Just Another Sunday

The evening we drive into my husband's hometown, we drive up the main street and notice the new things: the fancy lamp posts, the wide sidewalks, the thriving flower boxes. We ooh and ahh over the updates--genuinely thrilled that the small town is rediscovering its charm. And we see the sad things: trees and roofs and livelihoods felled by a tornado a few weeks back. Old faithfuls taken out by a strong breeze.

We glance at but don't really talk about all of the empty storefronts. My husband nudges me, points to the large vacant spot where a bookstore and coffee shop resided the last time we were here, two long years ago. The faded sign still hangs, holding on to lost hope. I make a sad face, he makes a joke. Something about how the hipsters must not live here yet. About how this town must still be full of regular people who can't spend precious time ruminating over books and free trade coffee.

I notice this again the next morning, at church. It is an old church, with old pews and old music. I can't bring coffee into the sanctuary. There is no drummer or guitarist. There is a distinct lack of skinny jeans. A solo pianist plunks along to songs from decades ago and the pastor shortens his sermon because the vbs kids need to go and release their butterflies before they wilt away in their storage envelopes. There is barely even a message. He is wearing a tie.

And, I'm telling you, life is oozing from this place.

On a hot July Sunday morning, the wooden pews are packed tight. Young and old, rich and poor, all belong. And they are not shy. Oh, no. They stand up during that worship service and they announce things that god has done that week--ways he has blessed, places where he has been near. And they stand up and they declare that they are in need, that they can't leave without prayer. And sometimes they walk up front and allow hands to touch backs and living words to bridge the gap between god and men. There is the distinct feel of holiness to it all. God has drawn near, here in this church.

They are studying the words of James. That is what the sermon was supposed to be about, had the butterflies not taken precedent. The part of James where we are told not to favor the rich over the poor. The part where we are reminded of god's heart being with the least of these.

But they know all of this. Know it with their lives.

They are going out in droves. Daily. Welcoming neighbors to picnics. Sharing the love of god to people in prison, in nursing homes. Snuggling children close and pointing them to their father. Sharing what they have with one another, helping their brothers and sisters clear storm wreckage, pulling one another along in action and in words.

And, people, they deliver pies to visitors. Pies.

I am starting, now, to become a little embarrassed. Because a month or two ago, we told my father-in-law about how we were living missionally, now. We were building community, doing life together at a local park with others of similar vision. Reaching out without evangelizing, connecting without overwhelming. We had read all of these books and put our heads together and now, here we were, living a mission that continued to confuse and fall short of expectations. He'd wanted to know all about it, a few weeks ago. And I was sure he couldn't relate because he hadn't read the books or had the conversations, and our contexts were so starkly different.

It never occurred to me to ask about the missional lifeblood of their church. Turns out, I could have learned a lot. Turns out, community isn't built, but lived. Mission isn't sought, but received.

A woman in a yellow shirt gets up and announces that she has just received a letter and needs to read it aloud to the congregation. It is from a man who has wronged them all, a man who is not loved in this congregation. And rightfully so. Several months ago, he broke into the church and stole things, expensive things, leaving a sanctuary full of people asking, "Who would steal from a church?" Everyone around me stiffens, on guard.

The woman in the yellow shirt begins reading. She gets to the part of the letter, right there at the beginning, where the man declares that he is sorry and proclaims that he knows he can never make it up to them. He talks of burdens he will carry for the rest of his life. Of years of alcohol and drug abuse that he is trying to escape, of amends that he will make even if it kills him. Of how he hopes to come some Sunday and make it right in person. And we all realize that he must be a brave man. The woman, she stops, takes a deep breath, chokes back tears.

She and the pastor, standing there together facing the congregation, they take stock of their people and tell them what they already know: that they will welcome this man. That when he comes, they will embrace him. That as he works to pay them back, they will work beside him. That the burden he carries, they will all carry it together.

I have the sudden urge to take off my shoes. To repent. Oh, we are on holy ground, and god is passing by as we sit in these hard wooden pews among all of these regular people.

I wish I were going to be here when that man comes. I imagine how he will walk through the front door, and how his heart will probably beat fast and how he will probably want to turn around and run away, but he will choose to make things right anyway. I can see the expressions on the people's faces when they discover who he is, and I can see him standing up in front of the sanctuary saying he knows he can never repay them but he is here anyway to make it as right as a man can. I can hear his voice quivering and feel his sweaty palms.

I wish I could watch, with bated breath, as they break the news to this man: that, lo, your sins are forgiven dear one. That you are a sinner among sinners, and we are in the midst of one who transforms. That, no, of course you don't carry your burden for the rest of your life. That you can leave it right here, right now, and we will help you.

And then they will ask, what is your favorite kind of pie, friend? We will be out on Tuesday, to welcome you properly to our church.

The body of Christ. Regular folks, broken, transformed, redeemed.

Thanks be to God.

A Conversation with my 14 Year Old Self

As I creep through the bends in my mind I want to stop and chat about all of the proud places. The glamorous places I have been, the triumphant moments that have come my way. And I can see them. Can always see them. But I am not allowed to linger today.

No, I am propelled through the doors, down the hall treading dingy orange carpet underfoot. I can smell it before I realize where I have come. The odor of cigarettes mixes with bathroom disinfectant and there I am once again.

The high school bathroom.

I look around. It is empty. The mirror hangs annoyed over the large communal sink. Not even glass, but shined aluminum. I see myself. I am 30. And though the bathroom appears empty, I know I am in there. In one of those stalls on the end. And when I crouch down to see, there are those shoes that I used to wear. There are my feet shrinking back from the gaze of the one outside.

The girl in there, locked down tight and silently begging for me to leave, she is 14. She is me.

I stand outside the locked grey stall for quite some time. My comfort amidst silence, that has not changed. And that is what I begin with. That, dear child, to be quiet is not to be strange. To be quiet is to be one who hears, one blessed with sight. And to be one who listens and sees is one who can find all of those hidden treasures along the way and, more importantly, one who can find god.

Know this: you will find him. And, oh, he is so big and so good and so much closer than you would ever imagine. You will find him, and you will know him.

Because I know you doubt that.

I know that sitting there in that stall you wonder if anyone notices your absence. I know you question god and if he is really real because if so shouldn't he know how lonely you are and shouldn't he care about things like rejection and pain and crying yourself to sleep at night? And, dear one, those are all of the right questions. You don't know it yet, but that's one thing you are incredibly good at: asking the right questions. The hard questions.

You, the timid one in there, you are actually incredibly courageous.

Oh, little blonde one, you have no idea. You will grow no taller, but you will look mighty ones in the eye and never flinch. You will stand strong in hard fought battles. You will pick the right sides.

It makes me proud, seeing how far we have come. And grateful.

And all of those adventures you long to have, all of those places you long to see? You will do so many of them, and you will do them right. You will allow the things you see and the lessons you learn to soak deep and break your heart. And you will be a kinder person, a better person, because you will know that loving deeply is even worth it when you have to pick the damaged pieces of of your own heart off the ground, one at a time.

I know that the lunch hour is almost up and that you are watching the second hand on your watch so that you can be ready to exit your prison the instant the bell rings. But there is one more thing you need to know.

The life you are going to build for yourself, it is going to be a good one. I know how much you worry. I know you fear wasting precious time and think that you'll never be able to live up to your own incredibly high expectations. And the truth is that you're right. You are going to waste a lot of time. Your path will be anything but the straight and narrow you are aiming for. And your expectations? You will have to learn to bend. But, oh hear me now, the bends? That is where the life is.

Don't you worry about a thing, quiet one. You'll figure it out.

Beacon and Joy

There is an intersection amidst the rolling terrain of Boston where Beacon and Joy come together. The day I discovered this, I was elated.  I may have cried. It was an affirmation that, yes, a street---a normal, unremarkable street--can lead you to that elusive treasure: Joy.

It was something that, really, I had known for years.

I had known it since those first days of freshman year, when with fearlessness and a craving for adventure, I walked out my door and just kept going.  It so happened that Beacon was the street.  Those were our courting days.  

When she saw me she would preen. She would convince the sky to banish the clouds and darken to just the right shade of blue.  She would loose her magic on the trees and turn the leaves yellow and orange and red, and make me gasp in spite of its expectedness.  And when nature refused to conspire she would shine up her old deco buildings and make her hard New England people smile.  As I walked along her haphazardly cobbled streets, she drew me in and I was taken.  

And though through the years her beauty never wavered, it became familiar. It stopped being my reason for coming.  The reasons, they shifted.  Sometimes I came because she was there, and I didn't know what else to do.  Occasionally, I went utilitarian on her and came for her coffee shops and bookstores and restaurants. But mostly, I came because I knew her and she knew me, and there is safety in knowing.  There is freedom.  

And within the confines of her freedom, I grew up.  Reared, in so many secret ways, by a street.

Even now, I think of the hours I spent on those sidewalks as the critical hours of my life.  If all had to be wheedled down and concentrated into the essential decisions and beliefs that shape a person, the majority of mine were arrived at as I walked along Beacon.

Because, you see, God resides on Beacon Street. I am quite sure of it.  If you ever go walking there with me I can point out the building in which I am certain He lives.  And maybe that is the attraction.  Maybe that is why--after all of these years--I can't shake that street.  Perhaps the breezes that blew through my mind as I traipsed the hills of Boston were breathed from an open window of a flat on Beacon Street.  And maybe all of my wanderings were tracing that origin.

It is the places where we meet God that we can't shake.  If we know where He can be found, how can we not keep coming back?  Some people meet God at church.  Or at a friend's home.  Or in a hospital. I have met Him in all of these places.

But I met God--regularly--on a street.  Beacon Street.  And it changed everything about me.

So you can understand how, when years later, after winding my way from one end of Beacon Street all the way through the hills of Newton and Brookline and Boston and Beacon Hill, I looked up and saw that Joy intersects with Beacon, it was like I had always known.  

If God lives on Beacon Street, Joy has got to be close by.

And it is.

What A Day

This is the kind of day it was: 

90 degrees. The air conditioning dies.  

One hour later. The healthy car bleeds burning oil.

Then, the bank account. Don't even get me started on that.

It is tempting to shout at the skies: What else! Why us!  Why now!

Curse this day!

And, yet.  We know.

This is the day that the LORD has made.

Chaos presses, but it is exhausted.  

Panic pushes, but it is diffused.  

The clouds gather, the lightning flashes, the waves crash.

But we know their Father.

We will not wallow in the thrashing waves.

Or cling desperately to the sinking ship.

Or question the one sleeping at the helm.

No.

We will step out onto the water.

The water that churns, seethes, rages--

Its white caps crashing with terrifying force.

None of that matters.

For we are given grace to do the impossible: 

Walk.  

On water.

And so that's what we do.

It is only later that we realize: 

We have out-walked the storms.

The Guest Room Closets

The space between committing and acting is called stressing.  And this is where you find yourself.  Stressing about the one who, in a couple of short weeks, will step on an airplane, cross a continent and an ocean, and land on your doorstep.  A stranger.

A twelve year old stranger: dimpled, cute, alone in the world. Yet somehow, strangely intimidating. Not him, really. Just the thought of him. Of him and his stranger-ness. And you and your not-enough-ness.

You don't know what to do with yourself and the only thing you can think of is to go dig around in the dark abyss of your guest room closets and start making some room for this dear child.  You know he will need space, and that is just about all that you know.  You root around for a few minutes and discover your old Wii and Playstation video game systems that are collecting dust, and you realize that there isn't a twelve year old boy alive who wouldn't love them.

You realize you have something.

Encouraged, you continue. And as you pour through the buried contents of the guest room closets--a veritable asylum for all that is forgotten, all that is unnecesary to daily living--you find some of your greatest treasures: Your wedding invitations.  Your husband's photo albums from his childhood. The baby quilt you painstakingly stitched atop your nine month swollen belly in the days before your first child was born. You find old birthday cards and letters from friends near and mostly far. You find notes of thanks from favorite students--students who were twelve, dimpled, and cute, you remember. Children who you loved and cared for and thought of, in some strange way, as yours for the brief time you had them.

You realize that you have something else.

Digging now with enthusiasm, you spy something hard and black and plastic at the bottom of the clutter and see that it is your husband's violin case. Nestled inside the cheap blue velvet lining is the small violin that has known your husband's soul much longer than you have. It is the one that is the subject of his parents' favorite story of how your husband, at age ten, decided he would play the violin even though there was no orchestra. And how that husband took lessons every week though the teacher lived an hour away, and how that husband learned and got good and played in a youth orchestra another hour away that eventually took him around the world to play in the Sydney Opera House.  And, years later, to stand before family and friends and all who were important and play a song for his blushing bride--just because she asked him to. And you love that story because you love how the man you married is willing to sacrifice for things that don't seem important to most people because he can see their inherent worth, their potential.

And you realize that you have enough.

You stand and stare at the guest room closet, now empty. And at the floor of the guest room, now strewn with the pieces of your life. And you step back and you realize that this is all you need: a life. A life worth sharing.

Well, that and an empty closet.

And now you have both.

__________________________________________________


This summer, our family is hosting an orphan child from the Ukraine for 5 weeks through an orphan hosting program called Homes of Hope International. If you would like to find out more info, visit their website at hohinternational.org or ask me about it!

On Sherpas, Dams, and Mutant Porcupines: The Art of Keeping Patients First in a World of Diminishing Returns

This is a guest post from my amazing hubby, Ben.  I read the 'speech' that he gave for his graduating students at Georgia Tech today and wanted to give you all a chance to see who I get to live with every day.  I'm pretty proud.  Hope you enjoy!  

I was asked by Chris just a couple days ago to say a few words goodbye, and so I said yes thinking it would  be just that…a few words goodbye.  Three hours later, I received an email asking for the title of my presentation – which caught me a bit off-guard, but I wanted something that would be memorable to all of you and felt that I needed to reference some themes from my time teaching you.  I also felt that I should talk about something serious in nature as well, so…

As you are set to embark on this next phase of your journey, the role of being a resident, let me just bestow upon you some words of wisdom.  I will stray from the typical cliché remarks that you hear at graduations; such as “You will NEVER make any money doing this”, “Now it is time for you to get a REAL job”, and most importantly, “Today is the first day of the rest of your lives” and will try to focus on a topic that you will deal with fairly soon. 

Somewhere in the next few months, you will run into a situation where you are faced between making a business decision and a humane decision – a place where doing something wouldn’t make financial sense, but which could potentially benefit a patient – a person that is in need.   There is a struggle there,  because everything cannot be given out for free, otherwise you would not be able to help others when the money runs out.  But at the same time you got into this field first and foremost to help and serve others.   So what do you do, especially as a resident?  While I cannot give you the answer, I can impart on you how I think and what I have been taught when it comes to patient care.

Someone very influential in my career once told me to treat every patient as if that patient was my daughter, spouse, or parent – basically to empathize with patients as people with needs that are to be met, needs that could easily be for your loved ones.  Put yourself in their seat and try to understand how it may feel to be given, and sometimes treated, as just a diagnosis.  That is how I try every day to practice – treating patients as individuals with the respect and compassion that I would show anyone that I love and expect to be shown towards those that I love when they are in need.  Treat patients as people with hopes and dreams just like me.  You do not always get back the appreciation directly from the patient that you might expect, but it only takes a few to make practicing worthwhile – those patients that take the time to engage back with you and let you know that you have had an impact in their lives.  Those are the patients that you do not want to forget.

In practice, I have personally committed myself to provide the service that I deem necessary, choosing designs and products that will potentially enhance the outcome for the patient.  There are many times where I feel it would have made more sense to give the patient $25 and gas money to the nearest competitor than to provide a service to them, but even though that may be true, that never will happen.  In business that is called a loss leader, a product that is sold at or below cost to stimulate other, more profitable sales.   In healthcare, the art of patient care involves sometimes taking care of patients first and profit second, with the hope that by doing the former the latter will follow.  This is because how you care for your patients spreads and your patients become your best advocate to referral sources and other potential patients if you treat them well. 

Personally, some of the items and projects that have provided the most satisfaction to me as a practitioner have been the ones that have brought little to no income to the company.  From making floor-reaction AFOs for an American Girl doll to match the AFOs of the little girl who was trying to cope with having spina bifida, to making a custom abdominal binder with a bottle carrier for the child so there was one less item to be carried around the hospital, and to the little girl with CP who needed only a shoe lift that wouldn’t have been paid by insurance and referring them to a cobbler who could do it for a fraction of the cost that I could have provided.  All of these instances gave me an opportunity to impact someone in a small way.  Sometimes these are ways that may seem extremely small to you, but may have a huge impact on the outlook of the patient and their family – giving them the feeling that someone has taken the time to show compassion and care in a world that can sometimes feel very impersonal.  The AFOs, abdominal binder and shoe lift will never “cure” those children of the disabilities that they have, but they did make a difference, even if for a moment.   Just as a mutant porcupine beavertail provided a little bit of relief during a grueling day of lecture on scoliosis, small things that are unplanned can become the most memorable.

So as you leave these hallowed grounds where we could debate endlessly about exactly how you measure 90 degrees, where is the lateral epicondyle, and just exactly what would a fish say when it hits a wall... remember why you are in this field to begin with – for all of you I can guarantee at least some of the reason is because you want to help people.  That ever-present feeling that you want to do something that you know can, and will, directly impact another human being.

I also, before you leave, want to thank you all for being such a great class to teach.  As my first real class, it has been a pleasure to learn what works and what does not work and feel appreciative that you have all been so patient during the process.  I will always remember each of you for the impact you have had on my career here at Georgia Tech and now have the pleasure of referring to you as colleagues, instead of students – that is of course except for Kaitlin and Liz, who shall now be known for their Sherpa-like qualities over the next year at CHOA. 

Thank you and good luck!

My Ode to Dust

Sometimes, the residue of my own expectations covers me in fine dust, and I walk through the world as one continually under construction.

I begin the morning shining and clean.  New, every morning.  But as I walk through the house it begins to appear.  First, an imperceptible shadow.  A molecule here, there, clings.  One speck when I look in the sink and realize that it is 7 am and I am already behind.  A second when I look at the piles that abound.  Laundry.  Papers.  Lists.  I am covered now.  Layer one is complete.  More when I shrink, just for a moment, from a child or a husband or a friend because I wish I were somewhere else.  Wish I was someone else.  And bit by bit, speck by speck, I don't even bother brushing it off now, but instead help pile it on.  Housekeeping?  I smirk, and dump a handful of the dust over my head.  Not my thing.  Child-rearing? Laughter. I jump into the dust and swim around.  There are others much better at all of this.

I am drenched, now.  Soaked through.  Weighed down--in dust.

Certainly.  This is not who I am meant to be: a dust-wearer.

But in my mind--slowed, no doubt, by the grit and grime that has crept in--I think the problem is circumstantial.  What I am doing.  And I think that maybe if I change what I do, how I spend my time, how I order the events of my life--that the dust will disappear.

And I think that heartily.  Until someone asks me the hard question.  "What do you think you should be doing instead?"

It occurs to me that I have no answer.  Those things I tell myself--that her life or his life or all of these other lives have more purpose, more direction, more value--suddenly seem questionable.  I blink.  For a moment, I can see clearly.

And then this:

"God formed Man out of dust from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life.  The Man came alive--a living soul!"

I think to myself: to be alive!  To be a living soul who isn't just breathing, but who is alive.  Yes, that's it.  That's what I want to be.  Living.

My nostrils begin to tickle.  Begging for that breath.

And though I am just one, buried in my own residue, magnet for the world's dirt and a shrine to the god of dust, there is hope for me.  Hope that life's breath--God's breath--can blow steady on me and bring me to life.

I can see it:  God, breathing in deep.  His mountain-sized lungs sucking in oxygen and expanding to capacity; the pressure mounting as He holds his breath and looks for me, the little one buried and barely visible in the dust mound amid all the other little ones in their own dust mounds.  And when he spies me, his gentle lips curve open and blow forth and I expect a torrent, but feel a steady breeze and gasp in because I hadn't realized how badly I needed the air.  Life.  Life being blown in.  The dust swirling, scattering.  The painful grit clearing.

The circumstances--they will not change.  Not anytime soon, at least.  But I am learning--with every morning, with every time that I allow the cleansing breath to come in, to clear out, to take hold--that it is not about the circumstances, anyway.  It is not about what I am doing or not doing.  About the things I accomplish or don't.

It is about the air that I breathe.

The life that I allow in.

The life that I am invited to breathe back out.

Unholy Week

It was our third try. And I was not leaving the bathroom until she peed in the stupid cup.

There I was, camped out in the doctor's office restroom. We'd been there all morning. It was Easter week. 

Holy Week.  

The holy part doesn't ring so true when you're squatting in front of a public toilet for ten minutes at a time, holding a plastic cup up to your wilting child, trying to coax her bodily functions to cooperate so that the doctors will (please God) be able to figure out why she is so sick.

She just looked at me.  Her face and arms and legs aflame with a mysterious rash, her nose and eyes swollen from who knows what. A shadow of her normal self. She would periodically say, "Mommy, it's coming.  I know it is."  Even though it didn't.  And we would keep waiting.  She, to feel better.  I, for patience, for answers, for relief for my Brave One. And I don't know if it was in her child's wisdom or her feverish haze that she reassured me.  It would get better.  It was coming.  We wouldn't be here forever.

And while I would have given about anything to leave that bathroom, the thought of leaving scared me, too.  The morning had been rampant. Before I'd even gotten my coffee poured in the cup, the children had fought, I had been sick, the puppy had peed all over the floor, there had been time outs, emails, texts, phone calls. Appointments made, appointments broken.  All dancing to the background music of a climbing fever and a sick, sick child.  

Holding the cup between her legs was by far the most peaceful part of the morning.

What is one to think of Holy Week, really?  One like me, who spends those sacred days sitting on a restroom floor?

It can seem so detached.  I think it has to do with the word "holy" because it seems unreachable, unattainable.  I imagine quiet cathedrals and solemn parades.  Priests and all of the righteous in pressed, new clothes, spending hours praying and meditating, thinking of the cross. They realize something new during this week, they achieve something deeper.

I, on the other hand, am worried sick over this child.  The prayers I am saying are for her.  There seems to be nothing left for Him.  I will get no deeper.

I am still holding this cup, and waiting.  Our humanity in this moment--it is real, it is fragile.  There is no hint of holiness here in this bathroom with these germs and this defeated mother. 

And I wonder, in a distant and hazy thought: didn't he have a cup too?  Wasn't he holding a cup, and didn't he want it to go away?  It strikes a nerve.  

He was emeshed in humanity, too.  There was sickness, pain, uncleanliness.  He wasn't safe and separated in holiness.  That week, his last one, it was more like mine--like sitting on a bathroom floor with a sick one--than like theirs--praying and reading and celebrating.

It wasn't Holy Week for him.  It was a week like any other.  Laced with turmoil, conflict, tears, pain, betrayal.  The holy part of his week was simply the knowledge of what was to come.  That on Sunday, hope was coming.  That he himself would bring it.  That all of this unholiness could be touched by his presence and start becoming new on Sunday.

He knew that it was coming.  Hope, healing, peace.  But that he had to first walk through this week.  Holy Week.

He walked it as us, and now we can walk it as he did.  

Sitting on that floor suddenly seemed the perfect place to be.  I was observing Holy Week, hoping, in earnest, for Sunday.

Cultivating the Organic

You hear a lot about this word "organic" these days.

A whole section of our grocery store is now named this.  Everything from yogurt to fruit to cereal (to clothing!) can be organic.  I've heard of organic conversations.  Organic churches.  Organic movements.

But what, exactly, do we mean by this?  

Well,when referring to organic food, we mean food that wasn't grown or made with pesticides or synthetic components.  In terms of conversations, we mean discussions that bubbled up on their own rather than being directed or forced.  As far as churches, movements, and the like go...I think we are referring to something that is unproduced, spontaneous--and, somehow, it has the connotation of being better, healthier.

But there is a problem here.  We have taken this term, which is a farming term, and made some gigantic leaps with it.  So now, when it is used, I think we mislead ourselves to some degree.  

When organic farmers grow their fruits and vegetables, they commit to growing these crops without unnatural pesticides or other synthetic means.  So, definitely, there is this "natural" component to growing things organically.  But don't let this fool you.  Growing things organically does not mean that the farmers are just planting the seeds and letting them grow "naturally".  They are not, somehow, saying, "I've done my job and planted the seed.  It is fully capable of thriving on its own, and I will be back in a few weeks to pick its fruit." Nooooo.  Definitely not.  You better believe that gardener or farmer is out there every day, cultivating the bejesus out of those seeds.

I am certainly no farmer, and the only thing I know about gardening is from watching my husband fight with his small square foot garden on a yearly basis.  But I know enough to be sure that organic farming takes a great deal of cultivation on the gardener's part.  Once that seed pops up, the gardener must thin the surrounding seedlings, pull the weeds, water the plant, figure out how to give the plant nutrients (naturally!), thin and prune the plant so that it will thrive--not die, etc, etc, etc, until the yield is finally ready.  These are daily tasks!  Sometimes it takes years for a plant to be ready to give anything back!

You see, plants growing and producing fruit is a very natural process.  That's what the seeds were made to do.  But farming, gardening--those are man-made processes.  To yield a large crop, or even to yield a small yet somewhat predictable and edible crop, takes a lot of work.  The gardener has to be ever-present, manipulating the environment so as to cultivate the plants into what he or she wants.  

This is especially true with organic gardening or farming.  Those unnatural pesticides and fertilizers and growth hormones make it much easier for plants to grow.  But organic farmers have to be even more vigilant.  Even more attuned to the plants and their needs.  Even more responsive when things take a downward turn.

So when we use the word "organic" to mean natural, undirected, unforced, spontaneous, unproduced....we have a problem.  What is organic farming (or any type of gardening or farming) if it is not directed, forced, planned, produced??  Organic, in my mind, is not about how something grows, but all about how something is cultivated.  

In so many settings, I hear this word tossed around, used to mean "let's just start this process and see what happens naturally--organically."  In a sense, "organic" is used to mean "let's start the car and take our hands off the wheel and see what happens." Everyone nods their heads because we know that organic is better, healthier.  And then we're surprised when what grows is disappointing.  But, really, should we be surprised if a car crashes when we take our hands off the wheel??

In our push to do things "organically", we've ignored the fact that the best things in life are cultivated carefully.  Sometimes with much effort...for years...before producing fruit.  Healthy families don't just happen.  They are cultivated by diligent parents doing specific things.  Healthy organizations don't just grow.  There are wise leaders at the helm, pruning and weeding and making the hard decisions about how the organization will best thrive.  Very little in life "just happens".  Even environments that feel very easy, very spontaneous, very free, are cultivated to be that way.  

I do believe there is a difference between organic and inorganic, and we're on to something in using that term. We're trying to communicate that we don't want things to be fake.  We don't want to manipulate them into something that they're not.  But just because we don't manipulate something into something it's not doesn't mean it can't be manipulated.  In my mind, "organic" is a matter of manipulating a plant or a circumstance or an event into what it was meant to be.  Into its best, most fruitful, version of itself.  It all comes down to how we're cultivating.

And just for the record, I do not hate the word organic, and I generally know what people mean when they say it (and give them the benefit of the doubt).  It just always strikes me as odd that as a society, it has come to connote something so opposite from what it actually means.

So what things are you cultivating in your life right now?  Are there things that you're tracking carefully, albeit allowing them to grow as they will?  Are there ways you've taken your eyes off of something, hoping that it will thrive naturally?  And how is that working?  I would love to hear your thoughts.

 

God and Dissatisfaction

Here's a question I've been wrestling with lately:

As Christians, as committed followers of Christ who believe that He has overcome and is restoring the world (and ourselves) unto completion, do we have a right to be dissatisfied with our lives?


And just to clarify, when I am talking about dissatisfaction, I am not talking about being unhappy or experiencing pain (emotional or physical or otherwise) or grieving or mourning.  Obviously, there are times in our lives when bad things happen...to us.  Sometimes, really bad, hard things.  And I do think that we have a right to these emotions...because, for one, I think they are kind of out of our hands.  We feel what we feel.  And two, I think they are healthy and helpful.  Our feelings of pain help us to acknowledge reality, and maybe they help us to see it for what it really is.  And in the process, they bring us to a point where we can identify what it would look like to continue moving forward, new scars and all.

So, sure, I think we have a right to these emotions, which in my mind are natural responses to the world we live in and the circumstances that happen.  But my question is about dissatisfaction, and whether or not this, like other emotions, is something that we have claim to.

Just cutting right to the chase...dissatisfaction seems, at its root, to not be a reaction to the things that happen to us in this world.  Anger, sadness, happiness, frustration....all of those seem like reactions to me.  Dissatisfaction seems more like a conclusion we reach on account of these circumstances.  For example, I might be unhappy about a situation I find myself in because it was not what I expected.  I think I have a right to that feeling, nor do I really think I could force myself to feel happy (and I am certainly not suggesting that we force ourselves into emotions we just do not have).  But dissatisfaction grows from these types of feelings.  Feelings of unhappiness or disappointment are like the fertile ground from which the weed of dissatisfaction can grow.

So after experiencing negative situations and emotions in our lives for a long enough period of time, I think the conversation in our heads turns from "This sucks." to "I don't deserve this." We reach a conclusion about life---that it has not submitted itself to our picture of perfection, and how dare it?.  We all do this.  How can we not?  But nevertheless, my circumstances and my reactions to them turn into a value judgement about life.  That is where I start to wonder if we have the right.

See, if we take things back far enough, we see that our feelings of dissatisfaction with life lie in the fact that we are not sovereign over life.  That the things we will do not always happen.  Yet, as Christians, isn't this precisely the basis of our hope?  We believe in a sovereign, all-good God who is living, active, and continually willing things for the Good.  Moving things in the Right direction.  And us....well, we are not always moving things in that direction.  Our hope lies in the fact that God is bringing about the Good with and in spite of us.  So when we experience tough circumstances in our lives and, rather than communicating those in an honest conversation with God, we jump the track and board the train of dissatisfaction....aren't we in fact telling God, "I should be sovereign, not you?"

Because if that's what is happening, I don't think we have ground to stand on.  I just simply think this is wrong. None of you want to live in a world where my will is sovereign, believe me.  I would love it.  You, probably, would not.  :)

This is all not to say that we should be walking around with smiles plastered on our faces, pretending we're satisfied with life when, really, we aren't.  I certainly think that honesty about our situations is something that is healthy and necessary.  But I think we need to be aware when we make that critical leap from emotional responses to our situations to conclusions about life on account of our situations.

How's that?  Clear as mud?

What do you think?

I Give Up Self Sufficiency

A year and a half ago, as I hugged my coworkers goodbye for the last time before moving one thousand miles away to Atlanta, my boss handed me a card.  Inside was the most wonderful note thanking me for all of the hard work I’d put into my job over the years.  My boss was a woman who I admired more than almost anyone I had ever met, and her words were so precious to me.   But at the end of the card…the very last line, in fact…she wrote something that I haven’t forgotten.  She said, “We’ll miss you here.  But we know that God has bigger and better things for you, and we can’t wait to see what those things are!”

Although those words were meant as a blessing, my heart sank the second I read them.  I didn’t believe with any part of me that I was moving on to bigger and better things.   I knew what I was moving on to.  I was 8 months pregnant with our second daughter, and I could see an endless string of days at home stretching out before me.  Of course, the work I would do at home with my children would be important, but it suddenly seemed so insignificant in comparison with the life I had been living in the working world—a life where I was making an obvious difference, helping people, showing them God’s love.  There was a big part of me that wondered if God had forgotten me.  Or if it was some cruel joke that just as I was where I had always wanted to be, He moved us away.

And so, believing wholeheartedly that God had either forgotten or didn’t care about my desire to do something good and important with my life, I forged off to take matters into my own hands.  We soon settled into Atlanta, I had our baby girl, Caroline, and then I began to sign up for every possible thing I came across—looking, I suppose, for the bigger and better.  I became a room mother for Molly’s class and I took on a part time job tutoring in the evenings.  I became a part of moms groups and playgroups and library groups and church groups and neighborhood groups—sometimes stepping into leadership positions without even a thought.  And as you can imagine, it didn’t take long for me to be completely overwhelmed.  Not only that, but I wasn’t satisfied.  I wasn’t feeling appreciated or like I was really making a difference.  I was just the schlep who was doing all of the things that no one else wanted to do.

It was at this low point that God broke in and showed me what I was doing.  I had taken it on myself to build up my life and establish my reputation—apart from Him.  In refusing to believe that God could possibly be at work in me, moving me on to the bigger and better without a burgeoning career or position of importance in the world, I’d come to rely fully on myself.  As long as I was advancing in a way that was expected, I had been willing to follow God.  But as soon as advancement meant trusting God to use me in a much less visible situation, I had bailed.   

I spent a lot of time asking God about this place I found myself in.  A place that, to me, felt like absolute nothingness.  I wondered how God could want me to become nothing.  To not utilize the gifts and talents I thought he’d given me.  God didn’t answer these questions.  But he definitely did talk to me.  He told me to let things go.  All of the things that I was grasping so tightly, trying to use to create an identity for myself…he told me to let them go.  He told me to make space in my life so that there was room for Him to enter in.  He promised me that if I made this space and trusted Him to be enough, that He would be.

And so, very reluctantly, that is what I began to do.   I made space.  It meant not signing up for gymnastics AND soccer.  It meant not volunteering for every opportunity that came along.  It meant having entire afternoons, days, and weekends where we had no plans.  This was really scary at first.  I feared the long days, and I hated the conversations that began with, “So what have you been up to this weekend?”  I had to become okay with answering, “”Not much,” which was humbling.  As our neighbors jetted off, day after day, to ballet lessons and piano lessons and soccer practice, I wondered if I was depriving my children.  I wondered if I was depriving myself!  But, still, God would whisper, in those moments where doubt and insecurity crept in, to wait, to stand firm, to not pick up the idol of self-sufficiency that I’d just decided to lay down.

And then something amazing began to happen.  Into all of those empty places like the long afternoons and the open weekends, God began to fill, to become sufficient.  Spending so much free time outside in our front yard meant that our house became the place for all of the neighborhood kids to congregate in the afternoons.  Sometimes we have 10 or 15 children in our yard, and we are building relationships with them that we never would have if we were always going off in 5 other directions.  We’ve also become a stopping point for many of our older neighbors who walk their dogs in the afternoon. They walk past, we pet their dogs, and we chat…sometimes for a long time.  Though I thought that making space would relegate me to loneliness and deprive me of adult company, it has turned out that I often have more company than I know what to do with.  I have learned things I never would have otherwise…things like who is having surgery, who is sick, and who is just having a hard time.  And in the midst of all of this, I see that God has given me a place, an important position.  I am the one who is always around.  I am the one who knows about the hard things.  I am the one who has time to care.  I love that God is making me this person. 

But that is never the role I had for myself.  That, to me, was not the bigger and better that I’d hoped for.  I was too focused on becoming someone (not sure who)  and something (not sure what) to see what God was so clearly trying to show me…that he has a role for me right now, ministering in his kingdom.   It wasn’t until I agreed to let my plans fall away that I could see what God had for me.  And realize that his plans are not just enough, but perfect.

   

So, this Lenten season, I give up self-sufficiency.  I give up self-sufficiency because I am beginning to believe the things I’ve heard about our God all of these years:  That he loves me.  That he knows me…deeply, truly, and completely.   That he has plans for me—a destiny that he has crafted uniquely for me.  And that nothing, absolutely nothing that I could dream up for myself could ever compare to the life that God wants to give me.

The One Without

In my last post, I wrote about how I've arrived at this point of thinking that hearing from and responding to God is it. The point. Thanks to those of you who engaged in conversation with me about that.  I said that I would put some thoughts together on what exactly it means and looks like to hear God in my next post, so that's what I'm going to attempt to do here.  As always, I would love to hear your thoughts...especially as I feel like I'm in kind of strange territory here.

Let me just define my terms (or rather, term) to begin.  When I'm talking about God, the one we hear, I'm talking about a specific God.  I am not referring to a generic spirit, a source of energy or power, or a force in the universe.  I would venture to say that when people talk about this more general or overarching supernatural being, they tend to view the being as part of and inseparable from everything.  So, for example, if I think of God as energy, I might think of that energy as being everywhere.  Around me, in me, in you--part of everything, and indistinguishable from anything.   I think that--as the world has taken on a more secular flavor--the concept of God has not disappeared so much as blended into this idea of an energy that is everywhere.  However, I think that this is a mistake.  To buy into this idea that the point of life itself is to hear from and respond to God necessitates that we think of God as other.  As separate from ourselves.


I want to be clear.  I do believe that God created everything.  I believe that he is eternal, omni-everything, etc.  And he holds all things together.  So, in some ways, God is a part of everything.  But he is separate from us.  I am me.  God is god.

Why is this important, you ask?  Well, I think that hearing God is simply being able to recognize thoughts, ideas, and inspirations within our minds that are from without.  I think that if we start paying attention to the "without" moments in our minds and in our lives, we will see God.  And we will hear him.  Let me try and explain this (have I lost everyone yet?)

The easiest way for me to explain what I think are "without" moments are instances of what we normally call inspiration.  There is a reason we call the most amazing things in life (great art, music, literature, etc.) "inspired".  I think every artist, musician, and writer could tell you of times when they have surprised themselves with the things that they produce.  Sure, they would tell you that they spend countless hours honing their craft by building their skill level.  But there is a point at which skill plateaus, and I think that to get from skilled to great there is a leap of inspiration that needs to happen.  There is something that meets the artist or the musician or the writer from without, and it catapults what is happening to a whole new level.  Have you experienced this?  I do not consider myself an artist or really even a writer, but even I have had these moments when I look back at what I created and realize that part of that just did not come from my brain.  There was something else happening there.

I also think there is something to the idea of intuition.  Many of us have experienced moments in our lives when we knew something that we shouldn't have known.  In my mind, these are clear examples of One who is from "without".

So, how do we hear from God?  Well, I think we begin paying attention to our lives and trying to find these "without" moments.  Maybe we collect them, put them in our pockets and wiggle them around with our fingers.  And then we ask God, the one who is without, what he wants us to know about these things.  And I think that at that point, we'll be able to hear the answer.

Let me know what you hear.

The Center Point

I am becoming increasingly convinced that, while my faith as a Christian has many different facets to it, there is a central "crux" of things--a place from which all else hinges. And so things like the beliefs I hold and the stances I take on everything from politics to ethical principles are important...but only because they come from and are informed by the center belief. In my mind, this looks a bit like a wagon wheel. All of the different spokes spring from that center point.

And so what is this central point, you ask?

It is this: that God speaks, and that I (we) can hear Him.


Is that what you thought I was going to say?

This is something I've been thinking a lot about over the last couple of months. It really began when I read the Bonhoeffer biography (Metaxas) in December. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of my all-time heroes. Perhaps my biggest hero. If you don't know who he is, here's a little background: Bonhoeffer was a theologian and pastor in Germany before and during World War II. When Hitler came to power and the German church (along with other churches around the world) failed to stand up to evil, Bonhoeffer and some others began the Confessing Church--which tried to remain true to the right and good in the midst of Nazi pressure to give in--which it was somewhat, but not completely, successful at doing. He was also involved in underground activities to both help victims of the Nazis and to plot an assassination of Hitler. Bonhoeffer was eventually arrested and was killed in a concentration camp just before the end of the war in 1945.

Obviously, all of these things about Bonhoeffer are admirable. But what I really appreciate about him is the way he reasoned through the ethical dilemmas in his life--and that he did it on paper so that we can still look at his thoughts today and learn so much. Clearly, living in the time and place that he did, Bonhoeffer confronted moral dilemmas almost daily. Questions like: As someone who believes the word of God when it says to love my enemy, am I justified in killing others to prevent evil from harming innocent victims? Questions like: If I am admired and closely watched by younger men and women, can I decide to take a dangerous stand against an evil enemy even though I know it will compel those watching me to put themselves in danger as well?

These are not easy questions!! You could have a long and unresolved argument about these and many more dilemmas like them for days and days without truly reaching the bottom of the arguments. But I think this is why I like Bonhoeffer so much. He didn't reduce Christianity into this nice, neat little box of "shoulds" and "shouldnt's". He didn't take the Bible, hold it out, and say, "Here you go. Everything you ever need to know is right here." That's just not the case. I mean, let's be honest, sometimes the Bible seems to contradict itself and we're left wondering, "What in the world am I supposed to do?"

Bonhoeffer, an ethicist/philosopher/theologian, would tell you that there are no easy or absolute answers about how to react to life. But that doesn't mean he was wishy washy or unconvinced that there is a sovereign God who divides good from evil. Rather, Bonhoeffer would say that we can know what to do in these ethically unclear situations. The way we know? We listen to God's voice.

Bonhoeffer, a liberal, scholarly, highly educated man who grew up in the middle of a strikingly secular family, believed that we can hear God's voice. Not only that. He actually believed that hearing God's voice and responding in obedience and submission to God was the point. It was the only way that we could make it through all of those confusing moments in our lives where our faith in God seems to pit itself against us. But I think the importance of hearing God's voice goes even further than that. Sure, it is super helpful to be able to hear from and consult with God himself in difficult situations in our lives. But I think that God also longs for us to listen to him about things that are much less weighty, that are small, daily, seemingly unimportant. I think he wants us to know him. God, the creator, the one in charge, wants us to know him.

And I don't mean know in some metaphorical sense. I don't mean any of this in a metaphorical sense. When I say that we can hear God, that we can know him, that he breaks into our lives in all of these little moments, I mean exactly that.

So I guess my question is this: Do we believe that that's true? I know a lot of you reading this blog are Christians and have walked a long way down this path. So I ask you: Do you really think we can hear from God--all the time? Do you actually think that God is speaking into every situation in your life? That he is breaking in? And do we believe that this happens in everyone's lives (believer or not?) and that it is our fundamental task as human beings to seek out this voice and respond to it?

Because that's where I am. That's what I think. I think that this concept of hearing God's voice and responding to it is--it. And I think that if we learn to do it, it changes everything about us.

My next post will dive into what it actually means to "hear God's voice". I'd love to hear your thoughts on that if you have any!

David

Did David know
When just a shepherd-child
Of his greatness?

Is one born
In the image of God aware
Of his bloodline?

Did he polish stones,
Herd sheep,
Play the harp, knowingly?

Was it easy?
Sitting alone in arid fields,
Waiting for his destiny

Because he knew,
Somewhere in his innards,
That destiny can’t be escaped?

That it can only be waited for.

And when he volunteered
To meet the Giant,
A child versus a mountain,

Did he know?
Or did the possibility hang in his mind
(even just a small one)

That it wasn’t necessarily settled--
That God may not come through,
And it wouldn’t change anything about God?

If David
Had a little doubt
When he picked up that first stone,

It gives me confidence because
It means that,
Knowing that I am not destined for greatness,

There is still the chance
That I can fight the Giant and win
And it wouldn’t change anything about God.

The Importance of Ritual

These last weeks as I've reflected on 2011 and looked forward to 2012, I've been thinking about the importance of rituals in my life. Truth is, I'm terrible at making and keeping resolutions (aren't we all?), but I have found some success in viewing goals not as a singular change that gets added to my life, but as incorporated into a new life ritual of sorts.

As an example, earlier in the year we realized that we were watching too much television in our house. Thing is, we weren't really watching it much of the time, but we'd gotten used to just waking up and having it on as background noise, and as a result, Molly was racking up television hours like it was her job. The thought of just all of a sudden turning off the tv was terrifying, even though I knew I wouldn't miss it. So instead of deciding to simply enact a rule that we would turn the television off, we created a new morning ritual that just didn't include the television. Formerly, Molly woke up and turned the tv on while she woke up and had breakfast. Now, we wake up, read a story, and listen to music in the mornings. Taking away the television was painless because it didn't really feel like we took it away. We merely changed the routine.

When I was teaching, routines and rituals were something I put a lot of thought into before the school year started. I then continued to reflect on them throughout the year and tweaked things as needed. I believe that having routines (especially in a classroom) creates a sense of calm and safety because everyone knows what to expect. Students can arrive at school and start the day off in relative peace and calm, rather than in a state of anxiety over whether they'll be thrown into an uncomfortable situation. Even (or especially) children need to feel like they have some sort of power over their surroundings. I think that is so important for all of us.

In our spiritual lives, too, there needs to be some degree of ritual in order to grow in maturity. This is what I've really been thinking about as I've set my New Year's goals for 2012. Obviously, God is in charge of whether and how much I grow and mature in my relationship with Him. But there are things that I can do, routines that I can set, patterns that I can follow, in order to put myself on the right path. Rather than just saying, "I want to deepen my relationship with God this year" I have decided to say, "I want to set my life in a trajectory that points more closely to God." I want to establish routines in my life, like waking before my children and having a plan for reading and praying, that won't feel like an additional thing to do, but will replace my current routine. I'll let you know how it goes.

Happy New Year!

A Poem for the New Year

I have been really into poetry lately. Not sure why, but it has just had this profound power over me....I think because I've been in this somewhat long and semi-frustrating state of feeling like I have so much to say and write, but for various reasons I have just not had the words to do so. Often, when I find myself in this place, music speaks to me and I can point to a certain song or set of lyrics and say, "This is how I'm feeling." or "This says exactly what I am unable to." But for some reason, poems have been the thing lately. I can't tell you how many times in recent months I've been reading something and have been moved to tears by the fact that a sentiment is so beautifully, powerfully, and simply expressed. Anyway, it has been feeding my soul. Here's a poem I ran across just the other day that I thought was a good one for the New Year. The entire poem is worth reading, but here is an excerpt of just the last two stanzas. Enjoy...and Happy 2012!

Excerpt from "Rabbi Ben Ezra" by Robert Browning

But I need, now as then,
Thee, God, who mouldest men;
And since, not even while the whirl was worst,
Did I—to the wheel of life
With shapes and colours rife,
Bound dizzily,—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:

So, take and use Thy work,
Amend what flaws may lurk,
What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the
aim!
My times be in Thy hand!
Perfect the cup as planned!
Let age approve of youth, and death complete
the same!

Preparing Room

The season of advent is upon us.  Time, I suppose, for the obligatory blog post on doing Christmas the "right" way, whatever that is.  Less stuff, more meaning, less shopping, more praying?  I'm not sure.

Truth be told, it's really hard to know how to make Jesus' Christmas surpass the grandeur of Santa Claus--especially with small children.  Try as I might, Molly's favorite part of Christmas is the presents, even though she knows all about Jesus and his birthday.  What is a parent to do, really?  There's a big part of me that loves the gift giving (and receiving) part, too...

And so I struggle to figure out what this "real meaning" is that I am trying to prepare for.  Probably not the most p.c. thing to own up to, but it's true.

This morning, while listening to Christmas music, I was floored by a line from Joy to the World: "Let every heart prepare ye room."

I'm not sure why it struck me.  Why it kept circling through my mind as the rest of the song played.  Why it kept coming back as I did other things.  Why it's still stuck there, hanging on.  Let every heart prepare ye room.

Still unsure why this line clung to me as it did, I began to reflect on what it might mean to prepare room for Jesus, the baby King, the one who would save.  The only frame of reference I have for this is preparing for the birth of my own babies.  Thinking back to those times, I recall the planning, the careful shopping and selecting and readying that took place to make their rooms ready for them to come home.  Especially with Molly, the firstborn, I chose all of the things--linens, furniture, decorations--with such care.  We set things up so proudly, washed and folded things, made her some special things and placed them in the room even before she was born.

Why do we feel compelled to do this?  Why has readying a nursery become such an important part of having a new baby?  Surely, it's not because we think the baby cares about all of these things, is it?  We don't believe that the baby, upon seeing the wrong quilt, or upon realizing that the changing table is a hand-me-down, will become indignant and refuse to remain in our family, do we?  Of course not.  Setting up the nursery with care is simply a way that we communicate to the baby, to ourselves, and to the rest of the world that we are making room.  A new one is coming into our world, and we will stop everything to make a place where this new one can live and grow and make their home.  Making room shows that we are eager, we are expectant, and we realize that once the baby arrives, we will be ready and available for life to be different.

Perhaps it's a helpful metaphor for the advent season, especially in light of the fact that the One we await came as a baby.  So what might it look like to make room this season?  How are we preparing?  Are we choosing carefully the things that we are spending our time on this season?  Are we aware that the things we are preparing--the actual, physical things--aren't the important part, but what is important is that these physical things point to a heart that is eager, excited, expecting to stop everything and make room once the awaited one arrives?

The problem with the advent season, in my opinion, is that it is just the beginning, yet it gets all of the pomp.  It is like celebrating a wedding without realizing that the marriage itself is the gift.  Or having a baby shower and not knowing that the raising of the child is the fun part.  Advent is the preparation.  Advent is the beginning, the entrance, the starting gun.  It is loud and shiny and exciting, and Santa and Rudolph join in, and there is hot chocolate and ice skating.  It is all so much darn fun.

But what comes after--when the King has come--that's the point.  That's what we wait for.  Life after the Christmas tree has come down, after the New Year has rung, that's what all of this is for.  That is also the point at which we find out if we have done a good job at making room.  If life is different, if we have received Christ who has come, if we are fundamentally changed, if our priorities have shifted come December 26th....that's how we know.  That's how we know if we've truly made room.  That's how we know that the baby has arrived.

How are you making room this season?

The Transferable Treasure

I am told to ask, so I do.

It is early, and I am willing--just barely--and I ask, knowing there will be an answer.  But at this point, I'm not sure if I am ready to hear any more.

"Storing up treasures in heaven.  What does this look like?  Really?  What does this mean?  What do you want us to do?"

I hear.  But it makes no sense.

That's how I know.  These aren't my thoughts, borne from my brain.  These belong to Another.

"Worship."

That's it.  That's the answer.  Not the answer to everything, mind you.  But the answer to this question.  This storing up treasures question.

Not tithing more?  Not doing more?  Being more?

I am confused, but I know to wait.  I know, by now, how this works.  I just hold it loosely, keep it there floating around.  Soon the wrestling begins, as it always does.  The wrestling to take the word that's heard and bring it to life in my mind and my heart so that it makes sense, sinks in, rings true.

All day, I wonder: Worship?  Really?  That's the treasure that is transferable?

It strikes a chord.  I have been learning, thinking, mulling, these last few months.  Worship isn't a synonym for singing.  It does not always happen with a band, or a leader, or with others.

Certainly, it can.  It does.

But worship is so much more than that.

Obedience.

That is worship.  It's when my actions sing agreement with Him.  When their song mimics His tune, showing that I want what He wants.  Showing that I will follow, not lead.


Rest.

That is worship.  Welcome worship around here.  When my body and soul lie still, knowing there is refuge from the storms.  Knowing that the worrying can cease because of the One who is standing guard.

Praise.  

That is worship.  That is recognizing Him for who he is.  For seeing how great, how long, how wide He is, and knowing--happily--that I will never measure up, and that I'm not expected to.

Work.

That is worship.  It is knowing that I am given good things to do, important things to do, a purpose.  And that I can make a difference in this world in a very real way because He has made me to do that.

Everything, really, can be worship.  It's not about what's going on.  It's about how it's going.


Worship is simply this: acknowledging Him as the starting point, middle point, ending point....for everything.

Worship makes me take myself off of the throne, and it allows Him to reign unchallenged.

Worship is not a moment.  Not an event.  Not a part of a service or of a life or of a religion.

Worship is the point.

Worship is the treasure.  On earth as it is in heaven.  The transferable treasure.

The one, which, if we store it up here, will be there waiting for us.  It will make us rich.  In heaven, for sure.

But here?

It might make us rich here, too.

That Lady

I promised myself that I would not blog about this.  Actually, I promised myself that I would not talk about this or really call any attention to it at all.  There were good reasons for this.  But I am feeling compelled to share...just not for the reason that it will at first appear.

Last week, Molly (4) Caroline (1), myself, and my mom went on a flight to Massachusetts to visit some dear friends.  It was Caroline's first flight, and she did great--until the end.  As soon as the plane began to descend, she began to pull at her ears and wail.  The pressure hurt.  From the amount she was screaming, the pressure really hurt.  But we made it.

On the return flight, we were as ready as we could be.  I gave Caroline some tylenol in advance.  We had plenty of things for her to eat and drink to keep the pressure from building up.  But wouldn't you know that as soon as the plane began descending, the wailing began again.  She was inconsolable.  I felt so bad for her, and sorry that my fellow passengers had to listen to her.

A few minutes into the crying, a lady about 3 rows in front of us turned around and stared at us, shaking her head back and forth.  Clearly, annoyed.  I smiled.  My mom tried to communicate that the baby's ears were hurting.  The lady just stared at us, angry.  Throw-them-off-the-plane-angry.  She even pressed the flight attendant call button at one point, presumably to complain about us.  My heart started to race.  Anger.  Frustration.  Tightness in my chest that slowly creeps upward.  Lady, can't you understand?  Can't you put yourself into our shoes?

We made it all the way down and the crying stopped.  Magically.  Poor Caroline, all blotchy faced, just lay on me in pure exhaustion, snuffling and taking deep breaths to calm down.  We stood up and got our things together, ready to deplane.  The lady--that lady, as she had now become in my mind--had her bag several rows back.  Right near us.  You'd think she'd try to avoid eye contact, try to put it behind her and just get off the plane already.  I thought that's what she was going to do, and I even moved politely so that she could get her bag more easily.  That was me being the bigger person.

And then she looked straight at me.  And snarled.

"You really shouldn't do that to that baby."

Excuse me?  Do what?  Take her on an airplane?

A number of responses, all beginning with the phrase "How dare you", came to mind.  As rushing rage wound its way through my blood, I mumbled something, desperately trying to keep myself from shouting obscenities at her and from keeping my mom from punching the lady in the eye (which was a real possibility).  How could someone be so heartless, so mean, so...shameless?

And then she was gone.

She left me, a young mother with two tiny little girls, there to absorb the sting of her words, without giving us another thought.  We had ruined 10 minutes of her flight, and we deserved it.

I hate that this lady spoiled the end of this trip for us.  We should have come out of the airport beaming and sharing stories and shouting about all of the blessings we were given in that wonderful week.  Instead, we were weighed heavily with the cruelty of someone we didn't even know.  Even though we could brush her words off as ridiculous, it is weighty to glimpse the depravity of another.

But the heaviest weight of all?

Realizing that I am just like her.

Go with me all the way back to the beginning of this post for just a second.  As I said, I really didn't want to tell this story because I didn't want to give that lady any airtime in my mind or my heart or in my words.  I just thought she was deplorable enough not to warrant any further consideration.  And it's true.  This post is not about her.  Not really.

It's about all of us.  Me first.

As this story was unravelling, I was talking to myself (not out loud, mind you).  Wrestling back and forth in my mind:  "Who does that lady think she is?"  "What is her problem?"  "I hope something horrible happens to her on the way out of the airport."  "I hope something falls on her head."  "I hope that something falls on her head and then something else falls on her legs and pins her to the dirty ground."  "I hope that at that moment, one of those little airport cars drives by and rolls right over her."  "I hope that as all of this happens, I can be standing there to watch and laugh and tell everyone not to help her because she is such an awful human being."  "Please God, do something mean to her."

Gulp.  Guilty as charged.

And this one, the thought that I hung my hat on when all was said and done.  I said it like this in my head, "God, thank you that what goes around comes around."

What???

It has taken me several days to unpack this thought in my head.  To realize that I really meant it.  To realize that I really believed (a.) that this is how God works and (b.) that this is how I want God to work.

If what goes around comes around, I have no desire to stick around for what is coming.  Because you know what?  Goodness and compassion and understanding will not be coming my way.  Even though I may not treat someone like that lady on an airplane, I have done things equally heartless, equally cruel, equally lacking in compassion.  And I enjoyed it.  Sure, you may say that she deserves all of this.  Clearly, I agree with you on some level.  But the more I think about it, the more I realize that she is not unique.  It is not that something in her is incorrectly wired to make her a mean, heartless human being.  It's that we're all wired that way.

What makes me think that I'm any better?

Luckily, even though my mind reverts to this "what goes around comes around" philosophy, I believe in a God who is not like this.  He sees that all of us (a world full of that guy and that lady screw-ups) just don't have it together.  We can't be kind.  We can't be understanding.  We try sometimes, and sometimes we don't.  But regardless, we can't do it.  And that's okay.  Because his justice system is not a karmic one, it's a gracious one.  It's distinctly a What Goes Around Does Not Come Around sort of system.

Thank you, God, for that.  Now I can rest easier.  Now I can be assured that my moment of meanness overpowering niceness will not come back and bite me on the way out of the airport.

Also.  Now I have the strength, the ability, the perspective, with which to forgive all of the that ladies in my life.

One Night

Waiting for dessert, the small group of us sat in the living room and talked.  The conversation started and stopped, not unpleasantly, just people getting to know one another.  A question here, an observation there.  We asked how they had liked the tacos.  They smiled, revealing gratitude but not completely answering our question.  Our refugee friends are friendly, shy, warm, intriguing.

The conversation moved to dessert--desserts we were going to have that night.  They hadn't heard of brownies.  Only one of them had tried ice cream.  We promised that they'd only have to eat what they liked.

And then I asked about them.  What desserts did they have in their country?  What sorts of sweet things did they like to eat?
 
A blank stare, and then a grimace.  Slowly, an answer, as if being very gentle with me.

"Kristin, we have economic problems in Nepal.  No dessert."

That sound? That was me and my sense of reality being brought down to size.

I go on, ask the obvious question.  "So what did  you have to eat?  The UN, what rations did they give you?"

The answer: rice, flour, some sugar.  The vegetables they had to grow in their garden.  The mushrooms they hunted in the forest outside the camp.  The meat was bought in tiny shops inside the camp, where they lived in makeshift homes of bamboo, mud, and tarps with their extended families.  There was a rainy season.  There was some snow.  There was no heat.

For 20 years that's how it was.  How it still is there in that camp.  In 2011.

There were many delightful things that night.  Teaching them how to use a high chair.  Watching the adorable little girl playing with a "hammer" toy and giggling each time she made contact.  Learning Nepali words.  Showing off my yoga poses to demonstrate where I learned the word "Namaste".

But we all had to wonder after they left: what do they think of us?  Of us with our overflowing tacos, gigantic bowls of food, plentiful desserts.  Our multitudes of questions, our interest in them, our warm, comfortable homes, solemn prayers.  In no way was our meal extravagant or the night one of luxury.  It was the same thing we do every week.  Do we count ourselves blessed?  Truly?  Do we?

But one question has haunted me since they left that night.  Really, it has haunted me since I met them and heard of their plight.  Honestly, it has haunted me for 10 years--the time when the Nairobi slums became a part of my story.

Not "what do they think of us" but "what do we think of us?"

And, when I'm feeling brave....

"What does He think of us?"

I don't think these are questions I can dodge forever.  I have done a decent job for a long time.  But it's as if the universe--aka God--is conspiring against me.  I don't have answers to these questions.  Not yet, anyway, and certainly not in any tangible form.  But they are things that make me uncomfortable and make me question...things.  Big things.  How-do-I-live-my-life sort of things.