Quote of the Day

Thank you Sojourners Daily Verse and Voice for this insight today:

“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we as Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined.”

- Søren Kierkegaard,
Danish philosopher, theologian, and ethicist (1813-1855)

Madness

We lack a holy rage – The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets… a holy anger about the things that are wrong in the world… To rage when little children must die of hunger when the tables of the rich are sagging with food… To rage against complacency. To restlessly seek that recklessness that will challenge and seek to change human history until it conforms to the norms of the Kingdom of God.

-Kaj Munk (quoted in Irresistible Revolution)

I’m angry. I’m mad as hell.

A month ago I walked into a hospital and saw a child named after a biblical angel, his name means ‘God heals’ in Hebrew. The child has as a mild but rare genetic syndrome. In all my inexperience I thought there was no way I was right. 5000 miles from my American ivory tower surely I couldn’t diagnose a disease that most pediatricians have never seen as a 4th year medical student with incomplete history and hap-hazarded physical exam. But if I was right, there was a problem. This child could go blind. I had seen children who had gone blind from similar eye diseases in Romania before. Its horrible, ugly and senseless because its treatable. I begged the staff to let me take him to get his eyes examined they told me I was wrong and that he was perfect except for a clef palate.

But they let me take his picture because he looked like me. So I carried the picture in my suitcase home to the ivory tower where I sent it to the expert, my mentor. She e-mailed and with great pride told me I was exactly right. The kid had the diagnosis I thought all along and could go blind at any time without careful follow up. He is of normal intelligent once he gets his clef palate fixed he is adoption potential but if he goes blind or his eyes never get the chance to see through glasses below the age of three to five and he is severely visually impaired he will get sent to some God forsaken institution to rot. I’ve seen it before but never have in a child so young, never where I could still prevent it. Do you know how maddening it is to know that you have the knowledge to save a child’s life but no one in the child’s world believes you? Or no one in the child’s world cares because he is different and therefore cursed? (more likely)

I’m angry. I’m mad as hell. Because I live in a world filled with the resources to save this child and so many others but my world chooses indifference, my world chooses not to be angry but to be numb. Numb to the pain, blind to suffering.

But God is a God who heals…as this little boy’s name keeps saying again and again in the darkness where he lives.  ‘God heals’ ‘God heals’

We make a choice every day. To be angry, to be angry and fight through pain because ‘God heals’ and he wants to heal our world, to build the kingdom,  if we will embrace the hurting.

Or we can choose to be blind.

I know what I would choose for this child and for myself .  That’s why I’m mad as hell.

Navel Gazing

Lately I’ve been struggling to put into words the things that have been gnawing at the back of my mind, and bothering me. I find myself wrestling with pride, with arrogance, with self-entitlement and all of the attitudes that come with them.
There are things I feel strongly called to do, beliefs to which I hold dear, and insights I believe are unique and engaging. My struggle, however, is that when given voice, I feel utterly inadequate and ignored. I’m tempted to label my gifts and the desire to use them as pride. I’m tempted to hide my beliefs because of their perceived “threat” to the body of Christ. And I’m tempted to believe that my insights fall on dead ears, heard only by the few who choose to listen, and thus, am tempted to stop sharing.

But worst than any of this… I’m tempted to make this about me.

As I read back over that introduction, I cringe. Because really… it isn’t about me at all. Oh how I need to learn that lesson… to step back, to stand back, and to allow God to work in me, no matter how much I think he should work in this way, or he should do this, I need to get out of the way. Too often, I catch myself navel gazing and wishing I could be asked to do this, or wishing I’d get the respect I feel I deserve… when in reality? I deserve nothing. I am nothing.

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Phillipians 3:7-8

Food for Thought

Every time we sit at a table … to enjoy the fruits and grain and vegetables from our good earth, remember that they come from the work of men and women and children who have been exploited for generations.

- Cesar Chavez, Mexican-American Farm Worker and civil rights activist

Milestones

Today marks one of the happiest days of my short lived life thus far. 5 years ago today, I stood before a gathering of people I very much love, who’d cared for me over the years, supported my personal and spiritual growth. I’d just walked the aisle with my father, who from my infancy, had been not only an amazing father, but a wonderful pastor. My mother sat just behind me, beaming, comfortable where she was, where she’d always been, backing me up, supporting me, and cheering me on. Beside my father, stood Forrest.

Words alone cannot describe the fullness of that moment, the emotions, the smells, the sights, the sounds, all of it reaching a feverish pitch as the walking stopped, and we stood there at the front of the church. My heart was racing, and my mind a blur as our family friend, Jim, asked who gave this woman to be wed to this man. I heard my father say, “Her mother and I” and suddenly, I was being led, as though on a cloud, and my hand was joined with Forrest’s.

That moment will be burned forever into my mind. The rest of the ceremony was a blur, the majority of my thoughts turning to the man whose hand I held and the life we’d have together. I’d close my eyes and try to picture the life we’d have together. I knew it would be a happy one, full of ups and downs, but happy.

I could not imagine then that 5 years later, we’d be where we are now. That we’d be waking up some mornings with two toddlers asleep in our arms, and a third, sleepily waking in the womb, announcing its presence through various kicks and jabs. That I’d look over to the man I’d been married to 5 years later, still sleeping, and close my eyes, and wonder where the last 5 years had gone… and smile. My heart full of joy and happiness, I look back to that moment on the alter, trying as I might to imagine our life 5 years out, and to be here now… and to see how amazing my life with him is, I could not have imagined it any better.

Forrest, you have enriched my life so much more than you even know. I am so thankful that 5 years ago today, we made the commitment to one another… that we said yes to the challenges of marriage and a life together. God has blessed me… blessed us! and for that I am thankful! I only hope the next 5 years hold as much wonder, joy, expectation, and fullness of life as the last 5 have. I love you so much more than words will ever express.

Happy Anniversary!!

On Waiting

I’ve been doing a lot of thought lately on the subject of patience and waiting. I’m an impulsive person by nature and work hard against the pull to do things now, to have things now, to want change NOW. This can come out in my frustrations with finances at home, with wanting material blessings, with dreaming up new ideas and wanting them implemented overnight.

I recently came across a wonderful book by Kester Brewin titled Signs of Emergence.  The book discusses a broad subject of thigns, but focuses mainly on the transformation of the modern church. “Awesome!” I thought as I read it, “Someone has finally come out with a system to implement and change our dying churches!”  I found the book, on the other hand, to be quite the opposite. There were plenty of wonderful ideas, plenty of things that stirred up the fires of imagination in my soul, but the overreaching theme of the book was patience… of waiting.

Brewin states, “Only if I am still. Only if I have stopped what I was doing to listen and hold my breath and enter some spiritual apnea and wait.  The perception of the new step will come only to those brave enough to stop dancing to the old.” This doesn’t only apply to one or two people, but to the church as a whole.  And that process of stopping, of listening, it takes time.  Perhaps I’ve been to hasty in my judgements about the church, perhaps I’ve expected too much of it too soon.  Or, perhaps, that I myself have only heard a portion of all that God has to tell us, and that indeed, I don’t have it all figured out just yet (which, I’m very, very much aware that I don’t).  So perhaps I’m the one who needs to stop.

To listen.

To hold my breath.

To wait.

Perhaps if I just stop dancing to the old step just long enough, I may catch the sound, catch the vision of the new, and that patiently, I might encourage those around me to pause a moment and listen. And together, our little band of ragamuffin rebels can stand dead still in the middle of the ballroom, while thousands continue to waltz around us, and one day… one of us might just break out in disco. But until then? I’m willing to stand still.

Jumping Ship

I am exhausted by labels. I am exhausted by categories, by worldviews and clashing worldviews. I am exhausted by the need for debate for endless arguments for intolerance of tolerance of intolerance. I want so much for my beliefs for my walk with Christ to be nothing more than my walk with Christ. I try. I am exhausted by labels. I am exhausted by categories, by worldviews and clashing worldviews. I am exhausted by the need for debate for endless arguments for intolerance of tolerance of intolerance. I want so much for my beliefs for my walk with Christ to be nothing more than my walk with Christ. I try to peel off the layers of dirt, mire of pride of ambition, scabs and dressings of culture and politics in search of truth but I so often find myself lost amidst the gauze, plaster and mud. Where is a faith that is simple? Where is a love that is unhindered by politics, rules of decorum and a constant fear for our own personal safety and liberty? Where is a truth that is not seen through the lens of culture, not blurred by lines of indifference and by the institutions that we hold dear? Where is the church that is living in faith, loving in and out of their faith and seeking unobstructed truth?

There’s tarnish on the golden rule
And I wanna jump from this ship of fools
Show me a place where hope is young
And a people who aren’t afraid to love
This world has nothing for me and this world has everything
All that I could want and nothing that I need
This world is making me drunk on the spirits of fear.
So when he says who will go, I am nowhere near.
And the least of these look like criminals to me
So I leave Christ on the street
This world has held my hand and has led me into intolerance
But now I’m waking up, but now I’m breaking up
But now I’m making up for lost time

Caedmon’s Call

Quote

I was hungry,
And you formed a humanities group to discuss my hunger.

I was imprisoned,
And you crept off quietly to your chapel and prayed for my release.

I was naked,
And in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance.

I was sick,
And you knelt and thanked God for your health.

I was homeless,
And you preached a sermon on the spiritual shelter of the love of God.

I was lonely,
And you left me alone to pray for me.

You seem so holy, so close to God
But I am still very hungry – and lonely – and cold.
–author unknown

I LOVE TRAFFIC and other stories

When my sister and I were in Romania two years ago we had a running joke about how much I (we) LOVE TRAFFIC!!!  Bucharest is filled with traffic. In the communist era there were quotas on cars and folks would sign up years in advance before being allowed a car. Now in the new Romania everyone who is anyone is buying a car because anyone can now.  The result is constant traffic everywhere  even on public it takes hours at times to get any where.  The buses/trams are incredibly crowed and hot. It frustrated and worried us terribly (of getting mugged, being late and dying of heat stroke) at first  but then we stepped away from it and realized that this is what we had right now. We started to look at all the things we could do with it.  Our daily commutes became our chance to pray, catch up with each other, dream, people watch, minster to the beggars who rode beside us at times  and journal.  It became one of our favorite times of the day. And we made the best of it and not entirely cynically  we would say on particularly long trips or crazy crossings of a big street on foot I LOVE TRAFFIC.

Contentment is something I struggle with.  Being content with waiting on God or wait on public transport or simply being happy with I have at that given moment. Its so easy to give into complaining or whining about what I wish could happen faster or what I wish I had or what I wish could be different.  There are so many things I want and so few things that I don’t have that I actually I need.  You go to any book store and you will find oodles of books about finding peace and contentment.  And there are a great variety of such books in the religion section alone from prosperity gospel to physics to magic formulas, but no ONE HAS AN ANSWER….

God provides in his own time, his own season and his own way or so we are taught in church.   But how do we learn to wait, to trust. Oswald Chambers says the most important word Christ ever spoke to his disciples was abandon.

What does abandon truly look like?  Can we truly be joyful and grateful for what we have and live in the moment? Can we drop everything and truly live with abandon? Reckless abandon??

So different from what our culture tells us…and in the end I think thats the key. Its recklass abandon of what wer are told to worry about, told we should want and need for instead embracing what we have and what God has for us.

I am not sure what that looks like exactly but I am praying God coninutes to show me.

Frustrations

Lately, I’ve been very frustrated with labels. I cringe when I hear the word “Christian” even though it’s a label I bear. Perhaps it’s what the label has come to represent, or what the label is assumed to evidence. I find, more often than not, the label to be lacking. So often, I encounter people who bear the label, whose only identity is that “Jesus died for my sins… I believe he did… thus, I’m a Christian”.

I find that to be incredibly simplistic and naive. Correct me if I’m wrong (and I very well could be), but doesn’t Christ’s death and resurrection mean more than just our sins are washed away? Isn’t there a transformation that takes place once we are forgiven? What happens after that initial “belief”? Don’t get me wrong, I am certain that part of being a Christian is belief if Christ’s death and resurrection. My beef is that, often, that is where people stop. They fail to acknowledge the transformation that must take place in our own lives. That this belief we hold, that if Christ did come and die for our sins, that this belief MUST change who we fundamentally are.

And too often, I run into fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who are no different today than they were the day they professed faith in Christ. Granted, I’m perfectly aware of the verse that urges us to remove the plank from our own eye before addressing the speck in our brothers. But my frustration begins when I begin that journey of transformation… of questioning who I am in light of the Resurrection, of questioning who God is, and what becoming a follower of Christ means. Too often, I’m perceived to be “liberal” or a “doubter”, or worse than those labels, I’m ignored entirely.

I long to be a part of a community of fellow seekers, doubters, skeptics, questioners, etc. who are searching for the meaning behind this label, and what it truly means to be a follower of The Way. Otherwise, my questions fall on deaf ears of those unwilling to search themselves deeper, unwilling to see the depths of the mystery of God, and paralyzed by the belief that further change is unnecessary.
Lord, help me understand. Help me remove this plank from my eye, help me to see the depths of your glory and mystery, and to be satisfied in the tension of not having all of my answers.