Tuesday, May 28, 2013

[cheesy title alert] blessed to be a blessing

Tonight my heart breaks for the people in my life whose hearts are broken.  Tonight my heart breaks because we use each other so easily, because we get so caught up in our reflection that we leave a wake of destruction in our path.  Tonight my heart breaks because the blessing isn't always enough to go around, because sometimes there's nothing I can do to ease the ache of another.  Tonight my heart breaks because this world is broken and confusing and the good people don't always win.  Tonight my heart breaks because I'm not always among the good, because the good and the bad so easily become intertwined.

It's nights like tonight when there's nothing much left to do but to listen, to allow my heart to break, and to pray.  To offer a shoulder and then trust that Jesus will be there to carry them through this storm.  It's nights like tonight when the blessings in my life feel so undeserved and so incredibly burdensome.  Why me, God?  How am I worthy of this?  I'm not, of course.  And that's what hurts the most.  There's seemingly no rhyme or reason to God's blessings.  They just fall from heaven and I'm left to do my best to be a blessing to those around me.

And maybe that's the miracle of it.

Because God has bestowed such blessing on me, His love enables me to be that light to another.

Monday, May 27, 2013

the loud voices and the quiet voices

I remember a time of unquestioning acceptance of the authorities in my life.  I remember the simplicity of letting one man's words define my theology, the relative ease with which I studied a set list of doctrines, "making them my own."  And then that all fell away, and I was left with questions, with cynicism, with a wide open space in which I moved about wholly lost, trying to piece back together a faith that had once been so complete.

The voices are loud and they are overwhelming.  They crowd this space, competing for my attention.  They shout things at me.  They demand my allegiance, they claim certainty and a monopoly on a Definition of morality.  Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't.  But always they shout.

They're afraid, I think.  Maybe they don't see it, but I do.  Only sometimes, during their political rants, during their unguarded moments when they reveal their need for control in All Things.  They set up all these Rules.  Wear this, believe this, do this.  "Church" becomes a production, a business, a competition.  Fall in line or leave.  They're concerned with flashy lights, sound systems, advertisements for social activities for all ages.  They market themselves with a passion that betrays their true colors.

And some fall away.  Anger, betrayal, and distrust begin to define us.  Satan is on the move, or so they say.  If it's Satan, it can't be them.  Always they shout.  You're with me or you're against me.  Make your choice.

There are some quiet, whispering voices.  I think I trust those more.  No power is attached to these voices.  They say things like "I love you."  They say, "No matter what, I'm here, walking with you."  They say, "Look to Jesus, He is enough."  They are the peacemakers.

I've started to identify the peace makers in my life, and I gravitate to them.  They are the ones who get the ambiguity of life, who get that the world is a broken but beautiful place.  They are the ones who love without reservation.  They are the ones who bring freedom, not legalism.  They are the ones who acknowledge the uncertainties and fear that are a natural part of life as we eagerly await the resurrection of our bodies.  They are the ones who speak Life and Hope to me.  They are the reason I stay in this fractured mess called Church.  They are the reason I don't walk away.  They embody the Gospel.

And this is the Gospel:

We're all so broken.  Wildly loved, but entirely broken.  Some of us know our brokenness, some of us are not so aware.  We hide behind our theology, our politics, our belief systems.  We shake our fists and scream at the sky.  We blame everyone but ourselves.  We hide behind lists of things to do and be, forgetting that we are loved in spite of our mistakes.  We create taboos and condemn those who stray to hell.  We guilt each other and ourselves.  We fall again and again because we don't remember that we are loved.

I am loved.

The God who created me loves me with a wild, relentless love, a love that defines both Him and me.  He loves each of us this way.  And we forget.  We try to earn His love.  We set up rules that will define us above and beyond the love with which He loves us.  We forget the purpose of the law and commandeer it for our own shallow purposes.  Christ's righteousness in us isn't enough; we need to ourselves be righteous.

And He whispers:

I love You and that is enough.  

And into the quietness of this dawn I run, leaping and singing and dancing and twirling.  Throwing my arms into the air in the pure joy of the knowledge of my belovedness.

It is enough.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

the heart behind all my questions

I live for questions.  To me, questions represent so beautifully what it means to be human: the perfect storm of uncertainty and hope.  I believe that questions acknowledge our inability to fully grasp all that God is and does while simultaneously expressing the heart cry of a person in tune with the depravity of our fallen world.  In our "what ifs," we admit our confusion and humanity through the admittance that we don't know.  In our "what ifs," we express the deep groanings of a creation subjected to sin, the longing for a better future, a future where inequality and injustice have no place.  In our "what ifs," we speak of incarnation and of redemption and of resurrection.  Through our questions, our feeble arms reach out for God, only to find He is with us at the table.

People came to Jesus with questions.  He often answered them, but in a way opposite of what they expected.  In doing so, Jesus gently taught the askers to more carefully consider the answers they'd always spouted.  The gospel in that moment was that Jesus came to fulfill the law, and that the law was so much more than a set of human rules.  In fulfilling the law, Jesus compels us to more carefully examine our "answers," to reexamine the heart of the law and the very heart of God.

Jesus gives us freedom to ask questions.

Tonight I sat around a table with dear brothers (and a sister) in Christ and had a lively discussion about church discipline.  I raised some questions, and watched as we all grew deeper in our understanding of what we believe through attempting to answer those questions.  For me, though, the point was not the consensus that we reached (we unfortunately didn't reach one as the conversation was cut short), but the questions that God spoke into my heart: the "what ifs?"  What happens if someone is kicked out of the church due to a lack of repentance?  Do we continue to be their friend?  What does that look like in real life?  What if your best friend sinned against God and the community of believers and was subjected to church discipline?  Would you be okay with not being his best friend?  What does that say about us that we are so willing to treat one as an outcast?  What did Jesus mean when he said "treat them as a tax collector and a sinner?"  Didn't he eat with tax collectors and sinners?  Maybe Jesus has a sense of humor?  How do we reconcile the possibility that there is no one beyond our friendship and acceptance with Paul's strict and frighteningly specific instructions about not even eating with sinners?

The questions weren't all answered, at least for me.  For me the questions linger; maybe they always will.  If my best friend sinned against the church and was excommunicated, it'd tear my heart out and rip it into shreds to "not even eat with her."

And I don't even feel bad saying that.

'Cause I'd like to think I know Jesus' heart well enough to know that it'd kill him too.

And this is why I ask the questions.  I must let my heart guide my theology.  I must not become so attached to legalistic reading of texts, so attached to black and white that I am unable to recognize Paul's letters for what they may very possibly be: bound to a specific situation that is almost impossible to re-create today two thousand years removed.  Even if I end up settling on the wisdom of excommunication and "not even eating with her," may I never become so callous as to not allow the finality of that sort of thing to break my heart.

May it never be my first resort.  May my every action always be seasoned with grace and love and prayer and sensitivity to the heart of Jesus.

Monday, May 13, 2013

ain't nobody got time for that

I remember a time when I was profoundly politically apathetic.  I didn't have an opinion on most everything, and would politely listen to whoever had an opinion and be okay with their opinion because I didn't really care too much either way.  I liked it that way; it afforded me sanity and a carefree attitude.

It especially came in handy when I moved to northwest Washington, quite possibly the liberal capital of the world. I am certainly not from a liberal background, and I went to college at a largely politically conservative college, so my apathy to all things "opinion" gave me the chance to not lose my mind the moment I stepped onto blue territory.  It allowed me to create friendships with "the liberals" and "the conservatives" alike, and smile politely and nod whenever anything came up that seemed to require an opinion.

And I was in graduate school; ain't nobody got time for politics and opinions about anything present day.

One thing happened, though.  Graduate school taught me how to think.

And then I graduated.  I moved literally across the country to the heart of American conservatism: rural Georgia.

Suddenly, I found myself having an opinion.  The curious thing about no longer being in school is all the time one has to think.  I had started following a few blogs here and there in graduate school, but with no more homework to distract me, I became obsessed with practical theology and with following the Christian blogging world.

There's a lot of anger in the Christian blogging world.  So many opinions, too much information on all the stupid things Mark Driscoll says and does, too much angst about the pain that people cause other people on Mother's Day, too much bitterness about almost everything.  It was too easy to get sucked in.  After all, I found myself agreeing with these people.  They thought and reasoned like me, and I suddenly found that I wasn't alone.  They challenged me intellectually and strengthened my faith in entirely new ways.

But now I can't go a day without running across something that gets my blood boiling.  Today it was some random video from the archives of Mars Hill's youtube account about the Driscolls' opinion that it's tantamount to outright disobedience to God for a dad to stay home with his children.  I found myself outraged by the words that so easily spilled out of their mouths like so much honey laced with arsenic.  I was outraged by their anger and their fear-mongering, outraged by the lack of thought that went into their words.  "The Bible says so" was the extent of their reasoning.

Here's the thing, though.  I can't live like this.  I can't be constantly angry at things Mark Driscoll believes and does.  I can't constantly be waiting for Christians to say something that will expose them as hateful or uninformed.  I can't waste my energy being a hypocrite, saying I hate hate and then doing a whole lot of hating myself.

And so I'm done with it.  Do I have opinions?  Absolutely.  Do they matter?  Not really.  What matters is how I love.  What matters is how I act when faced with moral dilemmas.  Will I live my life with my opinions on gender roles in the church at the forefront of many of my decisions?  Sure.  Will I make it my mission to make sure all my twitter followers and facebook friends agree with me?  No.

Ain't nobody got time for that.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Do you hear what I hear? [out of the wilderness]

I can't begin to describe the place in which I found myself not two short days ago.  Despair.  Cynicism.  Doubt.  Anger.  Crushing sadness.  Flight mechanism.  Hurt.  Alone.  Misunderstood.  I could go on for a while, but I won't.  You get the idea.

It started a while ago, if I'm being honest.

For a while I could soothe the pain of my floundering heart with music by All Sons and Daughters.  For a while a good conversation with a friend was enough to remind me that not all was darkness and selfishness.  For a while the knowledge that I was communing with brothers and sisters was encouragement enough to keep me afloat.  For a while the trappings of religion masked the true state of my heart.

And then none of it was enough.  I was falling, and there was no good reason for it.  In my mind, I was no longer good enough for anyone, and no one was good enough for me.  I was wholly other.  I was unreachable.  I was falling.  Falling out of favor, out of grace, out of standing as a daughter of God.  I was an epic failure; maybe I never really believed to begin with.

The only place I was understood was the internet.  Every once in a while someone on the internet would write something beautiful, something that would touch my soul, reminding me that even if everyone I know in my personal life cannot understand the depths of my despair, even if everyone judges me for my questions about homosexuality and creation, even if every last one of my friends rejects me as a false prophet, at least I'll still have the blogging world.  At least I'll still have Renovatus Church's podcasts.  At least I'll still have twitter.  Oh, twitter.

You see, I have a problem.  I was raised in the church.  I never didn't believe.  One of my first memories is "praying the prayer."  I grew up on hymns like "Into my Heart" and "Jesus Loves Me."  I have lived an idyllic life, marred only by relational difficulties here and there.  I've never fallen off the deep end, never experienced substance abuse, never an alcoholic, never this, never that.  You name the taboo thing, I've probably not done it.

And so I don't have a testimony.  Which is fine on the good days.  But on the dark days, the days when I don't have any excuse for the darkness in my soul, the days when I want to reject everything I was raised to believe?  On those days my upbringing is my biggest stumbling block.  On those days it drags me under.

I couldn't hear Jesus anymore.  I figured I'd never really heard him.  I wondered if He cared.  If he existed.  I wondered if everything I was raised to believe was slightly off the mark.  I wondered if the progressive Christian bloggers I follow were maybe right.  I wondered if maybe they were wrong and my upbringing was right.  I tried to think it all out.

And I fell.  On my face.  Every week small group got more difficult for me.  Every week the storm became larger, the fall out more intense.  By the end of small group two days ago, I wondered if maybe I would never ever go back.  They were too good for me, had it together, believed things I could never believe.  They heard from God, they served God.  And then there was me, snickering in the back row about the ridiculous things the guy on the screen was saying.  There was me, refusing to take part in the Sunday School answers.  There was me, feeling marginalized and disregarded.  I considered leaving church altogether.  Taking a break.  A "me and Jesus" break.  I needed it so badly, I thought.  I needed to figure out what I believed in isolation from all the voices.  The internet voices and the in real life voices.  I was drowning in a desert.  Alone in a crowd.

The perfect storm.

I clung to the belief that Jesus was the only answer.  That He was big enough for my failing heart, for my anger, for my cyncism, for my questions, for my sadness.  That He would come through.

A few days ago, I began reading a book called Prototype: What Happens When You Discover You're More Like Jesus Than You Think by Jonathan Martin.  I read it because it was written by the guy who pastors Renovatus Church, and I've been listening to his sermons religiously (no pun intended).  I had pretty low expectations, to be honest.  It seemed too much like those other Christian books, like the Shack, or Crazy Love.  Surfacey books that didn't really change anything for me.  They say great things, sure, and then you move on with your life.

I read the book anyway.  Actually, to be more accurate, I'm still working on it.  I only have like 1.5 chapters left, though, so I'm not jumping the gun too much.  I hope.

Jonathan Martin didn't really change anything for me, for the record.  Oh, the book is nice and all.  There are some pretty epic quotes.  The book soothed my frazzled nerves yesterday when I needed it most.  His chapter entitled Obscurity spoke into my life with an accuracy that was unnerving to say the least.

But none of that was anything until Jesus came.

He came in the most unexpected of ways (doesn't He always?), and for once in my life I was listening.

I got off work tonight and came home, but not before stopping at Sonic for the supper of champions, a java chiller and mozzarella sticks (I need to be severely chastised for my nutritional choices).  I watched some online tv.  It was getting to be almost eight o'clock.  The sun was still up.

And I realized that I needed some "wilderness" time (a theme in Prototype).  I grabbed my kindle and my journal and a blanket and headed for the waterfront here in town, after deciding that it was entirely financially irresponsible to drive to Fernandina twice in one week for the soul purpose of walking by the actual ocean.

I hopped in my car, and turned on the radio.  Christian radio.  I only heard one phrase, and to be honest, don't quote me that this was even what was said: "The rate of failed marriage in the United States breaks my heart."  And the epiphany hit me like God screaming at me from heaven in the most beautiful of whispers: My daughter, when you love from above, you are not loving.  My daughter, religion is the attempt to make oneself like God.  Failed religion is the inevitable fall from godhood.  

Here's the thing.  I didn't listen to any more of that radio station than that one sentence.  I reacted and in a moment turned it off.  The point is that so often we judge what is and is not sin from above.  We assume a religious posture of "reformedness" and work to make the rest of the world as good as us.

We forget what we are.

Broken sinners.  Misfits.  Liars.  Cynics.  Murderers at heart.  Sinners.  Sinners.  Sinners.

And because we do not remember the depths from which Christ rescued us, our attempts at reform fail.  Our love is perceived (and rightfully so) as judgement.  The world sees us as worse than the world.  As perverters, and the Church as a joke.

And, my friends, they're right.

As I arrived at the waterfront this evening just as the sun was setting, I started writing furiously in my journal the things that were occurring to me at a rather frightening pace:

To follow Jesus is to find your only value in Him - to know the depth of your brokenness and the wildness of His love.  All good works not springing from this are dead.

How do I live this out in real life?  How do I act as a prophet without being the very thing I cry out against?  By not forgetting for a second where I come from.  A lost, broken, judgemental place.  A place where I doubt, strike out, fall away.  A place where in an instant I join the mockers.

Do I cry out against sin?  Absolutely.  What do I cry?  You are loved.  You are loved.  You are loved.

And then I walked back to my car.  As I was walking, something occurred to me.  With the exception of a beautiful moment where I sang the old chorus "I Love You Lord" into the stillness of the gathering dusk, I never once prayed.  I never once opened my Bible.  When I realized this, I almost discredited my whole time out at the waterfront as a waste.  I almost apologized to God for not talking to Him.

And then He spoke one last time.  He said:

My daughter, I am so glad you didn't talk.  I am so glad you were silent enough to hear me.  

My friends, God is good.

Out of the wilderness, He speaks.


Monday, May 6, 2013

scenes from a childhood: barbies, balls, and a broken, bleak world

Before you know me too long, you'll probably know a couple things about me.  You'll know that I have one too many pee-my-pants stories, and you'll also probably hear me gleefully admit that I "played Barbies" well into high school, and that I even made a feeble attempt to revive the practice while home on break from college.  And if you're lucky to take a peek at my high school scrapbook, you'll find a whole page devoted to barbie "family pictures."  Yes, I remember the point where our barbie-playing had evolved to the point where my sisters and I took pictures with my digital camera of our barbies in family units.

Growing up in rural South Dakota on a farm, I learned strength and independence quickly.  I did, however, take an abnormally long time to "grow up."  I view this as a strength rather than a weakness, but I find that in many ways I'm still a child at heart.  It takes hard knocks to fully grow up, and I was spared a lot.  And I apparently retained a healthy childlike imagination well into high school.

Barbies began for me when I was in first or second grade, and, quite ironically, are connected to my tendency to wet my pants with an alarming frequency.  My mom promised me my very own barbie if I could manage to not have an accident for a month.  

Let's just say that my first-time-ownership of a Barbie was somewhat of a miracle.  

Soon, though, my sister and I had accumulated a whole army of Barbies.  And then the fun really began.  They all, of course, had names.  Some were more coveted than others, mainly due to the condition of their hair.  Every time we decided to play barbies, we'd drag the huge container out and begin the process of "you-you-you."  Each barbie would be laid out and we'd take turns picking them school-yard style until none remained.  Well, sometimes some remained that neither of us wanted, and those got put back in the crate.  Then we'd do the same with clothing, bedding, and accessories.  Then we'd each take our newly assigned goodies to opposite corners of the room, line the barbies up, and start picking out clothing and accessories for each depending on who "looked best" with each thing.

Naturally the "ugly" barbies got the "ugly" stuff.

We weren't shallow or worldly or anything.  Not us.

We only had two Kens (in the later years we had three) so we would fight over who got the "better" Ken, and what clothing each got.  And so it always worked out that a barbie family would be comprised of a mom and dad, a bunch of female children, and a few female "servants" to make things interesting.  The servants received the ratty and torn clothing and bedding.

We'd also take all the books out of our bookshelves and divide them up.  We'd set the books up on their side to create walls for our barbie houses.  Who needs an actual barbie house when you can make something so much more interesting with books?  (We had a barbie house that we actually tore apart so we could use the wall and floor segments in the same way we used books.  The patio floor became the "ball room" for the lucky one of us who managed to receive that during you-you-you.)

After an hour or two or three of dividing up all our barbie stuff and creating rooms and scenarios in which our barbies would live, the garage sales would begin.  You see, we had a lot of fake money that we would also divide up at the beginning.  And we'd sell off stuff we didn't want on garage sales.  And, if we wanted any chance of gaining something that we actually wanted from the other, we had to sell some of our nicer stuff as well.  So you-you-you wasn't the end.

At some point, one of us would decide it was time for a "ball."  We'd send an invite across the room, and give a set time for the ball to begin.  We'd begin frantically dressing our barbies and doing their hair so they'd look their very best for the ball.  And, since we usually set up house in my sister's room, we'd head to my room for the ball, since there was much more floor space in there.  

The barbie ball was nothing like Cinderella's ball.  The barbie ball was epic.

You see, it was actually more like a beauty pageant.  We'd agree upon a bunch of different competitions, including "best dressed," "best hair," "best swimsuit," "most beautiful," "best accessories," etc.  Whoever was hosting the ball would bring along coveted possessions to act as prizes to the barbie that won.  It was a ball. (Har, har)

Where I am under the impression that most kids "played make-believe" while playing Barbies, most of our time was consumed with you-you-you, garage sales, and balls.  We were competitive kids, I guess.  (Hmmm, no surprise there).  

There was a little make-believe, though.  And, perhaps most fascinatingly, make-believe almost always revolved around the servants, at least for me.  I loved playing the part of the servant who was hated by the family and forced to slave away in return for no money and no respect.  I loved having her run to her room to sob on her appropriately ratty bed, or even have her run away in the family car.  I sympathized with her low status, her despised-ness.  She never really escaped her low station.  She never got to attend the balls.  Her hair was ratty and her appearance not improved by the nice dresses.

Then, one day, I grew up.  I went to college.  I remember clearly coming home and wanting so desperately to play barbies.  I remember getting one of my sisters to play with me.  I remember it lasting only half-way through you-you-you before I realized that the magic was gone.

And I was sad.  Because, you see, the magic is still alive in my memory.  I still think about how fun it was, imagining that it'd still be fun today.  But my childlike imagination died sometime between high school and college, and now it's probably gone for good.  Of course, as I moved from elementary school to junior high to high school, the amount of garage sale-ing and balls (and even best family picture contests) increased while the amount of servant-centered make-believe decreased.  But we still played, and that was what mattered.  The magic was still alive.  

But, when I went to college, I found myself competitive as ever, and I found myself inexplicably drawn to human tragedy.  I found history as a passion, and discovered that the things I most liked writing about were things like slavery, the Holocaust, or an 1888 Midwestern blizzard that killed 150 school children with its ferocity.  I was drawn (and still am) to how humans deal with tragedy and adversity.  I identified with pain and with hardship.  I don't know why.  My childhood was so idyllic, so un-marred by pain and suffering.  I didn't face anything truly difficult until late high school.  

I'd like to think that God made me to care.  I'd like to believe that to stop caring is to stop loving God.  And so, as I find myself "growing up" more every day, I strive to hold onto that childhood pain I felt as I imagined the suffering of my barbie servants.