Christ-mas Where Art Thou

I sat in therapy this morning listing my excuses for being chaotic. I am so good at having really great stuff to fill a black hole, called saving Christmas. I think this comes from my childhood experiences of Fear and Neglect. [I have to qualify this diagnosis with the word "unintentional," because I love my parents so much and just like there parents for them, they sacrificed so much and did the best they could with what they had!]

I feel an urge to buy everyone many great stocking stuffers, ones that will make them feel loved and known. This results in me seeing people and feeling overwhelmed with my task of taking on their happiness and fearing I can't do it. I also struggle to commit to any purchase, so  I wait and feel more fear at messing up and at 4PM on Christmas eve will go nuts to try and quell all of this in crazy spending at Whole Foods and REI and Cost Plus. 

This takes me to my real question, What would make Christ be enough on it's own? I've tried to tell people I wanted nothing, but the thought of getting nothing felt horrible too. My sister and I have both had good cries at feeling mis-read when we did not get things we wanted and then feeling horrible for being sad about it. This year I even purchased gifts for myself to ensure I had a back-up in case what I am given isn't enough. I can't imagine not giving toys to my kids, but could they be ok without? If I weren't so afraid, could truly accepting a God leaving a paradise to take on complete helpless infancy to personally love me, be enough? I pray that some day it will! 

This Season Feels Mixed-Up

In this cold grey December, my family collected three consecutive illnesses, from 103 degree fevers to all out stomach issues to terrible head colds. The bugs hit every one of us in our turn, and took us out for over two weeks. Simultaneously our heat turned off for three days at a time only to return as someone knocked at the door to diagnose it, then when they left with our checks, to have it turn off again.

I kept trying to keep everyone safe and then pretended to be calm as I sat on the couch stroking heads, my mind racing on how to save these ones from their pale dizziness. At some point I gave up trying to order days or cook or live out a normal existence, unable to get a free moment to think or call a friend.

Diane Telion from Knox gave a talk at an Advent Tea about weakness due to her chemo treatments and how she was forced to let others prepare for Christmas. I sit in wonder too as I imagine the weakness in being a teenage girl [Mary] going on a long camping trip while pregnant and newly married.  She had no control or place to hide, forced into a messy delivery in a dirty cave among unknown animals. She had no people to know her or to call out to for explanations of the pain, of the pressure to push, what to do with torn insides? Then she has to nurse a baby, clean it without a laundry machine or even running water and keep the baby boy alive. [We have not record of his weight and length or the amount of time it took to push him out]

That is the moment I ponder as I am forced to sit on a coach. Maybe this is the reality God is calling us to. The one that means being helpless and unprepared and forced to settle on the dirt floor to wonder at who he is. To experience God sitting with us in our mess, with sweat beads on our foreheads and patting our back as we heave. 

As color return to my boys and husbands cheeks, they dress and eating plain noodles to sustain them for today’s adventures, and I am thankful that I don’t have to be everything. On this day, I know a God who sees and holds and settles in to love me better and for the longer haul.

What If. . . (I continue to imagine it)

I grew up in a concrete and controlled faith, with a literal bible and the belief that there was one answer for every faith question. I think somewhere in there my church looked at the Jesus of the bible as history and the physical signs of the Holy Spirit in modern times as unnecessary. I liked rules and being justifiable right and would listen to the Bible Answer Man radio show every night to hear Hank combat holy laughter or false prophets.

My beliefs in God’s physical working tends to come to play when I am running late (which is all the time) and I ask his help in finding parking spaces, locating car keys and fixing my kids attitudes on our way into Church. The amazing grace in these selfish prayers is that God answers them. A friend and I compared notes on these prayers and we both laughed as we confessed that God answers them. We might then write them off as coincidences, but when I take in the possibility that he is with me in my shallow needs, I am dumfounded.

My most embarrassing example of God showing up, is one I’ve only shared with one other person, but  I believe it gives testimony to God being in my life in a real way. Two years ago I spent 9 months, running 70 mile weeks to attempt a sub three hour marathon. The pressure and circumstances were so intense that a month before the event I asked God to take the option of running the race away. Then, the next week as I did a 5:30 AM speed workout on the track, I felt my long 2^nd toe snap at the joint and the instant pain of its fracture. I limped one more loop before calling it quits that day and then later getting into the podiatrist to hear I would not be running. I hate to say this, because it is crazy and not a great prayer and I don’t think God is in the business of breaking toes, but in that moment I had to look up towards heaven and laugh. I didn’t feel much pain from the injury and I was freed from the pressure of that race. This year I started up again and trained at 45 miles a week for a less speedy marathon and my same fractured toe began to throb with hints of snapping when I was a month away from the event. This time I put my hand over my foot and prayed, “God, please heal this bone and let me run this race for you.”  I believe he was with me and my race was a huge joy, me smiling the whole way and getting faster each step thinking up phrases I wished I had written on my shirt like, “Go God!,” “I’m weak[Front],” “He’s Strong[Back], "TRUST,” “ASK." (I'll stop here because I had a lot of time in the race and I don't remember all the real ones.) I also wished I had written in black marker names of people I hold up in prayer, my good friends, those who I know are in tough places and those I just want God to hold tightly.  

This all leads me to the question, “If the Holy Spirit is Real, then what?” What questions do I ask of him? What answers could give life and healing and new eyes to broken people, a broken city, and a struggling humanity around the world. This week in Sunday School, Valerie Johnson directed us to Matthew 6: 7-12.  What do I imagine of a great and all powerful God who wants so much more for me and who can (and I hope will0 work through my hands and feet and heart to reflect him.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, when his sons asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? IF you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask him!”  - Matthew 6: 7-11

On Saturday night my husband was grilling our son on spellings for words and went into the spelling of Fire vs. Fiery, and how it is spelled differently then you would expect. I jumped and disagreed with the spelling, saying it was firey, though I should know better then to question him. Andrew has won many a spelling bee and when he knows something, he can recall it with a great deal of accuracy. So he looked it up the spelling for my sake and of course was right.

I then became upset with him, because I wanted to be right and really because I had a moment of feeling the conflict of David seeing all men as intelligent and women as not (really it is my own issue). I worry sometimes that this is the modeling he is experiencing. It is what I grew up with and part of why I shut down quickly when things appear to be too complicated, too long, or include too many steps.

On the flip side, someone said to me recently that they don't experience me as unintelligent. It was a gift and one I trust and has had me thinking about whether I can believe that about myself. It makes me want to ask this question, "If i'm intelligent, then . . [what]?" I am happy to start with a blank page numbered 1 to 10 with my hand written notes beginning to delve.

I Offend Myself

Funny how I am stuck in my fear of offending. The truth is everything is offensive to everyone, inside and outside of a faith. If I am a Christian, I am offensive outside, a liberal believer: offensive inside my denomination, kind: people are skeptical, mean: I will offend. I keep looking for a clue as to how I should behave, but this causes me to panic. What is the answer for me to live my evolving faith, outside of my circumstances (or my surrounding fellow evolvers)?

I'm told that in the 80's there was this multicultural movement that encouraged people to see the world in relative terms and let go of personal convictions. Therefore, if you have a belief or a sense of one way over another, you are considered behind the times, archaic. Another political initiative around religion is to replace "freedom of religion" with "freedom to worship," to keeping expressions of faith inside churches and outside of public spaces.

I know that the strong voices in the name of a faith often cloud the truth. A billion people's harsh actions in the name of Christ get stuck onto me if I say I believe in Jesus. People will assume i'm for extremism, for an angry cause, anti-everything, all without asking. But, how does one ask? How does one speak at all without pre-judging or being pre-judged? Do I post anonymously, avoid dialogue, hide my thoughts in layers of my personal diary?

I am struggling to know how to live my days. I want to live and love and be an individual in relationship with others in the world. I experience God as loving and real and for me. I pray I can be strong from that place. I pray that I can love and forgive and seek other's good.

Guts on a Platter

Last Friday, as mystery reader at my son's school, I took in The Action Bible and upon David's choosing, read of Joshua story, where he leads the Israelites across the Red Sea towards the "Promised Land" and then about the Battle of Jericho. I introduced the story by saying there were various hero's in the book, David, who David is named after, Moses, and today we will read about Joshua. The rumblings of adults in the background during the story and then in hallways after and finally directly towards me three days after,  made my heart race. I haven't made many friends and I assume that each parent I say hi to is going to ignore me. 

My current mission in faith has been to take myself wherever I go, and to support my kids doing the same. All my life I had two lives, one at Church and another with anyone outside of that circle. I have kept my faith separate, rather then looking people in the eyes and seeing them as myself. Just this week I am trying to build relationships with people and be present there. 

Somehow it feels like a gift to be free to smile and engage. I pray that that will continue. I also step out in wonder about a few things:

1. How violent God's story is, even Jericho where they gain land at the expense of all the inhabitants of Jericho. 

2. How much I need to understand real loving. The verse that says, love is patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast, is not proud, is not rude, doesn't delight in evil but rejoices with truth, is much different when faced with someone I am at odds with.

3. How I live as a servant of Christ.

4. What makes people hate Christianity so ardently.

I went back to the New Testament, to try and figure out what makes people hate stories about God, rather then just dismissing them as irrelevant history or make-believe?  The religious leaders in his time were afraid of him and how he stole people's attention/ imagination away from them. I suppose he was judgmental of their ways as well, the thing I fear people will be of me. But, if people know who Jesus in loving and healing and desiring relationship, why don't they want to know him? And. . . why don't I want to keep holding Christ's hand when others are going to disapprove?

I am thankful that parents will still talk to me, that I have a community of extended family in Christ and non-believers in friendship all willing to look me in the eye. I am both terrified and itching to talk about why people believe and reject Jesus, so please engage!   

Needy and Discontent

Some days start with someone hitting the overwhelm button where my kids go into “Needy and Discontent Mode.” I react by becoming angry drill sergeant saying things like, “sit and eat now, ““put these pants on, I can’t help you, because ____.” It gets worse as they try to wiggle free from My Ways with, “I don’t like this food" and "I don’t want these undies."

This morning I managed to flatten flying hairs with my spit, put out rain coats, collect my son’s library books to return, and include fruit on David’s breakfast plate. In the last week I have been memorizing Jonah 2 and it haunts me with both Jonah’s prophetic calling, his own running from that. God literally has a fish eat Jonah up and then Jonah in a very dark space, clearly sees and turns to God. I think that is my story too, as over and over I run and get swallowed and then turn again towards God. I love in Jonah’s prayer how his words go from a general God to a personal one!

           

Jonah 2 (NASV) 

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish, and he said,

“I called out of my

distress to the Lord,

And He answered me.

I cried for help from the

depths of Sheol;

You heard my voice.

“For You had cast me into

the deep,

Into the heart of the seas,

And the current engulfed me.

All Your breakers and

billows passed over me.

So I said, I have been

expelled from Your sight.

Nevertheless I will look

again toward Your

holy temple.

Water encompassed me

to the point of death.

The great deep engulfed me,

Weeds were wrapped

around my head.

“I descended to the roots

of the mountain.

The earth with its bars

was around me forever,

But You have brought up

my life from the pit,

Oh Lord my God.

While I was fainting away,

I remembered the Lord

And my prayer came to You,

Into your holy temple.

“Those who regard vain idols Forsake their faithfulness,

But I will sacrifice to You

With the voice of thanksgiving.

That which I have vowed

I will pay.

Salvation is from the Lord.”

Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.

Utopian Living

I have recently compared a list of two world views to make my own brilliant point that one is clearly better, when it hit me that both are faulty. They come out of conversations about a group trying to form their own Utopia juxtaposed with my Church's Small Group. As I list them, it hits me that there is a third column that is more clearly in line with where I wish I could be!

Utopia 

- Dreaming
- Building a community, 100 to 200 hand picked people
- Self sustaining (using no resources outside community)
- Having no negative impact on environment
- Living outside of laws or restrictions
- Open relationships - everyone is a god or goddesses
- Me in control of me and my group only
- Closed loop, but with diverse people and many views

(My judgment of this:-fantasy, stuck, looses site of what is now and here, trying to quench unquenchable desire, losing sight of a larger view, once attained wanting more)

Church Small Group

- Playing nicely
- Happening in real time
- Humility/brokenness/ honesty
- Underlying trust/ desire for others good
- Awareness of sin and grace
- Telling harder stories – not happy or unhappy, but often hard
- Reality that God is in control/ - Ideally sense I can be myself around others

(My challenge heres is that I can become passive or rely too much on others for my faith.)

 A Christian Artist Friend

- Looking outside of what is seen
- Questions lead to more questions - uncertainties about what you thought you knew
- He is what people see -not pointing elsewhere as much as embodying belief
- In motion – real time/ -In control of seeing/acting/wanting
- Creating/responding actively outside of a community or inside (but not becoming the community, staying himself)
- Defining his space or being himself in relationships with others
- Seeing self as having a role to play wherever you are (though it changes with circumstances)
- Often in one on one or small group dialogues

(My fear here is that I want this view but I can't figure out how to be this way. It can be lonely and people can misunderstand and you can more easily be dismissed/rejected)

My goal is to link arms with people, like a friend who believes in healing, one working on fighting human trafficking, one who is fighting for hope amidst depression, one known as a profit. I see so much bravery around me and wish I could speak truth without fear. God give me a voice!

Psalm 131: Gods Words I Want to Make My Own

I am struck by Psalm 131 and the sense of silence that embodies these three verses. I wonder at the darker side of people feeling lonely and longing to fill the black hole that seems to unexpectedly knock on our souls as the nights grow longer and the cool winds blow the trees bare.

(English Standard Version)

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;

    my eyes are not raised too high;

I do not occupy myself with things

    too great and too marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul,

    like a weaned child with its mother;

    like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord

    from this time forth and forevermore.

(The Message)

God, I’m not trying to rule the roost,

    I don’t want to be king of the mountain.

I haven’t meddled where I have no business

    or fantasized grandiose plans.

I’ve kept my feet on the ground,

    I’ve cultivated a quiet heart.

Like a baby content in its mother’s arms,

    my soul is a baby content.

Wait, Israel, for God. Wait with hope.

    Hope now; hope always!

The pastors of The Branch Church in Grand Rapids are preaching about God's Kingdom and the Worlds Kingdom colliding (or battling) here on earth and I can't help but wonder at how we receive and grow as children of a loving father and living out of that identity, safety and provision, while also contributing fearlessly to the work he encourages us.

A Bigger Calling

Why is it that I can dream of when I will be able to run, push the accelerated on the treadmill and count my 11 days to the Chicago Marathon and yet struggle to find 5 minutes to write. I have to believe that the bigger goals are the ones that pull us into the greater goal, through daily work. If I don't run now, I will not run well later. I put money and time and emotion into this event and it is a powerful part of my identity and connectedness to my mind, my body and the landscape around me.

So I want a Writing Marathon. Not a NanoWrimo per-se or a new class that forces me into its deadlines, but a calling or mission that makes me jump out of bed earlier or settle for 20 minute pockets of my characters wondering if the leftovers are still good, or will make them sick, the wet toilet seat of their son's making is worth correcting for the 10th time or not. Beyond the moments, I want them to lead to questions like, is God is watching, waiting, causing evil or making a great good come about. I want to see how and why people believe and reject God and the consequences or benefits that come about because so many people seem to be doing great or horribly and the patterns are often unpredictable. Amongst believers, why does someone have to go through losing a child, while someone else gets to enjoy theirs? I guess I want the questions to come out more forcefully in my own story and conversation too.

Our pastor, Chuck Jacobs has been preaching on the book of Jonah and I can't help but consider choices and how Jonah has work to do, through his calling and relationship with God and man. Jonah had to go. No one else took his place nor did God give up on the mission to tell the people to repent. In my recent visit to a Grand Rapids Church, The Branch, which is a missional church, I was struck by how each member has important roles to play in order for the church to survive. 9 years and they need everyone to fund their work, they need everyone to participate, and view their work as that of discipling people that surround them inside and outside of their Church family. I want to matter and again wonder how I create the urgency and understand the work that is now and requires me.

Ladder of Connectedness

My therapist gave me a new idea and I am scratching at it, like it is some notion you must keep pealing layers off of to get at its ending prize, "You Win." He introduced it as The Ladder of Connectedness and described it as listening to someone's Thesis, then coming up with your own Antithesis, and they with both pieces Synthesizing them. Once there, you take the synthesized idea and make it the thesis and begin again. The idea is that at some level you get to a thought that is interesting to both the other person and you.

I started my first attempt with a scenario where I put out a lot of watermelon for a group and one person ate it all. I was mad, partially because she wasn't sharing with others, partly because there was none left over for my kids. So there is the thesis, She ate all the watermelon. Antithesis, I didn't want it all eaten by her. Synthesis/The thesis: We both want something for the watermelon. Antithesis: Neither of us want anything for the watermelon. Synthesis: We both have preferences or experiences that dictate our actions. Maybe she was given a lot or none as a child, or is really hungry. For me, I was one of seven kids, so we had to consider everyone and never got a full bowl of fruit. Then it is interesting to talk about.

I often assume I should just nod and affirm another person, but often I end up tuning out. I am especially bad with my kids, who are often saying, "Did you hear me?," to which I say, "yes, you said . . . ," but even after repeating their words, I realize it is lip service and I don't know what they are saying. I am journaling about what matters to another and then where I can engage with them on that topic that is interesting to me too. I want to put on my ears in a way that is loving and connected, though this concept seems overwhelming to master. If you feel like playing along in the learning process, feel free to throw out a topic and i'll try to engage along the ladder with you.

Sing For Me: Must Read!

I love reading Nick Honrby's column, What I've Been Reading. He puts a list of books out, then interweaves them with his life. This week as I read Karen Halversen Schreck's, Sing for Me, it made me think more about the stories and work that has been created, and that still needs to be written. I have heard that Schreck started this work in college and has come back complete it now, some 30 years later. The characters, the lives, seem to be long felt, real and I would be shocked if she told me she didn't have a sibling with a severe disability.

The details of this story seem simple enough, romance, faith, a desire to sing "secular songs," and race. Having lived in Chicago and spent many a night in the long line to get into a dance club like, Circus or X-Caliber, I wondered at my lives, faith, pulsing music with a drink in hand. I don't go out at 2 AM anymore, mostly because that would require childcare and a willing partner, but I still sit with the questions of musical choice, how much I allow myself to laugh at belittling jokes or pretend I'm not too religious on Friday night and a believer Sunday morning. 

This story is perfect for taking me out of my world, while really allowing me to experience my world. It is my family family too, their judgements, and the serious risk required to live outside others and inside ones own skin. Sing for me made me want to sing loud, to be the one person to stand up to terrorists, to do something that was about fighting for God, outside of conformity, of what's expected. 

There is a sense that the characters are all doomed. The tension is great, as you might be beaten or just told by another, they are not interested. I want to tell them to stop fighting for love, but I can't. I can't do anything but hope they will take a little bus to a land without conflict (Utopia?), but barring that, they have to be together. People have to love and lose all because that is what keeps them alive to a relational God. 

Anxiety

I am an anxious person. I remember when a good friend mentioned she had panic attacks and I was so surprised, because she is one of the calmest people I know. Thus, even as I write, I believe I come across as the opposite of anxious. I tend to put so much pressure on the outcome (a great time, helping, getting more tasks done) that it is hard to enjoy, to play.

The outcome I engineer is that of a good reputation, being useful, available, worthy. The trick is that it is impossible to live up to my own standards.

I recently had someone tell me to change my style of gardening. The command to do what he wants leaves me stuck either making him happy and me angry or me happy and him miserable. His happiness is in my hands. It crippled me. 

My friend described something similar with a host family she lives with, where she can't eat what she wants to, without making them upset and the alternative she often chooses is eating what she thinks they want her to so they are in control and she is not. 

There is a temporary paralysis that happens when we live under someone else's house rules or attempt to respond to their emotional needs for control. But what do we do? For my friend it is to eat yucky food and pretend gratefulness or reject their food and in so doing, judge them, be judged by them as an outsider and ultimately fall out of relationship (High stakes?). 

Still, when looking from outside the situation, it seems obvious I should serve my own interests first, except that when that backfires and/or butts heads, I fall further into a hole of wanting to avoid both my interests and others.

I have circled back on The Artist Way for the third time this year, and now in weeks 9 and 10 have really connected with this notion of creative blocks and creative U-turns. With U-turns, you lose your ability to forge ahead and the idea is that this is normal! I can try, or try again, fail, or fail again, then comfort myself by eating a homemade donut before I step back into the situation and try again. I am me, I am God's creative force in the world, I don't have to be "god" and work to make another happy, nor do I have to let another "human" become "king," assuming they have the answers and I must give up my will to follow theirs.  

It takes me to the line Jesus prays to God, "Thy will be done." That is my freedom prayer as I look at the conflict inside this page, inside my chest when I try to manage my number of "likes" in any given moment. God's will is above pleasing and appeasing everyone (God's will for others is bigger then my doing what they think they need me to). It gets to the congruence of a higher calling that somehow (though I don't often see how) incorporates all sides and allows me to breath and play and love and serve.

Thy will. . .   

Telling Oneself Truth

I got out a huge book of Flannery O'Connor letters (Habits of Being) and somewhere in the middle read her advice to John Hawkes, which Cal Lowell had passed to her, "[his problem being] how to hold try to one's true, though extreme vein without repetition; how to master conventional controls and content normal expectations without washing out all one has to say." 

I arrogant as I speak these words, stick my flag in the sand. I am saying, I know, I see. But I don't want to not see or know or blindly follow, like I habitually do. I am plagued by my living under others tories and their ways of knowing and in my uncertainty, tagging along behind, making them leader or knower or in a worse case a god. 

So strange when I write a blog entry and then see a friend who knows what I am going through and I realize I can't pretend other then what I said when alone in my coffee shop considering how I pretend for others. People who are listening in, are no longer fooled, or I am no longer able to fool. 

As I observe my friends, spouse, kids, they have a way of seeing and being interested and knowing themselves. I just learned about the thousands of children freeing Hondorous and Guatemala. I don't have my eye on a wider lens camera of life. I don't know where last months news on the kidnapped girls in Africa landed or if they are still lost. I don't know how to decide what to take in next. Then again, once I know, I don't know how to be beyond incensed. Why are there gangs? Why do people kill others? How can children live without parents, be forced into terrible worlds controlled by people who do evil. And, why do I live in a wealthy country sipping four dollar coffee with lots of open space out the window, an SUV and the hours of my own time to choose anything I want?

I have recently been invited to go with a friend onto the streets to share God. She recently learned and experienced the holy spirit heal people, which I would be happy to say more about if anyone wants to hear. In listening to her, half of me felt cautious and untrusting, but a bigger half is longing to believe.

In God's story, I can't help but wonder how people who see Christ or the Holy Spirit working can't want to have a conversation with him, ask questions, lean in and eventually enter into an intentional relationship. Here's a verse seemed to hit the mark for me here, "But one who looks intently at perfect law of liberty and abide by it, not having become a forgetful hearer, but an effectual doer, this [woman] will be blessed in what [she] does." (James 1:25). I sorta want it to say, anyone who looks cannot refuse, even as I know it is a choice. I just can't get Sophie Wilder's options towards life with faith, vs fear and death without, (Character from the book, What Happened to Sophie Wilder) out of my theology. I have a copy in hand for anyone who would like to read it! Just let me know and i'll send it off!

If I were Smart

If I were smart, I would remember names of famous people in history, movie i've seen this month and Kindergarten parents I run into at the Mexican restaurant. I have always felt deficient, incapable and almost tune out the words before they are spoken, while at the same time pretending it is easy for me to recall, but it has just slipped my mind. The exception is that when my dad began to list the names of truck containers on our 13 hour drive home from Connecticut, I said, "Oh, are you listing them off for me, because if so, there is no need, as I'm not interested. If not, feel free to continue." There was nervous laughter and I felt guilty for a while, but those are names I just don't care to know.

In my writing, I often identify men as, "other." In my thinking, I consider people as "other." Friends are all the insiders while I stand outside. I also think of the information, context and data as inside and feel there is some unknown barrier to recollecting it. Umberto Ecco said of The Name of the Rose that he purposely made the first 100 pages complex in order to weed out those unworthy of its brilliance. I stopped just about page 99, though I pretended I finished it, feeling his comment was geared towards me. In high school I attended an adult Sunday school class on Isaiah and frantically took notes and nodded without believing I could understand a word.

I somehow believe, "I am not wanted on a team," "I am the mean neighbor for not taking people's kids on my hike," "I am looked down at, when I enter the room." Thus, I am wary of all attention.

My best friend is visiting for four whole days, which is a huge gift. Somehow as I make food or consider our days plan, I assume she is wondering at my chaos. As we discussed it, she asks if the chaos was just in my head, because her experience of our space is that it is calm and manageable. My internal organs can't seem to relax, though. I can't feel quiet without the external fast solution for every decision.

I head for my third of four weekends away and anticipate the freedom in being in Chicago. I want to feel safe outside of eyes and ears and the embarrassment at making yet another carb heavy meal. I am wishing for a bigger anchor to knowing myself and a way to expel my internal chaos, which I know is in sitting with God. My ability to remember is not the focus, but rather, I need to believe I am created and able to hear his voice. I am amazed at his power to find me, to quiet my thoughts, to heal friends and to generally be much bigger then what I normally allow for, which I hope to write more about soon.

Amigdala Hijack

I am leading the singing for our Churche's Kids Camp and realizing I am not able to focus, which is stressful when all eyes are on me! [I bet I wrote this same post a year ago today, the last time I lead music]. I have been on the go with travel, childcare, out of town friends and life commitments.  Now I need to remember when to have my hands up and down, out and then in as 100 kids try to follow my lead. At one point this morning, I went blank and worried I would stay that way, limping to the end of the song as kids looked to the other lead person. I want to be praising God and honestly, hearing people say I am doing a good job and the reality is, I can't trust myself to remember. Further, I can't serve hot dogs for the fifth consecutive default lunch and dinner meal, since my six year old started breakfast with, "Mom, maybe we can take a break from hot dogs for a while."

A friend visits from far away and I can't enjoy sitting, though I might have enjoyed the one beer I gulped down in her presence. There is a huge self-care piece missing. My husband strongly encouraged me to take a few hours for myself yesterday and I couldn't even get myself to consider it. Now, after what feels like weeks, I am at my computer for a few hours trying to rethink my own equation of daily functioning. The equation of just run and collect the pieces on the second or third or fifth loop around leads to burnout. Should I do more to prepare or do less worrying about it or just sit here for a while and let other pieces fall as they will? Do I lower my expectations that I will remember the motions or make a healthy dinner? Do I allow myself to be tired as I sing to God? 

The truth is that in my tired state, I default to my emotions. I'm like a two year old who is overtired and just needs sleep, but fights it. Thankfully, I am thirty-eight and do know how to be still, as I am doing right now. I can sing to God and can kiss my boys on the forehead and tell them how much I love them, even as I entrust them to others care. I pray that I can remember to be loved and to love, despite all that I do and don't do, all that I am and am not. It is for God that I live and breath and may I always keep my hands and eyes up! 

Marilyn Robinson's Lila will be my favorite!

I seem to think about people I see, like a mom and son at Greenfield Village and instantly want to tell the mom to control her two year old, to get down and connect with him, to do any of a number of things, but as I think about it, my kids are running out of control near a puppet show. Why do I presume to know what other people should do?

Even sitting in a coffee shop, a guy says, every woman should shave her head at least once, and I want to raise my head and say, Not me. I have all these bumps on my head that would make me look diseased. This morning I complimented a middle aged woman's adorable short hair and she pulled me in and said, "It's just browning back after chemo treatments." Right next to me two women are talking about creation and the word evolutionary, ticks and diseases and birth control and IUD's so she is choosing abstinence. I want to jump in and argue something.

There's a proverb about taking the plank out of your own eye before seeing the speck in someone else's, that always hits me.  I'm so ready to point fingers and yet can't come up with my own solutions to things like, what to make for dinner, how to help my sons know they are loved, how to carve out time to play and draw and sit with them. 

I have a character, a female preacher with no seminary training or church to speak of, who is just like this. She seems to know everything about everyone else and nothing about herself. I wonder if I could write a blog from her perspective as a backdoor way of gaining clarity to my own dilemma?  Somehow the degree of separation and ability to go down rabbit trails without risking owning them, feels safe. I think this must be what Marilyn Robinson does as she hops from book to book, giving voice to different characters within the town of Gilead. I know without reading one word, that I will love her, Lila, more then any of the others! 

Expectations Good or Bad?

I recently came to believe that I would be great if I didn't have expectations. I could go along for the ride and have a great time, without worrying or feeling disappointed. I felt pretty good with my new mantra and had friends try it out and feel the same, until I proudly told my therapist of this breakthrough. Typical of life and especially therapist he asked, "What's wrong with expectations" and followed that with, "When did I learn that expectations were bad?"

Here is where I pause and sigh. Of course I have to go back and consider my relationship to desiring, to commitments to myself and others and possibly the value of expecting thing. What do I want when I am not alone buying art supplies just for me or working on my novel that might never get to the second chapter. Conflict comes when I am painting an old man with a large nose during a class, and then see him looking at students work and realize he will come around and see how I portray his large noggin, that I frantically shrink to medium-small. As people view my work, how do I feel I am honest or dishonest, good or bad and why? To meet expectations, to avoid criticism, to be perceived as kind? 

I have read about intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and I think I am lacking skill in how intrinsic motivations work outside of myself. This man is a professional model who is drawn regularly and seen his nose for many years, so why do I try to hide it from him? I realize that I was waiting for permission or the teacher to come redraw it with her brush. There is a neediness and dependence that I count on. 

There has to be a better solution then waiting for someone to tell me good job or to bring me dinner or tell me I am worthy of painting a nose. My therapist suggested the habit of not expecting anything of myself and waiting for others to take care of me has been an answer to something (there is a rationale to it).

I know there is a better way, some counter-dependence of consistent receiving and giving. Even as I write, I am hoping for the gut knowing of why I act helpless about what matters, how I can connect the dots and make changes. 

This brings me to my next blog post, which will be how I keep arrogantly theorizing about what others should do to fix what I perceive are their problems.

I'm a Painter Too

It is funny talking about what I do in my days, because it is mostly based on paying someone for the luxury of time and ideas. I hire an expert when I paint, write, play guitar, look deeply into my psyche so they can push me deeper. Thinking about it makes me both proud that I forge on and embarrassed that I need so much help (and at the expense).

At Tuesday's painting, Nancy (the teacher) suggested I commit to smoother blocks of color. Professor Joel Sheesley used to say the same about my pencil marks, to make confident lines that hold. It applies to music too, Sean saying start at the end of the count, keep playing, sing on clue, all in sync with him.

I'd like to be more committed to the spaces around those places, the ones where we are out playing, where I ask questions of my neighbors, the thinking in the car where I can sit and listen to my kids tell stories. It takes intentional silence for me to hear.

The best moments this week are in the fact that I don't have it together. Isaac and I sitting in the dealership for 2 hours playing with magnetic frogs. I don't have to stress about not making food, a messy toilet bowl, because the seat is clean enough. I am showing up and ok with imperfection, with people being disappointed. I continue to consider how when people try to play at being their own "god," they expect everyone else to respond to their emotions. It is fraught with them being discontent and me always failing them (because I can't perfectly please them all the time, and if I try, I am no longer me but an attempted copy robot like copy of them).

I just don't want to live myself as disappointed. I want to live as glad for sunshine, for a moment on the step of my neighbor sharing a cancer story, anticipating David's music recital at 1:45 where he will play the kettle drum, knowing Isaac gets an hour with Maureen all by himself, which he loves.

I did begin a painting on Wednesday night all my own of water and a dock. I kept thinking I would add two little bodies sitting with backs to me at the end. I still might, but my husband said no. He really liked it and said keep making them and we can put them up all over the house. I enjoy that it is my own and I can't help but love that it delights him as well.

Oil Paints

I went with two friends to my first painting class, since before kids. It in the Ann Arbor Art Studio, which I thought was like a one room school-house, but upon arrival I found it was three floors and filled with sculptors, printmakers, jewelers and the like. The ceramics crew cat called with, Ceramics is Better. On introduction to our class, we were told Acrylics were like first impressions and there was no room to change or discover. Our teacher's passion is for the journey.

She stated early that the education was a dialogue and that she would work with us, but we had to talk back. This was quickly true as she engaged with me about how I see and what I see and drew over my page. I was torn in the yes, tell me, the no, I disagree and then the "Oh no, what is she going to tell the next person."

Graduating Three's

My son is three and graduating into the 4's pre-school class. They had a slide show, got diplomas and yes, wore caps. Maybe I don't need to save for college after all. Maybe he knows everything he needs to be my side-kick forever. Isaac stays close, manages around my chaos and has endless patience for waiting.

He and his best friend sang "Let it Go," with all the passion of the original version and the words to match! They claim each other as best friends. I have to wonder what makes friends so insistent on seeing each other. Is it that they are together 5 4 to 5 times a week, their shared interests, the sense that two can exist as themselves in the same space. These boys do laps around any object or interior loop, fake laugh in the car next to each other and give great hugs. Half the time you hear one calling the other's name and when its time to leave even after several hours, there is resistance.

I wonder what it is? Could it be a child's sense of the immediate? I continue to ponder life as an adult, with regulations and boundaries and support networks. Those who seem most satisfied are about deep relationships with themselves and others. I sorta long to throw a tantrum when I have to leave my friend Karen's house  (and thus linger slightly too long) or to sit for days with a friend in Chicago, or to avoid talking on the phone, because I won't want to hang up or have to deal with the other distractions simultaneously. I think that the gift and joy for these boys is that they can just be together with no qualifications and it's beautiful. I long for it for them and for myself and will continue to order my chaos for better chances at this!

Blessed journeying!

The work is not the work?

I am sitting writing. I want to have a great short story or novel that someone else can read and be changed by or find rest in, or experience some pleasure in knowing another character as a true friend.
I am reworking a story/narrative that has a female preacher, because I want to be one. I don't want to give personal testimony (because the words feel stale) and I don't even feel qualified to interpret the bible, nor to my shame, do I spend much time trying, but I want to say something that makes people believe in God and themselves as his children and live! Yesterday I felt the opposite, struggling to prepare a snack and wanting to sleep.

As I scribble now, I keep thinking, but I should be working. My friend Melissa said the same thing last night. [She feels to me like one whose existence somewhat makes my own more important.] She has been living her dream of writing in Thailand, yet she too wonders if she is really doing the work she is supposed to be doing. Being content in working and living out my calling, I have to fight the critic that says you'll never be enough and its someone else's fault and out of my control, so I should just quit already. My counter for right now is that wherever I am, I am enough.

But that too is false. I'm not enough, but Christ is, he has to be! Then as I doubt, I cry it out, "Please be enough!"

I ordered a new traveling guitar [because my other one isn't enough] that will be easy to transport, and I obsess about where it is in the postal system and when it will arrive, but I fear that like when I picked up my last Seagull acoustical guitar, the minute I get it, I will stop playing. My fear is that the object will take all my attention and I will miss out on my fingers picking at its strings. I still feel guilty because I play mellow life stories, and nothing connected with Jesus. The conflict tears my in two and I consider not playing. Is this tension my conscience telling me to change, or a demon trying to get me to give up trying?

My adult self can look at all of this and say again, "I'm free from worrying about failing. I will fail and look up to Jesus for his knowing and loving and hope for me and then go on and fail again." I can also play music, and tell stories and now matter the content, it speaks to who God is or who he isn't. My work is to keep at the work of listening, because Christ is no longer a pile of bones and strips of fabric rotting in a dark cave and therefore, neither am I. Asking myself the question the angel asked Mary, "Why am I looking for the living among the dead?" I am free to sit and write or not write about a female preacher or a homeless heroin adict as I seek to know what it means to be known by Christ.

What Happened to Sophie Wilder? (Really!!)

I stepped into The Common Cup Coffee shop, and discovered the artist, Tess Smith. She has these beautiful watercolor paintings that blur the lines of animals in action and the splattered colors of the camouflaged spaces they embody. She is interested in a split second when they are in motion, landing, shifting and blurring our vision with their presence. The one I can't stop staring at is and old soul kine of octopus who is letting off ink. I imagine the huge circular quiet face disappearing in purple brown liquid, hiding from whatever is near.

There is an article my therapist referenced recently about when a person gets stressed, something in their brain changes, making the person want to avoid all adventure, to make the person want to go into hiding. I have felt like that this week, avoiding my closest friends, continuing to function robotically, while also wanting to shut down. When I asked my partner for advice, he suggested I stop doing certain things, to which I responded, that if I did say no, it wouldn't help because the actual requirements of my day could not change. So do I want to stay this way? To be safe and stuck and justifiable to my own disappointing plight?

Part of my struggle is that when around other people, I make them central, I make their subjective reality greater then my own (in essence I blow them up and shrink myself down). I hate even writing this because I fear that the people I long to connect with most will think they should not engage with me, because they want to protect me from what I do when around anyone. I want to read and do what would make YOU feel good or affirmed, but I give up a lot in squelching my own subjective reality. It is very emptying. Thus when my closest friends call, I don't know who I am in order to pick-up and say hello. When people with great needs pounce or even strangers show up, I instead offer them everything I can, because it feels safer to make them so big, I don't have to deal with what I am doing.

I recently read Andre Acimen's A Conversation with my Deaf Mother in the New Yorker, and am struck by how his mother's training in pretending she could hear stunted her learning on complex processing of data. The woman had difficulty connecting dots and seeing how something might evolve. I find the idea fascinating as I consider my own hangups. Yesterday my heather would not turn on. I could have looked at the furnace, youtubed possible problems and fix, but I didn't, I couldn't believe I would know how to process it. Instead I called someone else who I believe has a brain that can understand Furnaces. I also have difficulty deciding to commit to new plays in Bridge, to bidding on points and feeling more comfortable with the chances of winning big over the security of staying safe. But safety doesn't satisfy me when I reflect back on it.

Last night I finished Christopher Beha's novel, What Happened to Sophie Wilder. In it, he considers Sophie Wilder's life's end and consciously chooses not to decide it, because he can't. As an artist, I believe he knows that life and death are viable options on any given day. Based on who [i.e. the reader] is in each characters head, a decision has to be made [i.e. the reader has to make it]. As I am writing this, I suddenly know what happened (or is happening) and now that I think about it, I suppose everyone who reads it does too. It stems from one's own sense of God, either as a destroyer or a lover. Because of sin and how I can't possibly save myself, I can choose to force my own end, or to look for a bigger source for help! That's it!

While Sophie does not know if she can be forgiven for a classified unforgivable sin, I do know. The author brings up Judas Iscariot and how Judas had no choice in betraying Christ and is condemned, but even in that, I choose to believe he is able to repent and be forgiven (except that none of that is up to me, thank goodness). The sense that it is better that he never be born, may be in the moments he has to deal with himself, which for each of us (Christ himself on the cross and separated from God), the notion of our own shit seems too great to the point we can't bear it. I guess the question is did Judas in life or after, decide to trust in Christ? The reality Christopher writes is that we could not exist without God is in this world (in our lives). We have souls outside of our shell-like bodies.

I would encourage you to read it while even now wondering if I am capable of understanding what living in Christ's death for me and choosing life in him on earth and after looks like! I suppose for me, it means continuing to seek out his face, his image in things and people and history, with some serious petitions of God to support me in seeing who he is and believing I am capable of learning somethings new!

Stopping in Mid-Sentence

I have packed myself in, reading books about the land for book clubs, books by authors speaking at Calvin's Writing Conference, books to spur me on in new endeavors. I am full of characters and stories and real survival of others, while forgetful of phones and tasks and streams of conversation. I am franticly speeding to school, events and commitments and somehow I find that when I sit down, I am unable to get back up. Yesterday I considered calling someone for help, even though I knew that was absurd. What is happened to me? I can always will myself to my feet, be pulled by little hands, but yesterday was hard.

The voice I heard while sitting was God's words as he spoke to Job, saying who are you in light of me? Who made you? Who knows you? Who formed the entire space wherein you dwell. I also imagined my mom arriving late to my games, but always on a path, going from one moment, one child, one prayer meeting, one meal to the next. She was always moving, but also holding onto a book a knitting project ready for the stagnant patches in between.

I know what I need to do is stay on the ground, lean into the quiet, but somehow all I want to do is dart forward, find some intertia to keep me in perpetual activity. If I move, then I won't get stuck again on the floor, wasting precious minutes. I drive longing for more books, a new pair of jeans, a space to run in? Why? Why do I think we should drive the family to Chicago for 2 days, sign up for more camps, find play dates and adventures to keep me from stopping?

Writing Faith

I meant to type up all the best of things I noted on my three days in Grand Rapids. The conversations in between might have even more meaning then those of authors, as some of the richness of life is within the translations and emotional responses we have to what is being passed in and out of our ears and mouths.

There were so many bits that brought together open discussion, deeper relating, the idea of how words become flesh through our paying attention to them. Joan Didion said, "I write to know what I think." I would add, to it, "I write to know what I think in this moment," as I am struck by how much life is about evolution our own stories through shared experiences. My relationship to Andrew is light years different then when I first met him! Each moment is no longer an attempt at finding the perfect Tiramisu, but more about lingering over an ordinary cup of Tazo Passion flavored tea (his heaped with sugar, and mine as is). The meaning is in the stopping in a place to sit and enjoy without any expectation. The meaning is that of real pleasure (or pain) or story sharing. The meaning is in existing side by side in a place in time, together."

The author I loved to listen to was Carlene Bauer. I have three copies of her book Frances and Bernard and my goal as that the words will always be in someones hands to read (never sitting idle), because the people in it are ones everyone needs to know inside themselves. Even for those who don't read, this one is love letters that will change you, so please read them!

For all that, she writes a book that I have not yet read and am sorta dreading, which is called, Not that Kind of Girl. The reason is I fear it, is that she writes about going from my faith tradition, Evangelical, to that of no organized community (I think?). How is that possible, I wonder? I get that in any organized group, people can be wrong and tell you not to question their authority, missing out on who Christ is, but as an adult, we can read through that type of behavior, right?  I can take on a faith outside of or alongside another person's vision of it.

Another speaker, Miroslav Volf said that we need to be open to the faith experiences of others in order to share our perspective with them. I have wondered over this as I consider what it would feel like to listen to a Catholic Priest, to attend a Buddist service, or to say, "tell me what you believe and I will listen with the intent to understand it (not contradict it)." Part of me likes the idea of considering theres beliefs, so people will talk about anything deeper. People hardly breath that they attend something, or quickly put down church and I have to wonder why, except that I am quick to put down others, and can't even write the names of which groups, for fear of my own judgement.

On Sunday morning I considered what it would feel like to get up and pick out a random church to attend. I shamefully wondered if I would miss something or should feel more desire to hear God from my own pastor this morning. Do I go to church hungry for God to speak? I then consider my children. Would I let my kids hear about other people's beliefs?

I wonder about doing a book that would be a year of faithful exploration, across the boundaries of denomination in search of a way to have an open conversation with anyone that takes them into account. I keep making up new lists of questions. Things like:
1. What are key moments in your choices about faith, in self and/or others?
2. When have you changed your mind in a big belief?
3. Where do you look for inspiration?
4. What do you do with pain, physical or in the loss of something or someone?
5. Have you ever wanted to or explored a faith of another? Why or why not?
6. Is there a person who strikes you for having faith?
7. Where do you hope from (traditions/history) and why?

I have heard of a book called Pub Theology, the Catholic show called, What's on Tap, and I am sure there are countless others. I would be interested in finding the places of discussion or doubt, because I want to talk about God. In all honesty, I don't want to talk about fluffy bunnies that are not real, but about things that are soulful. To really misquote a friend (my therapist), "I want go deeper and will try hard to be safe, but if that's not where you are, I mean no ill-respect but I am about vulnerability and paying attention to what matters (in reality), so if you are not there, I will treat the time with you as less important (not saying you are not important, but that there is a block in our connection), because I need to be with people who want to be known." Even in writing that long and egocentric sentence, I cringe, but I also nod my head, because I feel so empty in my long conversations about the placement of an electrical box.

Carlene Bauer, Christopher Beha and others are looking at where characters can go. Characters feel safe to me, because I don't have to say, I believe or don't, giving room to explore and leave the door open to seeing through my experiences with others.

Women can testify, but not declare?

I overheard two women talking about the Michigan Moody Seminary and some statement they have about how women in the pulpit are aloud to give a testimony but not preach. My brain explodes with thoughts from: what is the difference, to this is great that women can minister to men publicly, to what is the difference between ministry to college students, vs the institution of the church. This is another topic I wish Jesus had spelled out. 

My favorite class at Wheaton was with Dr. Gail Kienitz called Modern Women Writer's. We read Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own and as I read, I underlined every other sentence, including this one, “Possibly when the professor insisted. . . upon the inferiority of women, he was concerned not with their inferiority, but with his own superiority. . . And how can we generate this imponderable quality [of confidence in oneself]. . . ? By thinking that other people are inferior to oneself. By feeling that one has some innate superiority- over other people.” - Woolf

I could argue that women will cry and men can hold it together, because that is how I would preach, with a tissue box, but I know some women in my own church that could speak amazing truth that we would all benefit from. I once again am probably leading myself astray and if I had an audience and any importance would get a twitter from John Piper saying, "Farewell Sonia," but I think if I did not wonder and wish for more of God's words appearing boldly in my church through women of faith. 

To try to get back into John Piper's good graces (though I will confess I have never paid attention to him, beyond many people really appreciating his work), I am so impressed with the women I wish were preaching. They are strong and faithful and loving well. They are not ranting like my in a spirit of discontent, but touching my shoulder and asking me how I'm doing. I have sat under spiritual mentors who take great care of their homes and families and sit under the teaching of conservative churches on women. I respect them and so want to also have a spirit of faithful service, however that looks for me. 

Gossip No More

Oh to stop with the gossip? It is the thing I am in the trenches about. I keep opening my mouth about what feels crazy in others I once knew (no one reading this I assure you?) and feel like Paul in the bible who says, "For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want." (Rom 7:19). 

Both the Gretchen Rubin from Happiness Project and now Rachel Held Evans in A Year of Biblical Womanhood, both put this on their list of things to not do. Gretchen says that studies show when people gossip, the things they say about another are later attributed back to them. Rachel mentions several provers that suggest gossip leads one down.

So I twice have had to apologize to the people I shared my juicy thoughts to and twice they told me, don't worry about it, that I'm too hard on myself. That is what I wish were true, but as I consider the weight of sharing on people who have hard situations, are human, and are loved by God, I don't want to be cruel. I want to believe the best about those whose stories are dramatic and difficult or strange to me. I want to either support them through friendship or let them be. 

Rachel's punishment when she messes up is sitting on her slanted roof for long amounts of time. I don't have to get to my own roof and my neighbors might think I was in trouble, so what would be a way to remind myself and work through this? Wearing dirty rags for an hour in public? (That's what I imagine a diehard writer would do). It could be reading the awful books on Angry bird star wars weapons, or Power rangers early readers to my kids or cleaning someone else's toilets. Hmmm. 

I have asked people to hold me accountable and want to apologize if I have spoken to you or about you so others would like me or think me cool. In fact, I wish I could be okay saying, I'm not cool, and even if you disagree you could nod and say, "no your not, but that's ok." And I will respond, "Yeah, and I'm okay being a kill-joy (or whatever word you use for not feeding or leading with someone's strangeness). That's not what I want to be all about."

The Artist Way Again and Again and Again

Yes, it's that time again. The time to settle into reengaging with my inner-child, artist self. The brilliance this time as in the past is that another person suggested it and now we are forming a mini-group to work on the discipline together. Though I am not doing consistent morning pages, I do feel like I am already doing some of the work. I take occasional artist dates, signed up for a painting class, play my guitar, and sit with my therapist to contemplate listening deeper.

I skimmed the first chapter and was struck by the two things that still trip me up every day.
1. The need for a relationship with an inner child. The kid who plays and plays and is swept away in the joy of an activity. My kids really love to run, love to imagine, to read, to dance. Both express themselves often by having one arm spin in huge fast circles like a jet engine, or by jumping up and down. They can't contain their emotions. I wonder what that would look like for me? My therapist's early challenge was about drawing a picture of this child. I never did it, so maybe that is the work of this week? An image, a body to listen to that is me and also a new character to be explored.

2. The critic. The censor. The hollow disapproving mask that is always just behind me, telling me my grammar is atrocious, my words choppy, my autistic character cliche. So maybe he is going to be another really ugly face, or maybe a beautiful one that cracks in half, who knows.

So on to morning pages and trying to order and place the voices on their shelves, to be picked up when needed and let to collect dust, when they move to being records or histories of another time.

Thanks Julia Cameron for being relevant and faithful to God's creative calling over so many years and encouraging others to do the same!

Christianity and Being Gay

As I listened to a sermon that began with a declaration that two pastors had changed their minds and now support homosexual's in some way, I held my breath, not because I was disappointed in the two pastors changing (I was curious and hopeful for loving people of same sex sexual orientation), but because I didn't want this pastor to condemn them for their understanding, and thus label himself as a hater of those who believe or hope as they do. Is he saying the pastors are no longer credible in anything they preach, no longer of the faith, rejected by God? I didn't hear him share the reasons they changed their minds, nor did I hear that they may still be loved and known and inspired by God. Even as I write anything on homosexuals, I wonder if I am leaving God's knowing to grasp my own, saying it is of God. 

[Asside: I don't want to be the judge of this man, either, by saying his comments towards the pastors, means I will stop listening to him. I have been relieved and appreciative that he has considered lifestyle choices apart from someone sitting in being attracted to others of the same sex. Nor has he hasn't used the topic as an agenda item during the 5 years I have followed his sermons. All that said, I was relieved he quickly moved on to considering the pulls that we think will make us feel more alive. It is a great sermon and pointed inward to places where I struggle in my own desires for immediate jolts of aliveness, hope in things, longing to follow any advertisement that depicts "true happiness," touting it will change my life.]  

In talking with a friend after the sermon, who shared some atrocities towards gays in the name of Christ, I too wondered why we didn't hear Christians question those Christians who support the Uganda Anti-homosexuality Act, which sentences gays to life in prison (reduced from the original plan to give them the death penalty). Jesus addresses some law abiders who want to kill an adulterous woman by saying, "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone." They all drop their rocks and walk away leaving her to alone to receive Christ's love and forgiveness. 

I know people who struggle with real love and desire for intimacy with others of their gender. I can't comprehend God creating us in him image, which I believe includes our desires for intimacy, and then for human to point fingers at "those people" and call them outside of God's design or plan. We are created for relationship, for drawing near, for an ultimate intimacy with Christ. I sit pondering what Christ would say to anyone on any side about this topic, because my guess is it would blow our minds, like each answer he provides in the New Testament, whether to a disciple, a Pharisee, a family member or a stranger encountering him, as each interaction is unpredictable and full of both a knowing and a profound loving. I also wonder why to my knowledge the bible does tell a story of Jesus meeting a gay person. I look forward to hearing him share his vision one day when I sit down with him in person.

As I considered comments and sides, I want to see more grappling with how we can enter into the conversation and love our each other, wherever we are. How we can listen and show up for one another in this discussion, praying that we all might be in like-mind with Christ. How we open our hands to Christ and one another soas to share our own understanding as our own, while holding ourselves and our opinions up to Christ's creating us, loving us and dying out of a profound hope that we would know him. 

Just after I typed this up, I learned that World Vision decided is choosing to support monogamous gay couples or single gays observing abstinence outside of marriage in missions work, as they continue to work on feeding the hungry in the name of Christ. The president, Richard Stearn said, "I want to be clear that we have not endorsed same-sex marriage, but we have chosen to defer to the authority of local churches on this issue. We have chosen not to exclude someone from employment at World Vision U.S. on this issue alone." 

As a child I will always remember a friend, Margie Hamilton who wanted to be a female pastor insist her fiancé at the time decide what he felt about the issue before they marry. His response to her at the time was, "this is not my issue." He was not female, he did not know what the answer was, but he supported Margie in pursuing God's calling for her, whether pastor or otherwise without feeling the need to take a side himself. As I ponder World Visions attempt to say the same, I will continue in my own spaces to sit in empty chapels around Ann Arbor and listen for God to further reveal himself to me where I am. 

[Post script: I want this to be a real moment in time, so that though I know World Vision only held this stance for one day and reversed it due to John Pipers and others saying things like, "Farewell," which they clearly don't mean, and we will all pull our money, I am choosing to hold the other moment. I do wonder how we encourage sinners like me, or even unbelievers or in this context believing people of same gender sexual orientation, into the work of Christ, hoping and trusting God to work in us towards one another towards hearing his voice directed uniquely to each one of us. Can't there be missions within missions? Big Sigh and a child size stomping of my foot at my own limitations.]