strengths. In a more detailed version, I would like to include more specific questions, such as:

Do your shorts have pockets?

How long is the inseam?

How far is the cuff above your knee?

Where does your skirt hem fall?

Are sleeveless shirts appropriate?

How about tank tops?

How wide are the straps?

When swimming, will a one piece suit suffice, or should it be covered by both/either a t-shirt and/or shorts?

Which brings us back to the shorts questions…

God Loves Joplin

2011-05-26T09:46:00.005-05:00

(Image courtesy of Clint Mcmanaman via Creative Commons)

Last night I was pissed.

About 20 minutes before my friends’ band, Monkhouse, was scheduled to play, as I was putting on my shoes to head out the door, a disturbing bit of news popped up on my laptop screen.

Westboro (I refuse to call them “church”) was planning a visit to Joplin, MO for Sunday – to celebrate the loss of 125 lives.

I was instantly incensed and the better angels of my nature quickly fluttered away.

Forget that I had agreed to watch family pets this weekend.

Forget that I was at the tail end of my monthly budget and that my little car had just completed a whirlwind road trip.

Forget any practical considerations, I WAS HEADED TO JOPLIN!

You see, last December I attended a little gathering in Memphis called the Outlaw Preachers Reunion.

Most of the people attended had lives that had intersected at previous conferences and were intertwined through the conversational world of Twitter. Some who had never met introduced themselves first through the twitter handle, secondly through their blog name, and only lastly with their given name.

I was not a tweeter.

Hardly anyone knew who I was. I had found out about the conference primarily through Jonathan Brink’s blog, which I frequented, and I had met Connie Jo and her family, as well as Pastor Nar, only weeks before the reunion at a conference at Open Door Community Church. That was about it. I had a blog, I had written for some webzines, and I frequented Facebook, but this #OutlawPreachers Twitter family was a whole new ball of yarn I was eager to be tangled up in.

As an introvert, I was a bit overwhelmed by this prospect of meeting and greeting, and I stood around a bit awkwardly at first. One of the first groups of people I met and engaged in conversation with was Pastor Steve Urie from Joplin, MO and two ladies from his church, Spirit of Christ MCC.

I feel I should pause here and note that I am absolutely horrible with names. The only reason I remembered Steve’s name is because Brandon Mouser linked to him. I feel like Facebook was a personal gift from the Creator to help me connect names and faces on a daily basis… except for annoying people like me who put pictures of feet and squirrels where their face should be.

So, Steve and the two ladies from his church invited me into their conversation. They offered me space in their room (I did end up in another room, but I did not forget their graciousness). I sat with them during several sessions. They were comfort and grace and hospitality to a girl who felt a bit out of her element.

Hospitality is a bedrock of both my theology and my Southern culture, so anytime it is offered I feel home and I feel love. It is the trait I most want to nurture in my own life.

On Sunday, May 22nd, I was driving with my father back from St. Louis, MO where we were with family, to our home in Little Rock, AR. When we stopped to eat a late lunch, I watched the wind whipping the trees and flags outside, and hoped that we would not have to drive the rest of the way home in the strong rainstorms we had driven up through. We crossed the Arkansas state line around 6ish and headed for home in the final stretch. Meanwhile, near the other end of the state line, Joplin, MO was being ransacked by the worst tornado our country has seen in 50 years.

At latest count, 125 lives were lost.

At Spirit of Christ Metropolitan Community Church, Pastor Steve was beginning service in the building the church rented from Unity of Joplin. When the storm hit, all in attendance were able to make it safely into the basement, except for two people who sustained minor injuries. Pastor Steve’s spouse, Heath, was triaged and sent to the hospital to be treated and released for a concussion. The aftermath revealed SOC MCC had lost their building, and Steve and Heath had lost their home. Many cars were also lost, as well, but, graciously, families were not.

The community of Joplin, MO is faced with the task of sorting through the rubble and rebuilding their lives out of the destruction, and the Church in Joplin, MO is faced with the task of being grace, peace and comfort to those who are grieving loss and confusion. The Body of Christ is tasked with helping to gather the scattered pieces of lives and molding them back together with hope.

And now, a group of media hounds who spew a vile gospel of hate are planning to descend on the city in the midst of the memorial for all the lives lost and shattered and proclaim that God Hates Missouri.

I want to jump in my car.

I want to cover it with huge red hearts that read “God Loves Joplin” and even “God Loves Westboro” because I truly believe that God loves even the vilest of us, and desires that our hearts are redeemed and turn to him and his way, his way that was demonstrated by his son, his way that springs forth from his spirit, his way that manifests in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Last night, I was fuming.

But I talked to people, and I was reminded that all Westboro wants is attention. And like a sullen child, all they know is to get the attention they crave through despicable behavior.

I don’t want to be yet another person to add to the chaos in Joplin, MO. And as much as I want to believe my swooping presence will make a difference against Westboro’s hate, I know that it will not. It will not, because no one is listening to Phelps, no one is taking him seriously, and anyone who may possibly be responsive to him is not going to be swayed by my Corolla covered in cardboard hearts.

Hearts are changed by interacting with love in community.

The absolute best thing I can do to counter the hate of Westboro is to deeply love my neighbors, especially those who are grieving, those who have suffered rejection, those who feel unloved, right here where I am on a daily basis.

The absolute best thing I can do to counter the hate of Westboro in Joplin is to support the work of the community there that is already laboring to share the love of Christ and his Church for all people, beloved creations of the Creator.

So, I’m not going to jump in my car.

I’m going to love my neighbors and strangers and Church and family right here in Little Rock.

And I’m going to take the money I would have spent on traveling up to Joplin and send it to SOC MCC so they can continue to spread love and grace to families who are hurting, and who will be rebuilding long after I would have returned home. I’m going to support their efforts as a means of comforting Pastor Steve’s congregation with the comfort I received from them, so that they can in turn comfort their community. And I know that Steve’s comfort and hospitality came first from the Creator, whose grace toward us is not in vain, but continues to flow as we allow our lives to pour into one another.

If you would like to join me in showing support, you can like Spirit of Christ’s Facebook page and find many ways to donate to SOC MCC and the community of Joplin.

Peace to you...

2011-05-14T09:29:00.002-05:00

I decided to resurrect another unpublished essay, inspired by recent post by Jeremy Myers and Jules Kennedy. They were apparently contributing to a synchroblog on Life Unfurling, and I look forward to reading the other entries. This was originally read to my R Street Community Church family in early 2010, and is particularly meaningful to me as I feel I am entering a new season of hope and joy.

As we moved into July, I was already suffering a severe bout of atheism.

I generally teeter at the strange intersection of devoutness and agnosticism as is, but occasionally I have these spells where the whole road disappears and it seems there’s no map to lead me back. Sometimes it’s circumstantial, but often it just happens - like that ride at the fair, where the floor drops out and you’re left stuck to the wall, spinning wildly and fighting to keep your stomach where it belongs. Once I’m grounded again, and have a chance to let my body dispel all of the bile that has built up inside, things tend to return to normal, but in the process I fight tooth and nail to keep myself from throwing up – preferring the stability of queasiness to uncontrollable regurgitation.

I can trace a winding history through my life of fidelity fraught with suspicion, with the lengthiest detours trailing after disillusionment with or dissolution from a congregation. The church is what drew me into faith, and it is often what repels me.

I suppose our connections with the Creator would be a whole lot easier if it weren’t for the creation and our own propensity to create: autonomous beings, flaming hoops to jump through, illusions… you name it.

Questions creep into my soul at random times, but particularly during times of transition when my world is unsteady and my vision disoriented.

That was certainly the case at the end of June as I was in the process of an unexpected and awkward moving situation, out of community and back in with my parents. As grateful as I was for the opportunity to move back home and pay off debts, I was also dealing with the pain of a broken commitment and a sudden uprooting.

In the midst of a weekend of packing and moving, I received an email from a friend at my former congregation inviting me to share my story about why I left, and hoping to restore our relationship which had fallen by the wayside. Knowing I could not handle the emotions of moving and the emotions of that conversation simultaneously, I thanked her for the invitation and asked if we could hold off until I was settled.

Regardless of the stay of execution, all the old frustrations and hurt and questions started swirling in my head as it discussed with my heart what exactly I should share and how exactly I should share it. And then, as if trailing the feelings of betrayal like a kite string, the underlying questions began to surface:

What makes our myths any more significant than those others believe?

How can we hold so tightly to some verses, and so loosely to others?

Why did God have to put that tree in the garden, anyway?

The week that followed my move was a haphazard attempt to maintain normalcy while living out of boxes. On Thursday, the 2nd, I published my contribution to the current “death of church” debate and, despite my internal belief struggles, declared the church alive and kicking (though we may not recognize her new look). That evening I knocked off work early to do a final cleaning at the house I had moved out of before joining friends for a book discussion on Intentional Community. By Friday, I was physically and emotionally exhausted and looking forward to spending the Independence Day weekend unpacking boxes and settling into my new space.

Saturday, July 4th, had been a rather productive day of clearing clutter – in my room and in my mind. By late afternoon I had hit a wall and, after a short nap, I knew that my resolve had vanished. I decided to rest and work on my Sunday School lesson for the next day. The curriculum called for teaching the children about important jobs in the church – you know: secretaries to type the bulletins, greeters to hand them out, custodians to pick them up…

This lesson was screaming for a rewrite.

I needed to capture the essence of the Church for them. What does it mean that someone comes early to brew coffee and prepare communion, to edit PowerPoint slides, to sit and talk with a person they haven’t seen in months?

What is it about this entity called the Church that has the power to hold my faith together despite my doubts and disappointments?

How do I distill that into child-size portions?

Lauren Winner talks about liturgy and common prayer being a means for the Holy Spirit to groan on our behalf, when we can not believe or praise or even groan on our own. It’s the connection with the larger body of Christ, in much the same way of worshipping in song or sharing a common pew.

Being present,

In this space,

Together –

We participate in holding each other’s faith intact.

That night, we received a phone call.

My younger cousin had been killed by a bolt of lightning while enjoying an Independence Day celebration with his family.

His wife was severely injured and unresponsive.

Their four children, witnesses to the event, likely orphaned.

I was spent.

It didn’t matter the lesson I had planned to teach, all I could do was receive. I told myself to get up and get to the church –

To get to those people who would worship and believe on my behalf as I stood in the midst of them, bewildered and lost.

Thanks to the holiday, there were far too few children present to warrant a class. Instead I had a friend pray over me the words neither of us knew to speak. I stood among the people I would trust to keep the faith as my own began to crumble. And I gave myself permission to grieve… for my cousin, for my stress, for my doubts and my fears.

I grieved the lack of control we have over our lives or anyone else’s.

I grieved the existence of unexplainable tragedies.

I grieved questions that will never be answered in this world.

I grieved the presence of a tree that stood in the midst of a garden.

I grieved.

And the month became a blur of telling the story and becoming able to cry less with each retelling, of waiting on funeral and travel plans, and finally of a bittersweet week of spending time with family as we laid a family member to rest.

In a week, I have a dear friend arriving in town, and I wrote to inform him that I’m declaring this summer a wash. I know enough not to hope for a do-over, so I am simply acknowledging the season as what it has been, and setting my sights to move forward.

Interestingly, that same friend had written a story recently about a girl he encountered who use to be a Christian, and seemed genuinely saddened by the loss of her faith. He wrote how he longed to speak peace over her, and in the process spoke peace over my bruised soul. He wrote:

In the speaking of peace over someone, we are not describing reality as it is. We are speaking of how it should be. There is simultaneous acknowledgement of the desperate brokenness of a situation, the hope of healing, and our utter powerlessness to bring it about alone. But in speaking peace over someone, we are also saying, “Don’t be afraid. You don’t have to do it alone,” and it is powerful.

This body, the Church, spoke peace over me when there were no other words to speak.

You spoke peace not only over the death of my cousin and my grief, which was seen, but over my faith struggles, which were unseen.

As we shared the bread and the wine,

This time and space,

You held my faith intact with remnants of your own.

This is why Christ formed his Church, and this is why I defend such a beloved community.

Jolie Holland has a lyric that says, “What burns up is torn away, and what remains is a beautiful promise.”

Bulletins burn up.

I don’t care to teach our children their importance.

But the Church,

This body,

The relationships,

The community

Is what remains.

It is a beautiful promise.

It is a speaking of peace.

Peace to you.

The witch may be dead, but her sister is worse…

2011-05-02T08:41:00.001-05:00

I can not rejoice at the news of Osama bin Laden’s death.

I can not rejoice, because I make it a practice not to rejoice at anyone’s death.

I did not rejoice the morning I watched the towers fall, the planes crash, the lives lost.

I did not rejoice as I’ve watched countless soldiers and civilians lose their lives in the years that followed.

I did not rejoice as I’ve watched families torn apart through war, as loved ones were killed, or soldiers returned completely changed.

I do not rejoice in watching friends blame Bush for the financial crisis and give Obama credit for capturing bin Laden.

I do not rejoice in watching friends blame Obama for the financial crisis and give Bush credit for capturing bin Laden.

I’m currently reading the novel version of the recent Red Riding Hood movie (it’s a lot better than that sounds), and I was captured by one of the characters, a young boy named Claude who recites a rhyme:

There was a boy, his name was Claude, different and alone, but close to God.

The town in the novel has been haunted for years by a terrorist, a werewolf, and they live in a constant state of fear, anxiety, and appeasement.

During one scene, the werewolf has entered the village. Claude, who carries a stack of homemade tarot cards which he has dropped in the horror and confusion, is scurrying to gather the scattered cards:

He had to get up, he knew, but he also knew that if he left even one card, that wrongness would grow like a fungus until it engulfed the whole world.

When he stops and takes in the reality of the unfolding scene, he breaks down :

And it came over him, there on all fours like a dog, that he could never stem the flooding darkness; his life was infinitesimally small, and no matter what he did, the bright card deck of life would always be scattered and ground into the dirt of this suffering world.

Later, as the town is conducting a witch trial, one of the citizens observes:

The villagers were never so united as when they were banded against someone.

This is what life feels like to me.

We do not live our lives in a way to be peace makers, we live them in a way to have our desires met.

Through that way of living, we alienate each other, we despise each other, we make war with each other.

And

It

Will

Never

End.

Cut of the head, another one grows.

We are called to live into a new kingdom, but we waste our time trying to bring artificial stability and security to the one we know.

The new kingdom isn’t like our kingdom, however, and it doesn’t play by our rules:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God - this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will. For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12)

Holy Saturday

2011-04-23T07:45:00.002-05:00

This is a piece I shared with Eikon Church last Easter but I never posted here. It was part of a three-part series, so it doesn't exactly have closure, but isn't that what Holy Saturday is all about?

When I was little I had fairly simple expectations for my life.

I wanted to be one of two things when I grew up:

Dolly Parton or Madonna.

I think my mother preferred Dolly’s brand of trashiness, but she indulged my Material Girl obsession nonetheless.

But it wasn’t long before the simplicity wore off, & through a series of broken homes, broken lives, broken promises and broken expectations I came to no longer expect much from life.

And then I started high school.

Three years of my life that completely changed the expectations I had spent 15 years developing.

Three years it has taken me 15 years to unpack, understand and unravel.

When I started high school, some friends invited me to church.

I prayed during a youth rally, checked a box, and walked the aisle the next morning after a few stanzas of “Just as I Am” to let the church know about my decision to follow Christ.

For three years I attended Sunday School, morning service, youth choir, evening service and youth group after-parties. Monday nights were for community visitation and Wednesday nights were youth-group (SWAT: Spiritual Warfare and Training). There were retreats, and camps and conferences and mission trips. And, of course, the essential task of starting a Christian club on campus so that we could assert our right to exclusively assemble.

What seems so foreign to me now was quite formational.

When I left for my Christian college, I had renewed expectations for my life:

The girls I had formed a deep bond of friendship with? We would always be friends, and always hold the same values in common.

I had surrendered to Christian Service (girls couldn’t surrender to the ministry), and would no doubt fall in love, marry a youth minister, go to seminary with him, and spend my days discipling teenagers & raising 4 or 5 kids.

I expected following Christ would continue to look exactly as it had those three years of high school, only with increased dedication. I would become even better at living my life by the expectations laid out in the Bible, and those expectations would always be clear.

Released from the safe cocoon of my religious adolescence, I began to fulfill my youth minister’s worst fears.

I started observing the Christian culture.

I started asking questions.

I started forming ideas.

My expectations for my college experience and where it would lead were slowly being chipped away.

On a campus overrun with high spiritual achievers, I never found my place as a ministry leader, and didn’t know how to find my identity apart from that.

I quickly lost interest in the pageant of getting dressed up on Sunday morning to attend one of a 1000 different churches in our little town, and opted for the ultimate blasphemy of entering the cafeteria in pajamas on a Sunday afternoon.

My understanding of God and Christianity and the world in general was expanded and reshaped and occasionally turned on its head, and I had a hard time making it all fit within the worldview that had been so carefully crafted during my three-year intensive training.

I spent a summer in the Delta, and experienced a town where racism ran rampant, and the Church perpetuated it, while those who had rejected or been rejected by religion were the ones making a true difference.

And I graduated with no intention whatsoever of stepping foot in a seminary.

I returned to Little Rock, to the church that had raised me in my faith, but I no longer fit.

And I was introduced to a new congregation, which embodied so much of what I felt the Lord had been teaching me.

After prying my fingers lose from the security of my home church, I dug my nails into this new one and served with my whole heart.

But after years of serving there, I became aware of things that weren’t quite right, and when attempts to address it only made matters worse, I made the heartbreaking decision to walk away.

I looked around, and I was lost.

I couldn’t bring myself to enter a church, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to.

So I wandered around in the desert for a bit.

When I returned, it was to a new community of believers & a renewed relationship with God.

Renewed – but different.

More open to questions, on both of our parts.

Less dependent on the expectations of others.

Definitely not where I would have imagined myself during the three years of high school.

And I would not trade where I am, for the fulfilled expectations of that young believer.

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

Easter is about expectations.

Easter is about expectations being turned inside out, and about the final picture looking nothing like we could have imagined.

See, the Israelites had certain expectations about their Messiah.

They expected that he would rule in a way that restored them to a place of power as a chosen nation, that he would obliterate their enemies and that they would rule.

The disciples had expectations for Jesus. To them, he was more than Messiah, he was friend. In a few short years, the disciples had built up an expectation that they would be serving alongside their friend in his royal court as he rose up to rule the kingdom of God.

When he was beaten and mocked and murdered, any expectations they had were shattered:

That he would overthrow the Empire.

That their lives would change for the better.

That he was telling the truth, and wasn’t just another fraud.

After the cross, they went back to fishing, to collecting taxes, to being ordinary citizens of an oppressive empire.

A little less trusting.

A lot less hopeful.

But they weren’t the only ones with expectations.

In the beginning, God created mankind. And they walked together. And he told them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, and enjoy it, and care for it. And God didn’t even have to ask them to enjoy their relationship with him, because that was a given.

But that relationship changed.

And things got worse.

And he started over.

After the Flood, when Noah and his family left the Ark, God told them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, and enjoy it, and care for it. And God promised never again to do a complete revision, though he reserved the right to make edits.

But people began to seek their own security.

Rather than seek God.

And he decided to shift the plot.

God made a covenant with Abraham, and promised to make him fruitful, a great nation that would be blessed, so that they could be a blessing to the rest of the earth. And they became such a numerous people, that they were seen as a threat to the power of Pharaoh.

So the people were made slaves.

Oppressed.

Hopeless.

And God spoke to Moses, and commanded him to lead the Israelites out of their captivity in Egypt, and promised to help him and teach him and guide him through the process of liberation.

But the Israelites didn’t find the desert to be very liberating.

So the Lord reminded them that he created them.

That he knew the best way for them to live.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.”

And life went on.

Through prophets, priests and kings.

Through wars and oppression.

Through riches and rags.

Until they weren’t feeling quite blessed.

Until they didn’t feel much like being a blessing.

Until they were just waiting, for a Messiah, to bring them out from under the Roman Empire.

But God challenged their expectations.

Through Jesus, God lived and walked among his people, and demonstrated what it means to be a blessing, what it means to live the kingdom, what it means to be his people, and allow him to be their God, what it means to love God with our whole heart, to love ourselves as part of his creation, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

He fascinated them.

He confused them.

He made them ask questions.

He turned their expectations upside down.

And then he died.

All in an effort that his expectations for his people, his creation, this world, would be fulfilled.

Why does it matter?

2011-03-16T11:28:00.002-05:00

Why does it matter what we do here on earth if we all go to heaven?
Why does it matter what we do here on earth if heaven & hell are predestined?
Why does it matter what we do here on earth if God will give us a final chance to choose heaven?
Why does it matter what we do here on earth if we can earn our way into heaven, but we will all fall short of being able to do that?

If Jesus is the way,
If Jesus is the truth,
If Jesus is the life,
If Jesus is the Word that was and is and is to come

What we do here on earth matters because we are called into the way Jesus taught right here on earth, as it is in heaven.

What we do here on earth matters because we were created to love God and love one another, right here on earth, as it is in heaven.

What we do here on earth matters because we were created.

We were created to live on earth.

We were created to live.

We were created to live and move and have our being within:

The Word that was with God in the beginning

The Word that became flesh and walked among us

The Word that invites us to abide and bear fruit

The Word that washed the feet of his disciples

The Word that was raised up on the cross

The Word that defeated sin and death

The Word that was resurrected

The Word that holds out redemption

The Word that is returning

The Word that was and is and is to come

What does it matter what we do here on earth?

It matters because, in the beginning God created the heavens AND the earth.

Farwell Madeleine L'Engle.

2011-03-10T12:58:00.001-06:00

From The Irrational Season:

My young friend who was taught that she was so sinful the only way an angry God could be persuaded to forgive her was by Jesus dying for her, was also taught that part of the joy of the blessed in heaven is watching the torture of the damned in hell. A strange idea of joy. But it is a belief limited not only to the more rigid sects. I know a number of highly sensitive and intelligent people in my own communion who consider as a heresy my faith that God’s loving concern for his creation will outlast all our willfulness and pride. No matter how many eons it takes, he will not rest until all of creation, including Satan, is reconciled to him, until there is no creature who cannot return his look of love with a joyful response of love.

Origen held this belief and was ultimately pronounced a heretic. Gregory of Nyssa, affirming the same loving God, was made a saint. Some people feel it to be heresy because it appears to deny man his freedom to refuse to love God. But this, it seems to me, denies God his freedom to go on loving us beyond all our willfulness and pride. If the Word of God is the light of the world, and this light cannot be put out, ultimately it will brighten all the dark corners of our hearts and we will be able to see, and seeing, will be given the grace to respond with love – and of our own free will.

The Church has always taught that we must pay for our sins, that we shall be judged and punished according to our sinfulness. But I cannot believe that God wants punishment to go on interminably any more than does a loving parent. The entire purpose of loving punishment is to teach, and it lasts only as long as is needed for the lesson. And the lesson is always love.

It may take more years than we can count before Nero – for instance – has learned enough love to be able to look with joy into the loving eyes of a Christ who enfleshed himself for a time on earth as a Jew, but Nero’s punishments, no matter how terrible they may be, are lessons in love, and that love is greater than all his sick hate.

We will be quicker to respond with love, under judgment, if we have learned to respond with love, now. Every response of love gives us a glimpse on earth of the Kingdom of Heaven, that brilliant Easter which is born from the dark womb of Good Friday. We cannot repress or deny the darkness, the sinister and mysterious side of love. Without it, Easter, too, is only a fragment of a whole.

On every occasion when we are enabled to do the Lord’s will, now, here on earth, we know the Kingdom. I knew it, for instance, during the week of my parents-in-law’s golden anniversary. I know it when I am smiled at by the dour man unloading groceries on Broadway. I know it when I cook dinner for family and friends, and we are gathered around the table, extraordinary unity in diversity, and are given a foretaste of the Heavenly Banquet, and glimpse the meaning of the cross which leads to life. Then we understand the total failure of God which showed itself by a love so deep that he does indeed die with us and for us and our sins. This dying for us is part of what my young friend was taught, but the next step is left out by her teachers: this dying is something we all must experience; we all die for each other, for if we are children of God, nothing can be left out. When the gates of hell are trampled down, they suddenly become the welcoming door to heaven.

What a good day is this Friday. There is no coming to birth without pain, and out of the pain of this day we are born into the new life of Easter.

~ shrovetide ~

2011-03-08T07:09:00.002-06:00

Indulge me, if you will.

See, I am fully aware that this blog is in disarray.

There are old, messy links. The “About Me” section probably hasn’t been updated since I started writing here in 2004. There is no cohesiveness, or even a steady stream of disconnected posts.

I have had all the best intentions.

For the last two years, I have made grand plans to start fresh rounds of posting in conjunction with Advent, the start of the liturgical year, and the ideas will just naturally flow from brain to fingertips to keyboard. But the season of waiting, of hoping and anticipating becomes just another season of procrastinating.

I really like the following description of the observance of Shrovetide:

The Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday are known as "Shrovetide," from an old English word "shrive," meaning "to confess," a name gotten from the tradition of going to Confession in the days before Lent started. Shrovetide is traditionally the time for "spring cleaning," and just as we clean our houses in these days in preparation for Lent, we also "clean our souls" through confession so we can enter the penitential season fresh.

Ah, spring cleaning.

That ever elusive event in our lives that finds us suddenly productive and determined, wiping away the clutter and messiness from the winter of our discontent, and leaving behind an organized space filled with comfort and margin. Spring cleaning brings with it the promises of starting fresh, and the misplaced belief that somehow all interruptions, all disorder, all concerns will be warded off, we will no longer be stretched or buried or wrung out, there will be no unnecessary demands on our time and space.

And then we have a busy, frantic day, or the allergens that accompany the changing of the seasons get the better of us, or we are asked to drop our priorities for the greater needs of the ones we love. Life interferes with our blessed content.

But maybe life doesn’t interfere, after all.

Perhaps life intervenes.

Life grabs us by the shoulders, looks us square in the eyes and says, “Look. I’m not going away. And I am never going to be neat and tidy and run according to your schedule. You can’t get rid of me, so you best learn to deal with me.”

Writing, for me, is a spiritual discipline.

It is how I process my questions, my doubts, my beliefs and my joy.

And writing publicly, in community, helps me to grow through sharing and sharpening.

This blog is a home for me. I’ve lived here for around seven years, and there is history and change and growth in the bricks and mortar of each post. But it is messy and cluttered and a bit disoriented.

So, I’m starting a new blog.

Hold up, wait a minute!

Isn’t that a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater? My house is messy so I’ll just have it condemned and invest in a new one? One that’s clean, and empty, and will somehow magically stay that way?!

Settle down, settle down…

I never said I’m getting rid of this blog. I need this blog. This blog is my cyber-home.

But everyone needs a sacred space, whether it’s a prayer closet, an altar by a window, a reading chair, or the cold, hard bathroom floor, we need a place to pause, and breathe, and commune with the Spirit.

My new blog will be my sacred space on the web. And, no, it is not perfect. I’m still playing around with the format, and the links and the looks. It will never be perfect, exactly the way I want it to be. But it is enough, and it is a start.

My hope is that it will be a sacred space for others, as well. And that what is produced there, through the discipline of writing about discipline, will not only inform my faith, but also my writing in this and other spaces.

Y’all come on over and join me.

It Ain't Me, Babe.

2011-03-05T09:15:00.002-06:00

A woman takes responsibility in the Church, and the Church becomes feminized.

A woman takes responsibility for her child, and the woman is demonized.

Meanwhile, the man stands idly by,

"That woman you gave me - it's all her fault."

Amazing, that a religion that offers women little power, assigns them highest blame.

Thank God for Christ.

May those of us who follow Christ, work on our own lack of love and sacrifice.

May we practice loving, serving, putting the needs of others before our own.

May we lead by example, as we follow the example set for us by the Word Made Flesh.

MWF

2011-02-13T13:38:00.004-06:00

It's going to be a good week.

The snow and ice has gone away and left us with a week full of sunny 60's.

Monday?

My favorite holiday.

That's right.

I'm am not one of those anti-valentines haters. A holiday focused on love and hearts and pink and red? Bring it on.

Wednesday?

Monkhouse at The White Water Tavern.

With a very valentines-y theme: All You Need is Gloves!

Fun times, fun friends, great music, good beer.

Friday?

Watch out world, it's a second night at White Water for the one-and-only Amy Garland.

Glory be.

(Oh, and it's a 3 day weekend! See? Presidents ARE good for something...)

~ snow day treats ~

2011-02-09T11:24:00.004-06:00

I won't call this the perfect recipe, but it was delish in a pinch!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Scones
2 cups flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup Peanut Butter & Co.'s Dark Chocolate Dreams Peanut Butter
1/3 cup very cold butter stick
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder & salt in bowl.

Measure out peanut butter on top of dry ingredients.

Cut up butter stick into small squares & drop on top of dry ingredients.

Cut peanut butter & butter into dry ingredients (I just use my bare hands) until the mix has a sandy consistency.

Mix in egg & milk until doughy.

Sprinkle counter with flour & brown sugar.

Form half of the dough into a ball and press out into a thick round on the flour/sugar surface (lightly coat top of round with flour/sugar, as well).

Cut into 6 triangles (pizza style).

Repeat for second half of dough.

Place 12 triangles on baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake for 15 minutes & cool before serving.

for the Bible tells me so...

2011-01-29T08:31:00.002-06:00

(originally written in 2009 – see yesterday’s post for explanation. *warning* much of this post may sound like incoherent rambling, which is probably why I never published it to the blog, but I figured if I still get what I was trying to say a year and a half later, maybe you will, too. Perhaps I'll more fully flesh these ideas out in a future post, but for now I'll just let my ranting stand alone.)

I want to ask a favor.

I’m even willing to give a concession:

I’ll wear heels and pearls if you’ll till the land.

Allow me to explain…

One of the hardest things for me to stomach is the degradation of my brothers who are loving and serving other people. Maybe they’re serving their wives, maybe the poor, maybe complete strangers, but they are out there loving and serving and showing mercy. These guys are parenting their children, loving their wives, serving their communities, and trying to figure out what the Body of Christ looks like in practice. They are caring for the earth, for the oppressed, for the orphan and the widow and the alien and the stranger.

And what do they get in return?

They get called weak.

They get called feminine (as if that’s a curse word).

Rachel Held Evans and Michael Spencer have both hosted conversations on Mark Driscoll recently, and it just got all of my frustrations stirred up again.

If we’re going to cling to how women were treated in Biblical times, I would at the very least like to make a plea: if you’re going to overlook the raping of women, can you please not overlook the raping of the land? Don’t pick and choose which traditional beliefs and practices you are going to insist upon, have enough cojones to be consistent. Don’t insist that by the sheer power of your dual status of “male” and “chosen” that you can misuse and abuse anything that comes between you and your desires.

If we’re going to say “This is the way male/female relationships existed back then, therefore it is the way they should continue to exist today,” then let’s not limit your justification to principles that provide you with power. Let’s go ahead and cease with the operations and medications that unnaturally preserve life. While we’re at it, you should really cease all online communication, whether it be blogging or social networking, seeing as it is not the natural form of communication we were designed to use. And what’s with all this Democracy and Capitalism crap? Progress be damned.

You see, I know lots of guys who are secure enough in their manhood to be sensitive, and women who are secure enough in their womanhood to be strong. They know that things like sensitivity and strength are not gender specific, and they refuse to be defined by categories rather than Christ.

On second thought, screw the heels and I’ll till alongside you.

What if we sell that new John Deere
And then we’ll work these crops with sweat and tears
You’ll be the mule, I’ll be the plow
Come harvest time we’ll work it out
There’s still a lotta love, here in these troubled fields
~ Nanci Griffith

~ fresh air ~

2011-01-28T09:21:00.001-06:00

Tuesday evening I finished the last 25 pages of Stephen King’s Under the Dome.

Since I usually try to balance my fiction and non-fiction reading, and seeing as I had recently started the long, arduous project of cleaning off my writing desk (not so much writing going on these days, as evidenced by this blog), I looked over the stack of books I had recently uncovered to select my next victim.

My eyes landed on Tom Sine’s The New Conspirators, a book that was both inspiring and impactful, but I noticed something strange.

There was a pen stuck in some pages near the back.

The pages preceding the pen were joyfully cluttered with underlines and stars and notes in the margins.

The pages following the oblong bookmark had lots of white space and were woefully neglected.

With less than one hundred pages left to read, I had tossed the book aside for reasons long forgotten, and now the abandoned paperback was beckoning me to turn back its pages, review what I had learn, and finish the process I had started almost two years ago.

Tucked into the front cover, and folded to one-sixth its size, I found a rejected blog post, as well. Reading over it, I can only imagine I never posted it because I wanted to add to it, expound on some thoughts, dig deeper into what I was trying to say.

I don’t fancy myself to be a perfectionist, but how else can I explain that part of my being that keeps me procrastinating, keeps me from trying, keeps me from writing until something is just right. It is not a constant burden, or else I would have never started an online journal nearly seven years ago. Obviously stuff gets written and stuff gets posted (and it is never perfect or complete), but plenty of thoughts get tossed by the wayside. Perhaps it’s the way my hormones are mixing that day or the degree to which the sun failed to shine, but some days are diamonds and some essays are coal.

In an effort to make it look like I’m actually breathing new life into my blog, I’ll post the 2009 essay tomorrow. I’ll continue the process of cleaning and organizing my desk, in hopes that it will motivate me to listen deeper and write clearer.

If you’re still reading my scattered posts,

I thank you kindly

and invite you to continue to visit

and comment

and share.

~ extemporaneous ~

2010-11-15T21:28:00.003-06:00

Mike Morrell posted a link to storypraxis this morning on Facebook, which gave me a burst of inspiration during my morning coffee. Not only did the daily writing prompt (that one green thing) help me produce a short bit o' fiction, it also got Edie Brickell stuck in my head all day long. So, I give you both:

The green tablecloth always signaled a magical morning.

Green meant Mama’s spirits were high and she’d set her cares aside for a bit. Green meant fried biscuits with Johnnie Fair syrup, and dancing out back in the sunshine. On the rare occasions the table was draped in the emerald spread, the center vase would be stuffed to overflowing with sprays of yellow wildflowers, as if the sunlight couldn’t wait for us to venture outdoors and had invited itself in to our celebratory banquet.

I always knew it was a Green day before I opened my eyes.

Any normal morning and I would have tiptoed out of bed without flipping on a light, careful not to disturb Mama sleeping on the sofa. I would have pulled on my school clothes, brushed my teeth, washed my face, combed my hair back into a ponytail, slipped into my jacket and slid out the carport door. We lived far enough from my school to make it a long walk, but not far enough for me to qualify for transportation, so I made sure to leave in plenty of time to catch free breakfast and get out to the playground before the other kids started piling off their buses.

Green mornings were all together different.

I would awake to footsteps in the kitchen, fresh brewed coffee wafting down the hall, and gentle light streaming through the gap under the bedroom door. I tumbled out of bed in my pajamas. No need to dress for school; there would be no school on a green day. Tomorrow morning Mama would be passed out on the sofa, and I would scribble an excuse note in her handwriting to turn into the office. That was no matter today. Today was all about her and me and beauty and joy while it was to be had.

Mama and I perched side by side on lounge chairs, letting the red polish bake onto our toenails as we listened to Juice Newton on the stereo through the screen door. I only know that when I'm with you, you're my sunshine, you're my rain. The sweetest thing I've ever known is loving you. There was comfort in the warmth of the sun on my eyelids and Mama’s arm close to mine, and I wanted to sit with her on that patio forever. Me and my mama and God’s brilliant light.

As the day wore on, all too quickly in my estimation, our carnival of two would travel through the town and down to diner where Mama sometimes waitressed, and we’d eat pie while all the other staff and regulars would fawn over how much I looked like my mother. They’d tell me stories about how wonderful Mama was, and stories about funny things she sometimes said. Some of their tales would get cut short by a shake of the head and Mama’s stern glare. Those were the stories I most wanted to hear.

Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me. Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee. Even as Mama’s sweet voice lulled me to sleep, I felt a pitiful sadness welling up inside my soul. I pretended to drift into restfulness, disguising the anxious thoughts busying themselves in my mind, assuring a restless night. I listened as her hand stopped caressing my hair, as she lifted herself from the edge of my bed and softly closed my door behind her. I listened to the sound of hangers scraping against the closet rod, as she selected her outfit and brushed her hair and applied her lipstick and sprayed her perfume. Then I listened as she walked out of the house and down to the street, as she greeted a stranger and closed his car door behind her.

Tomorrow,clearly, would be a blue day.

~ pregnant pause ~

2010-11-01T13:26:00.003-05:00

timing

is everything

at least

that’s what she said

be still

and know

and watch

and wonder

patience, my dear

it’s virtuous

long I stood

and listened

for an answer

that was

but was not yet

WAIT

how long, oh lord?

DWELL

which way, oh lord?

TRUST

show me, oh lord.

the rhythm of the seasons

returning again

to the place of anticipation

anxiousness

hesitation

hope

the story begins anew

breath of life enshrined

in bone of my bone

flesh of my flesh

bursting forth in marvelous light

to guide

through the passions

of ordinary time

~ KMR

a question on law & empire

2010-09-01T06:41:00.003-05:00

The morning shower is a dangerous place to think.

But as I wrestled with this line of thought, I knew I had to throw it out into community to see what others have read or considered, and I knew it was too weighty for a status update or a tweet, so here I am breathing life back into my blog.

Of course, this post will link over to Facebook eventually, and I expect most if any responses will be left there, but you get the picture.

Quite simply, my question is this:
Was the inability of the Israelites to build an empire similar to the inability to keep the law of our own efforts? Was it an object lesson in the grand cosmic scheme? And if so, is the fact that we are called to operate out of the power of the Spirit's working in our lives, is our ability to interact with the wide world, to draw them to the God we serve, necessarily coming from that same place of Spirit empowerment rather than our own power (some trust in chariots...), a place of love of neighbor and enemy, a place of quiet trust, rather than a place of control & conquer?

I wrestle with this God who called his people to ransack villages and murder their inhabitants. But this is the same God who laid out for his people a specific and complicated list of laws, knowing they would be unable to keep them. And he is a God who has revealed himself as a God of mercy and forgiveness. A God who calls us to love and sacrifice, to lay down our own lives.

Maybe the Israelites misunderstood God's instructions?

Or maybe Jesus left out the part about how we are supposed to overcome through war?

Or maybe, the failure of war and conquering to bring the Israelites into being God's people was setting the stage for Jesus to show us the higher way, the way of trusting in the Spirit's power and not pursuing our own? The way in which he reveals his glory to the world, we don't force it upon them so that they turn away?

I should probably go eat breakfast now...

Bluegrass, Red Lipstick and a Yellow Truck

2010-07-06T23:03:00.002-05:00

“It’s gonna be so grand; It’s gonna be just like my wedding day.”
~ Rosie Thomas

I swallowed a novel over the holiday weekend, and I’m slowly digesting all that I read.

I read without a pen, which means when something hit me hard, I just left it there, no underline, lost amidst the rest of the words as I continued on with the story.

I wrapped myself in mama’s shawl and walked outside and stood on the porch, and it was then I saw tree – a large oak standing directly across from the house. There on the trunk, scratched into the wood, it said “You are loved.”

A story grounded in Appalachia, I found my mind drifting off into the songs of Gillian Welch, Steve Earle, Victoria Williams, Woody Guthrie, Iris Dement and even Jakob Dylan’s latest offering. To be fair (despite my title), the novel’s setting predates bluegrass, but it is the soil from which the music emerged.

As I read, I wafted within the tension of rootedness and restlessness, salvation and ruination, presumption and comprehension.

It was not a gripping tale,

not a page turner,

or an instant classic.

Yet I found myself unable to put the book down, needing to find out how the main character’s tangle of longings was going to get resolved, and what that would mean for the supporting cast.

“My point,” said Daddy Hoyt, “is that you should know yourself before you pretend to know someone else. You have to be careful when you’re labeling folks, saying he’s this she’s this, and deciding to send people away based on something you say they are. Because you just might be that same thing. Who are you to make the rules? To play God? Who’s to say where to draw the line?”

I’m not sure how I feel about the resolution, though you knew it was coming from the beginning.

I blame the fact that I’m knee-deep in finishing Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove’s The Wisdom of Stability. Otherwise, I’m sure I would have been the first to say good riddance. But I found myself in the messy inbetween that empathized with both the need to live out there, and the need to cling to a people and a place. Whether they stayed or whether they left, quite few of the characters were practicing stability in their hearts.

While I think Velva Jean Learns to Drive most deserves to be read in the Fall (I would avoid the dark depths of winter, and springtime would make an odd fit), it is a heavy yet breezy novel that will both inspire and convict. I recommend reading it on a porch, with some sweet tea, or perhaps a bowl of cornbread and milk. Let it rest on your tongue for awhile, and pick it back up in autumn to see if the flavors have settled in any richer.

Janette Lowe was saved on a Sunday in the middle of May. She was born again in the waters of Panther Creek. One minute Harley was talking, not even trying to save anyone – he hadn’t even got up to steam yet, hadn’t even hit his stride. The next minute, Janette went tearing out of the church and was dancing up and down the banks of the stream. She passed over quicker than anyone I’d ever seen, dancing in the Spirit, with love and joy and a fire so pure and wild it could make a doubter believe. “Just like her mama,” Sister Dearborn said. We all stood watching her, especially Harley, who I could tell by the look on his face was wondering what went wrong.

Janette Lowe danced by me and suddenly I wanted to join her. I thought how silly it was that we just stood staring at her while she rejoiced, like she was something to be watched, like a carnival show. I wanted to rejoice along with her. For the first time, Janette Lowe didn’t seem worried about how dirty she was or how poor she looked. She didn’t seem to care who watched her dance.

As she spun by me, she brushed my arm and I grabbed her hand. She looked surprised and then she took hold of my other hand and together we started dancing. I heard Harley call, “Velva Jean.” I caught a glimpse of his frowning face as we spun around and around in happy circles – dizzy, laughing, spinning madly. We laughed and yelled and jumped up and down, and I started to sing. We splashed through the creek and back up on land and our feet moved up and down and didn’t rest.

On the way home, Harley said, “The two of you looked like fools.”

I said, “Only to you maybe, but not to the Lord.”

“To me and the rest of the congregation,” Harley said. “I didn’t even save that girl. How did she know she was saved?”

I said, “When you’re saved, you know it. You don’t need anyone to tell you.” I thought Harley was being awfully possessive of Jesus these days, just because Jesus had given him a church.

(Image Attribution)

what turning 34 looks like...

2010-04-26T09:40:00.002-05:00

This morning, I ran an errand for my boss, returning her son’s tuxedo from a weekend prom.

As I was leaving the tuxedo shop, I paused to hold the door open for a man who was fumbling to get his tux out of the car.

He shut his car door, looked up to notice me holding the door, sighed gratefully and offered, “Thank you, young lady.”

I grinned.

He walked toward the door, garment bag draped over his right arm.

As he took the door from my control, he smiled and said “I appreciate you, miss.”

The silver highlights and strategically placed laugh lines are a bit more visible up close, I suppose.

Still, I appreciated the misappropriated “young lady.”

And, even after the compliment changed to “miss,” he had to take another glance.

Green is my signature color, after all…

(Image Attribution)

~ spring sprang sprung ~

2010-04-08T14:37:00.003-05:00

Home
from She & Him's Volume Two

California is a great big nation of one
They never knew what they wanted
‘til it was already gone
What do they do with the light in the morning
when they wake up alone?
They just go home
They just go home

You’re the nicest, nicest boy I’ve ever met
and then
I think about you then I think about you again
And again
Why don’t we just sit and stare and do nothing?
Nothing at all for a while
I like the way you smile

I could be your state and I could be your nation
It doesn’t get better than home, now does it?
Doesn’t get better than home, now does it?

I could be your welcome, I could be your greeter

I could be sweet and I could be sweeter
I want to be where your heart is home

I want to see you with the light in the morning
There’s never been such a beautiful warning to me, to me

Why don’t we just sit and stare and do nothing?
Nothing at all for a while, I like the way you smile

I could be your state and I could be your nation
It doesn’t get better than home, now does it?
Doesn’t get better than home, now does it?

I could be your welcome, I could be your greeter
I could be sweet and I could be sweeter
I want to be where your heart is home

I want to be where your heart is home...

(Image Attribution)

~ moving toward ~

2010-02-24T10:28:00.002-06:00

intriguing

how a person can be

present

in the exact same spot

and yet

feel completely different

simply

because of the direction

they are moving

TOWARD

strong

confident

energized

hopeful

STUCK

weak

anxious

weary

discouraged

AWAY

exhausted

fearful

spent

despondent

do feelings

choose a person’s direction

or

is it in testing a step

in choosing a direction

that emotions

reactions

interactions

are altered

a course

is changed

and

with each step

TOWARD

a life regains

the strength

the confidence

the energy

the hope

to move on

~ KMR

Peace by Piece - day two

2010-02-06T22:40:00.005-06:00

Snapshots from day two of the Peace by Piece conference:

* Peter Rollins continued his thoughts on Christianity having become a story we tell ourselves rather than a transformative experience (we say we believe in something, but our actions remain unchanged). In Christianity we are called to be the incarnation, to be the site where resurrection happens. Look forward to another post on his ideas about rebound relationships, horrific marriage proposals and their relation to faith.

* Geoff Maddock from Communality shared insights and stories from his experience in community. I have much to process from that conversation, but for now I'll leave you with the impromptu money quote:

God didn't come to break up marriages with homeless people...

* Karen Sloan shared her heart about what a major commitment choosing to enter community can be, and how it needs to be approached as a process, built on a series of small steps, moving toward deeper relationships of love and trust.

* The Castanea community shared about the courtship that was their visioning process, and gave numerous examples of questions they asked themselves. It's not only essential to identify what commitments are important to your community, but to what degree you plan to implement those commitments... and what each of you even means by the terms you use...

* Karen Sloan and Matt Pritchard with Formation House spoke on money, sex and power in community formation and sustainability. We squeezed a lot into that short time, so I'll save most of it for a latter post when my pillow isn't calling my name...

* Danielle Shroyer presented a practical and powerful discussion on conflict resolution and peacemaking, which I almost skipped and am immensely glad I didn't. Again, I'll share more later (I'm getting very sleepy...)

* Chris Haw from Camden House (see: Jesus for President) gave the final keynote of the day, focused on pursuing holiness in the midst of exploitative economy. He talked about Wendell Berry, logs in our eyes, the relationship between cult-culture-cultivation, sacramental imagination, and a host of other ideas I'll explore when Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...................

Peace by Piece - day one

2010-02-05T23:13:00.004-06:00

Snapshots from day one of the Peace by Piece conference:

* The Dogon Team talked about the importance of commitment (to each other, to a place, to common values) in the formation of intentional community - and how that very commitment can be what scares us from pursuing intentionality.

* Karen Sloan reminded us of the cloud of witnesses of early Church leaders, and what we can learn from their writings. A highlight from the Rule of St. Augustine:

The Lord grant that you may observe all these precepts in a spirit of charity as lovers of spiritual beauty, giving forth the good odor of Christ in the holiness of your lives: not as slaves living under the law but as men living in freedom under grace.

* Ragan Sutterfield explored the relationship of soil & shalom, and asked us to consider what it means (and doesn't mean) for a person to flourish. We discussed seasons, presence, cultivation, rest, humility and grace.

* Peter Rollins made us laugh and think... and laugh... I took some video, but it is slow to upload on this hotel connection, so you may have to practice the discipline of patience. Here is an extremely rough misquotation of one of my favorite parts of his talk:

Spiritual direction, journaling, community, etc. brings the story we tell ourselves about ourselves in line with the reality of ourselves.

~ On Chaos and Crap ~

2010-01-14T10:09:00.002-06:00

The work God needs to do within a local body of believers will always be messy, but Institutional Christendom keeps peons & yokels from participating precisely because they make messes. The shift is: who says messes are bad? Antiseptic works well for hospitals and elementary schools, but not in gardens or forests. After all, crap makes good fertilizer, and God is a gardener.

~ Bill Heroman

(via zoecarnate)

Damn you, Paula Deen!

2010-01-08T12:12:00.002-06:00

Dear God,

How are you?

I’m good.

I know I should always start off by thanking you and being grateful and stuff, so I wanted to say thank you for making food that tastes good and nourishes us and is pleasing to the eye and all that.

There’s just one thing that bothers me, and I have to say – I think you messed up.

I know, I know – everything in moderation… I read that manna story… I get it.

I just wonder, wouldn’t it make sense if the size of the food matched the calories?

Like, shouldn’t you only get lots of calories from stuff that actually fills you up and keeps you from wanting to eat more stuff?

While were at it, in case you wanted to go back and make some adjustments to your original design, what if taste was directly related to fullness?

What if, once your body was full and had reached its processing capacity, your taste buds shut down and you no longer craved another bite of creamy mashed potatoes or slice of chocolate pie?

Just think how much more effective and energetic all of your creation would be if we only desired stuff that was good for us… and then only as much as we truly needed?!

By the way, please don’t bring up that whole fruit-and-snake incident. It’s too depressing.

Sincerely,
Kimberly

continue on, always striving

2009-12-17T10:13:00.001-06:00

RIP Gideon Addington

Corrido por Buddy ~ Jolie Holland

Oh, listen my dear friends and I’ll tell you a story
About someone I barely knew at all
He was a friend of my friends and they told me about him
How he had nothing to break his fall

He had that bad religion in his blood
The kind that brings you down
And can never lift you up

He was a beautiful young man on the streets of Austin
He was a ghost faced junkie on the streets of New Orleans
I could barely recognize him when I saw him
He had to look me in the face and say my name
Before I knew it was him

Oh, Buddy – I wish I’d been a better friend

What if they only gave you love when you lied?
It’s bound to really rip you up inside
Pressures a person into that horrible mouth
That leaves a bloody aftermath
Everything minus one is everything

He treated me with what I consider kindness
When I crawled off to sleep in my car
He was worried about me
When we paid our respects to the moon
On the outskirts of Austin
I’m sorry to say, I was too shy to stay in touch with him

Oh, Buddy – I wish I’d been a better friend

And I wonder what it takes just to save one little life
Icarus almost made it back to the shore
When I was really down, there were three little words
From a couple of good people that kept me holding on

Oh, Buddy – I’ll never get a chance again
Oh, Buddy – I wish I’d been a better friend

~ lust, flesh, eyes, pride ~

2009-12-14T08:57:00.002-06:00

Well, I feel
Like I have to feel
Something good all of the time
With most of life I cannot deal
But a good feeling I can feel
Even though it may not be real
And if a person, place or thing can deliver
I will quiver with delight
But will it last me for all my life
Or just one more lonely night

The lust, the flesh
The eyes
And the pride of life
Drain the life
Right out of me

Well, I see something and I want it
Bam! Right now!
No questions asked
Don't worry how much it costs me now or later
I want it and I want it fast
I'll go to any length
Sacrifice all that I already have
And all that I might get
Just to get
Something more that I don't need
And Lord, please don't ask me what for

The lust, the flesh
The eyes
And the pride of life
Drain the life
Right out of me

And I love when folks
Look right at me
And what I'm doing
Or have done
And lay it on about
How groovy I am
And that I'm looking grand
And every single word
Makes me think I'll live forever
Never knowing that they probably
Won't remember what they said tomorrow
Tomorrow I could be dead

The lust, the flesh
The eyes
And the pride of life
Drain the life
Right out of me

(lyrics by The 77's; image by Jakyll Dye)

~ advent ~

2009-12-07T08:54:00.003-06:00

Burt and Elvis in the Red Room
my daughter's dancing in the next one
there's a poem in every turn

there's a baby in our bedroom
and he's crying like a small bird
I am praying he will sleep soon

Oh, am I not tired?

there's another world in this one
and it's spinning like my dancer
something tells me that this is so

and I can feel the turning
like every woman waiting
for the life inside of her

we cry, "oh, are we not tired?”

now the bathroom is a temple
for existential mothers
crying when no words will come

on floors across the big world
they are knelt upon by grown girls
wondering if they've done enough

And they cry,
"Love, when are you coming?"

~ Sarah Masen, Burt and Elvis
(from the album Women's Work is Alchemy)

(image attribution)

~ sweetness and light ~

2009-12-02T11:04:00.002-06:00

'Tis the season of anticipation and hope, of joy and light, of home and hearth, of cookies and cocoa...

The joy of baking, from preparation to sharing with others, is all wound up in the delight of the Advent season.

Two years ago, I found a favorite cookie recipe that I thought was forever lost. Together with a bunch of girls, we baked and decorated trays full of fluffy confections as we watched Little Women and A Little Princess.

Last year, I prepared a special batch of those cookies as a gift for the wedding of two friends, who in turn were able to present the cookies as gifts to their guests.

Saturday, it's time to whip up a big batch of dough to last me through this month of merry parties and Christmas gift giving.

It never ceases to amaze me how simple pleasures (sugar, flour, lemons, vanilla...) add up to such tasty treats!

(Image Attribution)

You're going to eat that?!

2009-10-22T11:07:00.002-05:00

Claire: Can I eat?
Bender: I don't know... give it a try...

(The Breakfast Club)

Yeah, so I'm back to trying Weight Watchers (again). I had a very successful effort the first time I tried several years ago (lost almost 50lbs), until I went back to my old habits and any "success" went out the window. I had a couple more unsuccessful attempts, and tried a few different ways to change my habits, but nothing has worked. But when I stared my ballooning weight in the face in September, I decided to give it one more go (with the intention of building new habits and awareness, and understanding that those must become permanent rather than temporary fixes I can slack off from once the weight comes off).

When I weighed in October 1, I was at 226.5 (apparently, morbidly obese for my 5'2" frame) and I am fairly confident that by my next weigh in Sunday I will have achieved my first goal of a 5% loss (215.2).

One thing I have been very intentional about this time around is experimenting with new recipes rather than relying on pre-packaged foods. Rather than relying on the recipes from the WW website, I have chosen to adapt recipes from popular recipe sharing sites & calculate the points values on my own using WW's recipe builder web tool. I plan to post the recipes for two of the tastier options I've concocted, pumpkin chili & cheese tortellini soup, so be on the lookout!

All this planning and cooking reminded me of a website some friends had shown me last year of absolutely horrific WW recipe cards from the 70's, and I thought I would share the joy of the disgusting foods with all of my readers. Rest assured, I am not partaking in any of these culinary disasters! I actually have a set of my mom's old Betty Crocker recipe cards that are equally tacky - I should really scan those in sometime...

~ porch swing theology ~

2009-10-19T09:03:00.003-05:00

Philip Clayton and Harvey Cox are taking their new books on a blog tour, and Barefoot Bohemian is one of the stops! Philip's new book is Transforming Christian Theology for Church & Society and Harvey's is The Future of Faith. I will be soaking up The Future of Faith and sharing my thoughts with you, but you can check out perspectives on both books by visiting the participating blogs listed below.

The discussion will continue over the next month and wrap up in Montreal at the American Academy of Religion's annual meeting. There they will be joined by an illustrious panel including Eric Gregory, Bruce Sanguin, Serene Jones, Frank Tupper, and Andrew Sung Park to share a 'Big Idea' for the future of the Church. These 'Big Ideas' will be video tapped and shared, so be on the look out for live footage from the last night of the tour.

And you don't even have to wait for the blog discussions to get rolling - you can listen to them interview each other now! Be sure to check out these sites and join in the conversation:

Joseph Weethee , Jonathan Bartlett, The Church Geek, Jacob’s Cafe, Reverend Mommy, Steve Knight, Todd Littleton, Christina Accornero, John David Ryan, LeAnn Gunter Johns, Chase Andre, Matt Moorman, Gideon Addington, Ryan Dueck, Rachel Marszalek, Amy Moffitt, Josh Wallace, Jonathan Dodson, Stephen Barkley, Monty Galloway, Colin McEnroe, Tad DeLay, David Mullens, Kimberly Roth, Tripp Hudgins, Tripp Fuller, Greg Horton, Andrew Tatum, Drew Tatusko, Sam Andress, Susan Barnes, Jared Enyart, Jake Bouma, Eliacin Rosario-Cruz, Blake Huggins, Lance Green, Scott Lenger, Dan Rose, Thomas Turner, Les Chatwin, Joseph Carson, Brian Brandsmeier, J. D. Allen, Greg Bolt, Tim Snyder, Matthew L. Kelley, Carl McLendon, Carter McNeese, David R. Gillespie, Arthur Stewart, Tim Thompson, Joe Bumbulis, Bob Cornwall

This Tour is Sponsored by Transforming Theology DOT org!

(Image Attribution)

Maybe the earth isn't flat...

2009-10-09T13:38:00.003-05:00

I'll be the first person to tell you that science is neither my strength nor my passion. However, I am quite intrigued by theology, and it seems science is all the rage on some of my favorite blogs right now. It's not so much the science itself, but the interaction between and mutual compatibility of faith and science. I don't really have anything to add to what has been said, but just thought there was enough chatter to bring the links together in one spot:

Rachel Held Evans - Six Evangelical Sterotypes

Jonathan Brink - The Evolution of Theory

iMonk - Choices, Roots, Understanding

~ swallowed up by life ~

2009-09-24T10:31:00.002-05:00

When we are lost in Carlisle,
When we are birdless,
Flowerless in the spring
And we cannot sing.

Where are we going tomorrow,
Where are we going?
Oh I can only say we will be found.

~ The Innocence Mission (Birdless)

2 Corinthians 4:16-5:10

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened - not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

(image attribution)

~ go your own way ~

2009-09-18T11:02:00.002-05:00

I read a post at therunamuck.com yesterday, on the frantic pace at which our families move. Naturally, I carried what was being said into another significant relational body that seems to occupy so much of my thoughts: the Church.

One thing really stood out to me in the discussion of Ann Kroeker’s Not So Fast: Slow Down Solutions for Frenzied Families:

Even within the Christian subculture, families are zooming, accelerating to stay neck and neck with their neighbors without much thought as to how the pace is affecting their souls.

And with this thesis, Ann examines what life can look like when the Joneses are allowed to go their own way, and we are allowed to go ours.

About a year and a half ago, the Spirit was actively speaking to my soul on two themes: quietness and fruitfulness.

Two books by Margaret Feinberg, The Sacred Echo and God Whispers, really helped me to recognize this theme pattern in my prayers, in my reading of scripture, in my writing, in what others were speaking to me, and even in opposition I was experiencing.

I was struck by the opposing effects of an abiding life (one that rests, trusts, dwells in Christ and bears the fruit of that relationship) and an anxious life (one that seeks to control, manipulate, and exhaust relationships and circumstances).

As I saw the anxiousness playing out in my congregational life, I began to recognize it all the more in my own life - and to seek to learn how to practice abiding, instead.

I wonder if perhaps 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 is speaking to the Church as a whole:

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

I think we as the Church can get so caught up in movements, in growth, in the next great model or the newest cool idea that we run ourselves ragged just trying to keep up with the Joneses.

What would life look like if the Joneses were allowed to go their own way, and we were allowed to go ours?

I would love to see every congregation celebrate the permission to stop and breathe.

To commune.

To dwell.

To move as the Spirit speaks to them.

To move at a pace that enriches the soul, that trusts that as we move in obedience (not in frenzy) that the Lord will move in His way and in His time.

To build relationships, to disciple, to care for one another, to listen and observe and recognize the lives that are around us that we can speak into, to send disciples out to other locations and support them as they seek to be fully present there.

To love one another.

To adjust the pace of our personal lives so that we are better able to participate in the corporate life of the Church.

Not in programs.

In relationships.

The Church may meet in different locations, use different methods to teach and to serve and to spread the message and to disciple believers, may have different priorities.

That’s ok.

We can learn from one another, but we don’t have to rush to imitate (or surpass) one another.

May we rest in the presence of the Lord, listen to how he is speaking among our local body, and respond without anxiousness and in full assurance that the One whose kingdom we seek is glorified as we practice his love among each other.

(image attribution)

Now we wait...

2009-09-16T15:37:00.002-05:00

No!

We breathe.

We pulse.

We regenerate.

Our hearts beat.

Our minds create.

Our souls ingest.

37 seconds, well used, is a lifetime.

(Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium)

not-so-pied Piper

2009-09-09T13:52:00.002-05:00

I do not always agree with John Piper.

John Piper does not always agree with Barak Obama.

I had the chance to hear Barak Obama speak before he ever ran for president.

I like Barak Obama.

I do not always agree with Barak Obama.

I believe Barak Obama is a follower of Christ.

I also believe John Piper is a follower of Christ.

I did not always agree with George W. Bush.

I did not vote for George W. Bush.

I believe George W. Bush is a follower of Christ.

I voted for Barak Obama.

I do not pledge allegiance to Barak Obama.

I also did not pledge allegiance to George W. Bush (though there is record of some citizens doing so).

I also do not pledge allegiance to the U.S. flag -

Not even the "Christian flag"... or the Bible...

I do not stand with my hand over my heart and sing about bombs bursting in air.

I do not always agree with my country.

I do try to show respect for my country.

I also try to show respect for other countries.

I believe there are followers of Christ in other countries.

I try to show respect for Barak Obama, George W. Bush, and John Piper.

When I disagree, I tend to respond through satire.

I’ve responded with satire to John Piper recently.

I would also like to acknowledge his recent refusal to participate in the hysteria surrounding Barak Obama’s recent address to school children, and his willingness to respectfully highlight the positive speech.

Of course, if Piper’s graciousness does not speak to some of his readers, then I suppose I shouldn’t waste my satire trying to help them see another point of view.

~ arouse your limbs with hope ~

2009-09-07T10:59:00.002-05:00

Tarantella is one of my absolute favorite Madison Greene songs & I had no idea Erin was still performing it with her new band - ENJOY!

Hmm... maybe I wouldn't want the president to address my children...

2009-09-04T14:58:00.002-05:00

Q. My name is Chris Allen. I'm from Poolesville Junior-Senior High School. I was just wondering what you and Mrs. Reagan feel about the new gun ban law.

The President. What we feel about the new -- --

Q. Gun ban law.

The President. The gun -- --

Q. Ban.

The President. Gun ban? Well, I think there has to be some control. But I thought that in California we had a system that probably was the best. I have never felt that we should, for the law-abiding citizens, take the gun away from them and make it impossible to have one. I think the wrong people will always find a way to get one. But what we had was -- even if today when I go back to California, if I want a gun and go in a store to buy a gun, I have to give them the money, but I have to wait a week, no matter who I am. I have to wait a week and come back then to get the gun, because in that week, my name is presented to investigative element there in the State that checks to make sure that I have no criminal record, that I have no record of mental problems or anything of the kind. Then, and only then, can you pick up the gun and take it with you.

But if I could, I know we're running out of time, but let me just tell you something that -- I got the strangest letter when I was Governor. There was talk about having a gun ban in California. It didn't go through. But I got a letter from a man in San Quentin prison, and from the prison he wrote me the letter to tell me he was in there for burglary. He was a burglar. And he said, ``I just want you to know that if that law goes through, here in San Quentin there will be celebrating throughout the day and night by all the burglars who are in prison because'' he said, ``we can watch a house we plan to rob for days. We can learn the habits of the people living in that house, to know when is the best time to go in and be a burglar -- rob it.'' He said, ``The only question we can never answer is: Does the man in that house have a gun in the drawer by his bed?'' He said, ``That's a risk we have to run.'' He said, ``If you tell us in advance they won't have a gun in that drawer by their bed,'' he said, ``the burglars in here will be celebrating forevermore.''

I thought he made kind of some common sense. And I don't know why to this day he ever chose to send the letter to me.

All right, this gentleman.

Q. Anil Artis from Jefferson Junior High School. Do you think the ``Saturday night special'' should be banned?

The President. The what?

Q. Do you think the ``Saturday night special'' should be banned?

The President. Well, I don't have very much of a quarrel with the very cheap weapon and so forth that makes it so easy for the wrong people to have a gun. I would like to see us concentrate on what I described in California: of making sure that anyone who buys a gun is a responsible citizen and not bent on crime.

Presdient Reagan's 1988 address to school children

Sanyu: Joy

2009-09-03T11:18:00.003-05:00

This is my friend Cari.

She is amazing.

She teaches in the slums of Uganda and loves on people and cares for aids orphans and gives and gives and gives of herself.

(I stole the picture from my friend Lydia, who went over to visit this summer.)

Cari has been going to Uganda for as long as I have known her (has it been 8 years?!), and a few years ago moved there as permanently as a non-citizen can.

She will kill me for posting this.

However, I would love for you to read about her current struggle.

And if you feel so led, consider making a donation to help lighten the load in one area (finances) so that she can focus her strength and emotion on other areas (providing care and love).

Just click on the big red "donate" button and select either "Sanyu" or "Uganda School".

If you feel really led, you can sign on to permanently sponsor a child for $35 a month, which helps with school fees, uniforms, shoes, school supplies, books, at least 2 meals a day, and help with medical care.

Thanks a bunch.

~ lights ~

2009-09-02T09:05:00.004-05:00

(image attribution)

The lights on the city look so good
Almost like somebody thought they would

What kind of song would you give if you had a song to give
What kind of life would you live if you had a life to live
Now wouldn't you want to make something good that you could look on
It would give you lots of pleasure, yeah you would

What about this thing that you gave
What if it weren't quite perfect
What if there was something bad about it
Wouldn't you still love it just the same
Wouldn't you still care about it

The lights on the city look so good
Almost like somebody thought they

~ Victoria Williams (Lights)

calling all cars...

2009-08-31T12:08:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow is September 1, and I need your assistance.

This weekend, in addition to finally getting the writing desk cleared off and the beading station organized, I will be compiling the music mix that will accompany me through autumn.

I need a mix of contemplative and energetic - a mix that will help me exhale the previous year before entering the Advent season.

I need a mix that blends well with almond lattes and paperbacks and patchwork skirts.

Here’s some of the tunes I have so far, but I would relish your additions (new stuff particularly welcome ~ I’m a bit behind the times these days…):

Belle & Sebastian – Get Me Away From Here
Po’ Girl – Cold Hungry Blues
Rachel Zylstra – Living in Fantasy (thanks, Gretchen!)
Norah Jones – The Long Way Home
Counting Crows - Omaha
India Arie – Nature
Sarah Masen - We Are a Beginning
REM – Don’t Go Back to Rockville
Uncle Tupelo – Still be Around

Innocence Mission - Every Hour Here

Clarifying the Tornado: Part Two

2009-08-27T10:55:00.002-05:00

(Part One)

March 1, 1997 and the week that followed was disorienting and full of heightened emotions.

The day of the tornado I went from lazily browsing sociological themes in the morning, to testing the limits of my endurance as I raced around downed trees to make my way back to my university campus. Stopping at the nearest dorm, I used the lobby phone to call home to my parents. A male dormitory, I was lucky that some of my guy friends had returned to change clothes and gather extra pairs of gloves, and came over to put their arm around me as I waited to find out if my family was ok. It took several attempts to get through, but when I did my mother sounded just as panicked as I felt.

In my rush to get downtown, I had not considered that the news would have quickly reported the damage in Arkadelphia, and my poor parents had been left unable to get in touch with me or find out about my condition. My family was ok, and my stepfather had already left to assist in a neighborhood just behind ours which had suffered damage similar to what we had experienced. My mother encouraged me to be safe as I hung up the phone and climbed in the back of a truck with the guys to go and help with additional clean up efforts.

Sixteen tornadoes struck Arkansas that day with twenty-five fatalities, six of which were in Arkadelphia.

In addition to homes, business and historical buildings in the downtown area, the tornado caused destruction to the church I was attending at the time, Second Baptist, and a mobile-home park nearby. Our university, and the one across the street, provided significant manpower for the recovery effort. I spent the week at the armory, which had become a makeshift Red Cross headquarters, assisting families with their intake paperwork. I also braved my fear of needles to voluntarily get a tetanus shot (required for anyone who wanted to assist with cleanup) and give blood for the first time.

The stories that emerged that week were awe-inspiring: the fact that the tornado had completely bypassed both college campuses; tales of jewelry and trinkets sitting unmoved on tables in homes where roofs had been torn off and furniture overturned; near misses and inexplicable encounters. One of my favorite stories was from a friend’s family, who were huddled in a closet as their father prayed over them during the storm. After the tornado passed, and with their roof gone, the mother went next door to check on an elderly neighbor. When she looked back across at her home, and saw her daughters’ wicker doll basket sitting up high. Upon returning to her home, she noticed that the basket was stacked on a shelf above the closet in which they had sought refuge.

That tornado was not the first traumatizing event I encountered in my life, and it was certainly not the last. Our experience of pain runs the scale from mundane disappointments to unexplainable tragedies. Like most of my generation, I was deeply impacted from what I experienced on September 11, 2001 and by how my world has changed since. Most recently, I have had to deal with the questions and emotions that arose after a cousin was tragically killed by lightning while trying to protect his family.

What remains after tragedy are the lessons we allow ourselves to learn.

With each experience, I am reminded to stop, to examine my priorities, to examine what matters most.

With each experience, I am reminded of the frailty of life, of the meaninglessness of attachment to treasures that moth and rust and tornado can destroy, of the significance of relationships.

With each experience, I am reminded of the significance of love, community, hospitality and service.

With each experience, I am reminded to lay my soul bare before the one who created me, to allow the spirit of the creator to reveal to me what needs to be changed and molded, and how I was created to live.

2 Corinthians 4
Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So
death is at work in us, but life in you. Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, "I believed, and so I spoke," we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are
seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

On Healthcare

2009-08-25T10:51:00.002-05:00

...in which a bleeding-heart liberal attempts economic theory.

So, here’s the deal with me and economics.

I actually took both micro- and macro- in college. As electives. I thought they would compliment my sociological studies. My macroeconomics professorr was eerily reminiscent of Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (down to the “anyone?... anyone?...” drivel). My microeconomics professor was married with children, and yet all of his illustrations centered around the diminishing returns of frozen burritos when he was a bachelor.

My good intentions were poorly rewarded.

Despite my disinterest in numbers, I have managed to work for both an investment and a commercial bank (though on the administrative rather than financial side of the business). Even during my non-profit stints, I eventually found myself overseeing a million dollar grant and coordinating multiple income streams. I may not like number crunching, but I’m not entirely inept.

In my prior position, I worked as the Director of Continuing Care for a family treatment center. We brought in women in need of treatment for substance abuse, most co-presenting with mental health issues, and allowed them to bring their children with them. For many of our clients, our center was their last opportunity to regain their health before losing their children to the foster care system. These were not the women with supportive families who could care for their children while they focused on their recovery. These were the women who never had much support or resources to begin with, many of them had been introduced to alcohol and drugs by their family, they had burned any bridges they once had, and there was no one left to assist with the children. So we brought them in for family-based treatment. In the 6-months per client we were given, we worked to begin the bio-psycho-social healing process necessary to get the families back on their feet and on the road of recovery. When they graduated, my staff’s job was to coordinate five variables we saw as essential to continued success: housing, transportation, employment, childcare and healthcare. We had learned, any one of these social supports falling out of place could undo the months of work the family put into their treatment.

I could write a million essays on family treatment, but this one is about the economics of healthcare.

When your job involves identifying and coordinating family resources, you get a pretty good grasp of the cost of various services. One of the things we tried to do with this knowledge, was to promote legislation that would make not only good sense for individuals and society, but that would also make good economic sense.

Case in point: Garrett’s Law.

The old dogs they got a new trick,
It's called criminalize the symptoms
While you spread the disease…
~ Ani DiFranco (‘Tis of Thee)

Garrett’s Law had really good intentions (kinda like my electing to take two semesters of economics). The overarching idea was to protect children born to substance abusing mothers. I won’t get into all of the pros and cons of various aspects of the bill at this time.

As supporters of the family-treatment model, we set out to have the bill amended to provide a provision for a family-treatment option for the mother and her child(ren) before the children are automatically removed from her custody. Family treatment with wholistically coordinated services has been shown effective at teaching the health management skills necessary to deal with the chronic disease of substance abuse. While healthcare professionals view addiction as a chronic disease, it bears a greater stigma than most chronic diseases due to its overt social implications.

There are generally two broad objections to promoting treatment vs. criminalization:
1. These women deserve to suffer for what they are doing to their children.
2. I shouldn’t have to pay for their treatment.

And that was where we entered into the process. Again, I will focus on the second objection, because I’m supposed to be talking about the economics of healthcare.

It really was a pretty short and simple spreadsheet.

We laid out the immediate cost of incarceration of the mother and foster care for the children, versus the cost of six-months of family treatment.

The cost was significantly lower.

But in case that isn’t enough, the long term savings for a mother who successfully completes treatment and receives assistance in coordinating employment, housing, etc. to contribute to the care and welfare of her family in the long run is incomparable to the inevitable multiple and/or long-term incarceration that could occur with prolonged drug use.

This is simply the economic impact on society, not even addressing the social impact.

What does this have to do with the greater healthcare debate?

I can sit here and tell you that I think healthcare should be a basic societal right until I’m blue in the face, but that will really only speak to those who agree with me.

But what I can also say is healthcare costs are rising.

As Representative Vic Snyder shared during a local town hall meeting, healthcare premiums continue to rise at the rate of 2-3 times faster than wages (and in addition to premiums, copays and deductibles are also rising).

Part of the reason they are rising is inflated executive salaries and perks, but that isn’t the whole story. After all, most of you don’t want to hear my rants on greed and Adam Smith’s idyllic belief that our “ethics” would keep capitalism’s free market in check...

The truth is the system is broken. The sheer existence of uninsured people with limited to no access to healthcare is putting a strain on the entire healthcare system.

Emergency and intensive care is more expensive than primary care.

Consistent and accessible primary care significantly reduces the need for emergency and intensive care.

People who do not have access to primary healthcare rely on emergency hospital services (where treatment can not be refused) to treat symptoms when they are at their worst, rather than receiving preventative care that could have avoided the symptoms all together.

As more uninsured people utilize emergency care services, costs rise and are spread to those who are insured.

Healthy people can work and make a greater financial contribution to their families and their society.

Sick people and/or dead people tend to make and contribute less.

We can choose to do nothing to reform the healthcare system. In the meantime, our cost of care will continue to rise and almost 50 million Americans will continue with limited access to basic healthcare.

Or, we can choose to recognize that reform is necessary, and that the “cost” of insuring healthcare for all of our citizens can have potential “savings” for the overall system of healthcare.

Whether you want to see poor families gain access to primary healthcare services, or you simply want to stabilize the percentage of your income that goes toward health insurance, reform makes sense. Reform is necessary. Reform is unavoidable.

Image Attribution.

Clarifying the Tornado: Part One

2009-08-24T12:24:00.001-05:00

It was a typical Saturday morning on our “suitcase campus”.

In a town with nothing much to do, and with a majority of the student body’s hometowns within driving distance of the university, there seemed to be a mass exodus on the weekends. Blame it on the institutional feel of the dorm rooms, the dry status of the county, or the overarching belief in the value of family, but it seemed for college-aged residents of Arkadelphia there truly was no place like home.

I loved Saturdays.

I loved the quiet, secluded feel the campus possessed.

I loved having so much space to myself, and perhaps a smattering of other friends.

On this particular Saturday, most of my suitemates had actually remained on campus, and several friends would be returning soon from a choir competition. I rolled lazily out of bed, and was greeted by a friend bounding through the door of our suite, clad in running shorts and a tank top, proclaiming the wonders of an unusually warm day at the tail end of winter.

Rather than enjoying the premature spring weather, I wandered down to the deserted library to sit between my favorite stacks and browse through a bit of non-required reading. I was flipping through one of my selections, back leaning against a bookcase, when the sirens began blaring.

While I hadn’t bothered to check the Weather Channel before leaving the dorm, the stale scent of the air and the slightly looming clouds were enough to prompt me to toss my umbrella over my wrist as I headed out the door. And not even the sudden interruption of my reading by tornado sirens startled me, as Arkansas is prone to random acts of severe weather. So as the library staff began directing students into the basement, I slipped unnoticed out of the front doors, opened my umbrella, and headed back to the comfort of my dorm.

Friends who saw me walking across campus would tell me later that they couldn’t believe I had voluntarily ventured out into such weather. If I had it to do over, I suppose I would do it again, seeing as neither the wind nor the rain were particularly heavy at that point.

Controlled chaos greeted me back in the dorm, as the Resident Assistants worked to gather all of the girls into the lower hallways and away from the glass lobby doors. The Hall Director was out of town, and had not left keys to the basement for any of the RA’s. Our suite was on the ground floor and, not being inclined to take sirens too seriously, a few of us chose to sit on the back of our couch, and watch out the window as the winds swayed trees, made patterns in the rain puddles, and stirred up the occasional debris.

Then we heard a siren of a different sort.

The siren often described on newscasts, covering the aftermath of a storm.

The siren sounded reminiscent of the train that ran through town, though closer and foreboding.

When the winds died down, we filtered out to the lobby to get a better look around. Opening the double glass doors, we took in the views of scattered limbs and strewn debris across the parking lots and lawns of campus. Residents returning from the choir competition told stories of pulling their cars off to the shoulder as pieces trees and scrap metal flew across the road. One person called from the Dollar General Store downtown to say the windows had busted out. Intrigued, we piled in a car to head downtown.

We made it only one block before we had to pull the car over and park.

Crawling out of the vehicle to stand in the middle of the road, we stared silently.

What little had comprised Downtown Arkadelphia to begin with, had now been leveled.

As the shock of the devastation settled into a manageable intensity, we began to move toward the damage, becoming intent upon helping in any way possible. We slowly realized that we were surrounded by a community of people recognizing what had happened, and working to organize a response. As we set to work, clearing the roadways in an effort to allow emergency vehicles through, we took in the sights and sounds.

The sounds were limited.

Amidst the chainsaws hacking away at trees too large to simply lift and toss, and voices calling out instructions, the town was eerily silent.

The sights were surreal.

A car in the bank drive-through with a large plank wedged through the front window, thankfully abandoned by the passengers before the vehicle was impaled; gaping holes where stores had once stood; homes resembling dollhouses with entire sides removed.

We moved steadily through the streets, tossing aside tree limbs as we went, looking for a space where we would be of the most help. We were near the edge of town when we came upon the nursing home, a flurry of activity in its parking lot. The roof was caving in as staff and volunteers worked to get residents and essential supplies out of the building. Some residents could walk, but many were confined to beds and wheelchairs. People worked inside, collecting items and passing them through windows, carefully avoiding the remaining shards of glass around the frames. Others worked outside, calming disoriented residents.

All of the residents had been removed, and I had been asked to gather additional blankets from the back, when I heard the news. A small radio rested on a table in the supply room, and the reporter’s voice was an ominous presence in the vacant wing. I was standing in this abandoned space, arms full of itchy blankets, listening to the news that a similar tornado had touched down in my neighborhood in Little Rock.

I passed the blankets carefully through a shattered window, crawled out after them, and ran through the wreckage back to campus to call home.

This.

The Tornado, the Baptists, and Old People

2009-08-21T09:06:00.002-05:00

Lots of girls gathered in the hallway outside of our ground-floor dorm room, having descended from higher floors. A few of us made the potentially unwise decision to sit on the back of our couch, staring out the window at the ominous sky and blowing trees. I looked at my suitemate, “That looks serious.”

It was. Serious in more ways than one. A friend drove us downtown to see the damage, but we only made it one block.

On a day when no severe weather was predicted or expected – we had been enjoying the unseasonably warm March day – tragedy like we had never seen happened. Just one block from campus, the town was gone. The town: Arkadelphia.

The tornado happened on a Saturday… a day when the elderly residents of the local nursing home are pretty much doing what they always do.

According to the nursing home’s printed activity schedule, at 2:45pm on Saturday, March 1, the residents were to take the afternoon meds and enjoy reruns of The Andy Griffith Show. The episode was the one where Howard proposes to his girlfriend Millie in the bakery.

We stared at the flattened downtown area, eyewitnesses of the damage.

The curious tornado tracked two miles northeast of Hope, and set a course straight toward downtown Arkadelphia.

The time: 2:45pm

The most distant building in downtown Arkadelphia was the nursing home. The tornado severely damaged Second Baptist Church , and the requisite trailer park, before blasting windows and flattening business and homes throughout downtown, and eventually collapsing the nursing home roof. As the tornado moved on to Malvern, we set to clearing debris from the roads, aiding nursing home residents out of the building, and retrieving blankets and other necessary items to keep them safe and warm.

Let me venture an interpretation of this Providence with some biblical warrant.

1. The unrepentant practice of placing old people in nursing homes instead of taking care of them ourselves (like other sins) will exclude a person from the kingdom of God.

If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. (1 Timothy 5:8).

Then again, maybe it was the sin of the old women who had failed in their lifetime to marry and populate the earth, or the widows with uncontrolled sensual desires… (1 Timothy 5:9-12)

2. The church has always embraced those who forsake their selfish desire to stick their parents in an old-folks home but who still struggle with the smell of moth balls and the presence of dentures soaking on countertops, rejoicing with them that all our fallen, sinful, disordered lives (all of us, no exceptions) are forgiven if we turn to Christ in faith.

3. Therefore, the presence of nursing homes that usurp the role of the church and condone the very sins that keep people out of the kingdom of God, are evil. They dishonor God, contradict Scripture, and implicitly promote damnation where salvation is freely offered.

Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts. For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts... (Malachi 3:5-7)

4. Jesus Christ controls the wind, including all tornados.

Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? (Mark 4:41)

5. When telling a story about a particularly annoying old person in a certain city who was demanding justice, Jesus answered in general terms – an answer that would cover old people in Arkadelphia, Taiwan, or Baghdad. God’s message is have faith… really, really persistent and annoying faith, and I will give you justice.

He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:2-8)

6. Conclusion: The tornado in Arkadelphia was a gentle but firm warning to people who stick their parents and relatives in nursing homes, and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin. Turn from the promotion of behaviors that lead to destruction. Reaffirm the great Baptist heritage of allegiance to the truth and authority of Scripture. Turn back from distorting the grace of God into selfishness. Rejoice in the pardon of the cross of Christ and its power to transform left and right wing sinners.

THIS IS SATIRE.

THIS IS NOT.

Image attribution

birthday party, cheescake, jellybean, boom!

2009-08-10T15:30:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago I made the following comment on a friend's facebook status (the status was regarding taxpayer response to potential government funded abortions, and my response was to one of the commenters):

Kayne said: "No, the death of civilians in war is not the same as killing an inncocent child. The citizens of the two countries that we are occupying KNOW who the terrorists are and have a responsibility (and plenty of opportunities) to stop them. Their blood is on THEIR hands to a very large degree."

And that statement has been haunting me since yesterday. I am pro-life, and to hear someone belittle the lives of individuals in Iraq and Afghanistan literally made me sick to my stomach. You do realize we have brothers and sisters in Christ over there, who are praying for US in the their churches? You do realize that not all Muslims are terrorists? You do realize we're talking about real people and real families and real communities? They are not hiding and protecting terrorists any more than the average citizens of our country are hiding and protecting the drug cartels.

Perhaps if we valued the lives that are already here, people would understand the potential of the unborn.

Today I read a news story on US oil execs buying smuggled oil from Mexican drug cartels.

Damn.

Spoke too soon.

Duck and cover folks.

Duck and cover.

Image Attribution

~ recession reading ~

2009-07-31T15:23:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon copies of the Penguin Puffin Classics 2008 Relaunch series at WordsWorth Books & Co.

Have you seen them?

$5 each.

Unabridged.

They’re delightful.

Particularly my beloved Frances Hodgson Burnett novels.

Eye candy and brain candy.

Lovely.

~ life in all its wonder ~

2009-07-09T09:43:00.003-05:00

When King Lear dies in Act V, do you know what Shakespeare has written?

He's written "He dies."

That's all,

nothing more.

No fanfare,

no metaphor,

no brilliant final words.

The culmination of the most influential work of dramatic literature is "He dies." It takes Shakespeare, a genius, to come up with "He dies."

And yet every time I read those two words, I find myself overwhelmed with dysphoria.

And I know it's only natural to be sad,

but not because of the words "He dies."

but because of the life we saw prior to the words.

I've lived all five of my acts, Mahoney, and I am not asking you to be happy that I must go.

I'm only asking that you turn the page, continue reading... and let the next story begin.

And if anyone asks what became of me, you relate my life in all its wonder, and end it with a simple and modest "He died."

…Your life is an occasion. Rise to it.

(from Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium)

image attribution

Stick a fork in it?

2009-07-02T10:23:00.002-05:00

*** I started writing this post two weeks ago, and then promptly forgot about it as I prepared for my move. So, my thanks go out to Rachel Held Evans (whose writing is always entertaining, thought-provoking, and refreshingly cordial) for a recent post that reminded me to resurrect my own thoughts.

Riding the coat tails of collapsing Evangelicalism, there has been much discussion as of late on the demise of emerging Christianity. Not only is Emergent dead, the Church, herself, has apparently returned to dust, as well.

It’s sad really, because I was just getting to know the emerging church, and she seemed to have a rather rosy glow to her cheeks, even if her demeanor had grown a bit melancholy.

Ironically, even while some theologians were declaring the death of God as transcendent being in the 60’s, theologians such as John Howard Yoder and Harvey Cox were working to remind us of everything the Church could be, if she would only allow herself.

I come from the Protestant tradition, and we are a fickle crew.

Some of us are only just now coming around to admitting that our brothers and sisters in the Catholic Church might actually be followers of Christ, and we’ve largely ignored the Eastern Orthodox believers all together. And, while we have seemed to release the radicalism of the Anabaptists from our collective memory, we have relegated them to antiquity rather than learn from all they have to share with the Body. It took us awhile to adjust to the idea of a Non-Denominational congregation but, as it began to meet the needs of those dissatisfied with their denominational structures and authorities, we’ve softened to the concept.

This emerging church, however, this blurring of the lines between our neatly defined categories of Christians, is simply too much to stomach. After all, we’ve already protested anything that needed to be disapproved. In fact, we’ve finally managed to fix everything that has happened since the Great Schism, and get back to our golden age under Constantine.

Why on earth do these young people want to mess with a good thing?

We seem to have a natural drive for independence, which has resulted in multiple versions of “church”. However, what we are going to have to understand, that many in previous generations have preferred not to admit, is that we must intentionally seek interdependence.

We must seek community.

I was part of a congregation that had a controlling personality as its “authority”. That person claimed that what set “Church” apart from “not-Church” was the presence of elders, appointed with spiritual authority. Unfortunately, those elders deferred any disputes with the pastor to him, without offering support or protection to the congregation members, and also vowed to support him because it was “his church.” Based on what I have studied and what I have experienced, I can not help but believe it is not proper authority that identifies the Church of Christ, but rather proper community.

This isn’t some wacky idea I pulled out of a hat.

Anabaptists (You know, those other people who were around during the Reformation? The ones who either got out of control or got ignored?) have long acknowledged the function of community as authority, rather than a centralized group or individual figure as authority. Phyllis Tickle alluded to this idea when she attempted to answer the question “Where, now, is our authority?” (for which she was quickly criticized for undermining the doctrine of “sola scriptura”). Mrs. Tickle suggested that authority in the Church arises not solely from an individual reading, interpreting, and applying scripture, but rather from the engagement of the community with the scripture, discerning together under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. (Please see Acts 15.)

I will stand firmly with those who say you can’t simply walk away from church and do Christianity on your own. Christianity is not an individualistic faith, it requires loving and serving and trusting and wrestling in community to grow and develop. I know there are exceptions (for instance, someone locked away in solitary confinement), but we are designed for community.

At the same time, I will question those who claim that Christianity can not be done outside the walls of a clearly defined institutional building.

No matter what is dead,

No matter what is dying,

Christianity as we know it is changing

And the Church can not turn a blind eye and pretend it isn’t so.

There will be expressions of the Church that do not look like what we have called church for hundreds of years. But, make no mistake, they will be the Church. And if these expressions include neighbors becoming deeply involved in loving those around them and sharing the hope that comes from Christ into specific situations with which they are connected in a hands-on way, we are going to be wasting our breath trying to convince the recipients of that grace that what they are experiencing as Church is not real, and that coming into a building and listening to someone with “authority” teach on verses of scripture and then send everyone out to “love and serve” is what constitutes Church.

Hear me correctly, I am not saying there is no longer a place for a congregation that gathers in a specific location, at a specific time, on a specific day, to receive teaching from someone who has been identified as gifted with the ability to discern and communicate scriptural teachings. It does mean, that if those congregations do not begin to value the gifts of the whole Body, to see the building and living out of day-to-day authentic community as putting flesh on the weekly gathering, to invite other voices into the process of discernment, to value the authority of community over the power of an individual, they will slowly cease to have any significant impact in a rapidly changing, global, pluralistic society where historical Christian “authority” is not recognized, but where the love of Christ followers can break through.

There was a time when the Church expanded from private homes to public cathedrals, and there is now a time when the Church is expanding beyond the boundaries of any structure. In an increasingly networked society, the Church is going to have both intimate local expressions and integrating cyber expressions which will serve to challenge and inform one another. Some of these local expressions will continue to gather weekly in a building with a steeple, while some will gather in homes, in bars, in parks, and under bridges.

In fact, some crazy Christians will even go so far as to live together in community, sharing posessions and meals, offering hospitality and serving their neighbors.

The Church is not dead.

But nether is she static.

And as our world comes to understand how interconnected we truly are,

So must the Church.

May we listen.

May we learn.

May we love.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
(John 13:34-35)

~ weightless ~

2009-06-25T12:57:00.002-05:00

And I always go to pieces,
and I have it in my mind
that the sky is tall and heavy,
when I could be brave.
~ The Innocence Mission

I reckon Heaven is a place
where everything is weightless, yeah
even heavy things are weightless, yeah
up there we'll never fight at all.
~ Old 97’s

If you ask me, the people who get the most out of life are the ones who don’t ask questions. I wish I was this kind of person. I was at Crème the other morning and heard a girl tell another girl about her previous night’s date and I kept wondering how she could go on about her date without knowing what love is for and what it means. I kept wondering how she could be excited about something when there was no philosophical map that would tell her where she was going and whether or not arriving there would give her a sense of closure and fulfillment. And there is a man who delivers library books to the library downstairs and the other day when he was carrying cartons of books into the library I wondered if he ever got tempted to drive the truck off the Sellwood bridge because he knew it was filled with a million ideas that contradicted each other. There are times when I think an act like that might be righteous. But I don’t know why.

I have a friend who has the uncanny ability to live in the moment. He manages a Bi-mart and has a wife and he doesn’t think about the future and doesn’t think about the past and to me he is like a person floating on his back in a river and only thinks about the rapids when he finds himself in the rapids.

~ Donald Miller
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (early manuscript)

image attribution

~ proximity ~

2009-06-12T10:51:00.002-05:00

"We have these deeper friendships because we've tried to build a life in one place. They sprang up because the stuff of life happened to this cluster of us living near one another, and much of it was too joyous or heartbreaking not to share with someone. If friendship is the key to happiness, then maybe this is the key to friendship, to be enmeshed -- not just tangentially or voyeuristically, but physically -- in the lives of others. That can be hard to swallow in a culture that prizes individualism, mobility and privacy."

~ Tony Woodlief

(SOURCE)

How to Start a Conspiracy

2009-06-08T21:45:00.000-05:00

Harold Crick: So, are you a frequenter of the Metropolitan Transit Authority too?
Ana Pascal: No. I'm just late.
Harold Crick: Big flag burning to get to?
Ana Pascal: Actually, it's my weekly evil-conspiracy and needlepoint group. You wanna come?
Harold Crick: I left my thimbles and socialist reading material at home.

Phase one: collect underpants. No wait, that’s how to start a corporation, not a conspiracy. Starting a conspiracy is much easier. You simply have to get people together who share a common goal.

Generally, that goal undermines a currently existing system. If the system is good, a conspiracy can be bad. If the system is not-so-good, a conspiracy can be rather helpful.

I’m plotting a little conspiracy of my own.

But not on my own… that would defeat the whole purpose.

I’m plotting a conspiracy of community.

I’m hoping this community can conspire together to see the Kingdom of God lived out in our little city. The upside-down kingdom - the one where things like love, peace, patience, contentment and hope are valued over things like selfishness, power, anxiousness, greed and despair.

We’re trying something a bit radical.

You see, it takes a bit of a while for some of the new ways of thinking to trickle this far down past the Mason-Dixon Line (and east of the Republic). So the reasoning is, why don’t we get people interested in the missional, emergent, monastic and multi-ethnic streams of the church together in one big (well, ok, not-so-big) conversation? After all, we’re going to overlap in a lot of places, and we’re going to have to figure out how to work through the places we don’t overlap while still keeping our relationships in tact. You know, that whole “by this will all men know you are my disciples, if you love one another” thing?

So, if you are in Central Arkansas, or you were, will be, or want to be, I invite you into the conversation… I mean, CONSPIRACY!

Check out: http://www.community-conspiracy.blogspot.com/ (or click through to the Facebook page)

How I Met Your Mom

2009-06-08T12:29:00.002-05:00

Once upon a time, I had a real friend named Kevin. He’s a pretty cool guy. After many years of not seeing each other, we became virtual friends. In fact, he has just returned from a Facebook sabbatical. I get to see his face in a couple of weeks and finally meet his famously (at least among my circle) awesome wife, which got me to thinking about how we met… which in turn got me thinking about how I met several people… which in turn made me decide to turn my memories into a semi-entertaining post (at least for those of us who lived them).

Kevin. We’ll start with Kevin, seeing as he was the instigator. It was a bit of a fateful meeting, but we won’t get into all of that. I had chosen, along with one of my best friends from high school, to attend a small Southern Baptist university near to home. At the time, the idea of living together for four years at the same place where we attended summer camp seemed brilliant. We were a bit delusional, but we were young and impressionable and would eventually learn to make wiser decisions. After surviving our freshman year, we had decided to move in with another friend for sophomore year, shoving all three beds into one room and using her solo room as a living room. In hindsight, overcrowding was probably yet another lapse in good judgment, but again I digress. So, one night we’re hanging out in the near empty student center, I believe with the goal of studying. Instead, we were engaged in a rousing game of “Remember When…” For those of you unfamiliar with the game, which I’m quite sure we didn’t make up on our own, it’s basically where you ask someone if they “remember when” you or they did something you or they are currently or considering doing. For instance, I would say, “Hey, remember when we went to the Student Center to study, but instead we just wasted a whole lotta time?” And she would laugh, and then reply, “Remember when you suggested we study, and I laughed at you?” As she was falling off of the cushion we were sitting on, I would respond “Remember when you fell on your butt ‘cause you were laughing so hard, and I didn’t even help you off the ground?” On and on it would go… we were easily entertained. We were having such a good time, we failed to notice that there were, indeed, a few other people around. One in particular, a skinny freshman boy with long, thin hair, appeared to find our little game amusing, and approached us to make introductions and join in the fun. And that, my friends, is how I met Kevin Still.

Ines. Ines just so happens to be one of my favorite people in the universe, so she’s a very lucky girl. I had been visiting Mosaic on Sunday evenings for awhile, and still attending my home church in the mornings. When our pastor of umpteen years announced his looming retirement, I suddenly found myself wanting to be there on Sunday nights, so I missed a few weeks at Mosaic. In the meantime, they had hired some girl from Tejas to interpret the services in Spanish. Supposedly, she was pretty cool. So, Gretchen and I were headed over to Angelika & Cari’s house to join Angelika, Philip (always the lone male), some girls from India and this new chica for an evening at Electric Cowboy. If ever there was a group that should have found something to do other than Electric Cowboy, it was us. But I like the fact that I first met Ines in the living room of the Taylor St. house on the way to a bar, rather than in the actual worship service. After she FINALLY finished studying so hard, we became even better friends – but I will never forget that first encounter.

Ramon. …or Josh. It’s kind of a chicken-and-egg scenario. Whoever came first, I met through Rob. It was actually a generic Sunday afternoon, and we were having our monthly community meal at church. I can’t remember if I met Josh first or Ramon first, but I ended up at a table with both of them, and one introduced me to the other. By the end of the meal we had concocted a plan to form a “Christian Artists Guild” in Little Rock. We actually had a few follow up meetings with other folks and worked at drafting mission statements and such. It soon fell by the wayside, but at least formed a foundation for a lasting friendship. I can't imagine not knowing Ramon, so the circumstances of our meeting seem almost inconsequential.

Gretchen. A tall, pale girl walks into a rush party and says… well, I don’t remember what she said, but it was likely odd. Or perhaps she was in Ginger mode, in which case she would have presented as a proper Southern lady fit for polite society. I remember that she was only there because her friend was going through rush and wanted her company. Somehow Gretchen survived all three nights of parties and invitations without running for sanity, and even went so far as to accept a Tri Chi bid. I think someone spiked her punch. Every member gave pledge week “duties” to an assigned number of pledges. Gretchen was one of those assigned to me. Her duty was to make a “Top Ten Reasons Why Al Gore Will Make a Great President” poster and deliver it to my dear friend Aaron Black (aka, Mr. Republican). I was in love with Al Gore. I had a framed picture of him in my dorm room which was attacked on a regular basis. She refused my duty. With a straight face, I consistently reminded her that she had to fulfill her duty for pledge week. With a straight face, she consistently refused to submit to my obvious authority. She thought I hated her. I thought she was hilarious. It’s been love ever since…

Pollacks. I had the pleasure of spending this weekend with the prettiest Pollack child, and Lizzie and I were discussing who in the family I knew first. Kathy wins that award. Mosaic had a women’s shopping trip planned for Memphis. I was planning to be in Memphis that weekend, but not to shop. I had a ticket to see Nanci Griffith and the Chieftains at Shelby Farms. A dream concert if there ever was one. A few days before the show, my car broke down. Not possessing the fortitude of many a great get-to-the-show-come-hell-or-high-water movies, I wept. Then I decided to join Ines & Sarah for the women’s outing. So close, yet so far away. Us “young girls” had a blast laughing in our room & venturing out to see “Legally Blonde 2”. Somehow I woke up early, so I went downstairs to drink coffee and read in the lobby. Kathy came downstairs with someone else, and I sat with them for a while and talked with Kathy. I was smitten. She was my new friend. I either met Kendall or Jason next – I taught Kendall in Sunday school (actually, we spent more time sitting outside the class & talking about Lord of the Rings, but that counts in my book) and I met Jason through our Tuesday Evening Dinners ™. Eventually, Kathy introduced me to her sons Marty & Brad. I’m not sure at what point I met Allen. Liz & Thomas came last, but certainly not least. Not one to play favorites, I’ll just say I love them all the same, just different.

I suppose that’s enough stories for now. I’m sure there are plenty more. And then there are those who I can’t recall formally meeting, but with whom I have plenty of other fabulous memories. For instance, Angelika, Meredith, each and every one of my roommates…

deadly consequence of a woman's silence

2009-06-05T15:30:00.003-05:00

from CNN:

"I was raped when I was 6 years old," she recalled. Her attacker was a local shopkeeper. Makoni said her mother would not allow her to report the abuse.

"She said, 'Shh, we don't say that in public,' " Makoni remembered. "I had no shoulder to cry on."
Three years later, she witnessed her father murder her mother. In that moment, Makoni said she realized the potentially deadly consequence of a woman's silence.

"I told myself that no girl or woman will suffer the same again," she said.

What have you done for me lately?

2009-06-01T10:21:00.002-05:00

I’ve had a few writer/director crushes in my lifetime.

One of the strongest, unmistakably, was one mister Richard Linklater.

Ours was a love-at-first-site kind of relationship, destined to stand the test of time (and questionable improprieties such as Bad News Bears).

In college, while still maintaining an ever growing affection for Richard, I found myself unintentionally attracted to Edward Burns.

or, Ed, as I like to call him.

Eddie, if he has produced a particularly delightful film.

I don’t know if it’s the writing, per se, or the hypnotizing crinkly eyes… but, I digress.

Most recently, I have found myself drawn to Zach Helm with a passion I thought myself incapable of in this phase of my life.

What can I say? He swept me off my feet with his irresistible turns of phrase and an irrepressible zest for life.

But once upon a time, there was another man.

A man who had almost drifted into a faint memory, had it not been for Chris Eigeman weaseling his way into Gilmore Girls and resuscitating long dormant images of socialites, cocktails, and longings for lives of significance.

I first read of Whit Stillman between the pages of Jane Pratt’s Sassy Magazine.

Before converting to Christianity, Sassy was the guide to who I was planning to become… and afterward, it remained a guilty pleasure and subtle reminder of who I could have been, had I not been under the impression that God had an apparent distaste for uniqueness in his creation.

In a tiny corner article, I spied a still frame from Metropolitan and a brief synopsis of the movie that was immediately placed at the top of my rental list.

Barcelona would send me off to college and Last Days of Disco would celebrate my entry into the real world, but suddenly Whit went silent and I allowed my scandalous affair with the bourgeoisie subculture to lapse into an inexplicable youthful discretion.

But every now and then, I think of Whit, and I find myself longing to don pearls and a little black dress while waxing philosophical about the state of the world (which obviously revolves around me).

There are rumors that he’s back in town, and may soon grace us with his presence once again.

I try not to believe them.

I’m not sure my heart, or conscience, could handle it.

But in a tiny corner of my soul, I hold out hope for the return of the expatriate.

Perhaps he will gift us with something to show how his characters have matured - a mirror of my own transformation.

After all, a girl never forgets her first crush.

top 5 musicians who stir my soul

2009-05-28T10:18:00.002-05:00

Rich Mullins
The man. The myth. The legend.

everybody I know says they need just one thing
and what they really mean is they need just one thing more
and everybody seems to think they've got it coming
well I know that I don't deserve you
still I want to love and serve You more and more
you're my one thing

save me from those things that might distract me
please take them away and purify my heart
I don't want to lose the eternal for the things that are passing
'cause what will I have when the world is gone
if it isn't for the love that goes on and on

Victoria Williams
Very few people can weave together the sacred and mundane better than Ms. Williams.

twilight time in New York City, descending subway stairs
the man whistling out a tune, I paid a dollar for my fare
and we got on the same train going uptown down the tracks
and we sang out of tune to the clackety-clack-clack

and the Spirit, Holy Spirit, was flowing
yeah the Spirit, Holy Spirit, it was a-flowing

I have felt it on a mountaintop and underneath the stars
I felt it in a churchyard and even in some bars
it will make you laugh, it will make you cry,
it will make your heart go (ping!)
oh the Spirit, Holy Spirit, will make you shout and want to sing

Madison Greene
Damn dirty hippies.

I had plans here for myself; went up the river and they fell through
started talking to the spirit of God; He knows what's best for you
so I put down all of my pride, took my suitcase off of the shelf
thank God I still have time

His plans are enough for me, plans to love us, make us grow
and if he never gives me anything else, it ought to be enough to know
that it only is a matter of time before I'll finally be in his presence
and thank God for blessed life

and I may never be granted
the dreams I thought meant the most to me
but I know I'll understand it,
because I know what it means to be living now,
and thank God we are alive

Ani Difranco
I find a certain degree of comfort in her doubt, and find beauty in her perseverance.

if my life were a movie, I would light a cigarette
and the smoke would curl around my face
everything I do would be interesting
I'd play the good guy in every scene
but I always feel I have to take a stand
and there's always someone on hand
to hate me for standing there
I always feel I have to open my mouth
and every time I do I offend someone, somewhere

but what, what if no one's watching
what if when we're dead, we are just dead
what if there's no time to lose
what if there's things we gotta do
things that need to be said

you know I can't apologize for everything I know
I mean you don't have to agree with me
but once you get me going, you better just let me go
we have to be able to criticize what we love
say what we have to say
'cause if you're not trying to make something better
then as far as I can tell, you are just in the way

Ben Folds
He doesn’t believe in God, and assumes he can’t be saved, but I tend to think he’s incorrect.

Jane, be Jane; you're better that way
not when your trying imitating something you think you saw
so Jane, be Jane; and if sometimes that might drive them away,
let them stay there, you don't need them anyway
you're worried there might not be anything at all inside
but that you're worried should tell you that's not right
don't try to see yourself the way that others do - it's no use

This was a hard list to compile. I had to leave out the Innocence Mission, Sarah Groves, Katy Bowser, Po’ Girl, Nickel Creek; I had to cross of favorites like Nanci Griffith, Wilco, Gillian Welch and the Violent Femmes. No alt-country made the list (unless Victoria counts). It was tough, but I did it.

How about you?

Who are your five?

What do they have to say?

whoosh...

2009-05-26T16:01:00.002-05:00

Do you hear that?

The winds of change.

Thanks to Angela, I have retired my old quote for something a bit more fitting.

you say goodbye:

you pass through places, and places pass through you, but you carry them with you on the soles of your traveling shoes ~ the be good tanyas

and I say hello:

The real monastic walks through life with a barefooted soul, alert, aware, grateful, and only partially at home. ~ Joan Chittister

Dear Derek,

2009-05-19T07:08:00.004-05:00

We've got to talk.

I received your last two emails, and I just have to know - are you entirely serious, or is this just some cheesey over-emotional marketing ploy. I want to support you. I really do. I just want to trust that your reaction is real.

Last Tuesday, I woke up to coffee and this:

friends-
i haven't sent many personal emails to this email list but we're in a situation that has gotten a little out of control and it's time to fill you in. as some of you may know, i've been working for months on my new record, 'stockholm syndrome', which i've recently finished and turned in to the record label. they've been very supportive over the years, but this time we didn't get the response we expected. it seems i've finally found the line beyond which my label can support me, and apparently i've crossed it.

i consider this my most important record and am adamant about all of you hearing it. we had originally hoped to have 'stockholm syndrome' out this month (next week even), but at this point we're not sure when the record will come out and in what form. the majority of the controversy is surrounding one song, which i consider to be among the most important songs on the record. so we've decided it's an appropriate time to break the rules.

but because of various legal/publishing issues we're having to be rather careful with how we do what we're going to do next. that's really all i can say for now and i've probably said too much.

we have a plan and we're moving ahead, but we're not sure what kind of trouble we might be getting into. we'll let you know as soon as we know our next move
-Derek

Then, this morning I stumble out of bed to the following:

friends-
this is turning into a bigger deal than we expected. as a result, we're having to temporarily _pull everything online down (can't explain now). and to be on the s_afe side, i'm going to pe_rsonally go offline while we sort this out. i re_ally shouldn't use my twitter account for now either so _don't expect any updates there.

make no m_istake, our trouble with the label over content i_s very real, and not as simple as one word; we're back_ed into a corner. but we have applied all of our creative resources to th_is, working furiou_sly to create something that we believe not only subverts any leg_al issues but should also be a _pretty wild ride.

so this will be the l_ast email for a while. we'll t_ry to lea_k information via a new tw_itter account, @ssyndrome. you're o_n your own so start payin_g attention. i'l_l see you _on the o_ther side
-derek

I'm still trying to decipher the dashes in the second letter, but have been unable to locate my Tony the Tiger secret decoder ring.

To be quite honest, it sounds like you are running from the mafia, rather than confronting CCM label executives. Although... hmm... interesting cover... the NashVegas mafia...

I mean, you knew you were on a Christian label, right? And by Christian label, we mean label designed to specifically market toward Christian retailers and deliver what the majority of Christian consumers feel comfortable buying into. Obviously, the noble thing for the label to do would be to hand you off to one of their non-religiously affiliated counterparts, or release you to go indie and have your fans invest in the production of the album, but I'm guessing the Christian part may end where they're asked to give up their power over the album's production (or non-production).

You and I don’t agree with everything. For instance, I’m not so big on the Solas, and you have them tattooed to your arm. But that has never stood between your music inspiring me and my hard earned cash putting food on your table. Well, food on the record executives’ tables… it may have bought you and Sandra a roll of toilet paper. Remind me, again, why you’re not rolling indie?

All this is to say, if the situation is as serious as it sounds, I will fully support you getting your message to the people.

But if this is all an elaborate set up, around the "Stockholm Syndrome" theme, then you better watch your back, 'cause I've got Guido on speed dial...

a date which will live in infamy...

2009-05-06T14:52:00.002-05:00

5 years ago today, the Barefoot Bohemian blog was born.

'round and 'round we go...

2009-05-03T20:47:00.003-05:00

My pulse is born of rhythm,
And my cycles turn in rhythm.
Is it sad the seasons change and I am still green?
~ Madison Greene, Cry Water Prayer
(from the album ...Think the Dancers Mad)

It has been a long, stressful year emotionally and spiritually, a year of loss and a year of renewal. It’s taken a toll on me physically, as I focused so much on in the internals and neglected the externals.

I am not a naturally active person.

In case it’s not obvious, I spend a lot of time in my head.

Regardless, I am happier and more energetic when I am fit, and I like feeling pretty, so here we go again.

The eating part is not so bad once I get in the flow of choosing real food and consuming real beverages (yes – beer counts… its all-natural), it’s the moving part that I have issues with.

It’s difficult to move and write.

Yes, you can move and think, but thinking generally leads to writing for me.

It is also difficult to move and bead.

Though, quite honestly, I’ve done very little beading lately.

I knew I needed to pick something I would have fun with, so I settled on two enticing options: belly dancing and hula hooping.

No, wait, I’m entirely serious!

Of course other things will support these efforts, like walking and stretching, but I’ve decided getting my hips in motion sounds like the MOST FUN!

I’ve already got a custom-hoop coming in the mail, and I start the belly dance classes tomorrow night. Holla!

Besides, both activities are conducive to bare feet, so it’s a great excuse for pedicures!

I'm dying to get some sleep, baby.

2009-05-01T16:44:00.002-05:00

I finally caved and started reading Twilight, and I’ll admit that I like it a lot.

In the movie, the aptly named Edward was a bit too Edward Scissorhands for my taste... but I was sucked in anyway. Reading the first book, I can't help but picture Bella Swan and Edward Cullen as Angela Chase and Jordan Catalano from My So Called Life. Seriously people, the brooding eyes, the neurotic conversations, the all-around awkwardness of the relationship? Only in this case, Angela is a brunette, Jordan is intelligent (oh... and a vampire), Rayanne is innocent, Ricky is straight, Cousin Tito is still nowhere to be found, and Brian is... well, Brian is still Brian.

I quickly found myself mentally filing away certain songs on my itunes (which I tend to keep on shuffle) as good companions to the book. Not so much word-for-word fits, but just subtle background music, like a soundtrack.

So, here are my selections so far, and I would love to hear yours:

Stone, Adam Again

I Held Her in my Arms, The Violent Femmes

Singing in my Sleep, Semisonic

All I Want, Toad the Wet Sprocket (though, the Mutual Admiration Society version may be more appropriate, adding the haunting female voice)

Say You Love Me, Fleetwood Mac

The Worst is my Being Alone, Waterdeep

Crazy for You, Madonna

Who’s Gonna Drive You Home, The Cars

Lost In Your Eyes, Debbie Gibson

I think I'll go for a walk...

2009-04-28T22:32:00.002-05:00

I have been very encouraged reading all of the reports back from the Emergent Village gathering in DC last weekend, so I thought I'd share the links to the ones I know of (and Eliacin has promised an update as soon as he finishes changing a diaper, or something to that effect...):

…for the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.

2009-04-16T12:04:00.003-05:00

Rest easy.
Have no fear.
I love you perfectly,
And perfect love drives out fear.
I’ll take your burden,
You take my grace.
Rest easy
In my embrace.
~ Audio Adrenaline

I became a Christian at the age of 15. Though nowadays I have a different perspective on following Christ, one that tends not to focus on a specific time and date of conversion but rather the continual progressive journey of faith and following, I can not deny that my introduction to a life of faith including an invitation, an aisle, and a signed and dated commitment card. I even have a letter confirming when I again walked the aisle in response to my call to Christian Service (a.k.a., ministry… if you’re male). For about nine years, I attended the same church (though sporadically while away at college) and listened to many sermons and Bible study lessons.

When I think back hard over all that I learned during those nine years, two main lessons stand out.

This strikes me as funny, seeing as I obviously learned a lot over those years, and grew deeper in faith. But try as I may to remember the things that really stuck out to me, and really stuck to me, I continually come back to the same two lessons.

Not surprisingly, they both came during mission trips.

The summer after my junior year in High School, our youth group traveled to Houston to work in a family homeless shelter. Our first day, we went out to the playground to get to know the children who were living there. As soon as we stepped out of the door, we spotted an obviously distraught child standing alone by a column, arms crossed and head lowered. The other children ran up to us and invited us to push them on the swings, watch them traverse the monkey bars, or join them for a round of tether ball. In the midst of their hospitality, they offered a warning regarding the child braced against the column: “Don’t touch him… he’s got the ringworm!”

Immediately, my youth minister looked us in the eyes, and presented us with a decision. We could ignore the child, thus preventing any possibility of acquiring a fungus ourselves. Or, we could choose to befriend the child, invite him to play, take the chance that we may become the untouchable ones with “the ringworm,” and insure that this child knows he is loved with a love that comes from the Father.

We chose the latter.

No one ended up with “the ringworm.”

A child experienced love.

The summer between my senior year and leaving for college, our youth group again hit the road, this time for Mexico. Amidst a community of shanty homes patched together from building scraps, we operated out of a one room church building with bare floor and minimal furnishings. Half of our team built what would be a clinic next door, while the other half provided activities for the children.

We all practiced not drinking water until evening when we returned to the bunk house, because simply walking past the outhouse made us nauseated from the smell. Yet the children would go in two by two, one waiting within the confines of the putrid shed for the other to trade them places. Family yards were barricaded by discarded bed springs, fastened together as makeshift fencing. Children walked barefoot along paths littered with broken glass. Our crowded bunkhouse was luxury compared to the everyday dwellings of this community.

On our last day, several women in the community came together and brought a meal to the church building to share with us as an offering of thankfulness. We had been careful during our visit to consume only pre-packaged food and drinks, or food we had brought with us. But here before us was a feast: fresh guacamole, grilled meat (likely lamb or goat), homemade tortillas, flavorful beans, carefully chopped vegetables. These families, who had so little, were presenting us a banquet.

Much like before, my youth minister looked us in the eyes. Slightly different than the previous summer, he informed us that he would not be partaking in the meal out of concern for his stomach. However, acknowledging our ability to discern for ourselves the right course of action, he made clear that we were free to choose to take part in the meal. No one would be condemned for participating; no one would be condemned for abstaining.

It didn’t take much consideration before we began filling our plates from the bountiful offering, thanking our hosts for the graciousness.

And it was good.

And we experienced love.

What I learned through those two experiences was that there is no fear in love… either the giving or receiving. And the Spirit works in the midst of the loving.

1 John 4:7-21
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

(image attribution)

Harold, it’s okay. It’s Wednesday.

2009-04-08T11:09:00.002-05:00

I still have two pending posts on Justice in the Burbs, and several things up my sleeve, but sometimes life breaks in and you just go with the flow. The voices in my head are constantly conversing, however, and I am sure to be back to writing soon. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a “vintage” Easter post.

~ dance break ~

2009-03-24T22:27:00.000-05:00

Justice in the Burbs: Brace Yourself

2009-03-19T14:50:00.001-05:00

Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?” The King will reply, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:34-40)

What if Jesus asked you to share a meal with someone who was hungry?

What if Jesus asked you to provide clothes for someone in need?

What if Jesus asked you to provide care to someone who was sick?

What if Jesus asked you to provide refreshment to someone who was thirsty?

What if Jesus asked you to invite a stranger into your home?

What if Jesus asked you to visit a prisoner?

What if Jesus asked you to invite a prisoner into your home, share meals with him, and provide care and love on behalf of the Lord?

What if your neighbors revolted?

What if Jesus asked you to reconsider who is your neighbor?

While the fictional characters in Justice in the Burbs do not face opposition quite this strong, I couldn't resist pulling in a real-life example. Regardless of whether or not our pursuit of justice makes the national news, relationships will be affected.

(p.116-119) Kiss Normal Goodbye. This is the best advice we can give you. All of us exist in a series of relationships that are bound together by common interests and common life decisions… If you start asking questions about those common interests and desires, as well as the structures that flow from those commonalities, you can expect opposition, frustration, and counterquestions from those who are often the closest to you… Our relationships – including our families, our neighbors, friends from work, the places we worship, and the civic organizations in which we participate – are all the result of decisions we have made. Now, imagine you start to question some of those decisions. The simple fact is that being involved in a life of justice will have deep effects on every relationship you currently enjoy… Our lives are simply the web of relationships formed by a common view of the world. If you start challenging that view, be prepared – your life and many of your relationships will never be the same again.

However, it is important to keep in mind that, just because relational frustration is inevitable, does not mean hostility should be our pursuit.

(p.122) …we should be conscious of the fact that the people of God have always struggled with what it means to live faithfully as one body. When we sense a need to live differently because of the call of God on our lives, some proper humiliation is in order. Like the reformed smoker who wants to tell anyone and everyone who will listen about her newfound knowledge, you will be tempted to call everyone to join you. And we think you should – in love. Keep your relationships. Maintain your bonds. Live justly, but do so in a way that is winsome and calls others to join in. We are called to live differently while maintaining relationships. This is the paradox of becoming radical followers of Jesus in a life of justice.

Don't be surprised by opposition, but don't seek to be oppositional. Serve, and question, in love.

(If you're interested in following the hospitality story further, there was a good New York Times article, as well as a letter published by the pastor.)

Justice in the Burbs: Introduction
Justice in the Burbs: Breathing Room
Justice in the Burbs: Working Together
Justice in the Burbs: It's Personal
Justice in the Burbs: Busy, Busy, Busy!

~ Newsbreak ~

2009-03-16T13:00:00.004-05:00

I have three more posts planned for the Justice in the Burbs review, but I couldn't resist sharing this little tidbit for you.

I canceled my Ode Magazine subscription probably two years ago, but a couple weeks back I began receiving a new email series from them: ...and now for the good news.

I have really enjoyed the links, especially in the midst of all of the not-so-good news floating about these days. This morning, there was a link to an article on ARK clothing, which I found inspiring and encouraging, so I wanted to pass it along. Consider it my act of random kindness for the day.

ARK clothing may not be anything dazzling, but the concept shines. Buy a shirt, and remember to perform an act of random kindness everytime you wear it... or everytime you think about it... or everyday. Oh, and the company is determined to find ways to do even bigger acts of kindness.

What was this young entrepreneur's inspiration? According to the website's FAQ's section:
A few years ago (by few I mean a lot) there was a guy who took on this lifestyle. He lived to help people. Every day going around doing ARK’s for pretty much everyone possible. It was an amazing lifestyle and it inspired me to live like He did. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a bible basher or confined in some lawful religion, I simply think loving people like Jesus did is a pretty mint way to live.

So... I'm not telling you to go out and buy a new polo shirt. But I would challenge you to think about what kind of act of random kindess you can cook up today!

Justice in the Burbs: Busy, Busy Busy!

2009-03-13T12:04:00.002-05:00

I’ve got to get busy writing – busy, busy, busy!
~ Professor Hinkle, Frosty the Snowman

Will and Lisa Samson are not living under the delusion that our lives are simple and easy, and that living justly should be a breeze.

(p.101) Whenever we talk to folks about living justly, the first questions people ask relate to the time that will be required. So, before we move any farther, we want you to hear this: we know how busy your schedule can be. We feel your pain. The last thing in the world we want to do is take you away from those things that are important to you. But let’s talk about what we are busy doing.

As the fictional characters in Justice in the Burbs begin to scale back on both their commitments and their lifestyles to make room for justice, they are concerned about their friends’ reactions:

Christine knew the call was coming. Jenna and Randy invited them to dinner. The Marshalls had finally had to cut back on their hours at church. Going down to the mission twice a month, not to mention Matt’s involvement with Habitat and Christine’s with Britney, was taking its toll on their family. After a month of prayer and laying it all out Matt-style on a spreadsheet, they’d come to the decision their justice works needed them more than the church did. They’d still teach Laurel’s Sunday school class. That was nonnegotiable. But that left youth group, the men’s prayer breakfast, the women’s Bible study group, and the grounds crew without their help. Leadership meetings every other week were a killer too.
“We were overinvolved anyway,” Christine said as she loaded the kids in the car to head over to Randy and Jenna’s. “Surely they can see that, Matt.”
“I don’t know. It’s so fast-paced these days, I think everybody really believes if you’re not doing something major with every waking minute, you’re a bad steward of your time. We did.”

I suppose this post is kind-of just a reiteration of the “Breathing Room” post. But I honestly feel that our time and our priorities is one the most difficult road blocks we will face in pursuing justice. Most of us believe pursuing justice is a good and honorable and necessary pursuit, but actually making the steps toward a just life is where the hard work and tough choices come into play.

(p. 104) Jesus understood something about human nature and the way we live. Humans have a tendency to let things pass and hope they will get better on their own. Perhaps the reason so many farming illustrations are utilized in the Bible is because they help us understand what happens when we don’t think carefully about our choices. They help us think properly about our culture. When we ignore the issues surrounding our choices and the kinds of culture created by them, weeds tend to spring up – weeds of indifference, and sometimes antagonism, toward the Christian faith… So, back to the original question: “Can’t I just answer ‘too busy’?” Sure, as long as you realize “too busy” is an answer with deep consequences… The church has failed in large ways to tend the cultural soil we have been given charge over, and unhealthy “plants” have grown there. You can blame the thorns, or you can ask why the thorns were able to grow in the first place. We suggest the second method.

Justice in the Burbs: Introduction
Justice in the Burbs: Breathing Room
Justice in the Burbs: Working Together
Justice in the Burbs: It's Personal

Justice in the Burbs: It's Personal

2009-03-12T14:54:00.002-05:00

Jesus Christ is not a weapon.
~ Mrs. Reyes, Lost

Justice can be tricky.

Last night, while working through the first section of The Open Table we came upon the question: What would a world without justice look like? The question was asked as part of the overarching section theme: What do you think of when you think of God?

Justice is a part of God’s character, and he calls us to display his character through our lives.

But what is justice?

What does it look like?

What implications does it place on our lives?

We wrestled with these questions, and did not come to a unanimous conclusion.

Are we called to non-violently lay down our lives, or take up arms to protect the innocent, or both?

How do we balance speaking the truth and displaying love?

Are we called to persuade or to serve?

Whose job is it to control behavior and choices?

The authors of Justice in the Burbs emphasize that pursuing justice requires personal involvement. It can not simply be left to our societal organizations, whether it be congregations, schools, non-profits or the government.

(p.92-93) Missionary writer Lesslie Newbigin talked about a congregation being a “hermeneutic of the gospel,” a fancy way of saying that how we act as followers of Jesus interprets for the larger culture the “good news” about Jesus. When we act individualistically, when we don’t seem to be moving in concert with other followers of Jesus, that becomes a statement to those around us. It’s hard to convince the world of the love of God when we have a hard time loving each other. It’s hard to convince the world that Jesus cares when we don’t.

Nowhere is this more evident than on issues of justice. The church in America seems far more enamored by the governmental process than by the sacrificial act of giving to each other and to a world in need. Judging by our actions, it seems we would rather show up every four years and vote than show up every day to be the agents of God’s work in the world. Our actions send a clear message to those in need: “we don’t really care about you.”

Recently the work of the church, particularly the American evangelical church, has come to be perceived as being more about power and control than about bringing the love of Christ to the world. We have become like a distant parent who says he or she loves the child but shows up only when it’s time to discipline him. This has significant impact on the church and the culture’s understanding of the gospel. The wonderful story of redemption available by converting to the way of Jesus becomes an empty slogan on the march to political dominance.

It can be overwhelming and perplexing to figure out what true justice looks like on a larger societal scale. However, in our day-to-day life justice can look like receiving people in our homes, sharing meals, listening, hearing, lending our voice, sharing our knowledge, learning from one another, making time and creating new priorities. Maybe justice can mean slowing down, allowing the spirit to cultivate his fruit in our lives, and opening our lives to those we encounter. Maybe justice can be about me acting from the kingdom planted within me in a way that foreshadows God’s anticipated kingdom, and invites people into the beauty of such a world.

Justice in the Burbs: Introduction
Justice in the Burbs: Breathing Room
Justice in the Burbs: Working Together

Justice in the Burbs: Working Together

2009-03-11T12:03:00.002-05:00

I don't need you to worry for me cause I'm alright
I don't want you to tell me it's time to come home
I don't care what you say anymore, this is my life
Go ahead with your own life, and leave me alone
~ Billy Joel

We U.S. Americans can be fiercely independent people. If something needs to be done, we do it ourselves… and we don’t ask for help. Call it our immigrant heritage, our pioneer spirit, or our entrepreneurial drive… or just call it plain stubbornness. Granted, there are pockets where a sense of communal responsibility still exists, where our interconnectedness is obvious and essential: in our families, in our individual congregations, and even in some of our wider networked relationships. However, as one of our pastors reminded us on Sunday, these are still individuality writ large: our individual families, our individual congregations, our individual networks.

(p.74) Americans are entrepreneurial. We have a can-do spirit, which might be better described as an I-can-do spirit. We like to start new stuff. Nowhere is this spirit more alive than in the church.

What is closest to us, what is most familiar, is what we can trust. We can trust it not only because we understand it better, but because proximity offers a greater degree of control. Relinquishing decision making power to (or even sharing power with) a source that is unfamiliar, not to mention a bit peculiar, requires a great deal of trust in something more reliable than either party involved.

(p.75) For many of us, the notion of launching out in some bold new initiative is seen as part of our evangelistic zeal, as part and parcel of doing the work of God. But what if God would have us join work already in progress?

It is easy enough to see these distinctions within the Church among diverse denominations and even between congregations in the same tradition. They don’t do it the way we do. It’s glaringly obvious when you begin talking about churches partnering with “secular” organizations.

Consider this conversation between characters in Justice in the Burbs:

“Well, first Matt does Habitat, fine. And I think it’s great that you’re doing the Big Sister thing. Lord knows we need more of that sort of ministry going on these days. But I’m worried about Matt. He’s associating with all sorts of people who don’t really even believe in the gospel… Should he really be associating with those people?”

“But they’re the ones building houses. I couldn’t get anybody but you and Matt, Jenna, to even think about starting the hot breakfast ministry.”

“I’m just concerned. You don’t think he’s going to fall into error or anything, do you?”
“Of course not! Matt’s stronger spiritually than he’s ever been. This winter has been a real time of revival for him. They’ve built three more houses, you know.”

“Well, doing good works and being right with the Lord are two different things.”

Okay. “How so?”

“It’s all about a personal relationship with Christ, Chris. You know that.”

“All about that?”

“Of course. If we add anything to it, it becomes a gospel of works.”

If you have never encountered a similar conversation, count your lucky stars. We have cultivated a great deal of apprehension in the Church toward the motives of anyone who may not think exactly the way we do, whether those Episcopalians downtown who let the homeless wander through their building, or those crazy Vegans who gather monthly to cook and share meals using locally grown produce, or the university that provides a neighborhood tutoring program, or (Lord forbid) those stuffy Baptists who are opening up their youth gym for a community basketball league.

(p.76-77) God is already at work. This is what the parable of the field presupposes. We don’t create the field; we join as workers. Whether you’re coming in at nine or noon, the harvest is burgeoning… If we saw our stuff – our money, our time, our families, everything we have – as being given for use in the work of God, we might be more careful with what we acquire and how we use it…. We are learning that some people are already doing great things, and the best way for us to invest in the kingdom is to join with them.

OK. Maybe we can suck it up and buy into this whole “join God where he is working” thing with those smells-and-bells cathedral types, or even venture to partner with those our-resources-are-greater-than-your-resources megachurch folks, but you can’t seriously expect us to work alongside people in our community who may not even believe in God (or worse, who disdain Christians)?

(p.78) God is at work when people act like Jesus. You want to join in the work of God? Look for signs of Jesus. Look for people who are bringing “good news to the poor,” proclaiming “release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind,” those who are helping “to let the oppressed go free” (Luke 4:18 NIV). Equally important to knowing we are working for the kingdom, that we are – to quote our friend Shane Claiborne – being the “hands and feet of Jesus,” is knowing that we are using God’s resources well.

I’ve worked with enough non-profits (including churches) to see the waste that can come with overlapping services, and even the gaps that can occur when we are all busy trying to do our own thing. What if we trusted God to be big enough to work through even the most uncomfortable of relationships? And what if, in the process, we came to learn that those tree-huggers aren’t so bad? And what if they were given the opportunity to realize us Christians aren’t so bad, either?

(p.80) It’s not as daunting as you might think. Nobody expects you to be the next Mother Teresa. We recommend that you start small. Don’t think that you need to invent the ultimate justice ministry. Join with those who are already doing the work. But start. Your journey toward justice begins with your next step. Perhaps Jesus lives right next door or down the street. He might even be in your own home.

Justice in the Burbs: Introduction
Justice in the Burbs: Breathing Room

Justice in the Burbs: Breathing Room

2009-03-10T12:12:00.003-05:00

I remember thinking this just can't be right
Got to be a better way to live your life
Slow like a soft southern breeze
Nobody take time to breathe
Everybody always rush, rush, rush around
~ Edie Brickell

Once upon a time, I had a really great concept for a post about anxiousness. Of course, in my busyness I never got around to finishing the series, which kind of negated the moral of the story. I had all kinds of great quotes and illustrations floating around in my head to expound upon the difference between living for today, living as if there is no tomorrow, and living in light of tomorrow.

Watch as, before your very eyes, I attempt the abbreviated version of my original outline, and the death-defying stunt of tying it all in to Justice in the Burbs.

Justice in the Burbs uses two parallel methods to bring readers into the discussion. One is the general prose teaching, and the other is the story of a fictional suburban family that gets drawn into God’s heart for justice. Early on in the book, we are reminded that we live in a disruption-avoidance culture. In the subsequent story vignette, one of the characters is asked by a well-meaning friend, But do you really have time to get involved in all that? You just agreed to lead one of our women’s Bible studies.

A big theme in Justice in the Burbs is identifying things in our lives that keep us from pursuing acts of justice. Some of these things are privilege, comfort and safety. An overarching distraction is busyness and, more often than not, busyness with really good commitments.

Living for Today
When we live for today, we tend to be affected solely by those people and concerns that surround us and are most immediate. We fail to see the big picture of our world and how God is moving in it, and we sometimes fail to see how God is moving in our neighborhoods and our congregations.

(p. 43) Yet frequently the stuff of this normal life so dominates our time and attention that we fail to see issues greater than ourselves. If we are never interrupted, and if we do not intentionally strive to raise people to value the stranger and the needy in the ways God does, everyday activities will crowd out God’s call on our lives.

Living for today focuses all our attention on our (and our immediate family’s) personal needs, comfort, safety and satisfaction. It fails to look beyond our selfishness into what it means to truly love our neighbor more than ourselves, because loving our neighbor will always call us to deny ourselves in some way.

Living As If There is No Tomorrow
Living as if there is no tomorrow can be a bit trickier. In this case, we can often be aware of all of the good that needs to be done around us, and feel a responsibility to do it all now. This is often the state of mind that leads to anxiousness and exhaustion.

(p. 58) We even “church” too hard, some of us spending three nights a week at church-related activities: youth group, prayer meeting, and leadership meetings, to name a few. It seems as though we Americans do all we can to feel busy. In fact, the prevailing answer to the question “How are you?” is no longer, “Fine, and you?” but “Busy!” This allows us to feel like a player; a bootstrap puller, not a loafer or someone without goals or a to-do list a mile long, not like someone who isn’t really going anywhere far. But does all this activity keep us from thinking about the bigger issues of life?

Early on in my faith, I was literally at the church Monday night, Wednesday night, and all day Sunday. Often, in-between I was at additional church activities and/or in our high school campus Christian club meetings. I was committed. When, as a young adult, I became involved with a church plant, I still found myself signing on to every “service opportunity” that presented itself, not to mention community groups and Bible studies. By the time I realized how stretched my resources had become, and how little I was interacting with anyone outside of the church, it was too late – an “no” to a request to serve or participate equaled a rejection of the program or need presented. Even in my current congregation, I can be found talking to myself and remembering the phrase I heard from Margaret Feinberg: the existence of a need does not equal a call.

Those who live as if there is no tomorrow may recognize the myriad of needs that exist in our homes, our congregations, our neighborhoods, and our world… but they may also feel the unrealistic (and unhealthy) belief that they have to meet them all (AND NOW!).

Living in Light of Tomorrow
Take a deep breath. There is an alternative to living selfishly or living anxiously. We have the option to live in awareness of the needs that surround us, and how our life choices intertwine with those needs, and to make wise decisions about how our gifts, skills and resources can best be used in just and merciful ways.

(p. 161) The first step toward living justly is to consider small, repeatable steps that will move you forward.

(p. 188) Deeply rooted in our modern culture is the belief that if something worked in one person’s life, then systematizing that process and offering it to others would guarantee success in their lives. How I wish that were so. We have sold our hopes to the promises of the quick fix. We embrace each new technological revolution with enthusiasm. In the church, we often embrace each new church growth idea with the same level of enthusiasm. Perhaps you think that living justly is the new marketing method to grow your congregation. But issues of justice run deeper; right to the very heart of a God desperately in love with this world and deeply hopeful that you will play some part in the redemption of all creation. Causing the world to be more just will require a commitment for the long haul. Some of the greatest injustices of our world are the result of hundreds of years of actions. It would be naïve to think that days, weeks, months, or even years will solve the problem. There are no silver bullets.

(p. 190) In order to live justly, you must begin to see yourself as part of a plan that is already thousands of years in the making, with no knowledge of when that plan will end.

God took on flesh and lived among us as Jesus, and he extended an invitation for us to join him in building his kingdom. That’s pretty darn exciting, and not the type of invitation you toss in the junk mail pile. He told us a bit of what this kingdom would look like, and even went so far as to tell us that the kingdom is already within us, so we can start living like its already here.

The kingdom is, and it is not yet.

It is not until he returns. It is in every step we take toward making it so. We see the big picture, and we are helping to paint it day by day.

I’m a sucker for Mary & Martha, and I have to say I think poor Martha gets a bad rap:

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." (Luke 10:38-40)

Martha opened her home, she made preparations for her guests, she wanted to make sure that everyone was cared for and comfortable. Martha had a heart for other people. I feel for her. There was work to be done and her sister, who lived under her roof, was not helping. Sure, Mary was spending time with their guest and listening to him. That’s great… Martha would like to spend time with him too… however, Martha realized that if they all sat at his feet and talked, nothing would get prepared and she would look like a bad hostess. If her sister would just help her, everything would get done quicker and then they could all sit and enjoy each other’s company.

Can I get an “amen”?

But our Creator reminds us to breathe. He does not say that Martha’s preparations are bad. What he is concerned about is her busyness and her anxiousness. I can almost hear him continuing: Settle down, Martha. Everything will get done. Come sit her and enjoy my company. It’s ok if the presentation isn’t perfect, I appreciate your heart and I really just want to spend time with you. Come have a seat, and I’ll help you in the kitchen in a bit.

We have been called into a journey, a process, a coming kingdom. And even the one who sacrificed everything, that the kingdom may be possible, took time to rest, to laugh, to enjoy meals and conversations with friends, to breathe. He touched, he listened, he taught and he loved, and he calls us to do the same. It shouldn’t be overwhelming, it should be exciting.

We will have to make priorities.

We will have to open our eyes and our hearts to the needs around us.

We will have to learn to say no to some things we want to do.

We will have to learn to say yes to some things we may not want to do.

We will have to make room in our lives for interruption.

But, in the end…

Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me… I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me. (Matthew 25:31-46)

Justice in the Burbs

2009-03-09T07:23:00.002-05:00

I tend to read and I tend to ramble, but it seems I rarely ramble about what I am reading. Sure, it seeps into my posts here and there, but not in a way that might encourage someone to actually pick the book up and mull around. Consider this a turning over of a new leaf.

My congregation has been discussing what it means to be authentic community, both within and beyond the walls of our gathering place – why are we gathered together, how do we serve one another, how do we live out Jesus in our local community? One consideration that has been particularly vexing is how we pursue God’s heart for justice from the midst of one of Little Rock’s more affluent neighborhoods.

Enter Justice in the Burbs.

Now, admittedly, I rejected this book upon my first encounter. I have a history of prejudice against books with cheesy titles (unless, of course, they fall into the intentionally cheesy romcom category). Luckily, however, I had the opportunity to interact with Will & Lisa Samson at the Great Emergence conference, and thoroughly enjoyed each of their presentations. When I made the connection that they were part of Communality (a community whose blog I frequent), I not only had to privately repent of my book title snobbery, but I had to publicly confess to Will that I had once stolen a picture from Communality’s blog for one of my own posts. (He was gracious and forgiving, which also spoke well for the book.)

Over the next few days, I hope to review a bit of the topics covered in Justice in the Burbs, enough to peak your interest in perhaps securing a copy of your own. While I have attempted to promote my own innovative suggestions toward sustainability on this blog, I believe that the Samsons’ book is a valuable and well-written resource for individuals and congregations pursuing social justice.

In addition to the discussion ensuing here, I invite you to hop over to the Mustard Seed Associates blog and join Tom Sine’s conversation on the Church’s response to the recession.

~ misty notions ~

2009-03-06T07:00:00.000-06:00

The Maker of Noses (Rich Mullins)

I believe there is a place
where people live in perfect peace
where there is food on every plate
where work is rewarded and rest is sweet
where the color of your skin
won't get you in or keep you out
where justice reigns and truth finally wins
it's hard fought war against fear and doubt

and everyone I know wants to go there too
but when I ask them how to do it they seem
so confused
do I turn to the left
do I turn to the right
when I turn to the world they give me this advice

CHORUS
they said boy you just follow your heart
but my heart just led me into my chest
they said follow your nose
but the direction changed
every time I went and turned my head
they said boy you just follow your dreams
but my dreams were only misty notions
but the father of hearts and the maker of noses
and the giver of dreams he's the one I have chosen
and I will follow him

I believe ther'll come a time
Lord I pray it's not too far off
ther'll be no poverty or crime
ther'll be no greed and we'll learn how to love
and children will be safe in their homes
and ther'll be no violence out on the street
the old will not be left alone
the strong will learn how to care for the weak

and everyone I know hopes it comes real soon
but when I ask 'em where I find it they seem
so confused
do I find it in the day
do I find it in the night
when I finally ask the world they give me this advice

REPEAT CHORUS

BRIDGE
and oh, I hear the voice of a million dreams
then I wake in the world that I'm partly made of
and the world that is partly my homemaking
and oh, I hear the song of a heart set free
that will not be kept down
by the fury and sound
of a world that is wasting away that keeps saying

REPEAT CHORUS

That's What Susan Said...

2009-03-05T06:00:00.001-06:00

And ain't it funny what people say
And ain't it funny what people write
And ain't it funny how it hits you so hard
In the middle of the night
~ Rich Mullins (What Susan Said)

Sometime around my senior year in high school, or maybe it was during a break my first year in college (they say you’re memory is the first thing to go), I was hanging out with some friends from my youth group, and one of our former interns was visiting. Truth be told, it was my favorite youth intern, you know, the one you really connect with and learn from and end up having a school-girl crush on, and all that jazz? That intern.

So we’re hanging out, and catching up, and somehow get on the subject of relationships. I don’t think he had married yet, but he was probably engaged by that point. It was really a beautiful story how God brought him and his wife together, even though they had run in the same circle for years and never paid much attention to each other. They had attended the same college I was enrolled in, where the unofficial motto was “ring by spring, or your money back.” I’m still waiting for my refund.

We signed these True Love Waits cards in high school, but the whole I Kissed Dating Goodbye thing hadn’t reared its ugly head yet. I, however, being ahead of my time, had managed to be dateless when dateless wasn’t cool. I figured that would change when I got to college, but… not so much.

So here I am, in the midst of a conversation on dating and relationships and marriage, and this intern looks at me and says, “You know, God isn’t going to bring you someone until he has you where he wants you.”

*insert knife in heart & turn*

To my 18 year old self, those words cut deep. What I heard at that time, from this guy I greatly admired, was that God had brought him his wife because he was living like God wanted him to live, and I was dateless because there was obviously something about the Christian life that I wasn’t getting right. I really resented that conversation for years during college.

Fifteen years later, I can still hear those words.

Thing is, I hear them in a completely different and affirming way. God has moved me in some pretty significant ways, and I can’t imagine I would be the person I am today had I met and married my husband in college. By this point in my life, a majority of my friends are married with children, and they are still surprisingly imperfect. I love that about them. I’ve come to realize that it’s not about me reaching this particular level of holiness before (or if) I marry, but about God working in my life to mold me into who he wants me to be for his kingdom.

I recall the revelation when I first learned that Psalm 37:4 (Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.) was not about God giving us everything we desire but about placing his desires in our hearts. It was profound at the time, and it is something I am still learning. do not fret… trust… dwell…delight… commit… be still… wait patiently…

I’ve written before about coming to the point where I was comfortable with my singleness. But I continue to look at my life and at what I am learning and how I am growing and changing, and I realize that God has me in an entirely different place than where I once was. Is it the place where he would bring me a mate for the rest of the journey, or does he have more up his sleeve for my solitary life? Moments when I long to have someone tangible hold me together are quickly chased by moments of thankfulness that God didn’t have two interconnected personalities to guide through a challenging situation. Luckily, I have community, and I have learned so much from the people the Lord continues to bring through my life.

God isn’t going to bring me someone until he has me where he wants me. I will wait patiently to see where he leads from here. And, in the meantime, I will learn to love like nobody’s business.

Some Rich Mullins quotes from the article Living Single in February 1995’s CCM Magazine:

A lot of people think they are struggling with being content and single, and I think that everybody struggles with being content. You can blame your discontent on being single, or you can blame it on anything else. I don't think that necessarily singleness is any more the cause of discontent than marriage is.

If you're miserable single, you'll be miserable married. If you're miserable married, you'll likely be miserable divorced. The idea is not to change your status, the idea is to stop worrying about how miserable you are and do something fun - like try to love somebody.

I think one of the problems I have with married people and single people on the issue of singleness is people often talk about marriage as if it's a cure for loneliness. One of the things that I find shocking is when I talk to my married friends, who are very married - they are very happily married, and they're also very lonely. And in the midst of that loneliness they have to deal with somebody else and their loneliness.

Loving isn't [necessarily] about filling a void. Loving is being open to somebody, being receiving of them, allowing what's going to happen to happen.

(image attribution)

~ interlude ~

2009-03-04T07:10:00.001-06:00

Subversion, thy name is cake!

2009-03-03T09:13:00.003-06:00

Recently on the Living Small blog, a clarion call was sent out to battle the recession with cake:
Make a stand against the eroding life skills of a fat, rich, America. Bake a cake. Bake a cake from ingredients in your house, and serve it to someone you love. Let the revolution begin with cake!
Obviously, I'm not the only one who has been influenced by the life of Rich Mullins. I mean, I don't know this for a fact, but I could possibly suggest that Charlotte had at one time in her life been exposed to an article on The Pursuit of Happiness written by Rich for Release magazine (courtesy of the Kid Brothers website). Among other things, his advice includes:

1. Forget about finding happiness. Happiness is not worthy of your search.

2. Bake a cake - a really rich cake, preferably from scratch and especially if you are an inexperienced baker or a tested, tried, & notoriously awful cook. The value is in the baking more than in the cake.

3. Call up some enemy of yours and invite that enemy to eat the cake with you. If the cake is good you may lose an enemy and gain a friend. If the cake is bad, at least vengeance is sweet.

4. If you can't think of a single enemy, then call up a friend. Invite your friend over to eat the cake with you. If the cake is good the favor may be returned. If the cake is awful your friend may go buy one from a bakery for you. If you are without any enemies or friends, take your cake to an old folks' home. Eat it with them! If the cake is good you will no longer be without friends. If the cake is terrible you will no longer be without enemies. Finding a friend, making an enemy - now those are things worth pursuing. Happiness may come tagged on - but even if it doesn't, at least you will have done something and established some relationships.

So, there you have it folks. Viva la cake!

~ charming & offensive ~

2009-03-02T10:37:00.004-06:00

I have Rich on the brain.

This weekend we traveled to Dallas for the Ronnie Fauss CD release show, which was fab. The last song had a line in it that went something like this (these are not the actual lyrics, but the best of my memory):

Rich Mullins told me life is about much more than riches,
But Snoop Dogg said its all about money and bitches,
And I’m still trying to figure out which one is right.

Beautiful.

My theology has been deeply shaped by the life of Rich Mullins, and looking back it seems quite humorous. When we would be stuck in the van for hours on mission trips and youth retreats, it seems that our leaders were always more concerned with those weird bands we were listening to (you know, like that Australian rock band Newsboys?) than the likes of Rich. Little did they know, his albums should probably include a “listen with discernment” label. I came across this fabulous interview from The Phantom Tollbooth back in ’96, and thought I would share a bit with you here:

Tollbooth: I've seen you in festival settings before and have never heard you speak at such length. You have the capability of being quite charming and also extremely offensive.

Mullins: I love that combination.

Tollbooth: You certainly spoke your mind.

Mullins: Oh, I'm so guarded! If people really knew my mind, they'd go, "Oh, my gosh, where's the gasoline! We gotta burn this guy!" (laugher by all)

See, I think a lot of my songs are really political. I think nobody gets it, but it's hard for me to divide up my politics and my religious convictions. There's something offensive to me about having an American flag in a church building. When the CIA pretended to be missionaries and caused trouble in Chile so that all missionaries were kicked out, I think that makes the United States the enemy of the kingdom of God. I think a government that requires 18-year-old boys to register for the draft is anti-life. See, all the pro-lifers, they only think life is sacred if you are a fetus. I agree that life is sacred to fetuses, but I also think it's sacred to 18-year-olds. Where were you people when Nixon was in the White House? When Lyndon Johnson was escalating the war? Not that I necessarily think that everybody has to be a pacifist; I don't. But it does seem funny to me that so many people who are anti-abortion are pro-capital punishment. So many people who are anti-capital punishment are pro-abortion.

All I ask of anybody is that you make a little effort to be consistent. Life is one of those things that G. K. Chesterton says almost makes sense, which is the really tragic thing about life.

I really struggle with American Christianity. I'm not really sure that people with our cultural disabilities are capable of having souls, or being saved.

Tollbooth: Cultural disabilities?

Mullins: We could call it that. People who grow up in a culture that worships pleasure, leisure, and affluence. I think that's where the church is doubly damned when they use Jesus as a vehicle for achieving all of that. Like, if you give a tithe, He'll make you rich. Why? Are you hacking Him off or something? If you give a tithe, you get rid of ten percent of the root of all evil. You should be giving ninety percent. Cause God can handle money better than we can.

Tollbooth: What are you doing at Hilltop Christian School (on a Navajo Indian reservation) where you moved last year?

Mullins: I'm not doing anything there right now.

Tollbooth: What happened?

Mullins: They found out I wasn't a fundamentalist.

Tollbooth: (Laughter) Excuse me?

Mullins: Big surprise, huh?

Tollbooth: Your theology threw you out? Your beliefs?

Mullins: It wasn't like anybody pulled the carpet out from under me. I believe it's better for any organization to go the wrong way together than to go different ways separately. I totally understand, appreciate, and respect people who say, "we're not sure about this, but this is what we're doing. You really need to fit in with this, or you shouldn't be here." And I can respect that. We both agreed that I don't really need to be there right now, just because I don't "get" fundamentalists, and I don't really know that I want to be stuck with a bunch of 'em.

(Photo Credit)

*lyrics correction*

Well Mullins said that life is not about riches
But then Snoop said it's nothing but money and bitches
And I've been doing some thinking and I don't know which is
The one that I'll believe

food, glorious food!

2009-02-16T21:29:00.003-06:00

I only think I have original ideas.

Last week, I walked into our living room and declared to the household I had come up with a great idea. Assuming the freezers at church don't get any use, I shared my brilliant plan of inviting people to bring ingredients and spend the day cooking together and freezing meals for later use. We could pull these out as needed for hospitality, for giving to a family that is going through a hard time, or for assisting agencies that feed the hungry. Fellowship and service all rolled into one.

Brilliant, right?

Well, maybe... but certainly not original.

Catching up on my blog reading this holiday weekend, I discovered a similar suggestion on the Mustard Seed Associates site. If you haven't visited their site, or The Revolution Starts at Home, I highly recommend both blogs.

In related news, I got some mesclun seeds this weekend. I figure if I'm going to pursue a green thumb, I've gotta start somewhere!

Happy Valentines Day!

2009-02-14T09:18:00.002-06:00

(Image Attribution)

I would love to be celebrating at the Common Root conference, but instead I'm at home reading Justice in the Burbs, and being reminded about grace and unity. Locally, I am looking around me at the various expressions of the Church - downtown cathedrals, sprawling suburbans, a few decaying, and several energetic upstarts - and, I have to say, It Is Good. There is some good stuff going on in our city and some amazing people, in every expression of the Body. And it is good. And it is very good. If you haven't had a chance to visit the Memorials for Donna page, please do (and consider donating $10... I'll kiss you later!).

If the way of Jesus is about anything, it is about love… God entangled in a loving embrace with his creation, seeking to make it whole. If we are to be radical about anything, let it be love. Let us be wreckless in our love – not only for the poor and marginalized and broken, but also for the rich and powerful and proud. Let us embrace a gracious radicalism, that recognizes that the grace of God (which is really God’s gift of himself to the undeserving) is free to all.
~ Mark Van Steenwyk

~ empathy ~

2009-02-13T05:00:00.001-06:00

Jo: You should be ashamed of yourself.

Dick: We don't usually barge in that way.

I mean a man of your ability wasting his time photographing silly dresses on silly women.

Most people think they're beautiful dresses on beautiful women.

At most, a synthetic beauty. Trees are beautiful. Why don't you photograph trees?

I do what I do for a living. It has to do with supply and demand. You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees. My work is pleasant, the pay is excellent, and I get a trip to Paris every year.

I certainly envy you that. I'd be in Paris now if I could afford it.

You'd have a ball. You'd go to a party every night, drink champagne, swim in perfume, and a new love affair every hour on the hour.

If I went to Paris, it would be to go to Emile Flostre's lectures.

Who goes to Paris for lectures?

Professor Flostre is the greatest living philosopher, and father of empathicalism.

Oh? What's empathicalism?

The most sensible approach to true understanding and peace of mind.

Sounds great, but what is it?

It's based on empathy. Do you know what the word "empathy" means?

No, I'll have to have the beginner's course on that one. Empathy, is it something like sympathy?

Oh, it goes beyond sympathy. Sympathy is to understand what someone feels. Empathy is to project your imagination so that you actually feel what the other person is feeling. You put yourself in the other person's place. Do I make myself clear?

(He kisses her)

Why did you do that?

Empathy. I put myself in your place and I felt that you wanted to be kissed.

You put yourself in the wrong place. I have no desire to be kissed
by you, or anyone else.

Don't be silly. Everybody wants to be kissed, even philosophers.

(Funny Face)

~ proximity ~

2009-02-12T07:00:00.001-06:00

When you like somebody proximity is a good thing, regardless of how they feel about you… or don’t, as the case may be.

~ Pacey (Dawson’s Creek - Stolen Kisses)

~ it just fits ~

2009-02-11T07:00:00.000-06:00

Sometimes someone says something really small, and it just fits into this empty space in your heart...

People always say how you should be yourself, like "yourself" is this definite thing - like a toaster, or something - like you can know what it is, even. But, every so often, I'll have, like, a moment when just being myself, in my life, right where I am, is like, enough.

~ Angela Chase (My So-Called Life - Pressure)

(image attribution)

~ buzzing along ~

2009-02-10T07:30:00.000-06:00

Hey - could we do that again?

I know we haven't met, but I don't want to be an ant.

You know?

I mean, it's like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us.

Stop.

Go.

Walk here.

Drive there.

All action basically for survival.

All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner.

"Here's your change."

"Paper or plastic?'

"Credit or debit?"

"You want ketchup with that?"

I don't want a straw, I want real human moments.

I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up.

I don't want to be ant, you know?

~ Girl in Stairwell (Waking Life)

~ all we need ~

2009-02-09T11:57:00.002-06:00

…this is all we need - a couple of smokes, a cup of coffee, and a little bit of conversation - you and me and five bucks.

~ Troy (Reality Bites)

meanwhile...

2009-02-05T11:15:00.004-06:00

Last night's vesper gathering at Vineyard was beautiful and refreshing. We were invited to come together and seek the Kingdom:

"Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine." ~ Kathleen Norris

Are we ready to be changed? Are we prepared, if God speaks, to do what he asks? As we gather this week, we focus our hearts on repentance - on our longing to be changed beyond our ability to ask. We ask for humility in our words and for the patience to embrace the silence in which God speaks.

Last week, we invited His Spirit to show us a picture of who we are and who we might become. As we pray together this Mid-Week Vespers, we ask forgiveness for those things which have prevented us from becoming the community to which He is calling. We repent of our cynicism and fear; our pride and selfishness; our lack of faith and our lack of hope. We ask our Father to forgive us and to change us. We ask for faith where there was fear; for hope where there was cynicism; and for humility where there was pride.
We hope you will join us this evening as we seek His kingdom and ask that it come to us here and now - as it is in heaven.

Thanks to last night's prayers and scripture readings, I have had the following song running through my head all morning long (not that that's a bad thing...):

Banquet at the World’s End (Daniel Amos)

The beautiful people, all send their excuses:
Real estate and sex lives, livestock and ex-wives)

But the poor are coming, the lame are running
In their sleazy clothes and orthopedic shoes
There's a harelip spokesman shouting out the news

"Come to the banquet at the world's end!"

There's a string ensemble, and the King's court jester
Telling parables and big jokes, to mongoloids and old folks

The blind are seeing, the dead are breathing
And the mummies dance in geriatric style
The amputees are rolling down the aisles

"Come to the banquet at the world's end!"

Candlelight and party hats, duck and pheasant under glass
Aluminum walkers, thin white canes, caviar and pink champagne
The bride and the groom waltz on club foot lane
at the banquet at the world's end
The banquet at the world's end
The banquet at the world's end

Say the beautiful people (the poor are coming)
"We'll live with the lights out (the lame are running)
Leave us alone now because (the blind are seeing)
Hell feels like home now" (the dead are breathing)

Meanwhile...

But the poor are coming, the lame are running
In their sleazy clothes and orthopedic shoes
There's a harelip spokesman shouting out the news

"Come to the banquet at the world's end!"
"Come to the banquet at the world's end!"
"Come to the banquet at the world's end!"

~ medical breakthrough ~

2009-02-03T16:42:00.003-06:00

Like getting a tooth removed, you say?

Hottest Guy on the Island

2009-01-22T09:17:00.002-06:00

I heart Daniel Faraday.

He's wicked brilliant.

He's compassionate.

He's permanently disheveled.

He stands up to Sawyer.

He's hot.

How do you read it?

2009-01-16T10:48:00.002-06:00

Is asking
What is rich?
pretty much the same as asking
Who is my neighbor?

Mark 10:17-30
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good - except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.'" "Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy."

Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!" The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God."

Peter said to him, "We have left everything to follow you!" "I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields - and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first."

Luke 10:25-37
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'"

"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."

Can't You Feel A Brand New Day?

2009-01-15T13:42:00.006-06:00

It really was no miracle, what happened was just this: the wind began to switch, the house to twitch, and suddenly the hinges started to unhitch...
~ Dorothy Gale from Kansas
(The Wizard of Oz)

Before my world became cockeyed, the worst things that happened in my life were dead animals, various minor head injuries, and tornados. The head injuries, results of careless play in a carefree childhood, left no lasting impressions to speak of. Our scaled-down animal cemetery rarely included a cherished family pet, consisting primarily of turtles kept too long in boxes, emaciated goldfish won at school carnivals, and naked baby birds toppling from rooftop nests. Tornados, however, are the type of things that stick to a person’s soul.

A drive through Gravel Ridge these days may yield a landscape of overgrown yards and dilapidated homes, but in my childhood it was the perfect blend of suburbia and countryside. It seemed every home contributed kids to the population, and together we managed to turn the neighborhood into a virtual fantasyland. There were the woods next to the churchyard, with dark trails and abandoned cars hidden in the brush. The long, winding, shallow creek bed managed to yield a collection of catfish and crawdads to the patient and diligent among us. A large crater in the soil behind one row of houses became the ultimate fort, furnished with remains of broken swing sets, a sundry collection of planks and bricks, and a variety of items confiscated while our mothers weren’t looking. One home had a trampoline, and while the family was less than pleasant, we all extended cordiality in exchange for the opportunity to jump, flip, and occasionally fall to the ground. Front porches became home-base for rounds of Colored Eggs and Hide-and-Seek, or stages for impromptu talent shows. Often, the most enjoyable moments would consist of sitting around on someone’s driveway, discussing the irresistible scandalousness of Madonna, until our mothers called us home for supper. After we ate, of course, it was back outside for a rousing game of Flashlight Tag or Ghosts in the Graveyard.

It’s been said you can never go home again, and for #4 Hula Drive this is absolutely the case. The original house was blown apart by a subsequent owner with poor coping skills, a bitter yet appropriate end for a structure that withstood twisters, alcoholism and my parent’s divorce. I learned to weather both the literal and figurative storms of life on that lot, in a house that is no longer standing, but is ever present in my memory. Practically a landing strip in tornado alley, Gravel Ridge was prepared for strong, unpredictable winds. The two largest structures around Aloha Circle were both built with tornados in mind. Northwood Junior High School, where the “big kids” spent their days, was a thick concrete building burrowed into a hillside, with nothing but a row of small windows peering out from the summit. The nearby church, whose front field provided a prime location for three-wheeling and touch football, offered a basement-level fellowship hall providing subterrestrial protection from nature’s fury or the wrath of God, depending on your perspective.

When a storm was brewing, you could smell it in the air, feel it in the humidity, sense it in your bones. It was a promise that something exciting would happen this evening, that a night of community would replace an early bedtime, and there would be plenty of stories to share in the morning. We could hardly contain our excitement, dressing in our pajamas and curling up on the couch as if awaiting the arrival of Santa Claus. Televisions stood in silent reverence as outside limbs clattered in rapidly intensifying wind gusts. Mothers gathered tennis shoes, coats and portable snacks for the impending exodus. Neighborhood canines sounded their sirens from yard to yard long before the radio announced “If you are near the path of this storm, please seek shelter immediately.” In latter years, in other houses, we would retreat to a closet or bathtub or inner hallway. In Gravel Ridge, however, this was the call to depart on a journey.

We exited the door to an entire street of families descending from porches or emerging from carports, and joined the parade to one of the two underground destinations. A rag-tag looking bunch if ever there was one, our strolling caravan came bearing gifts of freshly buttered popcorn, Capri Sun drinks and decks of cards. If the sirens were already sounding, or the rain was intense, we may end up next door at the church. Not the destination of choice, especially for us rambunctious types, the church required a quiet atmosphere and the posture of an overly-extended fire drill. On more fortunate occasions, we would be granted the opportunity to venture a few blocks more to the school, where there was freedom and mayhem to be had. Older siblings would hoist their younger counterparts into overstuffed lockers down unoccupied corridors. So as not to arouse parental frustrations in close quarters, games were limited the understated variety, such as Heads Up, Seven Up and Mother, May I. As the children entertained themselves, parents listened for creaking windowpanes, blasting wind gusts, and tumbling debris. Above all, everyone listened for the siren. Not the emergency siren, sent out to warn people of the approaching storm, but the siren sent out by the twister itself, letting you know it had arrived.

Resembling the loud, shrill whistle of a freight train, a tornado always proclaims its presence both in word and deed. Long before a survey of the aftermath is performed, anticipation of the damage breeds anxiousness and concern. Windows popped in the distance, trees crashed into unknown destinations, and rains flooded vacant streets. Someone’s father would turn up the static-filled transistor radio, bending his ear toward the speaker and announcing to all the storm had passed. The general sentiment among those of the younger persuasion was one of disappointment that our time together was ending. We would file languidly back to our homes, assessing damages and fumbling towards beds without the assistance of electricity. Occasionally we would return to scenes of flattened porches, their columns whisked away, large oak trees displaced to rooftops, and overturned picnic tables. For the most part, however, the storms of my childhood were mild, mere training grounds for what lay in store.

There would be tornados that flattened towns, and struggles that would flatten my resolve. There would be rebuilding of communities and relationships, and neither would be simple tasks. There would be false alarms and unexpected disturbances. Life would toss many obstacles in my path, but I learned during those formative years that, despite the debris and destruction, life does go on. Sometimes moving on requires the help of neighbors, or space to grieve, or even the freedom to rage, but renewal comes. And that renewed life has a stronger foundation, a richer soil, a deeper hope. Stepping outside your door, facing the coming storm, bracing yourself with the reassurance, “this too shall pass”, before wisdom kicks in and reminds you to duck-and-cover… it’s a risky venture, but one worth tension.

Everybody look around, 'cause there's a reason to rejoice you see

Everybody come out, and let's commence to singing joyfully
Everybody look up, and feel the hope that we've been waiting on

Everybody's glad because our silent fear and dread is gone

Freedom you see, has got our hearts singing so joyfully

Just look about you owe it to yourself to check it out

Can't you feel a brand-new day?

~ Dorothy, friends & the Emerald City Citizens (The Wiz)

grab some cocoa...

2008-12-20T16:24:00.002-06:00

Yule have to patient with me until after Christmas... I'm enjoying the season!