Dangerous Crusader

The Story Woven

2012-01-26T15:41:00.000-08:00

The ground was white with snow.

We were spending the weekend in a "cabin" -- sort of a hunting retreat -- in the middle of nowhere, four hours' drive, slow behind the plow/salt truck. It was a long weekend for most of us, with no classes on Monday for MLK day, and we were taking some time to sleep and read, do homework and cook and catch up with each other's lives. With no internet access. With no phone service, except the landline, kept for emergencies.

And so -- Saturday -- we went for a walk in the woods. (A suibien kind of walk, my Chinese friends would say. It took me a while to explain that to my roommate once. I said I was going for a walk. "Where?" she asked. "Around campus," I said. "Where?" she asked. "I don't know," I said. "Nowhere." She stared at me. "Why?" "No reason, I just want to." She smiled. "Oh, a a suibien walk," she said, with understanding. It took me longer to get a general feel for what suibien meant. Random. Whatever you want.)

We slipped around on the ice and put our feet through where it was thin, endangering our shoes with the hidden pockets of freezing, muddy water. We posed on the hillside and took pictures.

And on our way back to the cabin, I took a deep breath. Thinking again about Proverbs 3:27, about a conversation that I had known I wanted to have from the time I decided to go to the cabin for that weekend.

Proverbs 3:17 says: Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it. I tend to think of that especially in terms of encouraging people, when you have a sense of perspective on their life that they are likely to not be able to see on their own.

If you've read older posts, maybe you've seen this one, the one called It's a Wonderful Life. If you haven't, the story makes more sense if you read it.

So I walked a little faster and caught up to him. We talked about jobs and school and such. And then I took another breath and said Thank you. I don't really remember exactly how I explained it. But I know that he is continuing to be in positions of authority; he has a wife, he has men under him. And he has much to offer in terms of growing them.

It unlocked parts of the weekend that wouldn't have been there, otherwise. Some laughter, because we got to know each other better than we would have. Some discussion, washing dishes -- So what has God been teaching you? What have you been learning? -- that came far more naturally when we knew that there was a context for it to fall into, that we'd already been part of the same conversation, if not really introduced to each other before.

It is beautiful how God weaves life together.

The Goodness of God

2012-01-23T06:10:00.000-08:00

This point keeps coming up recently:

We sin because we don't really believe that God is good.

Last weekend I was at a staff training seminar for CCO where Tim Geiger, who works for Harvest USA, was speaking. His focus was sexual sin (and holiness), and he was talking about how sin -- any sin -- is based in a desire for something that's good. The problem is that we move this from being a good desire into being an ultimate end, something we're determined to get at any cost.

Tim Keller made this same point very well in Counterfeit Gods.

And I was discussing this last night with ZhongguoTim [okay, I realize that I have now talked about three Tims in a row. Not sure why that's how it happened, but there it is]. I know that this is where sin comes from -- that

each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. (James 1:14-15) --

but I need to keep hearing it. It's easy to justify my behaviors and find acceptable behaviors that are still motivated by sin. We talked about grades, about building relationships with people. Are these motivated by desires to glorify God? Or to feel in control?

James gives us the antidote for this poisonous inclination in the next few verses.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1:16-17)

If we believe that everything good comes from God, then we will trust Him.

We talked about this again today in my Environmental Ethics class, when we were discussing how God had decreed that Israel give the land a rest every seven years. How hard would that have been to obey? I would have thought, Are You crazy? I'll starve! My teacher summed it up well. "We think that if we obey God, bad things will happen."

Yep. There's the heart of the lie we believe.

So instead... we have to let go of trusting in ourselves and cling to the risky belief that God is trustworthy, that He is good. That He is omniscient and does know all of our circumstances. That He's omnipotent and has the power to work all things for good. That He's omnipresent and is with us in everything, is working in everything.

And mostly that He is all good, and that He desires good for His children.

Habits

2012-01-23T06:04:00.000-08:00

[As a slight disclaimer... I've been meaning to post this for about a month, and just haven't gotten around to it. Not that it makes much difference, but here it is.]

I was reading The Divine Conspiracy (still; it didn't make my packing list for China so it kind of got put on hold) and hit a section on how much sin comes from habits.

I've thought more about habits in the past three months than I probably ever had before, because as soon as we got to China we started realizing that we had all kind of habits that were so deeply engrained we didn't even realize that they were habits, we just thought they were how life was. And we longed to rebuild a similar set of routine habits, so that we could do things like eat and buy groceries and shower on autopilot. It takes a lot of energy to consciously think about everything that we do in the course of a day.

Anyway, I think there is a lot to be said for what was being said in Divine Conspiracy: our habits are so unthought about that it's hard to remember that they exist, and it's hard to put effort into making whole something so ingrained that we've forgotten it's broken.

There are plenty of examples of this. I mean, why does George Bailey never fix the knob on the railing in It's a Wonderful Life? Does he even remember that it shouldn't pop off all the time by the end of the movie? Or last year, I went to a party at a friend's house and fell through one of his porch steps on the way up. Someone mentioned it and his response was along the lines of, “Oh yeah, that's been broken, you just have to skip it.” Or... fix it?

Maybe that was part of what was so radical and vital about the Reformation, the requickening of the idea that God says “Mine” about all of creation. That it's not just about Sundays and holidays and the clergy, but equally about Monday morning and Friday nigh, about the butcher and the baker and the candlestick maker.

That God is just as interested in the money that we don't give in tithes and offerings as He is in the money that we throw into the offering plate.

So the motto of CCO that I grew up around – All of life redeemed – is a precious and beautiful one to have woven into your being.

And I think about Ann Voskamp (www.aholyexperience.com) and yes, how seeking to give thanks for all things at all times – this will protect us from much sin. It forces intentionality about many of the hidden desires of our hearts. It begins making whole what we forgot was there, let alone broken.

Story-writing and Providence

2011-08-14T19:26:00.000-07:00

As I keep working on a long story with friends this summer, I have discovered that one of the chief things I try to do to characters is to break them. I am continually throwing them into very difficult situations, and forcing them to meet and get to know other characters who they can't stand, and generally making their lives miserable.

Why do I do this?

It's not just because I'm sadistic and enjoy driving my co-writers insane (although I do sometimes enjoy that too...) but it's because that is really the only way in which the story works. Characters, even ones that I designed, do not typically want to do what they should. If I leave them where they're comfortable, they never go anywhere. A lot of them would never interact, and there would be very little depth or richness to the story. They grow through the things I force them into.

Breaking reveals what they are made of.

Over and over, I keep pushing them until I find their flaws, burning that out of them, and making them into the characters I want, pulling their threads together into the story that I want.

The analogy could be stretched too far, I'm sure, but it is giving me a greater appreciation for how God molds us.

I don't just give my characters tough stuff to the limits of their endurance. I push them past. God throws us into places where we need Him.

My characters (and whoever is trying to work with them to write the story) tend to hate it. But it works. It makes everything make sense, and it does make the characters more real. It makes the story work properly.

I am very glad, though, that God knows what He's doing. I stumble my way through words and scenes, wanting to bash my head against the wall and wanting to throttle most of the characters. After a while, pieces fall into place and I'm happy then, but it doesn't mean that I know how the next conversation fits into the overall picture.

God does.

So I am content.

End of Summer

2011-08-11T18:17:00.000-07:00

I've been busy with countdowns recently.

One more day of work.

In two days, I'll be at a wedding reception for two of my dear friends. We've known each other since we were in highschool. It's crazy -- and pretty exciting.

In two days I'll be flying to Massachusetts.

In a week I'll be 21.

In less than two weeks, my next-oldest-sister will be coming to college to start her freshman year.

In less than a month, I'll be in China.

There are other countdowns, like the people I wanted to say goodbye to, wanted to spend time with, before I head home and then across the world. Or, more accurately, the people I don't want to say goodbye to.

And there are the counting-up lists. It's been a good summer.

Days spend in sunshine and dinners with the Wrights and Joanna, full of laughter, weekends with the Kennedys, who kept bringing me home... all summer... the guys in the grounds garage and the tennis balls flying back and forth; lots of Madeleine L'Engle; trees to climb; a trip to DC; going to the park with Sukey and her blue eyes; an alarm clock faithfully waking me up every morning; music and audio books; a beautiful campus to work on; great girls to work with... I made a much longer list in my journal, but you get the idea.

God is good.

It's a Wonderful Life

2011-07-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

...I think about examples, how you act and what you dare
'Cause you never know who's watching or how far the story goes...
[Heather Dale -- One of Us]

Maybe it's inevitable that I resonated with those words, me being a child who grew up watching It's a Wonderful Life every year around Christmas time, learning my whole life that what you do affects others in ways you can't know.

I still think it would be nice to know, sometimes.

What's striking me is that there are people who I know have changed my life unconsciously. What do you say to them? Hi, you don't know me, but I'm so glad that you did what you did?

They didn't do it for me, they just did it because... that's who they are. It's who God made them to be. But sometimes I think about my life and how it ties in with the lives of those around me, and I think,

The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;
Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me.
[Psalm 16:6]

The particular example that brought this to mind is an older brother of a friend of mine. He's probably three or four years older than I am, and I've met him a few times -- when he was visiting the college, when he was at church with his fiancee. And he has no particular reason to know me, but I thank God for him and for the example he set.

See, the year before I came to college, his sister and another friend of mine roomed together, their freshman year. He was a good older brother, and showed his sister (and her roommate) some of the ropes of what you should know for college, things that you might not be taught in classrooms.

That all trickled down to me through the challenge, which is a story in its own right, the story of how this man's sister's roommate (feel like this should end up at 31 Flavors somehow?) decided to continue the mentoring process.

So, like he doesn't know and very possibly will never know how he helped to change my life, I expect that a lot goes on for all of us that we don't know. I know about him mostly through spending a lot of time digging out stories and piecing fragments together. I don't know of a way to thank him; I'm not sure that it would even be fair to try. Maybe it is better to just thank God, the Giver of all good gifts.

And then pay it forward.

Purpose, Prosperity, and a Pilgrim Heart

2011-06-12T07:06:00.000-07:00

This weekend I was given the amazing opportunity to go to a conference in DC, hosted by AEI, called "Purpose & Prosperity: Exploring the Confluence of Faith, Economics, and Public Policy". Sounds like some pretty heady stuff, doesn't it?

I felt rather like Odysseus.

I walked into the conference and was overwhelmed by the affluence of it. AEI is well-funded, and they didn't skimp in hosting us, a bunch of college students. I could get used to this all too easily, to living in a world that is polished and professional. I could get used to a job where you get to look at the intricate puzzle of public policies and research the issues that drive these things, because I love mental puzzles a lot.

But I felt a little bit like I was listening to the sirens' song.

This isn't the world I come from, this world of metro tickets and business casual and a room full of predominantly white college students. Where I come from, my siblings and I look nothing alike, a family built by adoption, and people wear clothes from the Goodwill and I am used to walking to work.

The fact that this isn't what I'm used to doesn't mean that it's wrong. It is very necessary to discuss policies for this sprawling country, the one that somehow includes the metropolitan DC and Western Pennsylvania, where I've grown up. There are more factors than I can comprehend, and enough pieces to give anyone a headache, and the ideas are huge. I am beyond delighted that AEI is seeking to educate students about these things that really matter and really do affect us, and I love that they are being intentional about examining how faith fits with these things, and creating space for Christian students to learn and dialogue.

I loved the mental stimulation of a think tank, but I recently learned that I also love the feel of a piece of wood dremeled and sanded smooth, watching metal shavings curl off of a drill, and being awake till 5 am, working with a team of engineers on their senior project.

I don't know how to put the pieces together.

I am a college student with a minimum wage job, pulling weeds all summer. I'll be graduating in less than a year without debt. I sponsor a little girl in Guatemala. She has leprosy.

I wonder what I am doing with the vast wealth that God has showered upon me, that I did not earn.

C.S. Lewis offered this guideline for giving: "I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare."

What does that look like in my life as an individual? What should it look like in the life of a nation? Is that a responsible way to live? Is it wise?

And can life be segmented, so that I can say, Well, I will be independent financially and willing to depend on grace in my spiritual life? For myself at least, I am far too human for that. I am driven to draw closer to God by uncertainty about plans for the future and by huge storms and by the death of friends and by being forced to realize that I can't be secure in any area of life apart from Him.

Lewis again, this time from an exchange between two characters in The Great Divorce:

--I only want my rights. I'm not asking for anybody's bleeding charity.

--Then do. At once. Ask for the Bleeding Charity. Everything is here for the asking and nothing can be bought.

Is he right? How does this fit with entrepreneurship and good economic practices in a world superpower country? Where does grace fit into this whole issue of free enterprise and capitalism and Christian morality?

Maybe Odysseus is not the wanderer I identify with so much. Maybe what is waging war in my heart right now is the same thing that drew Abraham out of the land where he lived to a place where he did not know, going to live in the land of promise, wholly entrusting himself to the faithful God who had called him. Maybe it is right to feel out of place here, not wholly comfortable.

Maybe these are questions I'll be asking for the rest of my life.

(drawing by Pastor Micah Ramsey, 2009)

Broken Stories and the Goodness of God

2011-05-24T18:10:00.000-07:00

All I know is the broken.

That's all that makes sense to me.

It's not a pleasant thought, but there it is. And along with that thought come the words of the Mumford & Sons song Roll Away Your Stone.

Darkness is a harsh term don’t you think?
And yet it dominates the things I see.

I realize this when I get quiet enough and still enough to look inside my own soul.

I'm realizing it again as I work on writing stories, pushing at new characters to see how they respond, digging deep into backstories to find what makes them how they are. I like writing stories; it helps me understand the real world around me better.

But I don't like what I find as I search for deeper connections, for motives and stories. I knew good characters are broken at points, but they are broken all the way back, and the further I go, the more there is deeply wrong with them.

Because it's what makes sense.

I don't like finding these things about my characters. It's bad enough that they're messy, and that these things fit into the stories -- I wish they didn't -- but that this sort of stuff makes sense in my head. I asked it the other night. Where do these characters come from? Why are they so messed up?

Because you live in a very messed up world, said a friend, or something along those lines.

A world where darkness and brokenness run all the way back, all the way down, to almost the very beginning. And in some ways, past the beginning of my history, of human history, back to Satan's rebellion.

So it makes sense that my characters are haunted by this same radical flawed-ness.

And while brokenness and darkness is all that makes sense to me, all that I know in one sense, I also know that it is not enough and find myself longing for something else so much that tears threaten.

I may know brokenness, know a world dominated by darkness, but I need grace, and I long for a world that is dominated by unfading light.

Mumford & Sons (a very... perplexing... band) offers this line later on in Roll Away Your Stone.

It seems that all my bridges have been burned,
But you say that’s exactly how this grace thing works.

And I wonder: if that is how grace works, do I dare want it?

Do I have an option?

Not really, because hardwired into me, beyond knowing the broken, is the deeper knowledge that things are not the way they are supposed to be. That grace is needed.

I like Lifehouse's song Breathing.

I'm finding my way back to sanity again,
Though I don't really know what I'm going to do when I get there.
Take a breath and hold on tight,
Spin around one more time,
And gracefully fall back to the arms of Grace.

'Cause I am hanging on every word you say and,
Even if you don't want to speak tonight that's alright,
Alright with me.
'Cause I want nothing more than to sit outside Heaven's door and listen to you breathing,
Is where I want to be.
Yeah.
Where I want to be.

I'm looking past the shadows in my mind into the truth and I'm,
Trying to identify the voices in my head.
God which one's you?
Let me feel one more time what it feels like to feel alive,
And break these calluses off of me,
One more time.

'Cause I am hanging on every word you say and,
Even if you don't want to speak tonight that's alright,
Alright with me.
'Cause I want nothing more than to sit outside your door and listen to you breathing,
Is where I want to be.
Yeah.

I don't want a thing from you.
Bet you're tired of me waiting for the scraps to fall off your table to the ground.

'Cause I just want to be here now.

'Cause I am hanging on every word you say and,
Even if you don't want to speak tonight that's alright,
Alright with me.
'Cause I want nothing more than to sit outside Heaven's door and listen to you breathing,
Is where I want to be.
Yeah.

'Cause I am hanging on every word you say and,
Even if you don't want to speak tonight that's alright,
Alright with me.
'Cause I want nothing more than to sit outside Heaven's door and listen to you breathing,
Is where I want to be.
Yeah.
Where I want to be.
Where I want to be....

I'm a beggar at His table, sitting at His door, content just to hear Him breathing.

And instead, He makes a me a daughter and bride. Instead, He speaks to me and promises that all broken will be made new, that undying light will come in the end, and that all manner of thing shall be well.

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

~ Julian of Norwich

And so I am all undone with awe and glory, broken in His hands and content with the taste of what is to come.

God is indeed good.

Weeds, sin, and hope

2011-05-14T11:47:00.000-07:00

Pulling weeds tends to make me philosophical, because there is not a whole lot else going on. That means that I have an abundance of time to be philosophical this summer, as my full time job consists mostly of pulling weeds.

One thing that I tend to think about a lot with weeds is how they're like sin, how pulling them is like sanctification. So here are some thoughts for the week.

It leaves you far more sore and exhausted than you think you should be.

Especially for the first two or three days, I hurt all over. It was awful. I got back to the house where I was staying, went into the bedroom, and fell asleep on the floor for, oh, a good hour. And I felt absurd about it... I mean, all that I did all day was pull little plants out of the ground. It doesn't sound like it should be that hard.

I think I tend to do that with sin too. It can't be that hard to not be selfish. It can't be that exhausting to hold your tongue.

Yes it can.

The little weeds are often the worst.

The big ones are easy to spot and at least have something there for you to grab onto. The little ones are what really exasperate me, because they are everywhere and I can pull them up for hours on end and come away with only a few handfuls worth of green. I was afraid my boss would think that I was slacking, because it doesn't look like much in the barrel. And no one is going to walk past and think, Oh, how lovely, those nasty huge thistles are gone. Because... be realistic. No one even notices the tiny weeds. They certainly won't notice their absence.

I think the less visible, more ordinary -- more "acceptable" sins -- can easily be harder to uproot in our lives, too.

They come out easier after a storm.

After rain pounds the earth and lightning flashes overhead and thunder cracks, the dirt is soft and the weeds come out, with their roots still attached. So they won't grow back.

I don't like it, but I'm suspecting that sin comes out of our lives more completely and more readily after God has sent huge storms to get us ready.

A break is a wonderful thing.

Lunch break, especially... I come back from that and see weeds I was entirely missing before, and I am in a much better frame of mind to pull the weeds.

Maybe it helps with sin, too, to remember to look at something positive and not keep looking for nothing but the sin until our eyes glaze over.

The ones that look pretty can be the worst.

That one kind of speaks for itself as far as sin goes.

As far as weeds? Well, one word. Buttercups. My landlady and I discussed this... she had a good description of them -- snakey roots. They never all come out.

Weeds seem to like growing near similar looking plants.

Sure, laying mulch and planting other flowers may help to keep them at a minimum, but some will sneak in there. And they will probably be the sort that look nearly exactly like the flowers that are supposed to be growing there.

I'm pretty sure The Screwtape Letters speaks to this.

The stupid things keep coming back.

Enough said.

~~~~

But there is hope. The flowers grow, along with the pile of weeds. People walk past and smile. My supervisor is pleased. He's looking more at how diligently I am working and how well weeded the flower beds are rather than what I've gotten rid of. (I think Dallas Willard would approve of this perspective, because he'd say that Jesus approves. We're told what love is, not what it isn't. A good flowerbed isn't one that has generated a barrel full of impressive weeds. It's one that has flowers and is clean, one that has nice crisp edges.)

When it storms during work, we all congregate in the garage and watch the lightning and laugh together.

We drive down the road and sidewalks to get to work sites, wind in our hair, feet holding us in the cart.

And there is sunshine.

And slowly, with many setbacks, we are working against the curse that the land will bear thistles and weeds, working as God did at creation to divide things as they ought to be divided.

And it is good.

And the class of 2011 graduates...

2011-05-06T20:31:00.000-07:00

They have been here as long as I have been here, and so I do not know what to say.

I can't yet imagine it without them.

I've had friends in other classes who graduated, but the class graduating tomorrow morning -- the class one year ahead of mine -- is the class full of people who mentored me. The ones who were just out of the awkwardness of everything being new when I came in and everything was new for me. I was a mess of eager confidence energy and a lot more cluelessness than I realized, and they were gracious enough to not let onto it for the most part.

So tomorrow I am going back and I will watch them graduate. And I am proud of them, because I know the work they have put in. I've spent three years watching these people, and learning from them how to do things, and I am delighted to get to see the beginning of the next piece of their lives, this stepping over the threshold. But also sad.

I will miss them.

I will miss the laughter and the familiarity, the having someone older to run across the hall to when something goes wrong, when I am lonely or tired or confused and want an older sibling. I will miss students who can tell me about the classes that they took before me, and who can tell me the stories of what happened before I came, and who remember what things were like when I first came.

Oddly enough, I cried myself silly over it... not this year, but last year, and closer to the beginning than the end of the year. Even at the time, I felt that it was ridiculous, since I was less than halfway through my time with them.

I think something always hurts about leaving, always hurts about knowing that there will be a time of leaving.

And we all fumble for words, not wanting to say goodbye, not wanting to say have a nice life, not wanting to admit that we won't see each other at dinner that night, or even next fall, may not see each other again ever in this life. Knowing that even if we do, so many things that we cannot foresee will be different, and that holds its own kind of sorrow.

I do not know enough ways to say to them Thank you, you do not even know what you did for me, but you changed everything.

How do you say thank you for advice about professors and meal plans and routes to take and places to avoid and the politics of romance and homework assignments and...

for making me eat and sleep and relax, for making me focus and giving me ideas and checking on me when I was sick and talking when I asked for company and listening when I needed to talk...

for tears and hugs and hitting each other with swords and teaching rules and for all the time spent swapping stories...

for all the stupid things we've said and done...

for all the things taught and learned, for all the beauty offered with no expectation of anything in return...

for the nights spent awake talking, because days are busy with classes and other commitments, for teaching me that it is okay to ask when there is something that I need...

for giving me friends who were often more like siblings than friends...

for being the hands and feet of Christ and graciously pulling me into service, for being a mirror showing me where I needed to grow and telling me over and over that it is alright to be broken, that all things will be made right, that all shall be most well?

And so my tears are all mixed up with laughter. Because there is a document on my computer that is 44 pages long, and a lot of the quotes on it are a tiny piece of situations that never would have happened without this graduating class.

So here is random wisdom from the class of 2011.

"The more you try to cheat God's sovereignty, the worse it's going to get." ~in a game involving dice.

Sometimes you should tell people to think about what they just said.

Other times, you should tell them to just move on.

It's not "banging your head against the wall".

It's leaning against the wall. Rapidly. Headfirst.

Missing papers can only be in a finite number of places.

Unfortunately, you generally only have a finite amount of time to search them.

Guess which finitude is smaller.

"Drink some more caffeine and go to bed!"

Even if you can take files in almost any format, non-existent probably will not work.

"2010 is now history... that point in the space-time continuum is no longer accessible to most beings."

"Chocolate is ALWAYS a better idea!" [when it is good dark chocolate]

Tangles in the Weaving

2011-05-05T20:36:00.001-07:00

It's hard to wrap my head around, to know how to feel.

January 24th, Monday, and I was checking my email before going to Dag, and found the breath knocked out of me as I read words on my screen. No, this doesn't happen. Not to people I know. Not to students in the class I TAed. Not here. How do you lose a person? Where could he be? What was going on in his head? Was he okay? The questions seemed to stretch endless.

And the time between then and now seemed endless in some ways too. At first it cuts through everything. We lost someone. There is the oddness of waking up thinking about it, of walking down the sidewalk and wondering when you'll see him next, of seeing that no one is sitting at that particular table in the library. A lot of searches on google.

And then, eventually, there is nothing, and there continued to be nothing. The prayers continue, but so does the rest of life. Searches continue, and classes do too. Winter gradually gives way to spring, and the campus is filled with students whose wrists are marked with red rubber bracelets. We pack in anticipation of going home; I sort through old paperwork and find his name written at the top of a quiz.

Today was the last day of the semester. I finished my junior year; he should have been finishing his freshman year. I got back from my last final and checked my email as I finished packing. And a body was found in the river. This wasn't the first time that has happened, and so we waited for more answers.

Sometimes it is hard even to know what to hope for. An answer? Or more uncertainty and a feeble grasping for a solution that seems impossible? I am tangled in threads that seem to run every way, saying that God can do anything and also that life generally does not work in miraculous ways, that I want to be able to keep hoping and that we need some kind of closure.

So packing finished and I went home for these two nights before I go back to campus to start my summer job. One of my roommates was online and I shot her a message, asking how the project she was working on was going. We exchanged a few lines about that and then she said, I think they found his body.

Those were words I did not want to hear, although I agreed, and it was only a few minutes later that there was confirmation of what she said.

And I still don't know how to feel. All mixed up, especially as it comes with the end of a school year, which is always bittersweet anyway. There are a lot of questions that we won't get answers to, and my mind flips back and forth between songs. Elle G, which I had been afraid would be an answer near the beginning.

Silence all, nobody breathe

How in the world could you just leave?

You promised you would

Silence that evil with good...

Maybe this world is a barren place

For a soul prone to get lost

But heaven still hounds from the smallest sounds

To the cries of the storm-tossed...

Every old demon

Playing back a crime

If they'd needed blood, I'd've gladly given mine...

And Center Aisle.

It was my first time
Won't be my last time
And the questions rise
Expectations fall
In light of it all...

It's not fair
It's not fair...
What crimes have you committed
Demanding such a penance
That couldn't wait for five more minutes
And a cry for help
'Cause this room is so peaceful
And this room is so quiet
And I hate the silence
And I can't walk the center aisle

And a line from Rabbit-Proof Fence, at the very end, when Molly and Daisy are finally home, and Molly cries, "I lost one... I lost one."

That seems to sum it up.

And I leaf through Lament for a Son, because Wolterstorff's words seem to sum up the ache in my heart as well as I could write it myself.

We found lists of things he was planning to do: plans, intentions, proposed undertakings, breathing hope... Now it's all gone. All the rich future he held -- gone in those tumbling seconds. His death is things to do not done -- never to be done.

I had loved reading his plans as I graded his papers over the fall semester.

There's a hole in the world now. In the place where he was, there's now just nothing... There's nobody now who saw just what he saw, knows what he knew, remembers what he remembered, loves what he loved. A person, an irreplaceable person, is gone. Never again will anyone apprehend the world quite the way he did... Questions I have can never now get answers.

But back at the beginning, I wrote, and we sang, It is well with my soul.

And God knows that I hate this answer. But I still pray that it will be well with our souls, that there will be a filling of the hole.

I cannot imagine yet what it looks like, only trust that the God who became man, the King with the hands of a healer, will yet weave even these frayed pieces into a whole.

Plans

2011-04-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

I'm going to China, I keep saying.

It's funny to me how these things happen, words becoming truth, from the first time last year when I picked up a brochure, thinking that it would be interesting to study in China.

And I am excited, very very much so, and also a little nervous.

Everyone wants to know, Do you know anyone else going?

I say, No; I've learned to make it a half-joke. It'll be like being a freshman again. But I know that it won't be like being a freshman, because I know a lot more about a lot of things than I did then -- about the people around me, about the world, about the things I've studied, and probably most of all, about myself, about who I am. About how I am ever and always caught in the hand of God.

So that is a plan.

And at the same time, I think about what classes I will need to take the semester after, to finish all of my requirements and graduate. Between hearing her memories of Rome and whatever else we feel like talking about, my friend Abi and I discussed what we'll be taking next year... next year when we're seniors.

That is another plan.

And in a little bit over a week, this semester will be over and I will be starting a new job, living in a new house. I'm excited to be staying around where I go to school all summer when I don't have to be taking classes too (and maybe will have time to read books from our school library just for fun? will have time to hang out with a smaller group of people who are also staying around?).

That is a plan too.

But the other day I felt the beginning hints of summer and realized, I will not be at camp this summer. I'm okay with that, but it was sad to realize, because last summer was a good summer, and I love the camp where I worked, the people I worked with, the woods and trails and cabins and smells, the tire shavings that stick to everything in the climbing room. I know that I was ready to leave by the end of last summer, though, and it was right to find something else to do this summer.

And today I ran into Jase, former president as Dag and still the one I tend to default to and go to advice for in Dag-related matters. We were discussing some different problems; there are never a shortage of those, not in a club with such high turn over and so much interaction between people who are bound to get on each other's nerves... and then I remembered something that made me feel like laughing. Remember last year? How we figured that there wouldn't even BE a club anymore by this point?

We don't know the future.

And I am sobered as I think of the students who were just in a car crash and their little brother's funeral was this afternoon; no one knew, no one could have known.

And in Daniel class we discussed eschatology, something I was not at all enjoying last night when I didn't finish the reading till around 2, but today it is exciting. God is good, but we don't really know yet what that looks like.

But I know today, when the sun shines and the sky is blue and I am going to a friend's house for dinner.

And I know that my Redeemer lives.

What other plans do I need?

I am all at once courageous
I am all at once afraid
It came over me like nightfall
Like a freight train
I can't seem to hold it in
But I can't seem to run away

[Springtime Indiana ~ Sandra McCracken]

From the End of the Earth

2011-04-03T19:47:00.000-07:00

Part of my job as a counselor last summer at camp was leading devotional times for the cabin. Some weeks we spent a lot of time tailor-fitting them to the girls' needs; sometimes they were more generic.

One of my favorites that I did with maybe few cabins was based on Psalm 61. If I remember correctly, we focused on the first three verses or so.

Hear my cry, O God,
listen to my prayer;
from the end of the earth I call to you
when my heart is faint.
Lead me to the rock
that is higher than I,
for you have been my refuge,
a strong tower against the enemy.

We were focused on prayer, and these verses are hauntingly rich in what they teach about how we can pray.

What is the man who wrote this doing? Praying.

How does he feel about his prayer? It's a cry...

Where does he feel like he's talking to God from? The end of the earth!

Does he feel close to God at all? No!

So he feels like God is really really far away... but what's he doing? He's praying.

He's praying! It still gets me. And he expects God to hear him, to be his refuge, even when he feels a million miles away.

I love it.

Lessons Exquisitely Crafted

2011-03-27T14:46:00.000-07:00

We're a little more than a year away from graduation, two girls -- women, although it's hard to feel like I fit into that word -- riding in a car on a day when the sky above is startlingly blue, with no cloud anywhere to be seen. And we talk.

There are a lot of things, we both say, that we wish someone had told us before we came to college. We're discussing what our plans are for the summer, what we'll do after we graduate. The conversation wanders all over the place as we drive back to campus from church.

But we wouldn't have known how to listen to it before college, we say. We're trying to make sense of the world we'll be graduating into, and our options. More school? Finding a job? The weight that we should put on what our parents want? What is with the whole idea of "calling"? Willingness to take jobs that are more humble than what we've trained for?

At some point, the choices we make really do have consequences and affect the rest of our lives. I knew that, I guess. It's becoming more apparent. You choose one major and that makes it maybe not impossible, but certainly more difficult to get into other fields that are completely different. You become friends with a group of people, and it opens some doors and closes others. It's not a bad thing, but I'm finding it a kind of bittersweet one.

The ideas bounce around in my mind and I get Vienna Teng's Eric's Song stuck in my head. Not all of it is very applicable to friendships, but some of it is, some of it connects with life. She doesn't quite get it, but she has some pieces of it.

So we just hold on fast

Acknowledge the past

As lessons exquisitely crafted

Painstakingly drafted
To carve us as instruments

That play the music of life

It's sometimes very difficult for me to look back at the past and say, Yeah, that was good; God is good. So I loved the reminder in her words that God has had His hands in all of my history, carefully putting pieces of everything together for my good, for His glory.

Knowing that gives me hope for the future.

Spring Break Report

2011-03-14T18:36:00.000-07:00

I rub at my wrist, water washing away the words that have been inked there for the last week.

Overcome

evil
with

good.

Words from Romans 12:21, from the Newsboys' song Elle G.

Good words for a missions trip that is all concrete vision, working to see the kingdom of God come and invade a ghost-steel-town, a drug capital.

So we spend days filling wheelbarrows from a heap of rubble and then filling Gabion baskets with that rubble. That way, when the river floods, it won't cut through the homes of the people who live in the trailer park. We get to know some of those people too -- Chuck, Kelly, Tim, Ed, Brenda, Dick. I spent one day there last year, but there were no faces for me then; I hadn't knocked on their doors, played with their dogs, had picnics of sandwiches and cookies, been offered dry shoes.

We spend other days and evenings working in the cafe, the small colorful space that offers safety on the main street of a town that people used to fear. And in the evening, the tables are packed full of people talking and playing games, looking at paintings done by local artists, listening to those who display their talent in singing. It's a coffee shop snapshot of everyone blended; races, ages, backgrounds.

We worship with a Benedictine Episcopal community, and then with a black Pentecostal church. Know what? They love each other. And I love both of them, and they both spill God's love all over the team.

Oh yeah, the team. We're six students and one faculty, all from different majors and backgrounds, all giving our spring break to be here instead. Because we wanted to. We knew each other to varying degrees before the break, but this week ties us together into something that couldn't have been predicted from the meetings, as we grow into a family. We sing a lot. We tease each other a lot. And people are surprised that we are so happy, that we enjoy each other's company.

Good stuff happens like that. It should mark the kingdom coming.

Mark 5

2011-03-09T19:44:00.000-08:00

I didn't just fall before him.

I flung myself at his feet, landed awkwardly, face uncomfortably close to all the dirt.

And we talk about it now, me sitting on a very squishy couch, listening to John's Australian accent, wrapped in the warm smell of coffee.

Isn't that how it works -- you don't really choose to fall, you have no option but to throw yourself at His feet and trust Him?

I hadn't thought about it that way before.

And I say, I wouldn't have done this two years ago; I had to learn to trust you. He nods. I had to learn that this was a safe space, that all the talk of listening is much more than just talk. We acted out the story of Mark 5, of Jairus coming to Jesus about his daughter and of the other daughter who came to Jesus for healing, throwing herself in desperation at His feet. This was my third time to do it, and this was the year that I said, I want to be the woman. I'm learning my need to throw myself at the feet of Jesus.

In our debrief right after the story this year, John was asking us about why Jesus called the woman back and didn't just let her sneak off with her healing as she wanted to. Someone said, Because He was renaming her, making her a daughter rather than an outcast.

Sure, said John. But He could have just yelled after her: Hey Daughter! You were healed on account of your great faith! Go in peace! Why didn't He?

Someone else ventures an answer. Maybe she wouldn't have listened. Unless He made her stop.

Those words cut deep into my heart, because that is me. I don't listen nearly well enough to Him calling me Daughter until He makes me stop.

The falling at His feet, misjudging distance and tripping ungracefully into a heap on the floor, vulnerable and exposed, is not what I would choose left to myself. But He knows what I need, and calls me back to listen to Him, to receive more healing and gracious goodness than I would have gotten from Him on my own.

Spring Break -- for the third time!

2011-03-04T16:28:00.000-08:00

I'm getting ready to go on an adventure again. It's the beginning of spring break.

And I'm going back to the same city where I've spent my last two spring breaks, and my heart is gasping with anticipation and excitement, and also feeling very vulnerable. Both other years were astonishingly raw and shattered me into a million pieces, dissolving pieces of facades that I or someone else had built up. So I am a little bit tentative going into this year.

Yet mostly I'm excited. Waiting to see what He has planned for this year.

And there is, it seems, no limit to all the things I remember and look forward to. It's my third time, and this will be the fourth year of the trip. Which means that after this trip, I'll be tied for seniority with those who have gone the most times, and that's fun for some reason.

It's a different trip every year, as we work on different things and the group changes. My first year there were three who had gone before, last year there were two, and this year is two again. I love going and watching other people learn to love the city, the people there.

Now I wait, knowing the week ahead will stretched into endless ages, will cut through the rest of my life, and will also fly past in moments that I cannot hang onto. I'm packed. In a while, I'm going to a friend's apartment to spend the night there. And listening to music, of course. For some reason, it's been 100 Years by Five for Fighting.

That song seems ironic on the verge of a missions trip.

15 there's still time for you
Time to buy and time to lose yourself
Within a morning star
15 I'm all right with you
15, there's never a wish better than this
When you only got 100 years to live

I'm older than 15, with no idea of if I'll have 100 years to live or not.

But I am confident that there is never a wish better than this: to seek His face. That all the days of my life I may live with Him, in the company of His people.

So I keep going back.

Lesson of the Week

2011-03-02T06:53:00.000-08:00

I’m getting the impression that God is reminding me of something.

1) In the Screwtape Letters, read for CS Lewis class this week:

Your patient will, of course, have picked up the notion that he must submit with patience to the Enemy’s will. What the Enemy means by this is primarily that he should accept with patience the tribulation which has actually been dealt out to him – the present anxiety and suspense. It is about this that he is to say “Thy will be done,” and for the daily task of bearing this that the daily bread will be provided. It is your business to see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross but only the things he is afraid of. Let him regard them as his crosses: let him forget that, since they are incompatible, they cannot all happen to him, and let him try to practice fortitude and patience to them all in advance. For real resignation, at the same moment, to a dozen different and hypothetical fates, is almost impossible, and the Enemy does not greatly assist those who are trying to attain it: resignation to present and actual suffering, even where that suffering consists of fear, is far easier and is usually helped by this direct action. [Screwtape Letters, VI]

“Let him regard them as his crosses: let him forget that, since they are incompatible, they cannot all happen to him, and let him try to practice fortitude and patience to them all in advance.”

Sometimes I feel like Lewis knew me too well.

That goes along with another snippet of advice Screwtape gives to Wormwood.

"But don't try this too long, for fear you will awake his sense of humour and proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed." [XIV]

I'm pretty sure I underestimate the power of laughing at the devil, forgetting that he's been soundly beaten and has no authority to be giving Christ's people grief at all. Good night, Satan. You failed.

David*Crowder puts it this way:

We’re gonna
shout loud,
loud until the walls come down
shout loud,
loud until the walls come down
loud until the walls come down

Yeah yeah yeah

Because we’ve already won
And you don’t have a chance
Yeah we’ve already won
No you don’t have a chance
It’s already done
And you don’t have a chance
Because we’ve already won!
We have already won!

2) Recently, I reread my journal from the past summer, too, especially the week I was on the Edge. It caught my attention where I wrote about how I couldn’t plan for the week ahead or worry about it, because I didn’t know what was coming. Also, I had too much to do at any given moment that week. It kept me in the moment, and seriously reduced stress. It was a good thing.

3) Last night I was listening to JJ Heller’s song Save Me, and this line gets me every time: “You are stronger/ Than any terrible possible scenario today”. Too often, it seems, I am willing to admit that God is greater than whatever is going on at the moment. Sure. Of course He is. But I forget, whether unintentionally or purposefully, that He is also greater than the worst things I can imagine.

I don’t appreciate grace enough.

I get some other good reminders too, such as yesterday being insane with scrambling to do an assignment. But it works out; things always do… and my worry about them accomplishes nothing.

All I need to do is trust that He is and is good. And do the next thing, following Him.

Darkness is light to You

And all You ask me to do

Is trust what You say is true

[Save Me, JJ Heller]

Changing

2011-02-26T12:23:00.000-08:00

We go for a drive, down the hill, time for some Christmas shopping.

"Have you changed since you came to college?" she asked me.

"Yeah," I said, had to say. "Yeah." It's funny how that answer holds both pride and shame.

"Do you like all the ways you've changed?"

Ha. No. And I'm having to think again about the ways I've changed; it's hard to separate out because they are all tangled together in who I am. The things that have caused me to change are all tangled together too.

It's not as if I received a neat little check list in my mailbox at the beginning of my freshman year that said, "Check here if you'd like to learn how to deal with the messiness of real life; check here if you'd like to not be haunted by decisions you make; check here if you'd like to fit in." None of us do. Sometimes I can look back at a moment and say, "I should have done that differently." Sometimes I can say, "That caused a lot of problems."

But when I think about what caused problems, often I realize that I'd do exactly the same thing all over again. At least I hope I would. And it doesn't really matter, because I don't get a second shot at those things.

You only ever have your own perspective, and it's all tangled up in time and space, stuck in situations with factors of how tired your body is and the worries that press on your mind and so many other things.

They make it ridiculous for me to what-if.

Around the beginning of my tenth grade year, a friend emailed me. He said,

...well he's changing but that's how most teens are. changing just remember to pray read the Bible and trust in Him who gives the truth the way and the life. and you should hopefully change and grow in Him.

They're words that still echo through my head sometimes. I think we're always changing, not just when we're teenagers, although that was as far as we knew at the time.

I've had Relient K's When I Go Down stuck in my head lately too.

When I go down
I go down hard
And I take everything I've learned
And teach myself some disregard
When I go down
It hurts to hit the bottom
And of the things that got me there
I think, if only I had fought them

...

When I go down
I lift my eyes to You
I won't look very far
Cause You'll be there
With open arms
To lift me up again
To lift me up again

Or, as Derek Webb sang it, We come broken/And we come undone//We come trying hard to love everyone//We come up short/In all that we do//But through it all, we come to You.

Singing Words

2011-02-23T16:20:00.000-08:00

I take a blue sharpie pen and ink words onto my arm.

Send me to the edge of the earth

Show me what a life is worth

Words from Jars of Clay's song Call My Name that have caught at my heart this semester. I don't know what a life is worth, don't know how to value a life, a person, as I should. It's awfully easy to become callous to the hum of life that's around me all the time, because I have other things to think about, like grades and the summer and Dagorhir and sleeping.

And am I my brother's keeper?

But he's still missing and it's been more than a month.

So I wonder who it is my responsibility to be keeping and how much a life is worth. Jesus saved me at the cost of His own life.

Sometimes I'm haunted by what the Newsboys say in Elle G

Silence all, nobody breathe

How in the world could you just leave?

You promised you would

Silence that evil with good...

Maybe this world is a barren place

For a soul prone to get lost

But heaven still hounds from the smallest sounds

To the cries of the storm-tossed...

Every old demon

Playing back a crime

If they'd needed blood, I'd've gladly given mine...

But my blood can't even save myself, much less anyone else. Sometimes it's hard to remember to run to Him instead, and to sing the last part of the song.

Silence all, now go to sleep

The water is free, the well is deep

How can we return

That which we never could earn?

...We haven't a hope

Beyond Your grace

I know that You will

Overcome evil

For good.

I like how we've been ending our singing at Titus's this semester, with words from Psalm 3.

You are my shield and glory, Lord

You are the one who lifts my head

I cried out Lord! and answer came

Yes, from His holy hill it sped.

Blogging

2011-02-18T19:20:00.000-08:00

I'm in a class about CS Lewis (well, and his writings) this semester, which is pretty awesome.

So I was reading for Monday, an essay by Lewis called Christianity and Literature, and came across this quote. It's the kind of thing that challenges me to actually think about what I'm posting, so I thought I'd share it.

He's talking about writing, although it can apply to a lot of things, such as storytelling, as well.

The unbeliever may take his own temperament and experience, just as they happen to stand, and consider them worth communicating simply because they are facts or, worse still, because they are his.

Lewis goes on to make the point that for Christians, we should seek to communicate our experiences in a way that connects to something bigger than ourselves, because our purpose is not to be self-absorbed.

Anyway. Ouch. How often do I blog about, or talk about, something just because it happened to me? It's an uncomfortably large amount of time. Twitter and facebook do nothing to help that human bent toward self-centeredness.

Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth;

keep watch over the door of my lips!

(Psalm 141:3)

Hope

2011-02-05T14:49:00.000-08:00

I finished the third book in Lawhead's Song of Albion cycle today. Here's my favorite line:

Neither woman cried out, but both stood gripping the bars of their prisons and watching us with the astonished yet fearful expressions of captives who have long ago abandoned hope of release, only to learn that hope has not abandoned them.

They only get to this rescue after a lot of awful time wandering around in enchanted country, fighting their ways through nightmares, and a lot of giving of lives.

But they didn't abandon the women.

I was very glad. It's a good picture of what Jesus did for His people. It's not that we were out looking for Him.

He came anyway.

Airport Living

2011-02-01T20:17:00.000-08:00

We were talking about dying in Sunday school the other day, how it is sometimes difficult to strike a balance between living in the moment and not getting tangled up tight in clinging to the life we have now.

It's like an airport.

I'd be foolish to try to skip going through the airport if I was planning to fly somewhere, and while I'm in there, I need to be properly engaged -- going through security, presenting my ticket, getting on the proper plane.

But I'd be no less foolish to buy lumber and furniture and begin constructing a house in the middle of the waiting area. That's not what the airport is for.

It's for going through.

And then going on.

The Game and Good News

2011-01-28T19:56:00.000-08:00

I was a freshman in college the first time I remember playing the game. I don't think I had played it again till the summer between my sophomore and junior years, and then I was facilitating it.

"Game" isn't exactly the right term for it, either, although that's how we phrased it. It has different names -- cross the river, cross the line, cross the log (okay, so the last was in a rather rustic setting).

It's a great evangelism tool, and I keep thinking about it this semester. However, it really wouldn't work in every setting. I've only seen it used with people college- and middle/highschool-aged, and only in contexts where there is a chance for real community to grow in safety.

There's an invisible line, river, log, whatever...

Cross the line if --

If your favorite color is red. Blue. Green.

If you like wearing jeans.

If you like waffle cones.

If your family has a dog.

If you have younger siblings.

If you have older siblings.

If you fight with your best friend.

If you have friends who do drugs.

If you have friends who have been pregnant.

If you knew someone who got killed.

If you know people who cut.

If you've talked to someone who was suicidal.

If you've ever been abused. Thought you were worthless. Thought about suicide.

The questions don't have to go exactly that way, but the flow tends to be pretty similar. At first it's a goofy-getting-to-know people game, then the atmosphere changes.

It's always been amazing to me to see who ends up where. To see what happens afterwards. It's not an easy game to participate in, or facilitate, one that you pray the whole time that you won't do anything stupid, that breaking will be healing too.

But it's the level I see real chances for evangelism happening on, too. A lot of deep connections are made on the basis of brokenness.

It keeps happening.

Stories get told, and other stories come.

It's been a very emotional week, says a friend after chapel on Wednesday.

Amen.

And the emotions run wild -- how do you lose a human? and we're all pulled into knowing how desperately small and fragile we are, how very easily the community we live in gets broken -- and they run deep -- what connects to one of us, seems to connect to all, pulls through all of us -- and they run through years of difference experiences, cutting across all our lives -- and they connect us to each other.

And everything is broken.

But there is good news.

Thou Hast Taught Me to Say

2011-01-25T20:34:00.000-08:00

It is well with my soul.

When helicopters fly over the river, and I hope that they find something, because I want to know, and I hope that they don't, because I can't think of any way for that to be good.

It is well with my soul.

When I think of how I'm not seeing who I should be seeing. The sidewalk seems emptier. The stacks at the library are missing a person. Shifts in the dining hall aren't covered. A mailbox is unchecked.

It is well with my soul.

When I look back at the papers I graded last semester, wondering if I missed something. We all wonder, questioning, all the what-ifs. When I realize that I remember the shoes they think he's wearing, yeah, because I could see them on the periphery of my vision when I sat in front of him in class.

It is well with my soul.

When my fingers run a name through google, all anxious irritation, and I'm hoping for new news, hoping that no news is good news, and my brain is all tangled and I don't know what I want.

It is well with my soul.

When I get out of a good class and then it hits me all over again, the sudden sick feeling. Waking up in the middle of the night and remembering.

It is well with my soul.

And it is well with my soul when I sit with other students and we're thrown together hard and suddenly by this thing we can't explain or understand, and we still worship and we pray and cry and hope and fear. And when we end with singing the hymn that began running through my head as we prayed, all our confused questions melting down into trust in God.

And it is well with my soul when I realize that this is what lost really means, what it feels like when someone is lost, and I suddenly know that the word is so much worse than I ever knew before. That this is what we were, what I was, before Christ found me, only so much worse. And it's harder to take being found for granted.

Pieces come together for me, although not yet answers. Stephen Altrogge's recent post on prayer haunts me as I pray and think about having to keep praying for who knows how long, with nothing to run on but trust in God.

He writes,

Over time our prayers tend to decrease in intensity. Jesus tells us that as time passes, our prayers should actually increase in intensity. The longer that God delays, the harder we should pray. We shouldn’t automatically assume that a delayed answer means no answer at all.

but read the whole post.

Caedmon's Call's lyrics:

Whatcha been doin today?
Cuz I've been thinkin about you.
Heard some news that set my mind to wondering,
And I need to hear your voice.
Are you out on the plains,
Burning your feet on the ground?
Out where noone even knows your name,
Seventy miles out of town.

We miss you, do you miss us?
What is the language with which these words I can trust?
I thank my God every time
I remember you.

Whatcha been thinkin about?
Cuz I've been thinkin about life,
And how nothing can escape the governing of God.
Still somehow that just doesn't comfort me tonight.
I still need to hear your voice.

Now I hear you, do you hear me?
What medium is there that I can use to make you see
That I thank my God every time
I remember you.

Bending down to help a flower, dry with poverty.
Helping it to understand its inheritance.
I remember life so bright,
Every time I close my eyes,
I see you.

Brother you made it,
Brother you made it,
Brother you made it.

And I thank my God every time,
And I thank my God every time,
I remember you.

Pray that we find him, and find him safe and soon.

Pray that God find His people.

Pray that we find each other where we need to be found.

Pray that we are all able to say, taught to say, It is well with my soul.

Dag

2011-01-22T18:58:00.000-08:00

Dagorhir has helped me to mature.

I'm serious.

First of all, it's given me more context than I would have had otherwise for the whole concept of spiritual warfare and triumphing and all those other semi-archaic notions that are tangled up in real, face to face fighting. Granted, we go out and hit each other with foam and pvc pipe and fiberglass held together with ductape and dap, but it's taught me a lot more than I knew before.

I've learned about working with people on your team: how to communicate, how to delegate, how to obey, how to strategize, and how to relax and just jump in without much of a plan.

I've learned about trusting people, about reading people, about getting to know them. It's pretty difficult to hide your character on the battlefield, because you get beaten and you get hot and cold and irritated and bashed in the head and sometimes no one asks how you are. It tends to bring out the worst in people. And it also brings out the best, when people who are really dissimilar work together and win a battle, pull off something they'd never done before, say something really stupid and really hilarious, and there is a shining moment of totally unexpected fellowship. It's easier to trust people who you've fought with.

It's easier to serve with them, too. I learned that the first spring on a missions trip. We were used to working together, used to depending on each other.

Dag's taught me about leadership, about how you can simultaneously hate something with your whole self, until you scream when people mention the word, and also love it so desperately that you lose all kinds of other opportunities to try to hold it together. How you get tied down by responsibilities and how those responsibilities grow and fill all the space available in your life and spill over into unavailable space, but they're ties that make you who you are, ones that are for your good. I stand in the tension-filled position now of watching a new generation of Dag'ers come in, and building relationships with them -- the old leaders did that for me, and those are still friends I run to -- and giving them space to find their own way.

And that's part of why I love Dag.

Hebrews 10 and Psalm 40

2011-01-11T13:00:00.000-08:00

Today's thoughts are about Hebrews 10:5-10.

I want to laugh with relief about these verses. Maybe I get really excited about them partly just because I keep listening to Max McLean reading Hebrews, and his voice gets excited on them.

Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,

“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;
in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”

When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
(Hebrews 10:5-10 ESV)

But I think there's more to it. The quote in the middle of that chunk is from Psalm 40:6-8, which always, always, makes me want to cringe when I'm singing it. Especially the two verses after those.

Because I can tell you something about myself. I do not always delight to do God's will. I do not always tell the gospel, or speak of God's faithfulness and salvation. I do hide the deliverance in my heart instead of boldly proclaiming it, and conceal God's steadfast love and faithfulness. I commit sins of omission and commission, not doing what I should and not saying what I should and instead doing and saying what I most definitely should not.

And so... so... I am glad that it is Christ who can boldly and joyfully and rightfully shout out those words in a triumphant song, and that the writer of Hebrews makes that connection. I'm glad that it was His obedience that secures my salvation, so that God's steadfast love and faithfulness are dumped out on me in bucketloads.

Initial Thoughts and 1 Cor 1:10-17

2011-01-10T15:59:00.001-08:00

So here is my idea as I'm embarked on this new year, the overarching idea of what I want to be studying in the Bible and in other resources: What is being a woman supposed to look like? And, okay, not just generally, but for me specifically, and for me specifically now. How do I glorify God in being a woman?

I'm reading through 1 Corinthians, not so much because it's related (though it may be) as because I realized that I haven't read through those books in a while and there is a lot in them.

Yeah. Right now it's all rather disconnected, but that's the general plan -- along, hopefully, with continued intentional familiarization -- okay, memory -- of Hebrews. And maybe some other resources that I find. In the words of Buddy, "I've got some ideas."

I'm such an honors-student-type-A person, looking at this and thinking, Man, that just doesn't seem intense enough.

Might be that I'd actually learn in my Daniel class... and my Evangelism class...

I'm excited to see where this goes.

Here were the verses I really liked today in 1 Cor:

I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. (1:10)

Can't you just see everyone glaring at "Chloe's people"? Thanks a lot for telling Paul that we were quarreling!

For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. (1:17)

I get hung up on liking eloquent wisdom.

But I want Christ's cross to be powerful more than I want to sound smart.

Why I Love Jars of Clay

2011-01-09T10:45:00.000-08:00

Jars of Clay is my favorite band.

So I was excited when Stephen Altrogge posted on The Blazing Center (link here) that Amazon had their latest album The Shelter as a $5 download this month.

I love Jars of Clay because their music style seems to change, within comfortable boundaries, from album to album. Which means that my brain doesn't get really, really tired of hearing them after a while.

I love Jars of Clay because they tell the truth.

I wasted a rescue

Abandoned the mission

I failed by my own hands
And watched it all go wrong

You said you could save me
That I couldn't save myself
You said that you loved me
No matter what I've done

When the light is gone
And life is just a dare we take
Still the fight goes on
To give my heart away

And it's out of my hands
It was from the start
In light of what you've done for me
In light of what you've done for me

You lifted my head

Set me apart

In light of what you've done for me

This is what you've done for me.

[Out of My Hands]

I know who I am

Once I was nameless, alone and you found me

[Run in the Night (Psalm 27)]

In the shelter of each other

We will live

[Shelter]

They pray.

Send me to the edge of the earth

Show me what a life is worth

[Call My Name]

Talk to me, 'cause I've been talking to myself

Help me get these thoughts out of my own head

I don't believe, most days I don't believe

Mercy is true, it's hard to live with the things that I do

So God, bruise the heels we've dug in the ground

That we might move closer to love

Pull out the roots that we've dug in so deep

Finish what you started

Help us to believe

Keep our eyes wide open

Love is kind and love is daring

[Eyes Wide Open]

I love Jars of Clay because they don't leave it at words, but that they constantly challenge Christians to put their words and their faith into action. They've done it as a band through Blood:Water Mission (here's a link).

Go into the world

Showing how much

He loves you

Walk in the world

In merciful ways

He loves you

Emmanuel on earth

[Benediction]

If our days could be filled with small rebellions

Senseless brutal acts of kindness from us all

If we stand between the fear and firm foundation

Push against the current and the fall

[Small Rebellions]

I love Jars of Clay because they open up God's graces in glorious, explosive ways. Because they delve into the depths of human brokenness, both dramatic and mundane, and point to God as the answer.

I love Jars of Clay because they leave me hungry for God and glad to have a place in His creation, rejoicing in being an image-bearer.

Much Afraid and Perfect Love

2010-12-30T19:40:00.000-08:00

My friend JJ and I had a really good discussion the other day.

We talked about things that go on but that we can't see, how the Bible is very elusive in its hints about spiritual warfare, and how, while this can be exasperating, is also gracious. How we have to trust instead of having tangible facts, and how trust is really all we have anyway. How hard of a grace that is to live in.

We talked about age, how it seems that one grows older with experience, younger with love.

We talked about the odd connection that some people have -- she called it being on the network -- the connection where they hear other people's heart-cries. About how maybe, if you hear those cries, you could walk away rather than give yourself in responding, but you have to lie to yourself ever after. Walking away is not a good way to live. People call that heartless, said JJ. But they call it insanity to stay, I said.

To stay when it hurts, to to remain in the fire by choice, can look like insanity. It has a cost. It refines your strengths and breaks you at your weaknesses, and you can emerge knowing yourself. Knowing what you need to be striving for in sanctification.

JJ pointed out that you can often look back on those crucible times and see the linking chains of grace. The grace upon grace, grace leading to more. Gras ar ben gras, I thought, because that's the name I had for it for most of last semester.

The grace is what saves.

The what-ifs whisper condemnation, those things that replay and haunt after those times in the furnace, aching fears that the grace is a shadow.

And we talked about how, in those fears, we find that we do not yet love perfectly, for perfect love casts out fear. We long to love that way, but find ourselves thwarted at every step by our flawed love for God and for others.

JJ's confession, "I am much afraid" is mine too. I am a disciple of little faith, one of those panicking during the storm. Never mind that the Lord of Storms is enough at ease to sleep.

I am much afraid, but He is all love. So my life is caught in a tangled, delicate tension that every moment and action and breath flows out of. Sometimes gloriously and sometimes painfully, woven in between natural fear and the real love.

We thanked God that His mercies are new every morning.

And morning came while we talked, and we said 晚安, goodnight, and went to sleep, to wake to new mercies.

[Sandra McCracken has sung two hymns that fit beautifully with these subjects.

Grace Upon Grace

In every station, new trials and new troubles
Call for more grace than I can afford
Where can I go but to my dear Savior
For mercy that pours from boundless stores.

CHORUS:
Grace upon grace, every sin repaired
Every void restored, you will find Him there
In every turning He will prepare you
With grace upon grace.

He made a way for the fallen to rise
Perfect in glory and sacrifice
In sweet communion my need He supplies
He saves and keeps and guards my life

To Thee I run now with great expectation
To honor You with trust like a child
My hopes and desires seek a new destination
and all that You ask Your grace will provide.

and I Glory in Christ

God forbid that I should glory,
save in the Redeemer's cross
Counting shame for Him but honor,
Counting earthly gain but loss
All the love of God is here,
A love that casteth out all fear
God forbid that I should glory,
save in Christ my Lord alone
Him I lean on; Him I follow
Him, before the world, I own
All the love of God is here
A love that casteth out all fear
God forbid that I should glory
save in Christ the Son of God
Him who sought me Him who bought me
Him who washed me in his blood
All the love of God is here
A love that casteth out all fear

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:7-21)]

Nightfall and Vows

2010-12-29T18:50:00.000-08:00

Here's what caught me tonight reading Fellowship of the Ring:

"On [the Ring-bearer] alone is any charge laid... the others go with him as free companions to help him on his way. You may tarry, or come back, or turn aside into other paths, as chance allows. The further you go, the less easy will it be to withdraw; yet no oath or bond is laid on you to go further than you will. For you do not yet know the strength of your hearts, and you cannot foresee what each may meet upon the road."

"Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens," said Gimli.

"Maybe," said Elrond, "but let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall."

"Yet sworn word may strengthen quaking heart," said Gimli.

"Or break it," said Elrond. "Look not too far ahead! But go now with good hearts!"

Oaths do make and break hearts. They bind, and sometimes the binding is what breaks us most deeply. But we cannot live without them.

My family revolves around vows -- my parents' wedding vows, the vows taken at the adoption of my siblings, my vows of church membership. There are other, more implicit, more subtle vows that bind just as much. I'm a student by choice, so I work hard on academics. I'm a sister. I'm an officer in a club. I'm a friend.

And I'm still grateful for people who have made me be intentional about what I bind myself to. A lot of it went on as I grew up and Mom gave me more influence in what I studied. I remember a lot of that going on freshman year: the ones who made me think about communion, the ones who made me think about friendship, the ones who made me think about academics.

For all the ones who said, "What do you really want? Is this what you really want?" and then looked at me as I said, "Yes."

One of the songs made for the Fellowship of the Ring movie has the catching line,

May it be

When darkness falls

Your heart

Will be true.

May it be indeed.

What other than a vow to walk in the darkness would ever press us onward when we do finally see nightfall?

Crazy Plans

2010-12-27T20:26:00.000-08:00

"There remain two more to be found," said Elrond. "These I will consider. Of my household I may find some that it seems good to me to send."

"But that will leave no place for us!" cried Pippin in dismay. "We don't want to be left behind. We want to go with Frodo."

"That is because you do not understand and cannot imagine what lies ahead," said Elrond.

"Neither does Frodo," said Gandalf, unexpectedly supporting Pippin. "Nor do any of us see clearly. It is true that if these hobbits understood the danger, they would not dare to go. But they would still wish to go, or wish that they dared, and be shamed and unhappy. I think, Elrond, that in this matter it would be well to trust rather to their friendship than to great wisdom."

I was reading this part, with the choosing of the Fellowship, to my youngest brother tonight, and thinking about how amazingly true Gandalf's words -- and Elrond's as well -- are. If I knew what lay ahead of me in life, I would be paralyzed with terror, because that is way more than I can handle.

But I love, love, Gandalf's rebuttal. While it is true that we would not dare to act if we knew the danger, it is well to trust to friendship.

The verses of 1 Corinthians 1:27-28 really sum up the core of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series:

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are.

The cross is that way. We're that way too. I've been learning that all year, as I watch God work in my crazy, busy, insane life at school and bring what He wants from it -- friendships, academics, growth; as I worked at camp and ran on levels of exhaustion where I wanted to stop in the middle of walking down a hill and cry, when I didn't have words to say to a camper and God still spoke. He uses the weak things.

Which is scary, because that means that He uses people like me.

And things like the incarnation.

And He tells us to trust in His crazy plan, and trust that He knows best, and trust that He calls us friends.

Letter to a Friend

2010-12-21T08:13:00.000-08:00

No, your words don't surprise me.

I knew as soon as I began reading that you were writing out your soul, that you were reflecting how you see yourself. And I was impressed, not only with the story you were weaving, but with the perception that it took to see yourself accurately enough to portray yourself as a killer, and with the honesty you showed in sharing the story.

It doesn't surprise me because I know what is in a man. I read the words and I recite them back to myself, in my living room, perched on a rock in the middle of campus, confessing that I cannot live up to God's law,

that

I have a natural tendency

to hate God and my neighbor

that the

fall has so poisoned our nature

that we are born sinners ---

corrupt from conception on.

that

we [are] so corrupt

that we are totally unable to do any good

and inclined toward all evil.

It helps to grow up catechized with those words. Then at least I couldn't say No one warned me, not the night when I heard confessions of what porn really does to you, not the night when I saw what too much alcohol really looks like, not the night I heard stories of abuse, not the night when I found that I am not strong enough to break through all the damage of trauma. Those things still come as a shock, as something horribly wrong, but at least I already knew it.

It helps that I know that I'm dark inside too.

So let's talk about these things, talk about how we don't come into the light because we're scared of being exposed and we're scared of being healed and we're scared of hurting someone else with all the pain locked inside ourselves, so instead it drips down like poison and we die.

Don't start thinking that it's fine for things to be the way they are, just because I expected it. It's not okay. Things suck sometimes.

But I want you to fight. I want you to find joy in being alive. Your words are grey with pain, saying that you're struggling just to feel alive at all. There's more out there than existentialism, and I am praying that it will take over in you and you'll be able to breathe and laugh.

I'm praying for things to surprise you. For joy to break in.

We are so beautiful when we sleep

Hearts of gold and eyes so deep, deep, deep

But love won't cure the chaos
And hope won't hide the loss
And peace is not the heroine that shouts above the cause
And love is wild for reasons
And hope though short in sight
Might be the only thing that wakes you by surprise
Surprise, surprise

Here's the best surprise: God became a man! And moved in with us. And the tomb is empty, and death is conquered.

I know that leaves a lot of mess in your life right now, and in mine too. But this is bigger. This is the beginning of the healing of all the broken.

The sunrise shall visit us from on high

to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,

to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Peace comes costly, with tears and stories and hugs and anger and fighting and death and blood. But it comes. Don't give up.

Why I Need Advent

2010-12-20T09:43:00.000-08:00

Yesterday one of my wonderful roommates sent me a link to the blog Six Year Med, and I've been reading the back articles. I like finding out what makes people tick, and Danielle is an excellent writer.

Tonight I found this post, Evidence of Things Unseen.

It was a good reminder. Sometimes we run from responsibility that we should have shouldered. But sometimes we carry it too long, carry what never should have been ours originally.

Jars of Clay:

All of those nights
Spend alone in the darkness of your mind
Give it up
Let it go
These are things you were never meant to shoulder...

Conversation with a sobbing friend:

"This was never your choice to make. You have been faithful much..."

"I should be the one paying the prices."

Because we're prideful and we want to carry the world on our shoulders and be the savior.

I know, because that's me.

The good thing is, I'm not the world's savior.

He is.

It's good to be reminded from time to time that it's not my responsibility to save the world. Rather, to be faithful.

Tim Keller's book Counterfeit Gods does an excellent job of issuing this reminder again. He writes,

There is legitimate guilt that is removed through repentance and restitution, and then there is irremediable guilt. When people say, "I know God forgives me, but I can't forgive myself," they mean that they have failed an idol, whose approval is more important to them then God's.

It sounds silly, and I'd love to be able to say, "No, my identity is fully rooted in Christ, and I only rely on what God says about me to know who I am." But I don't. Because I'm prideful, and it's a lot more in keeping with what I'd like to think about how the world depends on me.

But I need to know that it doesn't. Because it's weight that I cannot carry, weight that only a Savior who is God can, and only a Savior who is man can understand how it breaks you.

That's why I need Advent, because I need Christmas, because I need Him to be born and live and die and be my great High Priest.

The King Who Did Not Forget

2010-12-19T14:09:00.001-08:00

Before the creation of the world, they had made a covenant, binding themselves in a relationship without end. There would be the creation, the bringing-everything-to-be. And beyond that lay the darkness of the image-bearers who would blind themselves by looking too long at the light as they tried to overthrow it.

The agreement was that he would redeem the rebels, this covenant made even before they were created. He entered into this willingly, despite the dreadful cost, pledging his very life to save those who were born to be his subjects but were self-determined to be his enemies.

The morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Ready?"

The children, wrapped in their blankets, huddled by the fireplace, nodded.

The story began with Once upon a time, as many good stories do, this story of the fulfillment of the covenant. He was born into a land of the planet hostile to him, as had been agreed. He had to grow up humbly, with none of the honor that he deserved. He learned to work with his hands, this one who had created the universe, laying stone in the lovely small town near his home in the hills. He was a master craftsman, but there was nothing about his appearance to suggest that he was anything extraordinary. He was just one of a handful of children, and some still wondered about the legitimacy of his birth.

He may have looked ordinary, but he hadn't forgotten the reason why he had come.

He waited patiently, preparing, until the day of the battle. To the shock and dismay of his small army, he went unarmed into the enemy's camp, all too vulnerable. To be sure, his hands were strong, but the strong hands of one man couldn't defeat the world's best trained army.

They may have forgotten that he had already been living in enemy territory, but he had not.

And he died there, life bleeding out with a desperate cry of forsakenness. Those who had followed him hid. They didn't understand, hadn't heard, the terms on which he gave up his life.

Give me back my people. Give me back my bride.

Like the heroes of Greek and Roman legend, he went down himself into death to pursue and free the captives, to hound hell. Unlike those heroes, he did not fall prey to any of the alluring traps of death, and so it had no hold on him. He slipped out of its grasp, subduing it instead.

He led those he had redeemed out of the deep dark places, into the light. He reclaimed his bride, washing away her shame and covering her with his grace. He trained them to fight, an army to carry on with the final battles until he'd come back again.

"And now we are part of the King's family, too," added a sleepy voice. "Don't forget that part."

"Now we are the King's children too," said the storyteller with a smile. "We won't forget, because he didn't forget. So we live... happily... ever... after."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The happily ever after doesn't come immediately, not when you are part of the forces left in country still occupied by enemies. Sometimes they crowded together, lonely and cold in the vast open spaces, clinging to the memories and the words that were left, the promise that he would, in fact, come back some day. They were wanderers, tethered to the real by the stories passed down from generation to generation, stories more true and lovely than any fairy tale.

Firelight flickered on their grimy faces and bloody hands as they fell asleep, weary, to dreams of a world more real than their own and the King who would return.

The King who had not forgotten before, who would not forget them now.

He was coming.

Thankful...

2010-12-05T10:47:00.001-08:00

As I walked back from the dining hall today, I heard a voice singing quite loudly. It made me smile, this guy coming out of the freshman dorm singing, and so I began thinking of how many amazingly good things have happened in the last few days. So I thought that I'd make a list of some of these things that I'm thankful for...

Dinner with Katie E and her parents on Thursday night and studying for our bio test in her room... it was very fun and relaxing, as well as productive study time.
The immune system. I really enjoy studying it. I knew there was a reason I was taking more bio.
Dinner with C-1 on Friday night and listening to how ridiculous we were all being. Finals are definitely approaching...
Story writing and discussion with a roommate on Friday night...
Filmfest on Friday night... and getting dressed up... and seeing a lot of campus looking classy. And, of course, getting to see a bunch of amazing films put together by the people I get to go to school with. This included one of the RD's son returning in 20 years to save the college, one based on Rear Window by my roommate Jordan (Part I, Part II), some amazing longboarding footage, and some impressive stop action/animation (here's one done by my friend Josh, and here's another one...).
Repair day with Dag on Saturday... fun times with the Dag'ers, and a good mix of new and old members... really good pizza... many repaired weapons... chasing to get and avoid being in pictures...
Going to the Christmas concert last night; it's always wonderfully done, the church is beautiful, and I got a ride down and back, plus time with some friends who I've seen less this semester.
Sliding down the slippery sloped floor in the shoes with no traction as I waved at Katie E and both of us going from very happy waving to very confused expressions... then Bill fake-tripping me and semi-insulting my outfit...
Coming back to my room and watching 9 with Jordan. It was kind of creepy but very well animated, and parts were really cute.
Lots of blankets and a very warm bed to sleep in.
Caitlyn calling this morning about the snow on the roads. I'm glad for safe drivers.
Getting to hear Titus preach as a result of snow, and being at church with Caitlyn and Fiona. I love worshipping with friends. (That is going to be one sweet thing about heaven.)
Christ's encouragement to the church in Philadelphia. (Text for this morning's service.)
Warm boots and wool socks and a warm coat and gloves.
Snow falling in fluffy clumps.
The color orange, and my amazing orange shirt which my mom found for me.
The photos on the wall above my bed.
The opportunity to make a mosaic downtown on Wednesday night... it was fun and very relaxing. And I got to know some girls who I didn't know much before, and catching up with some who I knew vaguely.
The kid who walked out singing and made me think about this all.
A beautiful new mosaic glass necklace made by Yonpli.
Music by Michael Card, especially The Promise and Soul Anchor CDs.
Chocolate. (And randomly being given it!)
The many faithful witnesses to Christ who have gone before me.
Friendliness of people who I haven't seen in a long time.
Salt on sidewalks.
Heather Dale's music (and the fact that Greyhound is not stuck in my head still, as it was all yesterday.)
Light.
Smells. Last year every time I smelled our suitemates' room, I felt relaxed and safe, and it's similar this year in my apartment.
Poetry.
His coming.

How about you?

Adventures of Late

2010-11-29T19:50:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the first day of Advent. I love Advent, maybe more than I love Christmas. I love looking forward to Him. I love the double-edged nature of Advent now, looking back to when He came, looking forward to His coming again.

Tonight I turned on the Music of Silence and now I'm basking in it, the glory of voices echoing out solemn and beautiful.

There's still a lot to be done before the end of the semester. But some of that is laughing and sharing memories and drinking in the beautiful and my heart crying out, Come quickly...

But of the Son he says,

“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,
the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.
You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”
(Hebrews 1:8-9 ESV)

Recent Pieces of the Semester in Photos and a Few Words

2010-11-23T19:31:00.000-08:00

Midnight showing of Harry Potter with a bunch of my best friends...

Days spin by in a dizzying drift

Calender pages floating to the floor

Slipping from my over-full hands.

“SHUT UP! I’M TELLING A STORY! I’M NOT EVEN GOING TO TELL YOU THE STORY!”

So I follow Your footsteps

And the sound of Your voice

To the place where light meets the evening...

More Than Enough

2010-11-18T17:22:00.000-08:00

Two years ago seems like a long time.

But as I realize that the semester is thundering towards its end in a blizzard of papers due and presentations to give, more knowledge in my head and hopefully more wisdom in my life, I'm thinking about what it was like two years ago.

The college years, it seems, are full and fast and it's hard to remember last week, let alone my first year here. But I stretch out my fingers to that time, trying to recall who I was then and what I wish I had known, trying to see who I need to be, what needs to change in me in the time coming.

I pull up pictures on my screen from that first semester. Dag, sunshine, Frontier Club, people who I barely knew then and now count as friends. Fall leaves, a friend's soccer game on her birthday, eating meals in the dining hall, in peoples' homes. A small concert in the gym, first snow, a retreat one cold and icy weekend. Winter Wonderland, with my hall transformed from bare white walls by paper and markers and lost sleep. A bunch of different people trying on a hoodie, struggles zipping it up. Christmas dinner with my Greek class. I remember these things. And there are a lot of memories tied to each of these, the laughter and the backstories, how I first met these people and why we became friends, why we stayed.

I thought I was mature then. Now I look back and wonder at how little I knew... which makes me think that in a few years, I'll do the same thing all over again to myself now. It seems to be how life works.

My accountability group had laughed kindly at how excited I was about everything -- the coming classes, my homework... I was enthusiasm and they said it was refreshing and I wondered how on earth anyone ever lost that excitement. I think I know more of the answer now; you get older and you get busier and you learn to not be so fast to be excited about everything, that there is generally some cost involved and it will take its toll on you. I didn't know that then. I think I'm glad that I didn't.

I'm working on relearning enthusiasm and smiling at everything. I'd rather be open and get hurt sometimes than be wary of everything, locked in a self-designed prison of armor. I'd rather pray boldly and give God what is really on my heart than come to Him with a few safe requests that I won't be disappointed if He doesn't grant.

With the fears of a girl
and the heart of a woman
and everything that runs in between...
[Sandra McCracken]

One of the hard questions I was asked about a year ago by a friend was something like this: "Would you as you are now still have chosen to be friends with me?"

I wanted the answer to be yes. But I don't know what the truth is in that case. Because I have become better at seeing and recognizing pain and darkness. Two years ago I was a good bit more oblivious, and more sure that I could take on anything. Now there are things that I am more liable to recognize from a mile away and that gives me a difficult decision... stay or go?

I still want the answer to be yes.

I want the answer to be, Wherever He leads me, I will follow.

And I want my following to be fast eager running, not begrudging doling out of energy.

Because He is more than enough. He was more than enough two years ago. He's more than enough still.

Postmodernism and Job

2010-11-17T21:54:00.000-08:00

We were discussing postmodernism today in Humanities. I know that I have blogged about it before, but here were some thoughts and questions from today's discussion.

Should "postmodernism" be understood as what those who first began using the term -- Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard -- meant it as (which are not always the same thing) or as it is commonly used today, by people on the street? By students in the classroom? Does a word mean only one thing?

What does it indicate when the majority of the students in the classroom -- and we're a pretty traditional bunch of students, in the 18-22 year old range or so -- are extremely frustrated by cultural artifacts such as the postmodern poetry of Hannah Weiner? So... maybe it's clever. But we want to know what it means, and we're sure that it does have a meaning, that no one puts meaningless words on a page and no one publishes (totally) meaningless things. And we want to know what this meaning is.

I've been told that postmodernism is a reaction to the "power play" of modernism, that it was a backlash against modernism trying to take over subversively...

I don't think so. If I'm going to try to speak in such broad sweeping terms of philosophical movements at all, I think it's far more about trust and that being sustained or broken. I believe that a lot of the suspicions in postmodernism grow out of the complex soil of our own fallen human nature, which prefers to trust ourselves rather than any authority, rightful or not, and out of some deeply broken trusts in recent times. (I've talked about that a lot before. I think it has to do with things like abortion... soaring divorce rates... corrupt governments... wars that kill more civilians than combatants...)

Finally, one of my biggest gripes with people who decide they like "postmodernism" -- however you're going to define it -- and that they're going to hunker down there and build a summer home. No. No. Don't do it. RUN AWAY. Run to Christ. Postmodernism is based on a lot of lack of trust, a lot of questions about everything. "Why?" is a good and legitimate question in some settings. You can ask "Why?" about pretty much everything -- and postmoderns do, I do, but it is not always good to ask. There is a place to hold authorities accountable, but there is also a place to shut up and respectfully submit and trust.

There are so many questions that it is better not to ask, and I am learning that very slowly. There are some questions that humans are not meant to find the answers to, because finding those answers exacts a horrible, horrible price, and it changes everything. Sometimes costly questions must be asked, and answers must be sought despite high prices.

But what does it say when we only want to ask questions and never to be still and listen?

My friend Raora wrote about this in a haunting section of poetry.

There are questions that are curses
There are things we must not ask
When the Present moment merges
With the Shadows of the Past.

Eve never should have questioned the goodness of God in the Garden. Never.

Last spring I discussed this with a friend of mine, as he told me a story of a fight, of self-defense and then we looked at each other and our eyes mirrored our dreadful conclusion: There are some things it's better to never find out, better to never know.

And to run to Him for grace instead.

I am hanging on every word you say
And even if you don't want to speak tonight
That's alright, alright with me
'Cause I want nothing more than to sit
Outside Heaven's door and listen to you breathing
Is where I want to be [Lifehouse]

Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer You?
I lay my hand on my mouth.
I have spoken once, and I will not answer;
twice, but I will proceed no further.
~Job 40:4-5

Tonight's Report of God's Goodness

2010-11-13T19:19:00.000-08:00

It's good being a junior.

Tonight I'm sitting in a lounge of a building I used to live in, with two freshmen. We've been goofing off. I went to find one of them to watch a movie, but he was coming over here to do homework. I don't think either of them have made much progress on the homework, and I can't say that I've accomplished a ton either.

But in non-homework terms, there's been plenty accomplished (even though that hasn't included watching the movie that we wanted to watch...)

We've laughed. A lot. Talked about how we all hate 2010: A Space Odyssey. Distracted each other and swapped stories of epic events and epic fails and totally unepic every day stuff. Mostly we've laughed.

We've shared little snips of who we are -- middle names, siblings, churches. Argued over the difference (or lack thereof) between the words "normal" and "average".

And I find myself thinking, this is how the threads are woven together. These randomish times together are the ways in which we grow together and the way relationships grow strong and the things that will hold together when other things fall apart.

God is good.

Mealplans and Denial and Prayer

2010-10-31T11:09:00.000-07:00

Today my Sunday school class was talking about prayer.

We do this every week this semester, an hour on Sunday mornings after we've all worshipped together, all of us in a room to talk and listen and to pray.

And today I was thinking about two things as we discussed the Lord's Prayer and why we don't pray as we ought to, why we don't ask for our daily bread and why we don't beg Him for His Kingdom to come. About why I don't.

Mealplans.

Denial.

First, mealplans.

This summer almost every weekend I stayed somewhere different. Every place I went was good, but every place was strange and different. Different families. A different bed. A different road to get there. A different church. A different way back to the next week of work, the next week of camp.

I like routine.

I like knowing my schedule, and being able to move within it as I please, to disappear when I want and return when I want, to know the lay of the land and where to run into certain people.

I like control.

But this summer, I didn't know what the coming weekend held. A lot of times I didn't even know where I would be staying a few days from then.

It always worked out beautifully. Because... in Aaron Shust's words, "It seems You're aware of so much more than I give You credit for."

I was always uncomfortable with it.

But it meant that I did a lot of praying. (And a lot of worrying.) And then a lot of more praying about my worrying. And then more praying. And then praying thanks when I had a place to go and when it was good.

At college, on the other hand, I have a meal plan.

I have a schedule. A backpack full of schedules. A syllabus to mark out the coming months of my life.

I have an apartment where I live, every day, all year. A plastic card that I swipe to get in.

It's comfortable.

And I forget to pray.

Forget that the meals that I eat here every day are provided by God just as graciously as the meals that were fed to me by almost-strangers all summer.

Forget that having a bed with my comforter on it and my pictures hung around it, and not having to pack everything I own once or twice a week and move, is evidence of God's provision as much as the couches and floors and beds that He gave with all my worrying.

And it is fitting to give thanks for these steady blessings just as much as the surprise ones.

May my mealplan not be excuse for ingratitude.

Second, denial.

One thing we discussed was that we don't like praying for God to change other people when we can see that they're being sinful because... well... you know... sometimes we do that stuff too. So... if we just don't pray for Him to change them, then we don't have to pray for Him to change us either, right?

Other way denial comes in works like this in my mental dialogue.

I have problem x.
I should pray. And get other people to pray.
If I pray, it's serious.

Therefore... obviously... if I don't pray, it isn't serious?

My brain is messed up.

My whole self is messed up.

Hence why I need a Savior.

So what are the mealplans and denials in your life?

At the right hand of the Father
Enthroned in majesty
Sits the perfect Son of God and Son of Man
And the hands He lifts in prayer for me
Still bear the marks of Calvary
And through those hands the Father bids me come
So I will boldly go
Before the throne and there bow low
And plead for mercy, grace and peace
On the merits of my great High Priest
Yes, I will boldly go...
[Gene Helsel]

Grace

2010-10-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

These days, I'm thinking about grace.

I'm working on developing a character named Gras Chwerthin -- grace-to-laugh.

I'm praying for more grace in my life, because I'll often say words fast and sarcastic, or unthinkingly, and not make sure that they all point to him.

I love songs that speak of grace. Right now, especially Lifehouse's Breathing. Last year I had them hung on a wall in my room. This year they just echo in my head.

I'm finding my way back to sanity, again
Though I don't really know what
I am gonna do when I get there
Take a breath and hold on tight
Spin around one more time
And gracefully fall back in the arms of grace

I am hanging on every word you say
And even if you don't want to speak tonight
That's alright, alright with me
'Cause I want nothing more than to sit
Outside Heaven's door and listen to you breathing
Is where I want to be

I am looking past the shadows
Of my mind into the truth and
I'm trying to identify
The voices in my head
God, which one's you?
Let me feel one more time
What it feels like to feel
And break these calluses off me
One more time

'Cause I am hanging on every word you say
And even if you don't want to speak tonight
That's alright, alright with me
'Cause I want nothing more than to sit
Outside your door and listen to you breathing
Is where I want to be

I don't want a thing from you
Bet you're tired of me waiting
For the scraps to fall
Off your table to the ground
I just want to be here now

I wonder, when I realize that I do not know how to accept help offered some times, when I am confronted with the fact that it is necessary and good to accept love as well as give it...

How do I do that?

Is there a way to accept grace gracefully?

Or do we always grab onto it with desperate greedy fingers?

Sometimes it is more easy to live in the grace, to live in a piece of shalom, because it makes sense right then and fits and the world hums softly, strings in tune.

But then when something happens that opens a rift in how things should be, it is like being dragged underwater until I can't breathe, cannot see.

So what then is the proper response to the grace He provides?

How do I model the assured confidence that His grace that His grace has never let go of me, that He always pulls me out of the waters that wash over my head...

...and also the gasping gratitude that clings to the lifesaver, gulps in the oxygen, and falls at the feet of the Rescuer in extravagant worship?

I don't know. I don't have answers to these questions.

So I'll wait. And ask Him more questions.

And tangle my fingers in His grace and goodness.

Beneath Your fingers
The wood glows
Grains grown patterns and light catching in it
For You are the Master Craftsman
And in You
We live
And move
And have our being.

So what of the trees
That once grew green
And provided sanctuary
For those who hid in their leaves?
What when the storm came
And lightening struck
And all was left in shattered
Blackened
Charred
Ruin?

We still seek Your hands
With the thunder and wind
To come searching through
And take out Your tools
With Your drawn-out plans
To rebuild us again.

So what of the wood
When those You entrusted
With delicate tools
Grow careless and harsh?
What when they pound
And scar through the grains
And only
Gashes
Are left?

We come back to You
The One who first knew
And run to Your arms
And cry out for healing
That Your word would sink in
And close up the broken.
That the jagged ends
Would not be left splintering sharp.

So what of the dust
That has spilled from the gouges
Covering the surface
On which we live?
What when our hearts
Crumble in pieces
Can we say
Father
Forgive?

We stare in Your eyes
And find the reflection
Mixed with Your dreams
Of who You have made us
And it is more
And it is good.

Older Sisters

2010-10-19T23:13:00.000-07:00

It's almost three hours we've been talking for now, three hours that stretched long and hard, me silenced and unsure of what to say. The hours stretched over two days, over a table with benches and a bridge that we dangled feet and shoes off of, a pavilion and a bench and now a bench in a shelter, watching rain come down, or the possibility of it coming. I don't remember which it was, now.

It seems like it should be raining and grey. The stories are all broken and weary, and I look at her face when I dare and marvel at the wrongness of it. She's barely the age of my youngest brother, and this all hurts for so many reasons, but her face and her voice say that she doesn't let it hurt, not any more.

I guess that I wouldn't either.

I still wonder how we connected, why she decided that I'd be the one she'd talk to there. Because when I thought back on it, I realized that she had been my small shadow even in the days before I especially noticed her. And it is right, but I didn't know at the time where my attention should be, and I wonder how she did.

Somewhere in there, both of us giving and both of us taking and both of us reaching for a place where it is safe to say these things, I must have asked something.

Maybe it was something like, What do you need?

Her answer came clear.

"I wish that my older sister would just talk to me about it."

I'm not her older sister, I can't be that.

"She's been through the same stuff and I just want to know how to deal with it."

And my heart cracks all over again, sadness at so many things in this sad story.

And I agree with her.

When I was younger, I thought being the oldest kid was the best. No one to boss you around. No one's shadow to fall under, no one's reputation to live up to.

And then I came to college... and it wasn't long in at all, interacting with older students, that I thought...
Wow.

God has been gracious in giving me, a few years later than I would have liked it perhaps, a number of girls who I consider "older sisters".

And so I in turn seek to find out: What makes someone a good older sister? I have four younger siblings, two of them sisters.

I have begun to ask. Girls with older sisters: What did she do well? What do you wish she had done? Girls with younger sisters: What do you do? What do you wish that you had done?

The conversation sometimes fizzles away into awkward, uneasy looks, or a few short sentences. But sometimes it's all love and memories, wrapped up with heartache. Sometimes it's raw pain and warnings to do better.

Here is the answer I seem to have gotten most: Be there.

For me, it's been having someone saying,
"...you're not alone...
...I know where you're going, and it's not that far...
It's too far to walk, but you don't have to run...
You'll get there in time."
[Jars of Clay]

Why I Do What I Do.

2010-10-14T08:20:00.000-07:00

We slammed our bodies into seats, backpacks onto the floor, all in a rush of exchanging last minute greetings and reminders before our test in Augustine today. Hey! How're you doing? and Epistemic authority is someone who knows what they're talking about, moral authority is one that lives it out -- to be a good authority you have to be both. And I got teasing about not being at the Reformed Campus Ministry presentation last night -- yes, I hung signs for it, yes, I ran into some of the guys coming out from it, and yes, I was doing something else.

Keith turned to shut up both me and Matt as we semi-argued about it. "I know how to get her there, how to make sure that she comes."

"No, you don't," I said.

"Yes, I do," he insisted.

"Nuhuh."

He grinned. "I'll get Professor Miller to come speak..."

There was a second while my brain thought of our humanities professor -- who I loved -- but it's hardly failsafe. Then I realized who he meant.

"She loves him," he added.

"YES!" I said, rather loudly. "I WOULD COME!"

Poor Matt, he had no clue who we were talking about, and our exclamations of "WHAT? YOU DON'T KNOW WHO HE IS??? HE'S AWESOME!" hardly helped.

But I thoroughly recanted as Keith continued to list more and more ridiculous scenarios of things I'd miss to come hear him speak.

The truth is, though, I wouldn't necessarily miss all those things to hear him speak. I do love hearing him, and I have great respect for what he says. College has been an exercise in figuring out which things to make time to listen to, though, because there is not enough time to listen to everything that could be good and beneficial to listen to.

I'd go to see him.

I'd go because I love him, because he changed my life with his Missionary Preparedness Test of unquestioning, prompt, cheerful obedience for a year.

I'd go because of him.

It's a point that made its way into my head as we read through John in staff devos at camp this summer, one that I have blogged about before. Following.

Following is relational. Discipleship is relational. What I will drop schoolwork and other responsibilities for is, ultimately, relational. To this day, as a junior in college, I'm pretty sure that the latest I've ever stayed up doing homework is three in the morning. (Which, granted, is late.) But I do not even have a count on the times I've stayed up past that with someone else, or the times someone else has stayed up past that with me. For whatever reason -- because we needed to talk, because we were having fun, because we just didn't feel like being in our own beds, in our own rooms, alone.

It's something I've come to pinpoint as the driving factor what I will or will not do -- what are the relationships that drive this? (Useful if you want to understand me, I guess...) It's not always the only factor, but it tends to be primary.

And that makes it hard to answer why questions sometimes, the questions of friendship. Because, in the end, I can only answer by saying that it is about communion.

But it's legit. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. To bring us back into a right relationship with God. So we love God because He first loved us and love others because of the same reason.

Not-Real and Real

2010-10-03T20:41:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been listening to a lot of music by Sandra McCracken. At first listen, her music does not always have the most polished sound. Or something. I'm sort of an atrocious music critic, because what sells me is the same thing that sells me on a movie: the story.

And her songs have story.

I've especially been appreciating her song Lock and Key.

You can hold your world inside
You can scream out loud
Or you can fight these enemies
And kid fears tonight if you want to

You can drive your car out to L.A.
You can lose yourself just to make your way
You can change your mind
Or change your name if you want to

But you're under lock and key
All by yourself
And sometimes you just need somebody else

I cannot read your complex mind
I can't understand
All the reasons why
But if you let me in, I can try if you want me to

And I can say I'm sorry if you wanna hear it
It might be too little too late, my dear
I can't take back the pain of all those years, but I want to

But you're under lock and key
All by yourself
And sometimes you just need somebody else

If you want someone by your side
I could build a bridge
Across the river where we can
Wash these broken pieces downstream...
Do you trust me?

But you're under lock and key
All by yourself
And sometimes you just need somebody else

Sometimes you just need --- somebody else.

I feel like that's the song of my semester. Please note that it really has been a great semester so far. My classes are great, or at least easy; Dag is going well; I love all three of the girls I live with, and C1 is around. My college world is pretty great.

But I've also been smacked in the face (very lovingly, of course) over the past year or so with the fact that I have trust issues. Maybe we all do, but I don't have to deal with everyone's, do I? It can be pretty well boiled down to a few things, namely, hubris and fear of vulnerability. Oh, I love people, and I love getting to know people... but only to a point.

When that becomes me asking for help, I'll shut down a lot. Which usually works fine for my purposes, because I think a lot of people are content to not be asked for help.

Yet sometimes I do need someone else.

So my friend Elaine and I talked a lot recently about this sort of stuff. We both have a lot of miserable memories of things that we failed on, decisions that we second guess and break with sadness at the consequences and wish that we could have done differently, could have known more, could have...
something.

Some days it seems like both of us breathe in rhythm with the pain of the Newsboys' song Elle G: "Every old demon/ playing back a crime// If they'd needed blood/ I'd have gladly given mine." But there are costs that you cannot pay, however much you're willing to. You can't change the past, the decisions that you made, or that other people made.

It's a variant of what I term the "what-if game". And it is deadly and destructive, poisonous and addictive, so easy to see someone else doing and tell them to snap out of, so hard to snap myself out of. It seems so innocent. But it strikes at the very root of who He made us to be. It whispers, You did badly. You are bad. You can say, "I just want to consider what I could do differently if the situation comes up again." Yeah right. It is a self-bashing that is a denial of the sovereignty of God, and a time when I need to preach to myself, as John Piper calls it.

A time when I need to hear the words of John...

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. [I John 3:16-24]

Whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart...

That is easy to say, hard to believe.

It's hard to believe the truth, to reject the lies.

Suzanne Collins concretized it nicely in her book Mockingjay:

Peeta's sitting in a circle with the soldiers from 13, who are armed but talking openly with him. Jackson has devised a game called "Real or Not Real" to help Peeta. He mentions something he thinks happened, and they tell him if it's true or imagined, usually followed by a brief explanation.

"Most of the people from Twelve were killed in the fire."

"Real. Less than nine hundred of you made it to Thirteen alive."

"The fire was my fault."

"Not real. President Snow destroyed Twelve the way he did Thirteen, to send a message to the rebels."

Sometimes you just need somebody else.

Somebody to say Real or Not Real.

"I wasn't ready," I cried out to Elaine.

"You were," she said.

We're both right. In the specific situation that was under discussion, there was a lot that would have been beneficial for me to know. But there was no way for me to have known it, to have known that I needed to know that... no matter how many layers I take it back, there wasn't another way. And she is right, because for me to say that I was not ready is for me to challenge God's timing. Don't I believe that He is sovereign? That He knows best? That He put me where I was, with all my ignorance and naivete, for His own purposes? Maybe His purposes were not what I thought they were.

Ouch.

And she added, "You only remember when the stakes are high and you failed. You don’t ever remember the ones where the stakes were low, or when the stakes were high and you succeeded. You only remember when you failed and the stakes were too high to do that."

Because I am naturally contentious (which she may have been taking slight advantage of), I pretty immediately started coming up with situations where the stakes were high and things worked out without all the collapsing brokenness.

Know what? There were a lot of them. And some of them were huge. And my guess is that we tend to know way more of the situations where everything went wrong and we fell short than the ones where it was enough. The It's a Wonderful Life phenomenon.

And it's something to wrestle with, because I don't want to pass off my mistakes as fated. I want to give all that I am to being faithful, to living faithful.

But I am also called to heal and be healed, to make things right and to be made right. To trust Him and to trust the people He has put around me.

To be content to be human, finite and fragile.

So I work on learning to sing another song by Sandra McCracken, Now and Then

Stay with me now and then
From all sides hem me in
Sing me a song
So I can close my eyes

and in church today, we sing Zephaniah 3:17.

And I remember.

And rejoice.

And trust.

And it is good.

Yahweh your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness;
He will quiet you by his love;
He will exult over you with loud singing.

Seeing Him

2010-09-29T11:30:00.000-07:00

So, there's this video on youtube that I can't find right now. It was really cool. It was about how the world would look if we had special glasses that let us see what people were really thinking when they say things like, "I'm fine". The point being, of course, that we miss a lot of the needs around us because we don't look carefully enough to see.

Today I've been thinking about what life would be like with a different kind of glasses.

Ones that let us see God's grace.

What would it be like if we could really see how good He is all the time? If we really grasped the depth and extent of His unmerited favor that He saturates us in?

It makes getting to know people worth it. Because you generally have no idea of how they manifest God's glory until you know an awful lot about them, about where they have been, about what they have grown out of.

I was thinking about it today during chapel as I was trying to figure out why I enjoy being with one of my friends so much. And it finally dawned on me: Because every single thing she does shouts to me that God is faithful. Her entire life is a testimony of God bringing beauty out of cosmic brokenness.

How different is that for any of us?

But I don't normally focus on that. Not even in myself. I don't go around thinking, Wow, the fact that I just took a breath is a proclamation of where God has brought me from. (Which it is, especially after I failed at breathing for ten minutes.) I don't remember, This is amazing, and I have no inherent right to be able to worship my Creator freely.

So here's the challenge: Get to know people. Look for the glory. And rejoice in it. Find ways to tell them, I delight at seeing God in you.

The Dangerous Idea of Academic Faithfulness

2010-09-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

As background to this post, my college is very fond of a book called The Outrageous Idea of Academic Faithfulness. I haven't read it yet, and maybe I should, but I keep seeing the title since my one roommate has it laying around.

Today in Sunday School we were discussing prayer (also a staff focus at camp this summer) and how it works with being a college student and especially how it interfaces with being busy. And in the midst of this discussion, I began wondering if Christian schools shoot themselves in the foot at this point. You see, I understand that classwork is important. And academic integrity, yes, is important. And academic faithfulness also.

But maybe, maybe, for some of us, the idea of academic faithfulness is no longer outrageous and sometimes it dances too close to idolatry and that is not faithfulness, not when it crams our minds and hearts and souls so that we feel that we do not have time for devotions and do not have time to truly rest because

honestly

something else always needs to be done.

I don't know how this change comes about. I am sure that there are still people who need to be reminded that we are students and that is important and we have a responsibility to be faithful stewards of the gifts (mental, physical, financial) that God has graced us with.

But...

I wonder...

What about the outrageous idea of truly seeking first His kingdom... and His righteousness?

Because our calling isn't to be faithful to academics. And we are small and finite and forget that and would rather pretend that it is.

Instead, my heart needs to remain in the focus of the ring-engravement...

Faithless to None, Yet Faithful to One.

And all else will come in its proper place, and all shall be most well.

How to Not Hate (by way of Dallas Willard)

2010-08-23T14:17:00.000-07:00

I'm reading The Divine Conspiracy again. (Yes, Griffin, you may laugh now.) I read it in high school and I don't think I was terribly fond of it at that point, but I must have been impressed more than I realized, as I've been thinking about it a lot over the past year.

Anyway.

Here's a section that I read today and I really, really liked it.

When I go to New York City, I do not have to think about

not going to London or Atlanta. People do not meet me at the airport or station and exclaim over what a great thing I did in not going somewhere else. I took the steps to go to New York City, and that took care of everything.

Likewise, when I treasure those around me and see them as God's creatures designed for his eternal purposes, I do not make an additional point of not hating them or calling them twerps or fools. Not doing those things is simply part of the package. "He that loves has fulfilled the law," Paul said (Rom. 13:8). Really.

On the other hand, not going to London or Atlanta is a poor plan for going to New York. And not being wrongly angry and so on is a poor plan for treating people with love. It will not work. And, of course, Jesus never intended it to be such a plan. For all their necessity, goodness, and beauty, laws that deal only with actions, such as the Ten Commandments, simply cannot reach the human heart, the source of actions. "If a law had been given capable of bringing people to life," Paul said, "then righteousness would have come from that law" (Gal. 3:21). But law, for all its magnificence, cannot do that. Grateful relationship sustained with the masterful Christ certainly can.

We learn this in our discipleship to Christ.

Seek first the kingdom, and His righteousness...

Postmodernism (now there is an aspiring title!)

2010-08-21T11:49:00.001-07:00

I started college with a major in philosophy and dropped it to being a minor pretty quickly, because I learned that philosophy in college wasn't the same thing at all that my friends and I called philosophy.

Which was a bit surprising, but okay. I still get to do what I love to do, even when I find the process a frustrating. (I was going to say "a bit frustrating", but I already said "a bit" in the sentence before, and it wouldn't be true, as my roommate can attest. I get very frustrated with philosophy classes at times.)

Anyway.

My particular area of interest in philosophy is postmodernism. I could talk about it all day, but I'm prone to writing long posts anyway.

But just to give fair warning on what I think postmodernism is -- and yes, I do think that I have qualifications to offer an opinion, because I am someone who has grown up in a postmodern culture and been taught to think a lot -- here's what I wrote this spring in my "personal engagement" paper for my class on Postmodern Philosophers. It's a good three or four pages, sorry about that.

Abortion, the Berlin Wall, and Postmodernism

There is a small red notebook that ends up in various places in my room. The first page of it is the beginning of a list, a list words to describe what postmodernism is about. The list says simply, “Postmodernism is about: honesty, brokenness, openness, survival, trust, connectedness, truth, beauty, fun, freedom, words, power, games, tradition, exploration, invention, creativity, utility...” There is space for the list to continue as I continue to learn about what postmodernism means and how to best describe it.

Defining postmodernism is a tricky business, for a number of reasons. There are always a lot of differences between the written philosophy and how it is lived, and all the more so when it is a current philosophy, still splintered into a thousand fragments, and without the benefit of time and space to figure out what the core of it is.

“Postmodernism” as commonly used means many things, and it depends from what viewpoint one is looking at it. There are the more scholarly philosophical viewpoints: postmodernism is incredulity towards metanarrative, as Lyotard defined it. There is the popular current Christian viewpoint: postmodernism means that everything is relative, avoid at all costs. Or there is the way that I have been learning to see postmodernism, a complicated patchwork of many things, tied together with searching. Postmodernism is a search for wholeness, for genuineness, for answers. At the same time, it is undercut by its reluctance to accept answers and its deep suspicion of commitment. We may ask what the cause of postmodernism is, and why it caught on to become a widespread philosophy, overtaking multiple generations. How was there such a radical shift from the assurance of the enlightenment that man was the ultimate answer, that we could do anything we chose, to the relentless questioning of young people shaped by the postmodern culture which they grew up in? To understand the importance of postmodernism in my life, there has to be an understanding of the forces strong enough to lead it into being a popularly accepted attitude.

One suggestion for a date to mark the beginning of the postmodern age in the Western world is 1973, when abortion was legalized in the USA. In his book Postmodern Times, Gene Edward Veith explores another date, with the claims of Thomas Oden that the modern age ended with the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989.

Either one of these embodies pieces of what postmodernism is, although in very different and, in fact, opposite ways. 1973 probably serves better as the single reason why postmodernism became such a trend, as it prepared the mentality of the Western culture for the worldview to be expressed six years later in Lyotard’s book The Postmodern Condition.
To the generation growing up after 1973, legalized abortion has been nothing short of a genocide -- a genocide which those who are now college aged have survived, but are nevertheless drastically impacted by. Over 20% of the population conceived since 1973 has been aborted. From current available statistics, somewhere over 45 million -- closer to 50 million -- abortions have been performed in the United States since then. To grow up knowing that you live in a culture where this goes on openly, in a manner protected by the government of one of the world’s superpowers is profoundly disturbing. Regardless of what other messages are being received by generations of children who are becoming adults, there are those of diametrically opposed forces. These forces are not merely intellectual niceties, but, quite literally, life and death. To grow up in a culture which encourages children by saying, “You can do anything when you grow up,” a culture which thinks so much of children’s self esteem that it is a major issue what color of ink is used to grade papers is one thing, and perhaps not necessarily a bad one. Children ought to be valued, though not idolized, and Scripture itself maintains a careful tension of portraying the blessing and the challenge which children are. But how can this sort of attitude be reconciled with the sudden sickening knowledge that a kind of silent, government-sanctioned genocide of your peers has been going on all of your life? It can effectively be argued that a culture wide form of something similar to schizophrenia is the result of the abortion practices which have now spanned over a generation. This, in turn, creates fertile ground for the postmodern worldview to flourish and exposes the shortcomings of postmodernism as a comprehensive system of understanding reality.

It doesn’t take much thought in such a culture to realize that there is major hypocrisy going on in the world around you, and from that point of knowledge on, there is a dramatic loss of some blend of naivete and innocence. This whole-sale, violent sundering of what ought to be trustable leads to deep skepticism about what else may be trusted. If your own country will do this, if mothers will kill their own children, what is a sure foundation? And why is this barely mentioned? Why is this not listed along with other genocides throughout history, ones which, horrible as they were, killed millions less?

The seeds of postmodernism, of incredulity towards metanarratives, find a place to grow beyond what could have been imagined by the early postmodern philosophers in these and other coming-of-age questions.

If the legalization of abortion in America highlights the environment in which postmodernism caught on, what exemplifies the good in this philosophy? As mentioned earlier, Veith reports that Oden believes that modernism ended when the Berlin Wall began to be dismantled. In terms of positive events of postmodernism, the Berlin Wall is an attractive option. It grew out of what was essentially a metanarrative, that of the Soviet Union’s bid for world power, forcibly imposed on a country. It separated a country from itself, breaking what should have been whole, offering death and struggle instead of dynamic exchange of life, as belongs in a city. Yet, in good postmodern fashion, its “necessity” was rebelled against, as people sought ways to circumvent it, and it eventually was taken down. It is especially telling that it was communities, regular people with sledgehammers and chisels, who came to knock apart the actual physical wall. At the same time, it is sobering to realize that there were many countries who did not want the wall to fall, fearing what would happen if Germany was united again. With all of these factors, the struggle for freedom and the accompanying tensions of responsibilities, the physical concrete wall bringing to life political ideology, the images of regular people and communities coming together to peacefully protest and bring the downfall of Communism, the fall of the Berlin Wall is a powerful poster child for the good traits of postmodernism.

Into this context I came, born in the year abortions in the US peaked, the year that Germany officially reunified. For anyone born in those years, there is no question about if we will engage postmodernism, only how we will do it. James Smith addresses this issue in his book Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, attempting to take on the questions of how Christianity relates, and how it ought to relate, to various early influential postmodern philosophers. This was a fascinating topic for me, because I see a huge need for this sort of work. I became interested in philosophy largely through the work of Francis Schaeffer and similar wrestling with Christianity and culture that was modeled throughout my life. As I near the end of my sophomore year in college, I have been finding an increasingly strong call on my heart for missions in the Western world, in the near Appalachian, “Stillers’ Country” towns where I grew up. I am contexted as a person in many different cultures and many sorts of language games: that of a transracially, special-needs adoptive family, a college student, a lover of languages, a Reformed covenant child. Trying to mesh all of these pieces can be an interesting challenge at best and an utter mess at times! Thus, any thoughtful book on how Christians are to live faithfully in such a complex context grabs my interest from many angles.

When talking about Derrida and Lyotard, Smith focuses on the storied-ness of the world, and that is something that I have no problem with. Maybe it is my own inherent skepticism, but I do automatically believe that everyone has an angle. There are always stories to listen to in order to understand people, and stories between the lines of what they are saying to understand who they really are. The church is called to a delicate and difficult position of proclaiming that we do have truth -- and not just a truth, but Truth itself. This truth isn’t the hard verifiable scientific facts that modernism so adored, and which Christianity has at time sought to make it. Too often, with the best of intentions, Christians have focused only on I Peter 3:15 and being ready to make a defense and forgotten that this defense is to be so woven into the fabric of what we do and how we live with those around us that it cannot be refuted. The reason comes after and because of the relationship, that Jesus came into a specific geographical place and historical time and saved us. It is not the power of our logic which convinces people, but the reality that the story which we bear witness of reflects. Christians need to be unashamed of presenting the whole story of the Bible, with its struggles and ugliness, despair and pain, overwhelmed with the joy of the glory of the end greater than any other story out there.

In his chapter on Foucault, he suggests that the church recover classical disciplines to counteract the negatives influences from our culture. Too often we are shaped, he points out, by forces and powers that are not what we as Christians want to be defined by. We are not to be like the worldly culture that surrounds us, obsessed with fitting in through the fashion of clothes which we wear; rather, we are to be marked by being different, a people set apart to service and self-sacrifice. While I don’t agree with all of the specific applications of his ideas which Smith makes in this book, I think that there is much to be said for his principle. Postmodernism makes no move to deny this, either. According to postmodernism, you never escape all of the constraints on you. The most for which you can hope is to be aware of what is influencing you and perhaps have a choice in what you are influenced by. On this point, not only are Smith and postmodernism in agreement, but Jesus affirmed this truth long before postmodernism was sweeping the globe. In Matthew 6:24, Jesus expressly told his followers that they could not serve more than one master. The actions that we do, no matter how small and innocent they may seem, bind us irrevocably. Postmodernism blows the whistle on hypocrisy that professes otherwise. And while the church could complain that it is too often the target of such criticism from a postmodern culture, we need to first address the problem of hypocrisy which we do have and repent. We are supposed to be different from the world, and it is sad when secular culture has to point out to the church where it has gone wrong.
How exactly do all of these varied pieces impact my life? First of all, understanding various facets of what postmodernism means is essential to living wisely in and influencing a postmodern culture. What I am studying in college to do is not a professional field detached from my personal life, but is, in large part, studying how people think and learning to better understand what the Bible says so that I will be better equipped to communicate truth into the broken world that I live in. I am not outside of this world with its brokenness, either, and postmodernism does not pretend to be an ethereal escape from this. Instead, postmodernism provides a straight look at the problems surrounding us and asks bold questions about why things are this way and if they have to stay how they are. As a Christian, I have a responsibility, even in the midst of all my own shortcomings, to live answers to those questions and be prepared to verbalize what I live.

~~~~~~

That is not exactly how I'd write on the same things if I was writing a post, but I don't think that I have enough readers at this point to merit rewriting.

But here's my basic premise: Yes, there are a lot of people in postmodernism, who have grown up in it, etc, who are apathetic and use the cultural mindset as an excuse to not care. When haven't there been? Postmodernism at its best is an eager search for truth, for something better than the hypocrisy that runs rampant in the world.

...questions? comments? If you read this far, I'm mightily impressed, and definitely interested in hearing your thoughts.

Following II (and Leading)

2010-08-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite activities at camp is the Challenge Course, where we facilitate the groups of campers going through different challenges... point being, that they have to stretch themselves and work together. Afterwards we have a "debrief" where we discuss what went well, what could have gone better, what they should take on to the next challenge. Some of the challenges are on the ground, some are thirty feet in the air, and there is a progression in height (and physical trust!) thoughout the day. Hopefully. When things go well.

Sometimes things do not go well and they argue and they are silent and they don't seem to learn anything and counselors go back to main campus at the end of the time and lay on the porch and moan. And we sympathize a bit with each other... and try it again the next week.

One of my favorite elements is called The Wall. It's pretty simple. It's a wooden wall that is about ten or eleven feet high and the point is also simple, to get the entire team over it. There is a platform on the back side where a few people, once they've been gotten up, can stand and help others get up.

Debriefing for The Wall one morning led to a discussion on mentoring.

The challenge was so much easier to overcome when you were not doing it on your own. It was so much easier when there were people at the top to pull you up and over and it wasn't your own strength. (I'm a girl. I can attest to the truth of that fact!)

However, you couldn't just get to the top and abandon those who were after you. Everyone in the group had a responsibility to take their turn at the top of the wall, helping yank, tug, jerk the others behind them up over the edge of the wall. And some of them ended up with good bruises to show for it, sore muscles.

But they did it. All of them got over, and all of them were safe, and no one was left out, and no one was left behind.

So we talked about how life is like that, how there are huge challenges. And sometimes, sometimes, someone is extremely strong and athletic and can haul themselves over it. But everyone can really use people around them to help them get a firm place to stand on and people who have already gone through something similar to wait for them a bit and pull them up.

And how, once you've gotten over, or through, or past whatever the challenge is, the point is not always to run as far away from it as you can and go on your own merry way.

Sometimes it means waiting patiently for someone else who is coming the same way and giving them everything you've got so that they can keep going, too.

Another way we talked about mentoring a lot, a picture that was used in training both staff and campers, was that of Paul, Barnabas, and Timothy. That we need to, like Paul, have a Barnabas -- someone who is on our same level, going through the same things, who we can relate to and share with. We need a Timothy, someone younger than us (and that may be in age, it may be in maturity, whatever) who we are faithfully training up and showing them how they ought to live. And we need a Paul, someone who is challenging us, who we play Timothy to, someone who is teaching us the next step. (If you want to read more on this metaphor and how it should play out, here is an article.)

Mentoring ought to happen naturally in families. It has for me. I learn from my parents, I get to teach my siblings. As I've grown older, I have also gotten the opportunity to see it happening more places. It happened short term all over the place at camp; duh, I was a counselor. But for the most part, those were not long-lasting relationships. We lived together for a week and then said goodbye and that was that. The ones that I really consider mentoring are the ones which have been built over the course of years. Some of those have been in real life, and some of them have been online.

Real life is preferable.

Online can be beneficial. I'm not denying that deep relationships can be built that way. But it is so, so much easier to hide. If you don't want to talk to someone, you just don't log on. They can't see your face and hear the tone of your voice.

That being said, God can still use them for incredible things, especially with time and honesty. There are times when there are not a lot of people around to run to and someone can be found online and you can say, Hey, I need you to pray for me. Hey, can you talk for a while?

And I know that you have just read a decent-length post, but really, if you've stuck with it so far -- read this too. It's worth your time.

Imitate Me

That is what I want to be to those who I mentor, and that is what I want when I find good mentors -- to follow them around, literally, and learn what makes them tick, and how they react under pressure, and what makes them laugh, and what they get angry about. One of my college profs is like that. (We'll joke that we are getting a major in Biblical _______ and a minor in Dr. _______.) Imagine the opportunity when he gave a "Last Lecture" this spring, of the things he'd want to tell us if it was his last lecture...

I've had friends like that. They probably get tired of me following them and reading the back entries of their blogs and listening to them when they are half-coherent. But I want to know: How do they act when they are exhausted? How about when people tell off-color jokes? Or when they see people who they were friends with years ago? How about with their families?

This summer one of the counselors was very good at loving discipline of campers. And I wanted to record how she responded to tough campers, and copy her techniques.

So how about you? Thoughts? What questions do you ask when deciding to follow someone? How do you feel about mentoring?

Final thought: Is mentoring a duty for Christians? ...how about if we call it discipling?

Following

2010-08-16T08:48:00.000-07:00

It was the same thing that He had said at the very beginning.

Follow me.

And things had changed, He had changed the man's name early on, nicknaming him, calling him Rock instead of He Has Heard.

And Peter had followed Him for three years, everywhere He went, seeing Him do miracles and shine in glory and he confessed Him Christ, the anointed one.

Peter was always fast to talk, and it makes me wonder if his mother despaired at his name having to do with listening. Really.

He was fast to speak up till that last night, when he said, all offended? seriously? that he would never deny. Maybe everyone else would, and would run away, but he would not.

And then he did.

Three times.

And saw Jesus and knew his sin and wept.

How do you recover from that?

Even if Jesus said you were forgiven, would you believe?

How about in the years to come, when He would no longer be there to run to, for Peter to look into His eyes again and reassure himself that the forgiveness was real?

So I read John 21, curious to see how He would restore and recover and redeem and reconcile. Because He is wiser than I am and I struggle with these things, so I want to learn from Him.

He asks for Peter's love, three times, and Peter is grieved. Once for each denial.

And He warns Peter of the future to come, the hardness in it, that it will not be any easier than the past. That the past was only training for what will come.

And then He says --

and this is what I noticed for the first time --

Follow me.

The same thing He said at the beginning, when they were still fishermen catching fish.

That has not changed.

Peter's world has changed entirely, turned upside down and inside out, and he will fail again in the future and be rebuked by Paul, and he will ask again in the next two minutes about John, wanting to know what will happen to him, but Jesus and His call are not changed by any of this, and never have been.

You follow me.

We did, as a group, as staff at a Christian camp, reading through all this in John. Talking about what it means and what it means for us.

And His call doesn't change for me now, now that I am back at home or when I go back to school or when I am graduated or wherever I go. Or when I deny Him by what I do and what I don't do, what I say and what I don't say. When I am stupid and argue over things that should not be argued over, when I hurt others and when I break myself beyond what I can repair.

His claim on me stays the same.

And it is good.

Follow me.

Why I love camp

2010-05-31T09:13:00.000-07:00

Last night during church I was thinking about how much I loved camp. We were singing and I thought, In a few days I will be doing this every day! Singing several times every day... all summer! Honestly, I get to live in a community with intentional worship several times every day... you really just don't get much better.

I think it's like being in a monastic order for the summer.

And it sounds pretty good to me.

L'Abri and my life

2010-05-30T17:32:00.001-07:00

When I found books on our shelves by the Schaeffers, I was delighted and read them.

And then I was envious of those who had grown up in L'Abri. What a cool atmosphere.

It's taken a while to realize how incredibly L'Abri-ish of an environment I did grow up in. The people in our home were not the sort of people that I would have chosen, but wasn't that always part of the idea?

As a friend of mine put it, All who come, come for a reason.

Our home was a constant stream first of children, as we adopted four in about five years, then of mental health workers (as I said, not the company I would have picked. I'm snobby like that.) And very often, guest pastors, who would do pulpit exchanges or some such with our pastor.

It was an interesting combination. To say the least.

The more I think about it, too, the more interesting it is... an odd blend of rich theological and mental food for a child, and outrageous opportunities for ministry to people who have to be in your home, who have to see how people who openly and unashamedly claim Christianity as their identity really live.

We were talking about it tonight, memories of the pastors who we had in our house.

...

Remember him? That really boring one? Worst guest ever! I mean, not the worst, but SO BORING! At least, if they're going to be a bad guest, they may as well be interesting... (Turns out that I'm the only one who remembers this particular guy. He was boring. Deadly boring. Nice. But dull.)

...

Remember that guy? Oh, he was the worst guest ever. He was up on charges with the presbytery for something, but no one TOLD us that before he came for dinner...

...

And remember, he went in and started playing the piano, and you were SO MAD because we had just gotten one of the Littles down for a nap...

...

No, you can't remember that! You weren't even born yet!

...

Was it Danny O. who got the -- what was it? broccoli? mashed potatoes? -- flung right past his head, catapulted out of a spoon... and it hit the wall behind him? And he never even flinched?

...

Wrapped in with all those memories are other ones: the annoying feeling of knowing that something was going on and knowing that I was too young to understand what was going on, why the adults were upset... Danny O looking at our grapevine and talking to me about the passages in the Old Testament where God promised that each man would sit under his own vine... and I know that I had an unusual and blessed time of growing up.

...

We reminisce about the mental health people, too, trading competing trains of thought and lines of conversation that drive each other and especially anyone who didn't live here crazy.

...

...reminds me of that time Chadeboo couldn't find his pager... and he pushed the air conditioner out of the window...

...

Was her name Kelly?

...

And she locked her keys in her car, and we had to let Ib down by the ankles through her sunroof to get them...

...

Remember how we always teased her about having twins? And cow tongue?

...

Remember that Christmas? When I opened the door and was like, Merry Chri-- YOUR HAIR! And Dad came to the door and was like, SEAN! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR HAIR???

...

Remember when we were at the amusement park and someone lost their hat? Whose hat was it? Sean's or Ib's?

...

The stories, as unintelligible as they are to virtually anyone outside of our family, are an incredibly good thing. The fact that we find something to laugh at in our memories of some of those times amazes me and gives me hope that good things were happening, even in the middle of a lot of messed-up-ness.

They aren't the whole picture. The stories even of entertaining pastors don't touch the stress of having guests in the house (mostly for my mother, since we were all little); the stories of the mental health people don't scratch the memories that are truly bad and that I like to forget that I have.

But it's messy. And I am deeply grateful to God that I did grow up in an overwhelming messy, alive home. What I believed didn't automatically fix everything. But it DID touch everything. And there was no where to hide from the messiness or the beliefs, or to keep them in some way separated. (How can you, when staff people are at the dining room table where you're working on Latin, then history, then your Bible lessons? It doesn't work that way!)

Josh Harris recently (pretty recently) wrote a book called Dug Down Deep. Nope, I haven't read it. But that summarizes well what I feel like happened in my life. Being dug down deep wasn't an option. I got watered with streams that ran deep, an education that was awfully close to perfect for me, a steady stream of Godly, wise people influencing my life. And I was planted in a place that required roots. Deep, strong roots.

I've been glad to see it continue and change as I grow up, too. My first year at college, I lived in a room where the door was almost always open. Literally. This year, I don't even know how many people knew my roomcode. I can bring, and have brought, a huge variety of people home with me. My parents have let me do that, my sibs are good with it. (It's funny... some of them are very outspoken about which guests they've enjoyed... other times they surprise me a year later. "Remember? That was FUN, when we did it last year!") We've abandoned guests for a while to their own devices, having to go to a funeral, and almost gotten stranded in a snow storm on the way back to campus, and shuffled beds to make space for extra people, and taught games, and shared holidays, and stayed up most of the night talking about things that have not been much talked about before... and it is good. Certainly not always safe, but a risk worth taking, and good.

God is indeed good.

On Words and Writing

2010-05-24T21:02:00.001-07:00

My mind is laced tonight with words of CS Lewis; I've been reading enough of his letters that I feel as though I'd been talking to him. And I do not always agree with him, but I am always challenged, always moved to more wondering... moved more to run to God.

The gift itself (a hefty, beautiful book, closer to 400 pages than 300) came in the mail for me, a huge surprise, a concrete outpouring of love from friends who I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting in real life. So it makes me smile that the way I have come to know Lewis is the same as the way I've come to know them -- words, words, more words! We read each others' blogs for a while, a long time in our short lives. Found, finally, screennames and could have conversations in real time -- awkward at first and filled with gaps of silence, and then, soon, filled with laughter and words exchanged as quickly as our fingers could move. Nevermind the ocean in between, the years in our age difference... it did not matter. Since then, skype and hearing each other, pictures, prayer, tears, laughter, a few letters condensed from our busy lives, and friendship.

It does not bother me, has never bothered me, that some of my strongest friendships breathe in written words. Authors who I cannot know offer good counsel and stimulation. Friends too far to see often, if ever, are still close enough to mail, email, IM. And even, I have found, when I live only a few stairs away from someone, I will still send messages, write notes, rather than talk face to face at times.

If I write the words, I can see them, think about them.

If they write words, I can see them, think about them, touch them, slide them into my pocket, under my pillow.

It is not how everyone remembers, but it is how I learn. It is not the only thing that I look for in friendship, but it is a beautiful addition and a powerful draw, when I find that someone can paint in light and shadows, or brilliant colors, with their words.

(Imagine my delight that God has written many many words, and sent the Word...)

It has been amazingly useful to me, too, to realize how incredibly word-focused I am. It's how I think. Lists scratched on index cards, lines of poetry on scraps of paper, journals filled with wandering thoughts and more focused prayers than I can ever pray out loud.

So I shall indeed keep writing, as I was exhorted to do in a rather unique goodbye that ended simply with, "Keep writing."

(I love being a Biblical Languages major and getting to do WORDS!)

Make Me Over

2010-05-23T14:10:00.000-07:00

Tension.

Decisions.

Mistakes.

Tears.

Stubbornness.

Memories.

Forgiveness.

I live in the midst of it all, as a redeemed one, as a still-sinner. Snatches of song drift through my head, more CCM than hymns, although maybe someday they will be hymns too.

Sorrow is a lonely feeling
Unsettled is a painful place
[Between You and Me -- dc Talk]

and

I dunno what I was thinking when I just pressed SEND
[Your Love is Better Than Life -- Newsboys]

And I am eager to justify myself, to blame something else -- if only I wasn't such a quick typist (ha, as if it were my fingers' fault!), they'll understand, it wasn't that bad.

Some of those reasons have some merit.

I was rude, but not inexcusably so. And there certainly are different guidelines of courtesy in different relationships and different circumstances, and perhaps what I said this time do not fall entirely outside of those.

Cold is the night
But colder still is the heart made of stone turned from clay
And if you follow me, you'll see all the black, all the white fade to grey
[Fade to Grey, Jars of Clay]

What hurts most, I suppose, is the knowing that there is still part of me perfectly willing to lash out where I know there will be no retaliation, when someone stronger is willing to take it. Because that is ugly in me.

In the quiet
I lament
Every nail my sin did buy
And I wonder
Why You spent
Lavish blood on such as I...
[Praises, Newsboys]

And then I am faced with options. Do I bother to apologize, knowing that the response will be something like, "It's okay?" (Haven't I offered the same response?)

Or do my lamentations lead me to wonder at that He did spend lavish blood on me, and shall that wonder turn to praise which will overflow into all of my life...

And lead to more grace...

Certainly not is there a desire to sin more that grace may increase more. But Lewis' words in The Four Loves have been percolating through my mind, and drip gently on my heart.

For this tangled absurdity of a Need, even a Need-love, which never fully acknowledges its own neediness, Grace substitutes a full, childlike and delighted acceptance of our Need, a joy in total dependence. We become "jolly beggars." The good man is sorry for the sins which have increased his Need. He is not entirely sorry for the fresh Need they have produced. And he is not sorry at all for the innocent Need that is inherent in his creaturely condition.

In reality we all need at times, some of us at most times, that Charity from others which, being Love Himself in them, loves the unlovable. But this, though a sort of love we need, is not the sort we want. We want to be loved for our cleverness, beauty, generosity, fairness, usefulness. The first sign that anyone is offering us the highest love of all is a terrible shock. This is so well recognised that spiteful people will pretend to be loving us with Charity precisely because they know that it will wound us... But the thing would not be falsely said in order to wound unless, if it were true, it would be wounding.

And other song-bits dance in:

A taste
Of grace
Is all it takes
A morsel of the Maker
Face to face
The bitter heart breaks
And salt pours from the shaker
[Taste of Grace, Michael Kelly Blanchard]

If I was not so weak
If I was not so cold
If I was not so scared of being broken
Growing old
I would be...
I would be...
I would be...
...frail

Exposed beyond the shadows
You take the cup from me
Your dirt removes my blindness
Your pain becomes my peace
[Frail, Jars of Clay]

it is so that my transgressions have born a withered fruit,
the sun has scorched the rising plans;
alas they have no root, the bleached bones of animals bound by leather strips,
dance through the air with laughter as i wield this wicked whip,
as you did warn me carpenter, this world has weakened my heart,
so easily i disparage, self-seeking the work of my art,
and there you have come to me at the moment i bathe in my sorrow,
so in love with myself, sought after avoiding tomorrow,
where do you find the love to offer he who betrays you?
and offer to wash my feet as i offer to disobey you,
your beauty does bereave me, and how my words do fail,
so faithfully and dutifully i award you with betrayal,
the weak and the down trodden fall on broken legs,
as i walk past a smile i cast, fervor in my stead,
but my bones like plastic, do buckle backward now,
i lay in this field by Judas' bowels and anticipate the plow,
i can not be forgiven; my wages will be paid,
for those more lovely and admirable is least among the saved,
and where would i fit Jesus?
what place is left for me?
the price of atonement is more than i've found to offer up as my plea,
Jesus my heart is all i have to give to you, so weak and so unworthy,
this simply will not do, no alabaster jar, no diamond in the rough,
for your body that was broken, how can this be enough?
by me you were abandoned, by me you were betrayed,
yet in your arms and in your heart forever i have stayed

Your glory illuminates my life, and no darkness will descend,
for you have loved me forever, and your love will never end
[Matthias Replaces Judas, Showbread]

And a prayer, with words echoing Lifehouse's Make Me Over

Wrap my arms around your name
Feel your breath against my pain
As i breathe out
The past is gone
Empty smile
Naked heart
Who I was, falls apart
When you're here
Inside of me
Feel till your numb
Depth perception becoming
The new deaf and dumb

I'm losing myself just to find a place in your mind
In your mind
Changing myself, just to stand alone in your eyes
In your eyes
Pull me in, take me out, make me over

Read the wave, ride your fears
In this ocean of years
We've been here
Swiming on

Take me deep, till I find
Every corner of your mind
We've been here
Swiming on

Touch, till you taste
All the time
We are wasting alone
Waiting here

I'm losing myself just to find a place in your mind
In your mind
Changing myself, just to stand alone in your eyes
In your eyes
Pull me in, take me out,
make me over, and shout me out loud,
Shout me out loud

I'm losing myself just to find a place in your mind
In your mind
Changing myself, just to stand alone in your eyes
In your eyes
I'm losing myself just to find a place in your mind
In your mind
Pull me in, take me out, make me over

Surely He Loves Me!

2010-05-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

I was organizing the pictures on my computer yesterday, and ran across one that I had forgotten was even taken.

Surely he loves me.

The picture captures a girl who stands awkwardly, aware that her picture is being taken, and unable to quit grinning. I know what she is thinking.

He loves me! He loves me!

Her arms are shiny with water, her clothes (although too dark to show much in the picture) are waterlogged, entirely saturated from the downpouring rain.

I know what she wrote that night, how it spilled out in fragmented thoughts in ink onto paper, unable to capture the painful pleasure that had caught her and carried her that night.

The next picture in the album makes it even more evident. Blue eyes shout shining joy through star-clumped lashes and her smile leaves no doubt. A rainbow of glass beads and a fine silver chain stand out against her black shirt and everything takes up the reverberating cry of JOY.

I know how the lightning arced across the sky, how the thunder split eardrums and cracked with a mighty roar, how the campus lit up and the rain pounded down and the dirt washed across sidewalks. How people left their work to come outside and see, standing and talking and reveling at this unexpected, unasked for surprise. How they stood in the new spring grass in the dark night broken by sudden light from the storm that washed over them.

After a while she was wet, so wet that there was no point in trying to remain dry. She had gone to get a scone and some kind of coffee, and was totally drenched before she could run the short distance back to her dorm, and then rain didn't matter any more and she stood in it, eating the scone before it soaked into sogginess, and burning her tongue on the hot caffeine, and rejoicing.

And then she ran back through, feet dancing and skipping and splashing through deep puddles, laughing with a freedom close to tears, and aching with joy.

I know these things, of course, only because it was me.

Another morning I woke up with Jars of Clay's Love of a Jealous Kind stuck in my head and could not stop smiling, not through all the walk in the sunshine to church, not through the church service.

I built another temple to a stranger
I gave away my heart to the rushing wind
I set my course to run right into danger
Sought the company of fools instead of friends

You know I've been unfaithful
Lovers in lines
While you're turning over tables with the rage of a jealous kind
I chose the gallows to the aisle
Thought that love would never find
Hanging ropes will never keep you
And your love of a jealous kind
Love of a jealous kind

Trying to jump away from rock that keeps on spreading
For solace in the shift of the sinking sand
I'd rather feel the pain all too familiar
Than to be broken by a lover I don't understand
'Cause I don't understand

One hundred other lovers, more, one hundred other altars
If I should slow my pace and finally subject me to grace
And love that shames the wise, betrays the heart's deceit and lies
And breaks the back of foolish pride

I don't rejoice in my unfaithfulness but I do joy in knowing that His love is of a jealous kind, that He'll live and fight and die for me.

Look!

For your Maker is your husband,
the Lord of hosts is his name;
and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,
the God of the whole earth he is called.
[Isaiah 54:5]

He is my Husband-Brother, and I know nothing more beautiful. And I wrote to Him that afternoon, praying, Hold my heart. Keep it safe, wrapped securely with the unbreakable wires and cords of your love.

And He laughed. That's what brothers do. That's what I do. I died for you, after all. Learn to be beautiful and strong and wise.

So I asked Him what I was afraid of, a little afraid, although the fear seemed like a thin shadow on that afternoon when I wrote, in a quiet sunshine lit room. What if there is never a man who I can trust after you? Someone who can hold my heart safely?

Shh, silly girl. I'm training him too. It takes time. Pray for him. He's going through darkness and fire to be my servant and brother, and one worthy of you.

And I relaxed in His hands, soaking up the peace and the promise that He's near, always and forever.

It is a good thing to be daughter of the King.

It is a good thing to be the little sister of Jesus.

...I can feel His pleasure... [Chariots of Fire]

Sounding Silly

2010-05-13T17:40:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, the accusation you have sinned is often said with a grin, and with a tone that signals an inside joke. [Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Not the Way It's Supposed to Be.

He's not the only one to think that a major tactic of Satan is making serious things look silly.

The fact that 'devils' are predominantly comic figures in the modern imagination will help you. If any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arise in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that (it is an old textbook method of confusing them) he therefore cannot believe in you. [CS Lewis, Screwtape Letters]

The door opened into the lit hallway and she looked at me, eyes with so much depth that I always think first of them as golden and only remember afterwards that they're brown. What do you want?

And I almost didn't answer that, because my answer sounded... silly. Although I knew it was not, and I knew that she knew that it was not... but it sounded... canned. To seek God's face.

Or another time, looping around campus, an honest question fell into the silence, soundwaves disturbing the cool night air. So what is your problem?

Pride.

That shouldn't sound silly, shouldn't feel silly to say.

And it is in small part the same pride that tells me such a thing is too silly to say, argues silently that there is no cause to even say it. Pride is everyone's problem, it whispers, not just mine.

But that's not my concern.

Here's what is.

Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God. [The Micah Mandate -- Micah 6:8]

So I can sing-pray, with something far better than silliness, with a high and holy joyous confidence:

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?

When evildoers assail me
to eat up my flesh,
my adversaries and foes,
it is they who stumble and fall.

Though an army encamp against me,
my heart shall not fear;
though war arise against me,
yet I will be confident.

One thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire in his temple.

For he will hide me in his shelter
in the day of trouble;
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;
he will lift me high upon a rock.

And now my head shall be lifted up
above my enemies all around me,
and I will offer in his tent
sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melody to the Lord.

Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud;
be gracious to me and answer me!
You have said, “Seek my face.”
My heart says to you,
“Your face, Lord, do I seek.”
Hide not your face from me.
Turn not your servant away in anger,
O you who have been my help.
Cast me not off; forsake me not,
O God of my salvation!
For my father and my mother have forsaken me,
but the Lord will take me in.

Teach me your way, O Lord,
and lead me on a level path
because of my enemies.
Give me not up to the will of my adversaries;
for false witnesses have risen against me,
and they breathe out violence.

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living!
Wait for the Lord;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the Lord!
[Psalm 27]

Cover Me

2010-05-12T18:19:00.000-07:00

Fingers let go of a tray long enough to brush a shoulder.

Pray for me?

She turns startled from her dinner conversation, the laughing joking noise, at this touch that is groping for a lifeline to hang onto.

What did you say?

Pray for me.

There is no time to explain; paths cross for only an instant here, then diverge. But it is okay that way, okay when you have fought many battles before together.

What's up?

You'll see.

The two are swept apart in the wave of action, anchored by the thin invisible unbreakable cord of prayer in an ocean of memories and uncertain future.

The request for prayer is a quiet admission of humility. Of trust.

I'm going in/So cover me...
I've always been strong/Can't make this happen
[Breathe You In, TFK]

And the prayers offered up in a loud, crazy dining hall reached the King of the Universe and He cupped His hand around His broken children and healed.

And it was good.

Zechariah 7:13

2010-04-11T22:07:00.000-07:00

So, rather late/early here, I was working on my translation at the end of Zechariah 7 for Hebrew class tomorrow.

And I ran across a verse that almost made me cry, made my heart break with the pain of what it means.

And it happened as He declared, and they did not listen -- so they will call, and I will not hear, says Yahweh of the heavenly armies. [Zechariah 7:13]

I can think of nothing more chilling. I can hardly even bear the thought of calling out when I need help and humans not hearing me. I cannot begin to comprehend calling out and God not hearing me.

And He took this for me, too...

So that I can come boldly to the very throne of God, and be heard.

Pride and Prayer

2010-04-09T10:10:00.000-07:00

I don't like asking people for things.

I don't generally mind when people ask me for things, but I really dislike having to ask someone to do something for me. This ranges from asking someone to swipe me in for a meal to admitting that I am sick (they might decide to check on me! gasp!) to... anything.

It's a pride issue.

It's an issue of my pride, to be honest. And I'm not proud of it (no pun intended; I didn't catch this till I published and read through), and I often don't fight it well.

But yesterday I did ask someone to do something (which is as elaborate as I'm getting, because the actual request isn't the point. The relationship and response are). There were any number of factors in this decision, not least of all the fact that I was kind of in hot water already for not having asked when I should have before.

I was writing about it this afternoon. (Anyone noticed that I process by... writing?)

Another of the things which I noted as something which influenced my actually asking was the fact that I have been asked, numerous times, in so many words, "What do you need?"

And I didn't quite dare to ask outright, or to say I need, rather, I said if you have a chance.

The answer which I received was simple and quick, so much so that I was afraid that they had not fully understood what I was asking. I can.

I asked again, being more careful, taking more time to explain what I meant, and then adding that I trusted them enough to abide by the decision.

And the answer came again, exactly the same. I can. Adding, "You only had to ask."

How often is that the case and I refuse to ask?

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! [Matthew 7:7-11]

You only had to ask.

Zechariah 2:4-5

2010-02-01T21:05:00.000-08:00

I like the prophets. They're some of my favorite -- okay, probably my favorite -- section of the Bible. Which may be a bit odd. Oh well. Anyway, I've long been fond of Zechariah. Sure, he has some imagery which is hard to make heads or tales of -- but he also has some insanely beautiful language. Zechariah 14 captured my imagination especially.

But that's not my point tonight.

We're translating Zechariah in both Hebrew and Greek class this semester (easier to do in Greek, more beautiful by far in Hebrew). So here are the wonderful verses of the day.

"Run, say to that young man, ‘Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of people and livestock in it. And I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory in her midst.’” (Zech 2:4-5, ESV)

Here's my class's translation:

"Run, say to the young man, 'Jerusalem will be settled as the open country for sheer number of men and cattle in the midst of her. And I will be for her -- the declaration of Yahweh -- a city-wall of fire around, and I will be the glory in her midst."

This is just beautiful! (Especially having an idea what Jerusalem looks like, great sprawl-y city that it is now!)

There will be so many men and cattle that the city can't be walled. Historically, this leaves the city as a not-city. But they have something far better than a physical stone wall, which can be attacked and laid siege to and broken. Rather, God Himself is a wall around and a glory in the midst of the city...

Too lovely.

I can't wait!

Hebrews 5:7

2009-08-20T17:40:00.000-07:00

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.

I read this verse today and it kind of jumped out at me. Jesus prayed to the one "who was able to save him from death". And "he was heard".

Yeah.

Which is why He died on the cross then, right?

I mean, that is not exactly what I would have in mind if I prayed to be saved from death.

The next few verses make things a bit clearer, if not easier.

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Jesus was not delivered from death in the immediate sense. But He was more than delivered from death. He conquered death!

Anyway, that's about it. Just a reminder that God's answers to prayers may not always (is ever) look like what we had in mind. But that does not at all mean that He does not hear.

Standards

2009-08-09T14:38:00.000-07:00

My mind kind of wandered today during the last hymn (which is one of my favourite hymns):
How sweet and awesome is the place
With Christ within the doors...

I'm not exactly sure what I usually picture when singing this hymn, but today (especially after communion), I was suddenly thinking of a bride coming to her husband. Sweet, yes, and also awesome -- tinged with a righteous dread. The picture was lovely. And as I thought about it, I realized that it's going to be hard for a man to live up to that picture which I have of Christ and His church.

Oh, I know that I'm a sinner. I don't deserve to be married to a perfect man (even if I could find one!)

But at the same time, I'm HIS. I belong to the God of the universe. My Father is the King of all creation... I'm not going to run off with some bozo. My Brother, my Betrothed, is the Conqueror of Death itself.

I began thinking of other standards which I have for men. So I'll go on, chancing the sort of response which Marion is given in The Music Man.
(I know all about your standards
And if you don't mind my sayin' so
There's not a man alive
Who could hope to measure up to that blend'a
Paul Bunyan, Saint Pat and Noah Webster
You've got concocted for yourself outta your Irish imagination,
Your Iowa stubbornness, and your liberry fulla' books!)

Other images of what my husband should be...
Mr. Darcy.
Calvin.
Merlin.
Luther.
Aragorn.
Arthur.

Mr. Darcy for steadfastness. Calvin for commitment to God's word. Merlin for enchantment. Luther for reformation. Aragorn for being the Ranger-King. Arthur for High-Kingness.

Aragorn, I think, most typifies all of the characteristics, because I think that he is the most Christlike.

So then I started thinking... I'm giving some guy quite the list of men to live up to. What do I need to be asking of myself?

Am I preparing myself to be Elizabeth Bennet? Do I have the spunk and lively wit? Am I cultivating that?
How about Idelette? Most of my knowledge of her comes from Edna Gerstner's book Idelette. Am I being that Godly?
If I want Merlin, am I ready to be Nimue, to have mysteries of my own? Our culture, I think, has gotten away from that -- with feminism and the devaluing of women. Victoria's Secret leaves no kind of secrets at all, and that's a shame.
Oh, and then Katerina Von Bora! How about THAT kind of spunk and commitment to God's Word? Am I there?
Can I be Arwen to Aragorn? That wise, that patient, and that willing to give up myself for him?
And Guinevere is along the lines of what NOT to do. Since I don't want to be the unfaithful queen, what am I doing to prepare my own heart to be steadfast? Am I learning faithfulness and integrity which would keep me far from such sin?

Am I learning the things which will make me an excellent wife? Am I learning to be the Bride of Christ? Yes, I have high standards for the man who I will marry.

But I also have high standards for myself. Because God does.

What are your standards?

I Timothy

2009-06-22T18:36:00.000-07:00

So, I read through I Timothy. Slowly. Verrrrrrrrry slowly. And I noticed a few things...

One thing that I noticed was how often Paul talks in there about consciences.

The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (1:5)

This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. (1:18-19)

[Deacons] must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. (3:9)

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared (4:1-2)

There are also a number of beautiful doxologies.

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. 16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness:

He was manifested in the flesh,
vindicated by the Spirit,
seen by angels,
proclaimed among the nations,
believed on in the world,
taken up in glory.

...until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

There are a few other themes, which perhaps I will post about (and perhaps not)..

What have you been reading? What have you been noticing?

God is in Control (especially of the American Government)

2009-05-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

Today's passages look rather, well, random. In family devos, we were finishing up Psalm 63. (I am very fond of this psalm partly because I really like the tune Te Deum and think it fits well.) For myself, I read Job 41 in English. (While I was in DC I started Job... at the point that Elihu starts making his speeches, which is chapter 32.) Then, not feeling like tackling Job in Hebrew (yikes!) I went for part of Psalm 63. Then for Greek, I read John's part about the triumphal entry (John 12:12-19). And then for my singing psalm (which sometimes happens and sometimes doesn't...) I was on 63, of course.

Like I said, it all seemed rather scrambly. While I was reading Greek, I thought about how good it is for me to read stuff in Greek, because it ensures that I am actually thinking about the words somewhat. (See how well that works? I was thinking about something else while doing it...) And then I was sort of left glaring at myself, and thinking about what I had already read, in English and in Hebrew, because that's important to remember too. With English, I can read it and not give it another thought. With Hebrew, I can be soooo concentrated on trying to find words that I know and track it somewhat that I can entirely miss the big picture. Greek, with my English Bible nearby to doublecheck things, is my happy medium at the moment. But all that can turn into an excuse for inattention and laziness.

So I thought about what I was reading -- Jesus going into Jerusalem. And that seemed to tie into a discussion that we had at breakfast after reading Psalm 63, about America and our government. The government is picking up all kinds of control that it is not supposed to have, and that can be scary. I'd love to see the church flourish, and be refined, and... I'm not all that eager to be persecuted, myself. I want God's glory, but I like my life the way it is.

When the New Testament was written, the Romans were the masters of the world. They weren't the nicest masters you could imagine, either. The Jews were so excited when Jesus came riding into Jerusalem, that day. I would have been, too. "Hey! It's our king! It's the messiah, the one God promised! He's going to set us free and life will be good and..."

It didn't happen.

At least, it sure didn't happen the way they planned it. Instead, this "messiah", this "savior", went and got himself killed. I can tell you what -- I have never had political dreams that got that badly smashed. I've worked campaigns and enjoyed it, but I don't have a dream candidate. My view on government is pretty sadly (but accurately) described by the despair.com picture...

In the midst of my being-on-the-road-to-hyperventilation about our government comes the reminder that God is in control. Yes, I know that. I know that. I know it!

Since I know it so well, God saw fit to remind me in Job. I read about Leviathan -- which no one even knows what it is. But it's obviously big and strong and undefeatable. Kinda like... well... the government.

But although Job can't control Leviathan, God obviously can.

Okay.

God's in control.

I know.

Psalm 63 told me so, too. You can listen to the tune here, although it sounds much better with people singing it (especially at Titus's, I may be biased). It starts off slow and confident and moves into confident and triumphant.

Oh God, You are my God, and early will I seek for You

My soul is athirst for You

My flesh cries out for You, from out a dry and thirsty land

A land where no water is.

For thus to behold You in splendid strength

I gazed after You in the holy place

Since Your grace is much more than life

My lips will give praise to You!

I'll bless You while I live, and I will ever lift my hands

To praise and confess Your name

My soul will be made full as with all choice and hearty meats

I'll praise You with joyful lips.

I think of You thus as I lie in bed

And bring You to mind in the hours of night

Since You ever have been my help

Your wings are my shield and joy.

My soul clings fast to You, Your right hand holds me safely up

When men would destroy my life

To depths of earth of earthy they go, they are delivered to the sword

To jackals become a prey

The king will rejoice and be glad in God

And they boast aloud who have sworn in Him

But the mouth will be made to stop

Of those who declare a lie.

Seriously, learn and sing this song. Pray that our leaders will "rejoice and be glad in God". And whatever happens -- whether the government takes over everything, whether they do all come to know and obey God -- we don't have reason for fear. Bulletproof by Chuck Holton is a very good book dealing with why Christians should not fear anything, and what that looks like.

John's story of the triumphal entry ends with the Pharisees saying to one another, "Look, the world has gone after Him!"

Little did they know.

That day, it was Jerusalem. But Jerusalem would be back with them soon enough, shouting to crucify this "messiah" who had let down their hopes. It was afterwards -- AFTER they killed Him -- that the whole world would, in fact, go after Him.

Two passages to keep in mind, and, I'd recommend, memorize. One to anchor yourself, and one to launch you.

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.
Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. [Philippians 3:7-21]

Our citizenship is in HEAVEN.

In light of that truth, and the uncertainty of the world which we live in, we do have a certain mission.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. [Matthew 28:19-20]

The whole world is called to go after Him, no matter what is going on. If we fear, we are wasting energy which is to be given to that mission.

Where is your focus? This world is a "dry and thirsty land" (the Newsboys say, "Maybe this world is a barren place/ for a soul prone to get lost", and it is) but our heart's cry is to be,

For thus to behold You in splendid strength

I gazed after You in the holy place

Since Your grace is much more than life

My lips will give praise to You!

For heaven still hounds from the smallest sounds/ to the cries of the storm-tossed... [Newsboys]

And very probably, heaven especially hounds IN the cries of the storm-tossed.

God is in control.

2009-04-03T11:24:00.000-07:00

[From 12.29.08]

Isn't it strange how now I don't even remember exactly why I left a bookmark in my Bible at Zech 14 for so long that the pages became discoloured?

I think it was because of these verses:

On that day there shall be no light, cold, or frost.
And there shall be one day, which is known to Yahweh,
neither day nor night, but at evening time there shall be light.
On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem,
half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea.
And Yahweh will be king over all the earth.
On that day Yahweh will be one and his name one. [Zech 14:6-9]

These verses really bring three things to mind -- one OT, one NT, and one why this passage probably captured my imagination and attention in the first place.

OT -- The Shema: Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one. (Deut 6:14) Zechariah 14:9 really uses similar phrasing. Why? To point to when all things WILL be in unity under Him? When no one shall try to make gods before Him?

NT -- The new heaven and the new earth; Zechariah's words seem to be a foreshadow of what John saw in Rev 21 and 22.

no light (Zech 14:6, Rev 21:23)

neither day nor night (Zech 14:7, Rev 21:25)

living waters (Zech 14:8, Rev 22:1)

"And Yahweh will be king over all the earth."

Isn't that what is surely revealed to John?

What caught me -- It sounds like fantasy, and very good (read: Tolkien: Josh Addisson would be pleased) fantasy.

But it isn't. As we tell the kids at Frontier Club, "This is true! It's real! Isn't that exciting?!?"

It's BEAUTIFUL.

Praise for God

2009-01-08T18:40:00.000-08:00

Where even to start today?

Zechariah 12:1-9. Look at how God defends His people. He makes their enemies look drunk, hurt themselves, be burnt up. He will so clearly fight for His people that it will be said, "The inhabitants of Jerusalem have strength through Yahweh of hosts, their God."

v7-8 are cool. It really seems to me to go with Romans 9-11, and how the new Israel fits with the old Israel. He gives salvation to us -- the Gentiles -- first, so that their glory may not surpass ours.

BWAH. BAM! He saves us -- Jews and Gentiles -- He gets the glory! [Editing note: That is seriously what it says in my notes. I think I've been in the Greek II class for a while.]

AND THEN....

Zechariah 12:10-11. Arrow straight to Jesus, anyone?

God does pour out a spirit of grace on us. And pleas for mercy for having pierced Him. Crazy, isn't it, that the first plea for mercy for us was from the one pierced? Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Matthew Henry relates the lamentation/mourning of verse 11 as being the same as that in Lamentations 5:16.

"Woe to us, for we have sinned."

Ai, Lord, so we have.

And Your forgiveness is incomprehensible.

Forgiveness? Oh, was I getting ahead of myself? Where is it mentioned here?

Zechariah 13:11

On that day

there shall be a fountain opened

for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem

to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.

WOW.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Revelation 19 grossed me out at the end. But. It is part of my God. He is holy. He is just. Defending His people means destroying His enemies.

Look at the reasons given to praise Him.

~because salvation, glory, and power belong to Him

~because His judgments are true and just

~because He judged the great prostitute

~because He avenged the blood of His bondservants

~because the smoke goes up from her [the great prostitute] forever and ever

~because He reigns

~because the marriage of the Lamb has come

~because His Bride has made herself ready

~because she can clothe herself with the righteous deeds of the saints

It's much easier for me to praise God for some of these things than for others. Easy for my joy in salvation to outstrip my indignation at sin. But the two must go together.

I must love what He loves, hate what he hates, and become conformed to His image.

~~~~~~~~~

Psalm 147 was cool too, throwing seeming paradoxes at me, as if to show me that I CANNOT fully comprehend God. It is also focused on praising God.

~He is intimate (healing brokenhearted, binding wounds)

~He is infinite (determining the number of stars, giving them names)

~He lifts up the humble and casts down the wicked

~He takes care of the whole earth -- from the heavens to individual birds

~He doesn't delight in what men do (strength) but in those who fear Him, who hope in His steadfast love.

~He chooses some and not others.

PRAISE HIM!

[12.28.08]

That Princely Sum

2009-01-03T19:05:00.000-08:00

Then I said to them,
"If it seems good to you, give me my wages;
but if not, keep them."
And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver.
Then Yahweh said to me,
"Throw it out to the potter"
--the lordly price at which I was priced by them!
So I took the thirty pieces of silver
and threw them into the house of Yahweh, to the potter.
--Zechariah 11:12-13--

There is more than a hint of irony here. Thirty pieces of silver have two other very different connotations in Scripture. But the rather sarcastic irony is first seen in the prophet's words, "The lordly price!" (ESV). NJKV says, "That princely price!" NLT says, "This magnificent sum at which they valued me!"

The sarcasm is that there is NOTHING princely about such a sum. Thirty shekels of silver was the price to be paid in restitution for a slave who was killed (Exodus 21:32). Magnificent? Lordly? Hardly.

The irony is much intensified by the passage in Matthew 27:3-10. Thirty pieces of silver. That's what Judas sold Jesus for.

God was sold for the price of a slave.

Paul marvels at this mystery in Philippians 2:5-8. Jesus did make himself nothing. He took the form of a bondservant even to the point of humble death. The price for His death was that of the price for a slave's death.

That makes my mind want to explode.

The Blood and Beauty of God

2009-01-03T18:35:00.000-08:00

Zechariah 9:11 is beautiful.

As for you also,
because of the blood of my covenant with you,
I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.

Is "the waterless pit" Babylon, as Matthew Henry says? The flames of hell? Either way, the prisoners are redeemed. By blood. By YOUR blood. You are good.

It was actually Zechariah 9:16-17 that caught my eye first.

On that day
Yahweh their God will save them,
as the flock of His people;
for like the jewels of a crown,
they shall shine on his land. (16)

The imagery is glorious. God's people are like jewels in a crown. US! Made from DUST! Thinking about that makes me smile and at the same time makes tears spring to my eyes. It's SO much more than I deserve. It is awesome. I shiver in the dreadful joy of God's love.

Verse 17 continues:

For how great is His goodness, and how great is His beauty!
Grain shall make the young men flourish,
and new wine the young women.

The last two lines, rather obviously, made me think of the end of Psalm 4. (It's been well-drilled into my psyche at Titus's!) But Psalm 4:7 clearly says that YOU are greater joy than grain and new wine.

And I rejoice in Your beauty. You don't need jewels. You are glorious in splendour, and I worship.

[12.26.08]

Foreshadowing in Zechariah, Thoughts from Revelation 15, and a Look at Psalm 143

2009-01-01T09:07:00.000-08:00

Reading Zechariah -- with the perspective of the whole New Testament -- makes me want to laugh. Of COURSE the Messiah's name was Jesus, a variant of Joshua. It is SO heavily foreshadowed. Look at Zech 6:11-13.

Joshua. The Branch. (Look at Is 53:2 and chapter 11 -- especially 11:1.) And then in Zechariah 6:13, He is "a priest on his throne" (NKJV). Priest AND King. The NLT finishes that verse, "and there will be perfect harmony between his two roles."

Joshua son of Jehozadak. Jesus, the priest-king. I think Zechariah and Hebrews have some fascinating connections, and I want to study them!

Revelation 15:3-4 is an amazingly beautiful song. I'm glad that I know the Judy Rogers version, but I can't wait to sing it around the throne of God!!

Revelation 15:6 provides a nice answer to the question which came up yesterday in my family about why we think angels are clothed.

And Psalm 143... I looked at it in the NLT, and it is... sweet.

I lift my hands to you in prayer.
I thirst for you as parched land thirsts for water. (v6)

Earlier I was singing

If life is water, I was dry as Tucson dirt... [Newsboys]

To thirst for God that way is BEAUTIFUL. It's like an amazingly intense love-song to be able to say that.

Then the psalmist goes on with a list of do-such-because such which I thought was interesting.

DO BECAUSE

come quickly, answer me my depression deepens

NOT turn away from me I will die

let me hear of your faithful love (each morning) I am trusting you

show me where to walk I give myself to you

rescue me from my enemies I run to you to hide me

teach me to do your will You are my God

(may your gracious Spirit lead me forward on a firm footing)

preserve my life For the glory of your name, YHWH

bring me out of my distress of your faithfulness

silence all my enemies/destroy all my foes I am your servant (and your unfailing love)

True Refuge and True Good

2008-12-29T20:39:00.000-08:00

It seems that the psalms speak of God with great regularity as a refuge. Today it was Psalm 142:5

I cry to you, O Yahweh
I say, "You are my refuge,
my portion in the land of the living."

That verse -- especially looking at it in both ESV and NLT -- brings a lot of things to mind.

You're my Hiding Place

Safe in Your embrace

I'm protected from the storm that rages

And when the waters rise

And I run to hide

It's in You I find my hiding place...

[Steven Curtis Chapman]

There are sooo many false things advertised as a safe hiding place. Home. Scholarships. College. Friends. Money. Power. Status. Country. Having a boyfriend (or girlfriend). Having a husband (or wife). A job. Even church.

A lot of these things are good things -- truly good, blessings from God. But they are not EVER to be our refuge. They all have storms of their own, they are all part of a fallen world. Even all God's blessings to us are NOT our inheritance -- not even on this earth!! GOD is our portion, our exceedingly great reward.

And I -- I want that to truly be all I am concerned with. Sure, I want to enjoy the material blessings as well. My time and chance at college. Being healthy. Christmas. The little things, like joking around with Ahndrew.

But far, FAR too often...

I can't see the sun for the daylight
Can't feel Your breath for the wind... [Jars of Clay]

I get SO caught up in all the glorious greatness of what You have for me now that I get off-track of looking at You!

I am so sorry.

I have wasted a lot of time.

Please help me. To know You better. To live for You passionately and continually.

Amen.

[Written 12.24.08 about 12.23.08's devos. It's been interesting (but not surprising) how often, as I write about what I read, that turns into a prayer.]

Faithfulness

2008-12-29T19:57:00.000-08:00

Faithfulness. The Bible talks a lot about that. In Zechariah 3, the Lord says to Joshua, "If you will walk in my ways and keep my charge, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here" (Zech 3:7).

Revelation 13 is about war, again, and it sounds rather grim. In fact, it sounds downright frightening. Not the news that I want to hear at all. "Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them" (Rev 13:7a). And to conquer them? What then? Is David*Crowder's triumphant song "We Win!" nothing more than a happy song?

But Revelation doesn't end there. Authority is given to the beast -- over "everyone whose name has NOT been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain" (Rev 13:8). Not authority over those whose names ARE written in His book of life. However, the prophetic foretelling of captivity and death by sword holds me to reality. Just because the enemy has not ultimate authority doesn't mean that I -- and other Christians -- won't suffer and die.

"Here," says John, "is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints" (Rev 13:10). A similar call is given in Revelation 14:12. Do not worship idols. Keep the faith. (Isn't all of the Bible about that? The worship which is due to God -- ONLY?) "You shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3). "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30).)

Last night I read the first good reason for getting a tattoo that I remember ever reading. Something which indelibly marks you as a follower of Christ. So that, under persecution, you could not deny Him even if you wanted to -- even if your flesh was afraid, it would itself bear witness to what your spirit believes.

I do not have a tattoo. But I am Yours. Because my name is written in indelible ink in Your book.

[12.22.08]

The Big Picture

2008-12-29T19:10:00.001-08:00

[I'm still typing older journals!]

Today the Old Testament passage was Zechariah 1. I remember about a month ago when we came to this passage in Sunday school and how thoroughly it confused us.

The details confused us, that is. Who is the man? Is there more than one man? Who are the ones "whom Yahweh has sent to patrol the earth"? What?!?

Then the New Testament section for today is almost as crazy -- Revelation 12. A woman standing on the moon, a dragon trying to eat her baby son -- what is going on?

Psalm 140 pulls me back to see the big picture, especially in passages such as these where I do not understand the details.

In Zechariah 1, God pronounces judgment upon those who have excessively hurt His people, and He promises His love to His people. "Thus says Yahweh of hosts: I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion... Yahweh will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem." (Zech 1:13, 17)

In Revelation 12, there is war as the accuser is defeated by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of [the brothers'] testimony. God again preserves His people from their foes and His enemy is conquered.

More than conquerors we are. Let me love not my life even unto death.

Psalm 140 asks God for exactly these things -- that the enemies of the righteous (and thus, of God) perish (and the language is vivid and violent), and that God deliver His people, hearing their pleas for mercy so that they may dwell in His presence.

[12.21.08]