freedom to be faithful

Three or so years ago, two good friends and I went out to dinner. Our conversation wandered through the typical young adult fare of adjusting to our jobs, the lack of suitable suitors, and the evils of twinkies, walmart and itunes. We'd been living in St. Louis for about a year and had wandered individually through several church and neighborhood bible studies with no real connection. Collectively, we mourned the lack of bible studies that met our relational and spiritual needs.

Then, as if hit over the head with a cartoon sledge hammer, we realized we should just start our own. We were each involved in different churches and had different doctrinal heritages, but were already bound together in friendship and our love of Christ. Through our discussion that evening, we devised a plan to invite several other girlfriends to be a part of a group that gathered weekly to study the word. Leaders would be on a voluntary basis and would rotate. We'd decide as needed what to study next.

And that's what happened. We've been gathering on Thursday nights for these three years. We've studied the Gospels, the Prophets, the Epistles. We've read CS Lewis, Lauren Winner, Shane Claiborne. We've celebrated marriages, births, new jobs, and more. We've changed locations as we've moved to new homes. Members have moved on as life pulls and tugs us in different directions. New members have come in as life draws new paths.

I don't hear much of spontaneous bible study groups like ours, but they must exist. Our male friends, spouses, and sig oths have the male version of our group which is rumored to be full of dirty jokes and heated debate. Yet, I have to wonder what role groups like ours have in the Church. We don't show up easily in studies. We don't show up on a church discipleship head count. We are intentionally outside of the established system and yet are a fundamental part of faith development and work of the Spirit in our lives. This paradox is intriguing to me and probably fuels a very small part of my interest in the group.

gratitude

I received a thank you note today from a youth in our ministries. She's the kind and thoughtful sort that writes thank you notes after retreats and special events, even if I begged her to be okay with her mom coming along because I was desperate for another leader. Beg seems like a strong word, but it is really a balance of my inner thoughts and reality. In my mind, I was on my knees, bawling my little itchy eyes out, groveling. On the outside, I was calm and rational and listened to her concerns about having her mom there. In the end, they both had a great time and mom is coming again.

This time, however, the thank you note was not preceded by anything in particular, except perhaps the sentimentality of the year coming to a close. She is an eighth grader, graduating on Sunday. Soon she will be promoted into the big and scary senior high ministry where they travel out of state and separate by gender for bible study.

Her gratitude is so untimely, unsolicited, and wonderful. I am tremendously grateful for her. Her frolicking maturity has surprised me, delighted me, challenged me. She has gently grown up and brought her classmates and friends with her. She's shared with me and I've learned from her.

As I reflect on her thank you, it almost seems scandalous that she would write me such a note. I've done nothing more than what is expected of me. Rather it is I who should be writing. It is she that has risen above expectations and shared her faith so tremendously. Her gratitude is a reminder to me of the blessing that she is.

here comes trouble

This Saturday, I spent some time with Jacob, my soon-to-be-two cousin. I kind of think he's the cutest thing since pug puppies. Here's a few pictures that argue my case.

to send

This afternoon, I am leading the last of our after-school bible studies of the school year. It is the last for this group of 8th graders. They'll move on quickly to high school girls and guys groups where they will talk about grown up things.

The girls won't be around to shoot raised eyebrows at the squirmy seventh grade boys who always cower in submission.

The boys won't be around to use their expansive energy on writing a Jesus rap or hassle me to have more than their singularly allowed soda.

They won't be around to hush the group by example into prayer time, to share their thoughts, and push their classmates to see faith differently.

I suppose they will be around to do these things, just not around me. I send them out into new places. That is my job: a ministry postwoman.

I send them in great hopes of what God has done, is doing, and will do in their lives. I send them in confidence knowing that Christ will reveal himself in their darkest times. I send them knowing that my years in high school were some of my most difficult. I send them knowing that I've prepared them for faith wind and rain storms. I send them knowing that my God is merciful.

now reading and awaiting release

It's been a while since I've shared my reading list around these parts. I've have a commitment problem with books. I tend to juggle five or six books at a time, and finish them very slowly. The theory is that I will digest their content more fully if I read them over a long period of time. That's the theory anyway.

Without further ado, books I have recently finished:

The Maytrees, Annie Dillard
Plan B, Anne Lamott
The Great Emergence, Phyliss Tickle

Books I am currently reading:

The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch
Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright
Sustainable Youth Ministries, Mark DeVries
The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsch

Books that I will begin to read as soon as I can take something off of the above list:

Culture Making, Andy Crouch
The Blue Parakeet, Scot McKnight
Love is an Orientation, Andrew Marin
When Kids Hurt, Chap Clark
Something fun... maybe a modern classic or two... suggestions?

childhood revisited

The trees hung lightly, full of newly minted leaves of green shading our path as we biked.

Lilac wafted through the air reminding me of the backyard bush of Number 111, the yard of my childhood. The flora was so abundant it rained on our long lashes, carpeting the ground. Its saccharine smell filled our lungs for endless weeks.

We pedal forward on our bikes, up the hills and down the hills. I remember the hill my only friend in our aging neighborhood and I secretly referred to as "Hell Hill," careful never to speak its name around any adult ears. Its steep and lagging incline separated our homes but deigned not to stop our daily romp of the neighborhood.

At home, the charcoal glistened with heat. The berries were prepped for a touch of honey and mint. We sat by the grill, waiting, ready to devour spring's fruits, sipping a drink, relaxing and wondering if this could last forever.

Nostalgia slips past, clothes to launder, scuff marks to remove, sleep to reclaim.

But spring, the childhood season, lays its claim on our hearts.

a note about things around here

Numero Uno.

I've updated my links. Finally. I took down some inactives (if you reactivate, I'll re-post you, promise.). And I've updated links to sites that have changed names/urls/etc. And I've added some of my other reading. Frankly, I'm showing you how much trash I read for fun. There are a few good things in there that I've added.

Numero Dos.

I've committed to (in my head) sharing more links in the little box to your right. Check there if you want to see the kinds of articles I think are interesting. Ignore there if you could care less.

Numero Tres.

Nope. Nothing else. At least about this cyber-locale.

it keeps me humble

My history with sporting gear is storied. In reality, there's only one story: I touch a ball, it hurts me.

I solved this personal in adequacy in high school by participating in one sport: track. I ran the two mile race and avoided relays (batons required). I succumbed to peer pressure on occasion in college participating in intramural softball and kickball. I wizened up after a few rounds of "No seriously, someone is going to get hurt" "It can't be that bad..." (collision) "...okay, I see what you mean."

At one point in my post-collegiate life, I played ultimate frisbee on a weekly basis. And, lo, I wasn't that bad. I could run around the field for hours (distance running pays off occasionally) and make people THINK I could catch the frisbee without ever really having to touch or catch it.

Even my youth know of the perils of asking me to play tether ball. After caving to the begging faces, forewarning them of the impending doom, I cowered away from the tether pole with my thumb in a bag of ice.

Most recently, I lost a fight with a stationary bike. It bruised me in about six places without ever getting up off the ground. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

And so I will never earn an olympic medal, an intramural t-shirt, or a pat on the back for my catching skills. But dagnabbit if I'm not going to get a laugh out of my ineptitude. A girl has to get something out of this sham.

self-differentiation

When I was a wee-intern three years ago, my university supervisor and I had a long conversation about self-differentiation. Basically, I used the word and then he asked me 325097 questions about why I would use that expression and talk about striving for it at my age and blah dibbity blah.

As a young ambitious youth worker, self-differentiation was easy. I didn't care what each and every person thought of me. I cared what 6 people thought of me, maybe 7. I could separate my self-definition from their imposed definition. I could separate my emotions about the success of Thursday evening bible study (mmm, do we call that success or utter failure?) from my self-definition. I could do it without blinking an eyelash. I was impervious to most things.

What they forget to tell you when they hand you the diploma and send you on your way is that as these adverse reactions or questioning emails or poorly received ideas build up, you lose your immunity. Like an aging woman barraged with seasonal viruses, with each situation the difficulty compounds. Over time, you forget to remind yourself that Lorene's opinion of the Sunday School program doesn't define your ability to effectively share Christ with kids. You forget that you can share Christ with 3 pennies, no pennies or $35,000. You forget.

I forgot.

Despite my every attempt to keep my self-definition separate from negativity, it's wandered in, stealthfully, like the H1N1 into the corners of our world. Imperviosity has departed from me and I'm left to learn the real process of self-differentiation.

Self-differentiation requires the ability to meaningfully connect with each person, their concerns, their hopes, their problems with you, and walk away from them knowing that you aren't ultimately defined by any of those things. It's harder than I expected. I want to wave some sort of magic Jesus wand on my heart and make it content.

Faithfulness to God's redemption in me is much more challenging than simple acknowledgment or redemption's existence. Faithfulness to Christ's redemption in me requires that I set aside my feelings about myself, good or bad, and move forward in the mission of the Church. What I strive for is no longer self-differentiation, but self-loss.

unrelated. sort of.

A few weeks ago, I learned that some rather far-fetched plans were not going to come to fruition. In response, people often ask what I am doing with myself these days. As if I was doing something a few days ago, but these days it appears that I am not.

Alas, my sensitivities aside, I don't know how to answer the question. "The same as a few days, weeks, months ago" implies that I am going nowhere, doing nothing, and lack ambition. "Staying up late and prying my eyes open in the morning" implies that this was not my previous method of sleep deprivation, that something has changed in my ineffectual relationship with sleep. "Wandering" is probably my best response (see previous post) yet has a connotation of leaving something behind. I'm not leaving anything, I'm just gathering more. Wandering also implies melancholy, I'm not actually all that sad.

--

Regret is an easy emotion. It requires no action to should have done something. Contentment is much more sophisticated. It requires a conscious effort to enjoy a cup of coffee in the morning, the push of a friendly discussion, rainy days when you need to clear your head on a run.

--

I have a friend that is going to be attending a meditation retreat. For ten days, participants are not allowed to speak except for 30 minute period of questions. They cannot read, write, run, or engage in other spiritual disciplines. I'd be lying to say I'm not intrigued.

the wanderer

I went out walking through streets paved with gold
Lifted some stones - saw the skin and bones
Of a city without a soul
I went out walking under an atomic sky
Where the ground won't turn and the rain it burns
Like the tears when I said goodbye
Yeah, I went with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you
I went wandering

I went drifting through the capitals of tin
Where men can't walk or freely talk
And sons turn their fathers in
I stopped outside a church house
Where the citizens like to sit
They say they want the kingdom
But they don't want God in it

I went out riding down that old eight-lane
I passed by a thousand signs
Looking for my own name

I went with nothing
But the thought you'd be there too
Looking for you

I went out there in search of experience
To taste and to touch and to feel as much
As a man can before he repents

I went out searching, looking for one good man
A spirit who would not bend or break
Who would sit at his father's right hand
I went out walking with a bible and a gun
The word of God lay heavy on my heart
I was sure I was the one
Now Jesus, don't you wait up
Jesus, I'll be home soon
Yeah, I went out for the papers
Told her I'd be back by noon

Yeah I left with nothing
But the thought you'd be there too
Looking for you

Yeah, I left with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you
I went wandering

--U2 with Johnny Cash

huddled between vague and obscure

Intermittently, I wander around in thoughts of sharing the realities of where I am in life. I find myself delicately balancing relationships with family and friends, coworkers and youth to a point where talking about anything that hits anywhere closer to home than the outfield is unthinkable. I barely understand the weave of my life, but to attempt to explain it to anyone results in feeling more like a disaster of a con-artist than a person authentically living. And it isn't because I am deceptively living a secret life of licentious activity.

I'm not.

It is that the perception of a Jesus-loving, youth-working, green thumb-pruning, missionally-passionate, salsa-dancing, indie film-watching, britney spears-listening, judgment-not-passing, asian-food addicted, care-giving person who happens to be rather nerdy seems incongruent. Even to me, the one who is living it. Loving the diversity in my life, living the diversity in my life, carries a strange burden of confusion.

There is a group of people in my life who don't understand the passion that drives my work. They don't understand why a disagreement with someone "at work" drives me to tears and pain. They don't understand why I give so much of my income to the church and her work.

Conversely, there is a group of people in my life that doesn't understand why salsa dancing brings me so much joy. They don't understand why the music, the spinning, the continually evolving metaphor for life (cue John Michael Montegomery) drives me to the floor more times a week than I'd like to admit.

There is another group in my life that doesn't understand the passion that I feel for authentic expressions of faith. They don't see the need to push beyond what is already occurring within the church, or if they do, they aren't personally owning and acting on the need. They don't understand my frustrations.

Even more, there is a large group that doesn't understand some of my social conclusions or desire for conversation on the difficult pieces of our society. They don't understand the way I view the world and they make it clear to me that they have no interest in knowing why I feel as I do.

I'm not the first person to feel the strain of too many directions. Unfortunately, these too many directions are precisely what defines me. And rather than attempt to explain myself, I huddle between vague and obscure. It's easier that way.