Quotes out of context, volume two, chapters three and four

Last Week:

“The absolute most logical question [for me to ask] was ‘Am I pregnant?’”
“I’ve given birth three times.”
“[If] you say “I love this community,” well then you must be very new.”
“You found the right church; it fits you; it’s wonderful. Give it time.”
“People in this church will say things that hurt you, that do you harm, and you will need batteries.”
“Once a child is mobile, it is an opportunity for a new kind of suffering.”
“Why do I want to hurt you?”
“You are meant to be a therapist. You are troubled.”
“I should have been wise enough to [ask my wife] ‘How much money do you want?’”


This Week:
"God be with you all and Tiny Tim."
"They will only come to you if one person of their family will start lighting themselves on fire."
"[There is] too much libido in chocolate chips."
"You fanaticize about lighting your own couch on fire."
"Your first child is your throw-away"

phones

so, my phone is broken. because it fell off of my car two weeks ago - and broke a half week ago - tmibile won't honor the warrenty. so....i can sell my cell phone soul to the tmobile devil for another 24 months - totaling 4 years now and pay $24 for a new phone, or i can pay $100 for a new phone.

ahhhhh!

all this, and either way, it's a week until i get a new phone.

so, i (with a fellow student, Jon) preached today in my "preaching" class. only we didn't really preach, we "crafted a transformational moment." i wasn't trying to be overly creative or, as my professor termed "experimental," but that was what happened. it was midrashic, intimate, participatory, serving, it gave me more than it gave my words, it was being rather than doing, it was post-modern, it invited the class into the shared experience, it met different people at different time and in different ways, it was a sensory experience.

these things could all go on the list of thing i have fought to be. and if i was ever seen as these, i would think to myself, "i've worked hard to be this person."

today, i was me - a very sick, weak, empty of energy me. and this is what was.

there is really something to being who you are and not striving for something else. it feels like trust and like admmiring an Artist's on-going work.

Does this mean that I do not try to become more, to grow in the likeness of Christ? no. But it also means I rest and recieve God's pleasure.


When Jesus said to Peter, "On this rock I will build my church," Do you think he meant "With what I can change this rock into, I will build my church." Or, do you think he meant something like Michealangelo meant when he crafted David - "There is something in this rock that I will free, but on this rock - and it can be no other rock - and it does not need to be a different rock - i will build my church."

phone = found, returned, NOT GETTING SERVICE

phone = found and returned!

Do Bush and Bono really constitute two or more?

Scripture tells us that where two or more are gathered, God is there. Well, Bush had a national prayer breakfast, Bono came, and looking at his words...so did God.

I invite you to mull over these words and allow passion and heart ache to capture you - may we, as a blogging (or blog reading) community pray these words together.

"I'd like to talk about the laws of man, here in this city where those laws are written. And I'd like to talk about higher laws. It would be great to assume that the one serves the other; that the laws of man serve these higher laws ... but of course, they don't always."

"God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house ... God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives ... God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war ..."

"... justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment."





ps...who'd guess that I'd ever post quotes from a prayer meeting Bush convened?

What's In a Name

This week's edition of quotes out of context has been pre-empted to bring you a heart-felt post. Don't worry, quotes out of context will return with this week's quotes and next.

Jaguar. Doubtlessly, that word does not conjure the image of a toddling toe-headed baby girl with an intoxicatingly loving smile. Yet, that is her name. For the first few months of my friend’s daughter’s life, I refused to use her name. It was incongruous and, well, unfortunate. In no way did a word used to denote a stealthy, spotted, rainforest-dwelling cat represent the precious child I alternately called “Sunshine.” However, as months passed and she and I began to share a saga of relationship, a narrative of meaning attached itself to the term Jaguar so that her intoxicating smile is the first image I see when I hear the word. In short, the narrative of the last year and a half has produced inextricable meaning for her name.

With this said, her well-meaning parents cannot be let off the hook of imperfect name choosing. There is not much outside of the meaning making of her on-going story to exegete in her ill-begotten name. What, however, if her name was self-given? What if she happened to know herself better than any other being has ever known herself? What if out of that self-knowledge and out of a gracious and sincere desire to be known by those who would grow to love her, she named herself? And, what if that name remained as incongruous a name as “Jaguar”? Would we laugh at it? Would we wonder what she was thinking? Would we set it aside as some sort of a holy word assuming we cannot understand it? Would we attempt to understand it? Would we make it so holy that we could not call her by that name and begin to call her “Sunshine” in an effort to protect the holy word “Jaguar”? Would we use her name to connect her with the animal because we enjoy studying the animal – even though the animal may have nothing to do with what she meant in naming herself?

As doubtless as the word Jaguar does not conjure a picture of my precious friend and most beloved child, this seems a silly and near worthless blog entry. But, let’s wonder further. Is there one who knows ones’ self well enough to bestow upon the self the perfect name? If so, how have we treated that name?

What is Yahweh? What is “I am”? Do we jump from it to the seeming fruitful world of the Greek understanding of ontology? Do we hallow it then leave it alone? Do we run to calling Yahweh “God” until we have forgotten the name we’ve hallowed? Do we exegete the term, combing it for every ounce of self-revelation Yahweh provides in it? Do we meet it as though it were a invitation to relationship with an otherwise unknowable Creator, Re-Creator, Beloved, and Friend? Do we study it as an object for paper writing, or do we relate to it as an uncontainable, though knowable “Thou”?

Jaguar is an unfortunate name that I tend to toss aside, apart from the narrative that unfolds as a relational saga between my I and her Thou. However, God has given us God’s true name. To the one to whom much is given, much is required. What have we done and what will we do with the extravagant blessing of the True God’s True Name?




So…now would probably be a good time to push the book I just read: “The Named God and the Question of Being” by Stan Grenz. This book is a thick read, filled with historical explorations and proofs. It is not quick. But, it is immeasurably valuable in the pursuit to engage the name of God.

lost and found

sure, i lose things A LOT! (ie my cell phone today), but sometimes it comes to immeasurable good.

when i was as gcts, i had an ethiopian friend whose wife had a baby back in ethopia. he had never seen his son and didn't know when he would.

meanwhile, i lost my digital camera. it was a gift and i felt bad, so i bought a new one. then, i found my camera. what was i to do with two cameras?

i gave one to my friend so that he could mail it to his wife who could mail it back to him with pictures and even video of their son. the first time he saw his son was on the camera i lost.

today i recieved this email - and i guess i'm okay with losing my cell phone:

"Dear Rebecca,

Greetings to you in Jesus name. This is your Ethiopian friend from Gcts. I am still in Boston doing ministry with Ethiopian immigrants. My wife and son just joined me from Ethiopia. I am still using the Digital Camera you gave it to me. Thank you again. Let me know how things are going on for you.

blessings,

Aboma Dirbaba"

Hinges of History, Wyle E. Coyote, and Gravity Lessons

I never understood how it worked, but it happened every time. Before Wyle E. Coyote held up a sign reading “Ahhhh” or something else in the category of a silent panic, and fell hundreds of feet to turn into a mushroom cloud with the Road Runner smirking and Meep-ing on the bluff above, before all this, he would run at least six feet on air. Then, as he realized there was no ground beneath his feet, he panicked and, inevitably, fell. I always wondered, “Did he fall because there is no ground beneath him, or because he realized it? If he didn’t realize it, could he have walked to the next bluff? Or, if he realized it, but didn’t panic, would he have calmly, though cautiously, continued to use his mind to create ground to walk on? At twenty-four with a Master’s degree under my belt, these questions still plague my mind. And, for the first time, they seem significant.


Last year, a friend and I sat down for coffee and conversation around the emergent church. Both being fans of Cahill, we saw the coming (present?) postmodern era as a hinge of history. The problem is, we live on the hinge, but the other side of the hinge, the land beyond the scenic bluff, doesn’t exist yet. The question beaconing us, as a church living on the hinge is this: Do we try to run back and clasp our weak fingers on the edge of the bluff called Christendom, hoping if we cling long enough and tight enough, we’ll not have to risk? Or, do we step off the bluff and, like Wyle E. Coyote, walk confidently on the air? Or, do we not panic, trust, and begin to create new ground on the other side of the hinge?

I'm in a class called "crafting transformational moments." However, a more appropriate title might be "re-imagining preaching workshop." Even in the class, we find ourselves re-imagining what a preaching class is like. Some days, we seem to fail. Others are glory. We're creating new ground, and I couldn't be more excited for the chance to a) create something new, and b) sometimes let that something new fail - fall - and get up, chalking it up to gravity lessons.

more naked, alone, and abandoned than anyone in history

what can you think of a God who leaves a righteous man naked and alone in his darkest hour - even though the betrayed man calls tenderly, like a child, for God?

This God sounds evil.



what can you think of a God who sacrifices everything and is humiliated as he dies for the sake of his very murderers?

This God sounds beautiful.



what can you think of a God who does both these things in the same instance?

This God is a mystery....but we must never forget this mystery is named love.

Fasting from eternity and waiting for the sun to set

The sun is still high in the sky. I want so badly for it to set. Please, please, please set so I can feast! The feelings of hunger invade my concentration and make the sight or smell of food a passionately ambivalent swirling of longing and hatred for the pain of lack. I smell more with each moment of fasting. The feasting around me becomes vibrant and holds my gave so covetously that I cannot avert my eyes as I voyeurously look on, participating in my heart.

When will the sun set? Five o-clock maybe? What will the sunset look like? Will it be brilliant and marked? Will it be subdued? Will it be purple, orange, yellow, or vibrant red? Will there be clouds or simply color smeared across a blank canvas sky?

I am curious, expectant, and longing.

Is this moment bad? Is there no good to be had simply because the feast is not here yet? Did I not passionately enjoy the juice I just drank? Did I not revel in it? No. no. Still, something better and bigger comes and the sunset and I will not be satiated as long as the sun remains in the sky.

Hmmm… are these eschatological feelings? Am I this hungry for the true feast? Does the hint of eternity sensuously and seducingly come to my nose and captivate my senses so that I cannot shake the thought of the feast to come? Can I look at the sun and revel in a beautiful day while longing for brilliant sunset and the feast that ensues? Do I see microcosms and tastes of eternity and find myself raptured in them? Do I feel hunger – see starving children (29,000/day), AIDS orphans, Bush/Cheney administration etc. – do I see the painful things and turn my eyes to the sun, waiting for it to set? Waiting for the eschatological end of hunger? And do I look for juice – for some nourishment to ease, though not quench the hunger residing in the now in wait of eternity?

How happily and unthoughtfully I fast from that which I was created for – and yet, how difficult it is for me to give up the material pinings of an only partially redeemed reality.

An “Honorific” Edition of Quotes out of Context

I’d like to begin this edition by saying that I greatly respect and admire Dan Allender. I am immeasurably blessed by and thankful for all he give me as a professor and school president. And, I am amazed at his intellect and wielding of words – ie, who would have guessed that “honorific” is actually a word – surprised me!

This man is amazing and “honorific,” but he does say some funny things!

Anyway, here you go:

“Do you love the way thorns and thistles feel as you weed your garden? If the answer is yes then we are in the realm of sexual disorders.”

“Sit here and watch Jerry Springer with me.”

“The task of a woman is to be a nuisance to her children.”

“I think they are involved in connubial bliss.”

“Am I for the hippopotamus?…This is not suitable for me.”

“My wife makes me cry a lot.”

“I like avoiding the conflict I tend to create.”

“Balance: obviously I’ve never achieved it and, therefore, do not like the word.”

“[All the Rambo movies were] bad, really wickedly stupid.”

“I am not claiming to be a completely mature human being.”

“Frankly my wife scares me to death.”

grieving great loss

I had drinks and painful moments with good people tonight.

I had really disconnected with the pain of being a woman going into ministsry. it really hurts.

it seems there is something important and beautiful in actually sitting in a sense of "woe is me that I am called to minsitry and get chastized for it when my brother is lauded for it." to actually sit and be in the depth of loss for myself and my sisters in the Kingdom that our brothers are embraced and even prodded into ministry and we only emerge through struggle - struggle that, as I experienced it, is numbing.

i have been deeply wounded, and pretending it away is not strong, but actually weak.

away in lake city, no place for a bed

sitting in a four hour meeting that should have been two hours, but everyone has an opinion and everyone's opinion is, apparently, worth more than families, than my school work, than health, than sanity, than the tireless work of underpaid ministers...so, it was a four hour meeting.

as the committee began to argue about increasingly petty things such as where and when coffee is served, my mind, under nourished - i made the faulty assumption that a 6-10 meeting would include dinner and hadn't eaten much more than carrotts all day - began to wander.

for a moment, i began to hold the good people have seen in me without dismissing them as uninformed or untruthful. i began to transport all the passion and hope i can feel when steeped in theology into the place i once hoped could be a community where theology lives. i began to feel a strange thing called confidence.

for a moment, i began to hold these things - i began to hold myself.

then, holding myself, i looked for a place to take and offer me. like a child, over excited about having bought the perfect gift, i looked with wide eyes for someone to take the gift and together marvel over it.

no one wanted it and, in fact, it disappeared behind some fogged curtian. i still saw its shadow as it left my hands and floated off to wherever it had been hiding.

why am i not that person? why is my ministry not that ministry? why do i have potential that seems to be imaginary or an optical illusion?

there's no space for me here. no space.

when i went on a mission trip to ireland, my mission team said they were amazed at how i moved into a place and a people and gently but firmly made space for myself.

and here, there is no space.

even as i hold myself, the space in my hands expires as the pain of wanting so desperately to give myself only to be rejected grows too bitter and intense and somewhere inside, i wish myself gone. i obediently disappear like a magic trick in a cloud of illusion.



then, who is our God?
our God had no place to be born, so Jesus came in a stable
our God's people had no place to live, so they prayed and marched and blew triumphant horns until walls fell and land became theirs.
our God was bannished to the point of death - not in a mystical cloud, but on a too real and ultimately cruel cross.
three days later, our God returned to embrace those who bannished "God with us."

quotes out of context, volume two, chapter two

Odd and deleterious things are coming out of [my] nose and mouth.

If I had my mind back, which I’m not sure it really was there ever, but I certainly don’t have it here right now.

If you want agony, be married.

My head is not fully on today.

You have 20 years to waste.

[Urination] for a male, is something he can stand almost completely apart from and yet participate in.

I got into a 15-minute discussion with a fellow urinator.

I really want to go to bed. I want to take a walk. I want sex, or I want something to eat.

You’re ridiculous. I should have just said that, you are ridiculous.

The night, actually, is fairly dark.

The suburban world kills marriages

You will have bloody hands every day of your life.

Imagine a Bitter Taste in Your Mouth

There are somethings that only some voices can share. I'm really tired of being "a women in ministry" because I just want to be a person in ministry - but, maybe it's important for people to see what pain following my calling and gifting has brought me...so, take a deep breath and begin to imagine being a woman called to ministry in middle class white America:

Imagine a decade of everytime you tell someone your dreams for the future, cowering like a beaten dog, wondering what chastization is coming your way.

Imagine being in high school and every time someone asks you the usual, "what are you going to do when you grow up" question, being scared - and meeting with not only disapproval of you, but even conversations with your parents about how they can fix the rebellious and sinful problem you are.

Imagine fianlly breaking away from that to dread the "what's your major" question in college.

Imagine your church praying for you to get married to a pastor so that you'll be satiated.

Imagine your friends all concocting some sort of career for you where you are not a pastor since "you've wasted all that education already."

Imagine just going to the cafeteria of your undergrad to eat lunch and having five or six people tell you that their pastor said that if you are a woman going into ministry, you need to repent and find a husband.

Imagine leaving everyone you know to cross the nation and arriving at a school where your first contact asks you how many women are in the MDiv and says the number scares him - you breathe a breath of rare hope - then he says he can't believe that a school like ours would let women into the MDiv program.

Imagine finally finishing that degree to be turned down for jobs because you are a woman - and worse - a single woman.

Imagine finally getting a position and being constantly mistreated by older men because you are a young woman.

This is only a taste, but maybe you see how a taste of something so bitter could be embittering.

Impressing No One

Who are we trying to impress? Who are we running for? Is God the evil scientist who places us in a rat race and watches us run around after some cheese that is, after all, just on the otherside of a piece of wood in God's maniacal maze?

Of course we know this is untrue. Of course we know God is love, God is personal, God ultimately sacrificed God's self for us - not so that we could be rats, but so that we could be more human - restored to God's image.

So, we are back to the question, who are we trying to impress - and what are we running for?

For the last two semesters, I worked full time at church and took a full load at school. Last semester, I even took my final class for GCTS. This semester, the work-aholism bug seems to have nuzzeled its way under a dear friend's skin and left her running from one job to the next. The only day she has off, she spends eight hours in class. Who are we trying to impress?

I am now only working 20 hours a week, but last week I worked something more like 60. This week I'll be at at least 30. Plus eleven credits. Who am I trying to impress?

Last night, I realized that I had been assigned 10 papers and probably close to 400 pages of reading due tomorrow. The syllabus arrived in my in-box on the 25th. A week and two days. There's just no possible way that can be done. So, I make plans not to sleep and break all my other engagements.

Then, it hits me: am I still a human being? Is my friend still a human being?

Somewhere, burried beneath the yoke we've opressingly put upon ourselves, we are still human. We are still creative, playful, tender, relational, and restful. We still possess the ability to enjoy something other than a late night television show before we rush to bed and start the rat race again.

So, last night, the human being deep inside me refused the old yoke. She stopped running the maze in search of not-even-God know's what. She stopped, and looked up at whom she had mistaken for an evil scientist and said, "I want to love you more than I want to do all this. I'm tired - bring me Sabbath!"

So, this morning I woke up, diligently and carefully chose an outfit for the day, enjoyed breakfast, refused to wear my painful high heels, and am now ready to go do the unthinkable: drop a class.

Today I will enjoy being human. I will savor minutes without fearing their end.

Today if you ask, "Who are you trying to impress?" My answer will be "No one. I'm just spending this day with God."