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.)