an encounter at 30 thousand feet

with time to think again, i've decided to re-read i and thou. if you haven't read it, you should - as soon as possible - but slowly.

anyway, during my 14 hour trek of car to plane to exhaustive lay-over to plane to late luggage to bus to subway to train to walking to final exhausted arrival, i re-encountered walter kaufmann's introduction to i and thou.

here's what struck me:

the good way must be clearly good but not wholey clear

if the recommended path were utterly devoid of mystery, it would cease to fascinate [people].

the only god worth keeping is a god that cannot be kept. the only god worth talking about is a god that cannot be talked about. [god] is not object of discourse, knowledge or even experience. [god] cannot be spoken of but [god] can be spoken to; [god] cannot be seen but [god] can be listened to. the only possible relatoinship with [god] is to address [god] and be addressed by [god].

god is present when i confront you. but if i look away from you, i ignore [god]. as long as i merely experience and use you, i deny god, but when i encounter you, i encounter [god].



then, as i stared, overwhelmed, out the window, i met God:
flying away
from the work you've given
into the rest you've invited
my eyes accidentally meet yours
majestically burning, washing, and watching above the world you redeem

my mind rushes to accusation and projection
my heart tosses in a sea of question and distrust
my soul is drawn in and repulsed in a nausiating instant
my strength is gone and so does nothing

our heads are hung and our eyes are weepy
as we stand in a moment of tense experience

you speak silently:
you stand in a shadow of disappointment
of things waited for
the dark, loveless, graceless shadow
in whose darkness you hide
it is not my shadow
it is not the shadow of who i wait for
it is the shadow of the you that you are tired of waiting for.

do not create me in your image

i look again,
you stand regally over the world
with open hands
your weepy eyes weep
not with exhaustion....as mine do
not with disappointment...as mine do
not with pity...as mine do

they weep with perfect and present love
i see you
i adress you
i am adressed by you

encounter

how long have you been there
waiting for me
to peer honestly into your fire and ocean eyes
to be in present love

peaceful retrospective

i can hear the gentle scraping away of excess foam as the world class musician/barista prepares to perfect foam art that will soon be hidden, desrtoyed beneath a lid.

the gently playing acoustic emo for the first time in months beats more than the passage of rushing time.

the tired face of the old woman braving a chilled breeze outside the window is suddenly present where nothing but my computer screen and persistant cell phone have been here with me.

i am sitting at lardos with a decaf medici and no rushing thoughts. i almost don't know what to do. so i sit and absorb. i people watch and slowly ponder the way i'd almost forgotten in the endless rollercoaster of summer responsibility, rush, restlessness and occasional resentment.

i just came home from my youth retreat. my summer is over and i could not be happier. while the youth moan that school is on the way, i breathe deep like i haven't since may 1st.

and now, as my capacity for thought returns to me, a retrospective is born.

this summer encapsulated two ill-thought missoin trips, endless comittee meetings, elders scratching out deep flesh wounds, created, raise, and destoyed dreams for children's ministry, seven credits of class, growth and withdrawl, encouragement and discouragement, stress, learning, drawing near to some, walking away from others, alienating in the name of self-preservation from time to time, righteous and not-so-righteous anger, vbs, youth vbs, a retreat, the cementing of two key friendships and missed growth in one, hopes of finally being in a good living situation replaced with a declined wedding invitation, nearly literally losing my mind to lack of sleep and weight of work, and always looking forward to this exact moment: the end of it all.

i would say that surviving this summer proves i have super-human strength..but, i think it proves that i have a super-human father/mother, friend, grace-giver, and savior, and that this divine other has amply supplied me with the super-human co-pilgrims to weather this summer.

so....


to james and brooke: thank you a million times in advance for creating space (literal and figurative) for me to recover from this tearing and tattering season - and for housing the constant light at the end of my rigorous summer.

to jeff: thanks for remaining my pastor even across a nation

to neal: thanks for walking with me in a maze of angry old people and lofty goals

to jen and caleb: you have become my family, thank you for suffering with me

to jaguar, though i know you cannot read: thank you for joy and "sunshine." i think i love you more than any other person.

to jeremiah: thanks for keeping dreams alive and reminding me that the world can change - and just as in high school, though we've both changed so much, this is our purpose

to crystal: wow. i don't think i ever would have dared to work at the church during the day if you weren't there. thanks for extending deadlines and bending over backwards to help me get things done...and those picture cds are still coming...i promise.

to hallack: thanks for dreams, hilarity, guidance, and for being so much more gentle, nurturing, encouraging, partnering, hopefully realistic...than i ever hoped a pastor could be

to heidi: thanks for picking up what i dropped along the way, for optimism, for support, and for always reminding me to pray

to debbie: thank you for a safe place to learn, grow, create, and struggle.

to bryan: thanks for wisdom, kind eyes, joining me in cussing about my church, and poop at greenlake.

to ratman and mrs. ratman (the elder who refers to the youth at church as rats and his wife who is pissed that she doesn't "see" the youth in service): may i return from vacation with enough rejuvination, grace, and love to more than endure your presence - to even see God in you?

peering through a window, i saw God

today when i saw you, peering into a moment
i found beauty too infinate to hold
too precious to depict
too bright to hold a gaze

today when you shined in my window
i found an art too perfect to own and hang
too delicately painted to understand
too true to ever look away

today when your presence met me
i knew God

is an artist beyond parallel
is a gift-giver beyond thanking
is an author of the most tender
perfect
intricate
admirable
complex
characters

i knew God is good
and wise to say that "it is very good."

too much work

it's 2:30 am and i am just now leaving the church.


when i take vacation next week, i only get paid 75%.

now i know i'm not here for the money.

too busy to worry?

the living situation freaking out has now escalated!

i'll be in boston in a week and when i come back it will be september and i have no clue where i'll be living (except for with my parents which is more scary than most other possibilities).

jen said i should be too busy to worry.

i told her i'm never too busy to worry.

materialistic confession

i got an ipod for my birthday (which is still approxinately - i'm not letting anyone know when my birthday is because this is the last one i'm celebrating and caleb is plotting a surprise party for next year - one month away).

my ipod makes me happy.

mass emails

one of my youth's parents has added me to her mass emailing group. today's email asked me to sigh a petition asking bush to lower gas prices. i have nothing more to say.

i'm proud of myself

the never ending story is my baby, my art work. i've been killing myself to perfectly (or near perfectly) craft it.

my intern is teaching on "conversation" tonight.

so what i'm proud of is that i put aside the self-inflating rumors in my mind that if i'm not there it will fall apart. i took my baby, prayed, placed it in God's hands and said, i'm taking a much needed day off.

time for sabbath, absorbing every blessing, the sun, the almost blue sky blanketed like a child on a hot summer night with only a light white sheet of clouds, leaves with a million different flecks of green, a light breeze, the unmistakeable beauty of my city.

this is the life - the real life - i've been missing for weeks.

crisis

last night, as i was teaching, i totally tore apart my own heart.

we made this beautiful tree, which is serving as our on-going object lesson. when we taught crisis - last night - we tore off the leaves, fruit, and bark to reveal a dark, forelorn tree bearing fruit such as alienation, pestalence, shame, hatred, and death. then we put out three black bowls filled with grey leaves and black flowers. one bowl represented our relationship with God, another our relationship with others, and the final bowl represented our relationship with the earth. we asked the kids to think of ways they have contibuted to the crisis and decorate the tree with the "fruit" of their contributions - sins i guess.

it was hard to hold myself together as i joined them - realiazing that every seemingly insignificant sin adds to the chaos and further alienates from the garden of unity with God, others, and the world.

even when the sin is anger toward God, this alienates me from the one i am meant to be uniquely united with and therefore destroys me and makes me into a seed of destruction in the lives of others and in the world. i cause the crisis that enrages me, then i rage at God because of it.


we then gave the youth a list of questions, a slide show of "crisis" and an awesome built to spill song as neal and i went around the room and removed all of the beautiful things we put up, replacing them with black candles, table cloths etc. we hung black and grey ribbon over the christmas lights we hung. all of the beautiful things went into a garbage bag and we told the kids they are gone forever. we removed eden from our room.

"removing eden" killed me.





now to sit in the shit that rests between day two and day seven.

we will be re-decorating the tree with beautiful flowers, leaves, golden leaves and bark etc. there will be a great feast. beauty will be restored and the death that exists in the garbage bag that holds our eden will be defeated...but we live in the time between day two and day seven.

so symbolic, so rich, so real.

i am happily broken.

15 hour rest stop!

i finished my papers!

now i'm going to go get a drink (or two - which is a lot for me) and sleep til noon!

intentions rock...even when they come to nothing

jen was totally exhausted after vbs, so she went home and napped, but here was her plan:

buy me a bunch of candy and other stuff
go to ladros and buy me a coffee card
put them in a basket
ask the ladros baristas to give it to me when i inevitably end up at ladros to write my two papers


maybe she got the nap i needed and maybe there was no care package waiting for me at ladros, but it's nice to know that i have a community that cares and is affected when i am over-worked and that wants to support me in what i'm cramming into my life.



hmmm....i'm too tired to really think about it, but i wonder how sharing both our intentions and our failure to live up to them in a humble and loving way...and then recieving the failure of others with humility and grace would affect community?

could even failed intentions be a vital part of intentional community?

i think yes. i think i could write a 9-11 page paper on that right now...but i have another one to write...so i'll leave that thought to you.

6 shots is not enough

vbs is over.

there are six shots of espresso pumping through my veins and, while my hands are jittering from the caffeine, my eyes won't stay open and all my muscles have decided they are done for the day - week? - month? and have begun to nap with or without my mind.

my brain is begging to turn off for just a few minutes - hours? - weeks? - years? but, one mclaren paper is done and another is begging attention.

i'm almost to a rest stop on the high speeding highway that is my august '05, but when you're tired the question always remains, can i make it to the rest stop before falling asleep at the wheel and crashing?

time will tell.

white people are bible tyrants

ok, given that flannelgraph sucks, it should be disposed of like yesterdays trash...which most churches have already done, but my church lives like 20 or 30 or 50 years in the past.


anyway, for a mission trip next year i want to get hispanic looking flannelgraph characters. there are hispanic families -- but not bible characters.

so, i look for jewish bible flannelgraph characters...unless jewish people back then had blue eyes and pale skin - and always washed their lily white faces of the dessert dirt before applying like sfp 80 sun screen, there are no jewish flannelgraphs either.

why do white people think we own the bible?

episode 1: creation

the first night of "the never ending story" has concluded.

it was beautiful - absolutely beautiful (pictures to come this weekend).

now that i remember why i'm doing this, it's time to crank out two papers and a closing assembly for "kingdom of the son, a prayer safari."

hours i have worked today

i left for church at 6:30.

traffic was unbelievable. i got to work at 9:00.

it is almost 11pm and i am almost ready to leave.

tomorrow: twelve hours of work followed by all nighter for my mclaren papers.

vacation in t minus 12 days!

yet another roommate disaster

i really didn't want to do this, but i am really freaking out.

my roommate for the fall told me like a week and a half ago that she is getting married at the end of the month...so, i don't have a roommate and therefore don't have a way to move out.

i've been working on finding something, but things aren't working out, and if you know my past with roommates, you can understand how scared i am.

i can't keep living with my parents -- if you know that situation, you understand that.

i really don't know what to do or where else to look and i'm just broken at the thought of living at home.

please, please, please pray for this situation.

thank you.

a rut

i discovered that my lj is still active and re-read my posts. as i read them, i realized that, thought theologically i'm in a diffeterent place and my christian-ese has changed, for the most part, i'm still sitting in the same shit as almost two years ago.

two posts from october 03:

"so the kingdom of God is supposed to be like a mustard seed that grows into a tree. it starts small and grows large. however, it seems to be shrinking. Christians haven't a clue what brotherly love should look like - even my house church which has a communal emphasis is fractioned. Christians don't care about the poor and social justice. there seems, sometimes, to be nothing right in the world. all i want is to change the world. all i want is for things to be right...or atleast a vacation from all the wrong. i want simplicity. i want God. i want the time that i owe him...but studying him robs me of that time.

then, there is God. in romans, we read that the benefits of knowing God include peace, hope and love. if i feel void of these, it is not because the world has robbed me - it is because i have given up the true sense of Christian hope. all will be set right. God will be victorious.

then, however, there is impatience - i find myself crying out "Just come back Jesus!" I find myself jealous of Johhny Cash and of my Grandma who is weeks or maybe days away from paradise. How am I to wait?

then there is 1 corinthians. i must run the race, finish the course that is set before me. living every day with God ought to be enough. though i may not see them, the new mercies depicted in "great is thy faithfulness" are mine every morning.

still, i am home sick in the worst way."





and


"i had a discussion and came to this conclusion: the difference between knowing the glorious future and longing for it to the point of pain and tears and finding hope and joy as you wait expectantly without complaint is comparison. i cannot think about what the world should be, what it will be and how wrong things are. i need to assess that the world is not right and seek the kingdom of God - all the while taking heart in the assurance that the kingdom is already, not yet - it is here in part but will be here in full soon enough."



jeremiah and i have discussed a bit the stretching pain of dark truth in one hand and the joy of the lord in the other.

re-reading these, it seems as though stretching is happeing without any growth. it just feels shitty that my own out-dated voice is so convicting years later.

i'm still home sick and now i am a hypocrit - teaching my youth that the kingdom is coming while i am straining to see it.

vbs

today, i took my over-education and used it to purchase jungle stuffed animals from an over-priced thrift store then use them to decorate a classroom. then me and my nearly finished gradauate degree drove home and ironed "kingdom of the son" onto $1 hand puppets of zebras, giraffes, lions, and monkeys. i failed a bit in that endeavor as i over-estimated the quality of the puppets and some of them melted together under the heat. i fixed it though.

yep. you guessed it, vbs starts monday.

in preparation for vbs, i tried to get myself psyched by thinking back to when i used to go to vbs - i tried to remeber everything i learned. some thoughts came to mind:

"shoot, why did i pray for salvation when i was three. that kid gets extra points (and therefore a bigger toy) because he got the friend he brought to pray for salvation. if i hadn't already done it, i could do it now and my friend and i could split the loot."

"wow, i got an awesome t-shirt (i still have it now) out of the deal, but what does God have to do with a st.bernard and why did the adults spell 'sun mountian' wrong?"

"wow. i really suck at crafts. when's snack time. i hope it's not those stupid raisin on peanut butter and celery - they call it ants on a log. i am sooo tied of that. a) logs aren't green, b) only four ants can sit on a log?, c) what am i supposed to do with the celery and raisins after i eat the peanut butter"

"that's a really cool palm tree my teacher put up. i wish school had palm trees and themes. what am i going to do with my hair for crazy hair day. maybe my mom will let me get a mohawk...yeah right. oh, was the teacher telling us the story? something about a dude and a whale, oh yeah, i've heard that one before. my mom tells it to me everytime i get a time-out for not obeying. where was i, oh yeah, my hair, maybe i could get a mullet...that would rock!"


i've been telling my staff to spend more time connecting with the kids and connecting them to God and to eachother than cramming the week with fun things that the kids either won't remember or will remember at the cost of the bible stories. i hope they listen, otherwise, here goes an over-educated exercise in futility!

to quote shakespeare, "i want it written that i am an ass!"

there's this dude that hangs out at ladros that has been creeping me out for a long time. he keeps trying to make eye contact and smiling at me - i just want to study and be left alone. there have been like five creepy guys there that have made me want to switch cafes.

anyway, one day i had to applaud him for guts if nothing else. he tried to make eye contact and i obviously, painstakingly avoided it. then, he got up and walked over to me.

"Do you remember me?"

ummm...if you mean from many days of staring at me and ruining my morning coffee, then, yeah, i remember you.

"If I'm right, you used to work at Starbucks."

oh, so you got coffee a couple of times and i'm supposed to remember you and have a conversation with you when i'm rushing to finish a paper?

"We talked about religion? Is that the kind of thing you do?"

yeah...with everyone...we probably did have a conversation. so what?

"I told you about my struggles. I used to be a youth pastor but now I'm not. You really don't remember me?"

I'm beginning to realize that I'm an ass.

"I poured my heart out to you and you really don't even remember me?!"

shit. big fat pile of shit. i am a total ass.

i told him that i've tried to forget everything about starbucks and that i'd love to have a conversation again, sometime when i'm not rushing to finish a paper (which i don't think i meant). we talked a bit more then he said we'd talk a different time.

i finished the freaking paper i don't remember everything i wrote, but i do remember that i am an ass.

the demise of caffe minnies

new management has taken down the posters that used to cover every inch of walls, replaced dingy old carpet with bright tiles, brought new denny's style menus and (total shock) uniforms!!! freaking uniforms at caffee minnies! if minnies was my home during undergrad, then i suppose it is true that you can never go home.

needless to say, my favorite waiter and bono look alike, Jim, has quit.

the soup is still awesome, but it's lost its addictive quality in the environment change.

misadventures at the evil empire

in response to my post on the intellectuality of starbucks employees, david shared a story from his dad, and jeremiah one from his own experience as a slave to the empire.

i think all of us who have sold our souls to the mermaid (whore) of babylon should share customer stories.

the reaon things are looking up today

PUNKY BREWSTER IS COMING OUT ON DVD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

they're everywhere!

i have never been so happily greeted. arms waving in the air, three voices, one from someone i've never met, shouting out, "Hi Becky." i knew that i spend too much time at lardo, but i didn't have the expectation it would turn into "cheers." as i naively looked into the bright faces of the trio of baristas, i didn't realize the sarcasm. "we just had a wonderful customer. the best customer ever."

"oh, that's great. how was this the 'best'?"

a seemingly sweet little old lady walked up and politely asked, "what kind of reaction do you get to your music?" celeste, one of the baristas who has at least three weezer tattoos, said that the reaction is generally positive. the woman stared at her and continued, "i guess i'm just more of a starbucks type - you know, better educated. they play the kind of music that well educated people listen to. it's just a better environment for us."

fucking bull shit!

do educated people enjoy uniformity? do they enjoy corporate sludge? do educated people perfer popular, hypnotic, talentless music to the feeling of buying fair trade, organic, shade grown coffee? bullshit.

one of the baristas informed her that graduate students like to study at the cafe; she just walked away.

the same barista wished that i had been there, "here's becky, she's almost done with one graduate degree from the east coast and she's working on two more - she's a regular."

i am so tired of passive agressive elderly people who think their way is the only way and everything else is below them. i assumed they were limited to my church, but i guess it's comforting to know the blight exists outside of the confining walls of lake city presbyterian as well. they are fucking everywhere - even the hip corner cafe - it is inescapable!

so, i stood and joined the ladro trinity's frustration, launched into a tyraid on fair trade - narrowly escaped a moment of turrets and a sea of four letter words, tipped very well and retired to my graduate work as ladro's music danced in my head - if i fail my paper, i'll blame the music at ladro for being "uneducated."

currently, there is a two-year-old dancing to the music in front of me. there you have it, you can't get less educated than a two-year old. still i perfer his youthful white-boy dancing to some breakable, dressed in black, icy woman's passive agressive complaints.

lazy workaholics

yesterday i was in a parade. by the time the parade was over, i had worked 42 hours in a 3 day period. i sped home, went to sleep, got up after 6 hours of sleep, and sped back to the church to teach sunday school twice. i have done nothing but work - save one afternoon at greenlake, a prayer gathering, and an evening with the oglesbys - for an entire week. even as i ventured into those excursions, the entire time i was plagued by guilt that i should be working. next week won't be much different - except that i have a final paper to write. the next week after that will be the same with two final papers.

there is a light at the end of the tunnle though, vacation at the end of august.

here's my parents' response:

"we are so proud of you for working so hard. it makes us really happy."

and,

"you're taking a vacation? you've only been full time for a while. you should keep working. besides, that's a waste of your money."

i came home from church today and took a half-hour nap and my dad said (as he sat infront of the television complaining that nothing good is on, but watching none-the-less), "don't you have a paper to write?"

so...is sabbath one of my family values? hardly - workaholism - that is the highest value in my family.


back to the parade - we dressed up as safari animals and decorated the church bus with a safari theme and walked in the lake city days parade as a song blasted (a song not of my choice) the words, "monkey see, monkey do, the lying devil is after you. monkey see, monkey do, dare to be one of God's chosen few." i faked a smile as every cell in my body cringed at the words screaming from our bus with the logo, "knowing Christ, making Christ known." was this a picture of Christ? hardly.

so, when he asked, i told my dad how frustrated i was with that and his reply, "at least you're working hard." then he returned his gaze to his closest friend, the television, and began to tell me a story from survivor. i walked away as he was in mid-sentence.


what is it in america that makes us value work above anything else and then fail at that ethic as we meld into our couches so that we are indistingushable from their common, meaningless, dirtied-by-life fabric? until our dreams, ideas, ponderings, morals, are better informed by the mass populous than the best educated theologian is informed by God? how have we become so good at setting a worthless goal, failing at it, and escaping that worthwhile failing by diving into the imaginary lives of clowns?

eye heart the door magazine

yesterday's quote

i forgot to post this yesterday.

a friend who a) usually speaks wisdom, depth, truth etc. and b) who will remain nameless due to the content of the quote said, as we walked across the brittle summer grass under a brilliant blue sky at greenlake,

"i always poop here."

later, he wondered why i thought the lake was too dirty to swim in?

yes, there is context, but what's the fun in that?

2 quotes for the day

when my pastor opened his door and stepped out into the treturous world that is lake city presbyterian, he announced, "i'm emerging from the cave."

when he later overheard a conversation i was having about violent video games - wherein i described a close friend and epitome of a family-man beating his video game wife to a pulp then getting pissed because she wouldn't have sex with him right after, he said, "i always beat my wife. my kids too. the bible tells me i can. what? it does! i can!"

of course, he was being sarcastic, which i realize is lost in text, but it was hilarious.

just enough

always just enough. always just before i quit. always barely there.

the motivation to continue on a path of fruitless struggle.

always soft, small, relationship. always the unexpected source. always barely in time.

the voice of the other reaches and holds me where i reluctantly belong.

always obvious. always when i am beaten near to death. always clearly there.

the true, unchanging life of ministry breaks through the clouds of struggle over what is right.



tonight was CE meeting. once again, i tried to be the director ans was denied. once again, i asked myself what the fuck i am doing at an old unchanging church - bent more on tradition than on spiritual health and growth. once again, i felt my passion being crowdedd into a bottle too small and being sent into the sea of tomorrow with hopes that it will arrive on a friendlier shorw - and that i will have survived to follow it. once again, i left church wanting badly to drink, to cry, to distract myself from the uselessness that has been heaped upon my pile of passionate dreams.

i began to reason, we've just got too different of ministerial visions. i could site this as the reason and bow out, early, but gracefully. a youth ministers career, after all is 7 months to 2 years. i'm at 8. by the time i find something else, i'll probably be at a year...or i could wait until jeremiah comes and leave to minster with him and his wife. i can leave. i should leave. this is purposeless, painful, abusive. i'd be co-dependant to stay. i'm done.

i actually began to feel the release i was hoping for in trying to gather friends together for drinks - quitting is even better than distraction.


then my phone rang. "i don't care about history - rock rock rock and roll high school." it was someone from youth group. crap. church invading my momentary exodus. i looked, it was luke on the phone.

luke i love. luke is real. luke is growing. luke is curious. luke is love.

i answered the phone, trying to disguise my decision to abandon them.

he explained why he's been missing church - he explained that he's not fallen away...i didn't tell him i'd rather fall away than go to the church i work at.

he continued to say he'd be there on thursday - love the kid, but yeah right.

he said if he didn't come - which he won't - that it's not because of me.

then he said that he talked about me at dinner with his aunt and uncle (who he lives with) he said that i'm a great youth minister. he said that he's getting along with his parents and making good decisons. he said that it's because of God and that his grandmother has been praying for this. he said that i'm an answer to his grandmother's prayer.

he said, "i love you becky."

he said, "i hope you're our youth pastor for a long time."



and so i will be.

if, as every sunday school class i've ever taken is right and Jesus would die to save just one person, then i can let the next few years of my life be drenched and saturated in pain, uselessness, seeming waste - if only for Luke to meet the love of God.

his call was just enough, just before i quit, just bareley there - but he gave me the face of the other into which i look and, ethically, can, no must continue.

i wish for every minister at least one luke, whose face shows God's face so brilliantly it is blinding.

un-evening the valleys

when i came to gordon-conwell, i was pissed because i thought they were trying to feed me spiritual prozac. "even out the valleys." did God want us to flat-line? i wondered if i was manic depressive as i said to myself, "fuck if i'm going to live a flat-line life." and so began my rebellion against gcts.

gcts continued to rebel against my head-strong honesty. "you are irresponsible for getting a tattoo," "you'll take your nose ring out when God convicts you" "you need counseling to even out your creative spirit" "can Christians really be punk?" "oh yeah, you sit at the freak table" etc.


"becky, we are going to let you stay because we can see that you have a heart for youth, but we're going to mandate that you get counseling."


somewhere in the war, maybe when i became a pacifist, i surrendered without even realizing it.

when a treasured friend told me today that it is my nature to fight, first my heart sunk as i realized that after a year, he didn't know me at all - i avoid conflict at too much cost. then, he explained that i fight in myself and with God - that i make God be God and that it's good - inspiring even.

i worked, thought, slowed down, concentrated, and sat half smiling half broken as i tried to recieve what he was saying. all i heard was dean borgman's voice, "what i wish for you becky is a good counselor to even out your creative spirit." i heard another friend - not from GCTS - "becky, you need to stop struggling and just rest in God." in my mind, struggle means bad.

i thanked him as my mind recognized what he said as a compliment but continued to work double time to accept it as such.

how could i have given up in such a good fight, to protect and maintain the passion of my life with God.

in the nooma video, "rain," struggling in the arms of God is a almost oasis like place - an unequaled moment of connection and love with God.

scripture tells us that when we walk through the valley, God is with us. why, then, would be avoid the valley? why would we take spiritual prozac and even out those dark, death-filled nights where God stands with us in the shadow, holds our hands and is the only comfort we can know.


so, finally, not in rebellion, but in relationship, the flat-line ends, valleys and mountians arise as the earth quakes with resurrected life, prozac is lost in the vivacity of life and the ambivilant joy and pain of climbing and descending can be celebrated as what it is: abundant life with God.

fuck if i'm going to live, lead, or walk in the path of a flat-line life.

Quote of the day

"Only the pure in spirit may find the treasure of knowledge" - Teddy Ruxpin


(I watched Teddy Ruxpin with Ocean today.)