one of three options

how do we, who have a faith in an omnipotent and supposedly loving God encounter this?


from the heavens, it seems so beautiful, so perfect, so God-ordained, as though God dipped his finger in the sky and created a picture and a reality.




from the ground, it is devastation. it devastates more than even the people, it devastates faith. it draws me to look at God’s “thou” or “i” and de-vast-ate God by categorizing God as judge, absent, or one to whom I no longer exist.

i went to a weekly church service twice while in boston. both times, two different men named jeff preached in some capacity – one about prayer and another through prayer

one proclaimed that the tragedy is God’s judgment of the wicked. my jaw dropped and I struggled to see him as a part of “we” without categorizing him as “them.” I was afraid that my religion, my God was insensitive, unloving, and deceptive when God claims to love the poor.

I found a “we”, but still stewed.

the other confessed anger, rawness, questions of a God who claims to be loving and to care for the poor. my jaw clenched – if he is uncomfortable with God, if he doesn’t have answers, is my God real? is my God love? is my God true? is my God for the poor?

when I ask those questions of my God, I ask them about God – God is an it. God is already lost to me as i assess God in this historical moment rather than encountering God, being fully present with full sorrow, full fear, full anger and receiving God’s presence as God bestows in that moment – allowing the interchange, the air, the moment between God and me, between God and the world, between the world and me, to be the very spirit by which I live.

I retreat and hide in the objectivity of categorization and, though, the loss of the God I thought I held to, the God it turns out I might not hold to, the God I may not want to hold to is a scary reality, the scarier reality is bringing this fear, openly, undefendedly, bleedingly to God, a “thou” I’m not currently positive that I trust.

I felt “we” with the latter jeff and that scared me, I tried valiantly to run from the suffering, to medicate with philosophy, to escape encounter, ironically, in the pages of a book about counter, and in the circles I can run in my mind without venturing into the world.

I found a “we,” and for that reason, stewed.

it’s tempting to join the one jeff and explain the suffering making God the victim and those that are other than myself the offender. It is tempting to dig your feet into an answer and an ideal that explains the suffering – that justifies it.

it is not tempting to join the other jeff as he sits in ashes and sack cloth morning, tearing his metaphorical clothes in the face of God, proclaiming the injustice, facing how this seems to counter act our faith in a God who is for and with the poor, being openly angry, inviting our community into our suffering.

our choices are three: entrenchment, with the one jeff, encounter with the other, or, the great american way, numbness, ignorance, sitcoms instead of news, diving into a philosophical book, naval gazing, spiritualization: doing everything possible to distract myself from the pain - a path which, though I know it not, like leprosy, leads to death.

i do love God.
i do know that God is good that that God is for the poor.
but as these facts do not answer the questions, the fear, the pain, i must bring all of these to God and to the community of God for encounter, meeting, being present to one another, wounds and all.

thank you, latter preacher jeff, for a calling and a prophetic action to honest, sorriful encounter.

sad departure

a couple of hours ago, i said good bye to brooke - the last of sinners and saints that i will see for many months and possibily a year or so.

the last few days have been amazing - a community truly living life together.

i already miss sinners and saints and don't know how to return to lake city after this true expereince of church.

i don't want to universalize, but i don't know that any form of christianity other than house churches out-lives the unity Christ calls us to - or, at least i know now that once my current position is exhausted, house church is where i will be.

free money cause i'm smart

i just found out that i am recieving the stan grenz memorial scholarship from my school - 5,000 a year for three years!

is buddy jesus i, thou, or it?

as kaufmann discusses the jewishness of i and thou, he makes this daunting (as a believer in Jesus) statement:

"the hebrews did not visualize their god and expressly forbade attempts to make [god] an object - a visual object, a concrete object, any object. their god was not to be seen. [god] was to be heard and listened to. [god] was not an it but an i - or a you."

note: in this and my previous post, i edited the quotes not to refer to god as he. last week in sunday school one of the kids got really mad at me when i said god isn't a man...so i guess it's on my mind - also, when we talk about a god who cannot be contained, this seems an appropriate time to remove god from the container of human understanding of gender.

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.)

death penalty

a friend of one of my sinners and saints bros has started a discussion of the death penalty.


check it out and comment.

http://evolvingconsciousness.blogspot.com/

saturday sabbath

one of my courses was cancelled...for uber lame reasons, but, none-the-less, i have a free day.

debbie and i are spending the day at pike place.

here is my quote of the day -- i couldn't believe i said it as i watched it drip off my tongue and stand in the air like the words on sesame street:

"i do have one errand that i have to do. I HAVE TO GO TO LEFT BANK BOOKS AND GET A BUMPER STICKER."

getting a bumper sticker is on my "have-to" list.


only me.

commute

speeding the seemingly endless stretch of i-5 between home and work, singing along with poor old lu to keep my tired eyes open and drifting mind conscious, i finally round the last corner before my exit ramp. as i do, the towering evergreens seem to slide left and right to make way for the perfect view that briefly distracts truly attentive drivers. once the trees fell into their place, mt. rainier slinks into place and stands at attention. my breath escapes.

minutes later, my lungs end their sabbath as my mind reminds me it is time to signal, exit, and complete the trek to work.

how blessed are seattlites that this picture is the morning commute?

sure, traffic sucks, but it is a built in tour of God's art museum - who else has the gift of mandatory art time after work?

our youth vbs

"all one face"

after mexico and othello, american kids drive me nuts. they are so spoiled, so distant, so demanding.

then, sunday morning, as i emerged from my tent to a line of kids waiting to 1) chastise me for sleeping in so late and 2) hug me, i began to wonder if the kids are really all that much different?

bryan insightfully reflected on the faces of children (www.bnixon.blogspot.com). in the last scene of "imposters" with stanley tucci, a confused communist with a bomb detinator in hand preaches about his ideal world where all people are the same. he looks across the faces of the people present and, in their pain, humiliation, love, hope, desparation, he sees that across class and nationality, we are all the same. he chants, "all one face, all one face, all one face!" then he throws the detinator away.

are our faces that different when all is said?

and, if we are in Christ, shouldn't we all be a portion of the great mosaic that is the one incarnational face of Jesus?

the love of a child as key to community

Ocean, since my life has nose-dived (dove?) into insanity, misses me and so he will grab a book and sit on their patio, where i often sit (sat) while reading for school. Once he gets situated with his book, he'll announce, "Becky be here soon." When Jen says, "No Ocean, I don't think Becky's coming today," Oceans stares crossly at her and says, "Yep. Becky be here soon." Then he looks down at his book and patiently waits as my absesnse continues.

When Jaguar sees me - those days when I do find time to visit - she shakes and her mouth stretches out into that pure golden sunshine smile as she anticipates my rushing over to pick her up, play with her, and remind her that she is my precious sunshine.

My response:
1) holy shit. this is too much responsibility. i have become these kids' family. my absense, my busyness affects them. ocean feels abandoned and angry when i don't come around often enough. the lack of responsibility to pure little people who love without reserve was one of the few benefits of being single and childless. crap. what's going to happen if/when i move to ireland? will they feel abandoned? will they suffer loss? can i move despite this?

2) holy crap, i have never felt so loved as when ocean wakes up groggy from a nap but smiles to see that i'm there, when i hear that he asks constantly where i'm at, when jaguar's sunshine stretches across her face simply because i walked into a room. kids are amazing.

3) holy God, you are beyond compare that you have created these little people. thank you for the extravagent grace to be placed in the middle of their lives - let me walk well within their world. let me be like them, giving love as the sun gives light.

4) why do they love me so? sure, i've given them so much i hope i give my own children less so that they won't get spoiled. but they don't understand that most of their clothing are gifts i saw and couldn't keep from buying for them. sure i pray for them more than for myself, but they don't know that. all they know is my presence.

then i realize, if we are to learn about community, children are the best teachers. maybe biting, stealing toys, hitting when you don't get what you want etc. are not good community traits, but loving someone - not for what you get from them, how charismatic they are, the sense of satisfaction their presence gives you etc. - loving someone for their presence in your life and craving that presence when it is absent - this root would grow a community too beautiful to put in words or contain in a picture. it's beyond my comprehension.

then i wonder, what were the children thinking as they approached Jesus.
- dude, he's really important, i want to talk to him so i can drop his name on the play ground
- my ankle's been hurting, maybe he can heal me
- i hit my sister alot, maybe if i'm nice to him he'll forgive me
- maybe that dude has some better food than my mom gave me
- he's teaching some cool stuff, maybe we can hit up a pub, get some root beer and talk philosophy
- that dude said he's "THE way, THE truth, THE life." if i don't want to go to hell, i'd better get on his good side
- hey, maybe if i hang with this dude, i can be a star player in a social group based on his teachings
- if he's God, maybe he has a super power for me!

probably not.

how, then, did the children come to Jesus? was he simply so loving and the children so absorbed in the pursuit of simple love that as love beemed through his gently eyes and kind smile, they had no choice but to run into his arms and recieve his love?

is this, then, what community does, as the collective body of christ? each of us, from childhood, seek the loving relationship God created us for - love between God, others, and God's world. when we come together as community, are we dually the child running to the arms of an incarnational representative of Christ as well as, ourselves, being an incarnation of Christ, giving love as determinedly and freely as Jesus did to those children?

when ocean sits on that patio and occasionally is awarded with my approach, when i kneel down, hug him, pick him up, tell him i love him soooooo much and tickle him until his angelic laugh climaxes and his smile grows so big i wonder if it hurts his face, am i bringing to him a piece of Jesus? without a second thought, i know that, in that moment, he has brought Jesus to me.

el cape - you know what this town needs? some non-conversational white people with jesus tracts!

what the f

today will mark nine straight days of working 12 hours at church (or mission trip) and at least 5 on school work. i'm leaving for a church camp out and won't get a day off church until monday.

in an email from a church member, i revieced this image and realized just how much i need a vacation.

Mexico 2 - life in a moment

first, you should maybe know that my mexico post comes from two nights of not sleeping because i thought i had a black widow bite and might die --- it wasn't a black widow (though one did make a web and take up residence on my computer charger), but it was some sort of spider that i'm alergic to and that made my leg swell more than it ever has before (if you don't know, i have a height complex, wear tall shoes, and sprain my ankle all the time -- it is no stranger to swelling :-).

anyway, when i stop deconstructing the mission and review moments, there was beauty in the mission trip - pushing children in swings as they giggled with simple joy, being drug all around a play ground as one girl calledd me "gringa" and would not let go of my hand for even one minute - seeing the joy in her face as i sat next to her after she finally did let go, welcoming youth into a conservative church and letting them brake dance during sunday school, the breath-taking joy as kristi, one of my youth - in the above picture - embraced a girl she's longed to see all year, talking with one black colorado youth who is the only minority in his youth group of 90 and is not even allowed to call himself "black," and listening to his story and struggle, meeting a college student/artist from mill creek who wants me to connect her to art community and wants to get involved in "work of art." these are good moments.

discipline opens the door to putting aside over analysis and allowing these moments to be what they are and to have awe and appreciation for their beauty.

Mexico

i think i have some sort of problem, but i was perplexed the entire time in mexico. i didn't know this ahead of time, but the orphanage is AG and they have started a bunch of churches that are teaching that people with tattoos aren't christian. why on earth would you take teaching time to cover this? i don't know. but, there i was, tattoo'd and furthering a mission that says that i am not a christian. good times. we also did door to door paper evangelism. the people are starving, living in unsafe condition etc. and we bring papers that share the good news of a Jesus who, aparently, as represented by us, can't help them except to walk around, speaking a different language and passing out paper - - more trash to fill the dirt roads.

anyway, the pictures are cool.

mclaren thought #5

In response to the 30 years war over religion and fear of it coming to France, Descartes creates a knowledge in a public sphere that is free of religion so that members of different religions can step out and dialogue on a neutral certainty.

“[Descartes’ method created] certainty without moral wisdom, certainty without compassion. This kind of certainty is dangerous.”

“Excessive confidence is like a cancer. We need to treat it with chemotherapy and there are two chemotherapies to absolutism: pluralism and relativism.”

“If any place had created a secular public sphere, it was Germany.”

In response, philosophers seek to diminish this certainty.

“You introduce pluralism and relativism and absolutism retreats – but religious faith plummets.”

“Today we have people who think [reason] is the answer.
There are people who think pluralism and relativism are the answer.
There are still those who think religion is the answer.”

“The story is not an absolutist metanarrative or a private personal true-for-me relativist narrative.”

“What the biblical narrative is an all-embracing mega narrative. This type of narrative always has room for and cares for the other. It does not want to destroy others but always has room for them.”

“I believe that we can and must as Christians within a postmodern world give an account of human knowing that will apply to music, mathematics, to biology and to history, to theology and to chemistry. We need to articulate for the [post-modern] world what we call an epistemology of love.”
NT Wright

“If the gospel of Jesus cannot solve this problem, (jaw dropped and head shaking in befuddlement) then I don’t know who can do it.”

mclaren thought #4.1 on homosexuality

this is how homosexuality has been traditionally viewed.


i think most of us can understand that this is inappropriate. Read on.

mclaren thought #4.2 on homosexuality

This is a schema that McLaren drew for us today - revealing some of the complexity of the homosexuality issue. He suggests that there are many causes and degrees of homosexuality and that for many - maybe most, we should interact with dysfunction and move them into committed heterosexual relationships. Some, with a low sex drive could be led to celibacy.

However, for those who are very homosexual and have high sexual drive, what it best?
More dysfuction through promiscuity?

The question is posed, if it is possible that not so much was known about homosexuality at the time, for Paul to have made an exception for committed relationships, it would be the same sort of non-sensical statement as if Jesus had encountered a "demon" possessed person and said, "Well maybe it's OCD or Bi-Polar."

So today, with our knowledge, we might be able to look at this section of homosexuals and love them the same way we love people with OCD - which is a soley biological disorder. For OCD patients, we give them what is available - pharmisuticacls and counseling. For a sexually charged homosexual, could - and I'm not saying it's right - nor am I denying the complexity of it - could it be possible that love would be taking this group of people and giving them committed realtionships filtering out some of the sin that promiscuity and sexual dysfunction bring?

Please discuss this.

McLaren thought #3

A summary of a thought in class:
Military super powers build their armies at the cost of their economy. When the military becomes too much of a financial burden for the economy to afford, then the country goes into economic spiral and the military must also decrease. Thereby, the super power is no longer a super power.


In Iraq, they are saying that we need to "stand down" and they need to "stand up."

McLaren hypothesizes that this is because the economic burden is becoming too much and the country could begin to spiral and concludes, "in this way, 'he who lives by the sword dies by the sword.' maybe this is how these things happen."

mclaren thought #2

a parable from class today:
there is a man along a stream who sees someone drowning. he saves the person and puts him on aid car. then another person is drowing - who is saved and put on the aid car again. then there is a third and a fourth and so on. saving them is mercy. at some point, though, you have to ask, "who is throwing these people in the stream?" and you need to go seek justice up stream.

a collection of quotes:
“If all you do is mercy, you can have the unintended consequence of empowering injustice”
“When we enter the public sphere, we can enter in either mercy or justice or both. It may be that some branches of the church are better at mercy and others justice, but we have to stop seeing each other as enemies.”
“If you try to do either [justice or mercy] without walking humbly with God you will be worn out”

mclaren thought #1

“In Western society there is the assumption that smart white men define reality. Western civilization and the Gospel so linked that when Western civilization goes down, the Gospel goes down. So, out of fidelity to the Gospel [a conservative Christian author] defends Western culture and denigrates other cultures.”
McLaren

My thought:

In Chariots of fire – there is a scene where the British are trying to talk Eric into running on Sunday, they say, in my day it was “country first, God second.”

We need to not let our country and our Western view do this to us – demand our allegiance to anything on a level above or equal to our allegiance to God.

A parable – a baseball player might think that wearing the same pair of underwear every day –without washing them- makes the team win. So, out of devotion to the team, he wears the same underwear everyday. He smells. He gets sick. He’s uncomfortable and cannot play well because of it. But when you try to take the underwear away, he’ll fight you for the seeming sake of his team.

We cannot allow this to be the church. We, as people who see this and people who love the church (as in God’s people – not as in the institutional organization – have the responsibility to expose that they are aligned to something unworthy of their alignment.

blessed

okay, maybe i did have time for one more thought.

i am sitting lazily at ladros doing the same exact thing i've done for the past 8 years of my life - reading over some cold coffee i've taken too long to drink.

a year and a couple months ago, i was doing the same thing - but in boston - in starbucks - pounding my pencil deeper and deeper into the page betraying pacifism to the fantacy that maybe my page could be the author's jugular and i could end the closed minded, old-day pining, blind to post-modern beauty spewings of a staunch reformed tradition.

six months ago - no, less - i was sitting in seattle at a ladro's steaming over how petty if not idiotic my professors taped words were. i saw gcts graduates as being aptly prepared for ministry 50 years ago. my thought was "gcts graduates are like milk put on the shelf past its expiration date. it is not sweet to taste. it is not nurishing. it is not useful."

now, i am tired and forgetting to count my blessings as i gently read one of the first theology text books that has not upset me. i am highlighting and pondering rather tha fuming and pounding. pacifism is not a test.

no matter how busy, over-worked, perplexed about the church, hurt by reluctant pilgrims etc. i am, i know i am blessed. my life has taken many pleasant meanders and directional shifts. i feel home. i feel loved. i feel shined upon. i feel useful. i feel blessed.

sabbath

for the next week and a half, i don't have time to think (or atleast think out) my own thoughts, so i'll be posting quotes.

these are quotes from the sabbath course i took at the end of last month:

When asked if he was encouraging a life of powerlessness, my profesor said, “Me, no. I’m not.


But, Jesus does.”

He continued to reflect on the baptism of Christ and said this, “Jesus’ power didn’t come from being the messiah, his power came from a voice saying, ‘You are loved.’”


“The main problem in life is men.”

“My new book is the purpose driven prayer of jabez for those left behind.”

“Sabbath is not what you do. Sabbath is what you don’t do.”

”We live in a society where people are apoplectic about gay marriage but don’t raise any uproar about the fact that we are not a culture of Sabbath. That’s one of the commandments.”

“Why do you have a Messiah complex when Jesus doesn’t even have a Messiah complex.”

“As soon as we are certain about our image of God, God must mercifully shatter it.”
-Lewis

We need to keep our thumbs off the scale of reciprocity

“A pervasive form of contemporary violence and that is activism and over-work.”
-Merton

The Chinese word for busy – a combination of “heart” and “to kill” – to kill the heart



note that the catalyst for posting quotes is my busy, sabbath-free life and that i am painfully aware of the inherent irony and conviction.

hallack

with all sarcasm, my pastor said today, "Every day is a party with Jesus." he also refered to a loud hawaiian shirt he was wearing as his "party shirt" and said "yo" when i knocked on the door. i heart my pastor.

a few things drawing my mind back to home church

1) i'm pretty sure i'm going to boston at the beginning of september! woohoo!! - note that this woohoo would be completely negated if i planned on venturing to the spiritual war zone that is gordon-conwell - but i have no such intention. i just miss the restful feeling of the fellowship in my spiritual home in beverly.

2) i'll get to see sinners and saints and andrea - the remnant of people i'd be stoked to see

3) jeff's given me the title "liturgical poet." i don't know what to do with that. what does that mean? what responsibilities come with that? what would that have meant at home church? what on earth can that mean at my church?


i want to stop working and just write. alas, that's not possible for at least three years - so i'll try to pretend the idea didn't occur to me.

Insanity's Hope

i'm going to start posting occasional entries from the books i'm writing (or at least that i was writing before getting a full-time ministry position). this is the preface (or atleast the beginning of the preface) for a book entitled, "of the world and not in it: the historical separatistic syncretism of the church."


Trekking hotly across a dry desert, the drops of sea water on weary feet must have birthed a slight sigh of relief as he stood on the edge of death. Just as the pounding waves, however, his thought eroded the momentary rest. An army pressed in on him with nothing but water for escape. Surely, throwing the children into the bulging sea would be more humane than waiting for destruction at the hand of an enraged slave master. Truth whispered what seemed insanity. The haggard prince turned slave turned shepherd turned leader in a fit of either frustration or obedience – only he knows – thrust a shepherd’s scepter into the air and bellowed. Truth swirled and whispered again – to the sea. One could almost depict hands reaching from the sky down to the sea and gently pulling it back like a majestic curtain. The soggy ground dried as though watching water spill in reverse and the people swarmed the newly-made passage way. Running from one side to the other, the people knew no difference had been made. Their wearied feet could never out speed the pounding of the horses’ feet behind them. Death would meet them on the other side of the path. Some even prayed for the sea to swallow them with peaceful drowning.

Safely on the other shore, fears became fact. The army followed them and death was one step closer. Again, Truth whispered insanity – which surely seemed more and more sane with every moment. The shepherd again hoisted his staff and bellowed. The sea responded, closing in and devouring the slave masters and their steeds. Truth somehow, broke through desperation with insanity and won.

Some of you know this story and wonder what my point might be. In the pages to follow, you will encounter utter desperation. You should despair – Truth is nearly lost. However, hope is not. Truth’s habit is to whisper insanity in the final moment of fear and frustration only to lead to regal victory. Through all of the fact mixed with opinion, sarcasm, cynicism, and deep fear that I will share over the next many pages, never lose hope. We have read the end of the book and know that no army of modernity, post-modernity, syncretism, sin, slave-master or of any kind will overcome. Truth will win. In truth, Truth is poised for a victorious march and is only biding time before, once again, insanity is uttered and triumph birthed.

Many of my peers say we cannot know Truth. I agree. Still, to doubt our ability to know something is one issue. Questioning the ability of Truth to meet us speaks more cynically of Truth than it does of us. Truth can, is determined to, and will be know. That said, my hope remains to depress and shock you leaving only insanity’s hope.

beginning and end

today i had endcap-like encouonters.

holding jaguar as she discovered nature - seeing the absoulte wonder in her glistening ocean-blue eyes as she touched and held the branches of a pine tree, leaves, a flower - she took such joy in such simplicity. softly i whispered in her ear, "Jesus made these because He loves you - his precious princess - sunshine." together we giggled and basked in the sun, absorbing every miniscule blessing - down to the blades of grass.

dashing into church hoping to avoid an elder, i was caught in an undesired encounter. he judged me for sloppy hand writing, too few youth going to mexico, my intern's mathmatical mistake on an employment form, poor communication in our church. in two minutes i went from euphoric to pissed - and behind being pissed, deep wound and increasingly deep rooted fear of what might come at my church. the voice calling me to flawlessness and perfection and shaming me for every misstep grew louder and louder until i had the ramones on full blast singing "i wanna be sedated" to drown out (sedate) the pain i was feeling.

what possesses a person to inflict wound over such petty things?

bryan recently blogged a desire to "journey well" with his niece.

how does a person go from jaguar to my church elder? collective shame? collective de-facing wound? soul age? a journey that is in no way "well" traveled?

with all my heart i love jaguar and prayerfully plead that everyone she encounters cares for and journeys "well" with her.


i wonder if between the two endcaps - jaguar and the elder - stands me - increasingly wounded by the church and still grasping with weakening fingers for even a weak hold on faith, hope, and love. in my journey, will i find footing to become more child-like or will consistant shame and pain lead me to the same end as my church elder?



also...a break through in my understanding of encounter:

maria and i had dinner tonight and discussed what exists between "i and thou." she explained an intense need ot allow that as well as the other to exists as it is - this need is so great that she doesn't allow her "i" to exist. it dawned on me that in doing so, she takes such control over the interaction so as to remove the one thing she rightly should control, herself. when we interact this way, we are violent and rob encounter of what we uniquely bring. as i shared these words and we sat in silence, we both knew our own presences in this encounter and were acutely aware that the encounter had a presence of its own.

luke

he has an amazing heart
he loves God
he would rather help people than do anything else


he's been abandoned by his biological mom
he's been disowned by his adopted mom

all i have to offer him is love mixed with tears and a broken heart

they said he's lazy and he shouldn't have come on the trip
they told him to leave his skateboard at home
he bought one so he could give it to one of the kids

"right"

rarely do i feel like i'm going something "right."

almost never while working in the church do i feel like anything is "right."

today we had church outside. i read a poetic book about creation - the event - to the children then they used all sorts of art supplies, puppets, flowers etc. to create a parade. during the last hymn of church, they marched around rcelebrating God's love of creation. the down point - they had posters that read "God so loved the world" "so" should really be "in such a manner." usually, i'd get caught up in the theological incorrectness of this, but i didn't. i couldn't. i knew this morning was right. i felt at home and knew the kingdom is present.

definately a sacred moment.

good old days

the paradox
concerts every weekend
a pizza mart
one crappy band and a candy break
tomato basil most nights
three sisters who aren't really mine
ryan, sammy, adrian - too much fun
my college experience

Soliloquy

a poem i wrote this week instead of, in turning of the tables style, cussing out a veteran elder of my church:


Old storyteller, am I like you?
Unstoppable, artful rambling
Each pause purpose fully drawn out
Each word rehearsed
Performed
Acted out
Retreating step by intentioned step
Into darkness
Into solitude
Into soliloquy
Into the black separation that can only be named Hell
Is your audience there?
I thought I was human
I thought I was present
I thought you saw me

Then, I was no more

Like a cardboard seat filler, you froze me in time
A smile nailed to my bleeding, wounded face
Where did I go when you defaced me?
The pain the tension the loss the death
Of not existing
Too much
Too much

My persistent frown rips both my flesh and your painted smile from my face
And I shine through the mask
Is the light too much?
Is my presence too much?
Is there room for me in your soliloquy?


I speak
vulnerability
unguarded
handing me to your rough hands
And
As any cardboard seat filler
I am unheard
Unknown
Unpresent
Unalive
Crushed, folded, put away, replaced with a kinder audience

I break free from the coffin you’d put me in
The soliloquy continues

And, through my private tears, mine does too.

art idea

check out the work of art blog (www.woaministries.blogspot.com) i posted an art idea.

pen wars

i have to be quick...i just got back from a mission trip and i am way behind on school stuff now.

a moment from the trip:

he was 12 and lucky not to be picking fruit in the fields - next year for sure. he said he had no name then he said his name was "betsy" because he thought my name tag said that instead of becky. a girl told me his name was Manuel - i believe that's short for a name that means "God with us." the boy caused so much trouble - beating up the little kids, poking everyone so hard you could swear his figer was a knife, stabbing some with sticks etc. as he was running around saying, "i don't want to listen to the story, i'm going to kick everyone," he began to yell repetitively, "i have adhd, i have adhd." No shit. he was the epitome of a trouble maker. all the leaders wished he'd go away. i don't know why, but i loved him.

God loves us without standing and shaking a finger - "you should be better." that's what i wanted to do with this kid. when he picked up two washable felt pens and played with them like they were switch blades, i decided to take his love language of violence and join him. we had a pen fight to end all pen fights - two showers later and i still have marker on my arms.

i hope that, for at least the hour i was there, he knew someone loves and even likes him just as he is - without any adendums.

then i left the next morning...the glory of the short term mission trip is a sarcastic discussion for later.

eternal sunshine of a child's face

classes at MHGS need to be paired intimately with the simple beauty of a child's smile. though it doesn't heal or even sooth the pain of truth, a smile from my best freind's daughter, Jaguar, infuses any dreary, overcast mood with seemingly endless - almost too bright to tolerate - sunshine.

hence, her name to me is "Sunshine."

Faith, Hope, Love and Death

So here’s the full story about my aunt Betty. Days ago, she had a heart attack and her unstoppable car careened off of a cliff where she died. I found out days later. She was already lost and, though I had not seen her at anything but a funeral, our family’s favorite gathering place of late, in years – though her presence in my life had been lost and lost to my full knowledge for years – though her interaction in my life in any nurturing way years ago when she moved to Arizona – and I mourned that, I dealt with it and filed it under a long list of pain titled “that’s life,” my numbness to her existence was still rooted in her living. Then she dies, and I am already alienated and removed from her so that her death is almost a sarcastic fact I have already assumed and assimilated into my life. I have so integrated her death into my life that the fact of her death is incapable of touching me.

Days later, I encounter my mom, who is holding a piece of information, an event, she wants to communicate with me. It is my mom, not someone who has left and disappointed me (well, okay, she has done that many times, but for the purposes of this entry, I’ll let that slide). I come to her soft, weary eyes with a soft, weary heart and let the sarcastic monologue, filled with protective, pre-emptive cynicism and void of the dangerous possibilities of hope – my armor – relax and fall away. Then, she stings me with what is assimilated and assumed but unfelt: Aunt Betty died.

This is what happened for me this weekend in class at Mars Hill. I found out – my heart found out – that the church – or at least its modern contemporary forms – has died. Speeding out of control and beyond her capacity and even calling, the church induced cardio pulmonary arrest. Unconscious, she careened off a cliff and crashed.

Meanwhile, inexpressibly hurt and abandoned – alienated – by the church, I had already assumed and assimilated her death. I filed our interaction under a title bathed in sarcasm, hopelessness, and self-preservation – “that’s life in the church.” The days that the church had spent nurturing me were long since over – if they ever even existed. Then the church dies and I have already assumed and assimilated that into my life. I have so integrated her death into my life that the fact of her death is incapable of touching me.

Only, there is no agent like my mother to toss my guard out and enable encounter with the weight of the death – or is there?

As I encounter and begin to assimilated Heschel’s statement “the higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.” I open myself to encounter whatever truth the divine other brings to me as we, together, face destructively sacred moments.

I come to God’s soft and restorative eyes with a soft and weary heart and surrender to this divine other my armor. God gently but painfully – like a bandaid – removes the armor and does nothing to prepare me so that I can fully experience the death my intellect has acknowledged and my mouth proclaimed but my heart has sheltered and hedged itself from. God stings me with what is assimilated and assumed but unfelt: “What you have known as church died.”

And for the first time I feel it and fight with every power in me against tears. Publicly, I only slightly lose that battle – with two or three tears running in Chariots of Fire style slow motion down a cheek prepared for a flood – almost longing for the flood that’s held back by the levy of my emotional fortitude. Privately though, I enter that death with death of my own. I stop. The pain is so great I go into shock.

The question becomes, can I sit in the shit of that moment and encounter the fact that it is shit – total lifeless, repugnant, disease spreading shit and allow that the shit can exist in a place that is filled with God. God brings grace. Can I and will I sit still in this sacred moment and feel the depth not only of the colossal fall I have taken, not only the fact that what I’ve fallen into is shit, but also in the depth of grace – a depth I have been unwilling to experience.

The one who has been forgiven much loves much.

How great the potential for a church emerging from contemporary, modern life to love. It is there, hidden in the shit that grace is felt in the depths of the heart and there in the ambivalent pain and ecstacy of grace that hope is found in the faith that we are free to fall





In




Love.



Faith, hope, and love – the fruit that grow when the seed of divine love, which is grace, is incarnationally, sacrificially, intentionally and undeservedly planted in the fertile manure of the shit we produce and fall into.

creation video

i'm making a video about creation - not creation as in the great outdoors - not creation as in creationism - the poetic nature of creation.

anyway, i'm hung up on man. we're using Neal's hands in dirt for the forming part and we found a cool picture for man coming to life, but i don't have a clue how to do the breath part.

ideas?

sweet but unimportant

i just found out that i can make my phone play cool songs instead of ringing - for the caller! - when someone calls me.

when my homies call now, they'll hear death cab instead of ring.

how sweet is that!

yesterday

i found out i didn't get any of the scholarships i applied for

my aunt betty died in a car accident - aparently she drove off a cliff

i found out that my cousin who i though committed suicide last year was actually murdered and the murderers are getting off

i want to simply whine about the day from start to finish, but my understanding, experience, and knowledge of God allows me to see the sacredness in these moments.

maybe this is how theology leads to worship.

maybe this is what heschel meant when he said, “the higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments."

my wealth of information and experience give me the fortitude not to run from these but to dive into and encounter them and God within them - and so i face an undesired sacred moment.

tattoos? help?

tattoos
Originally uploaded by eyeheartseattle.

i'm getting a tattoo a week from friday or maybe saturday. here's the three i'm thinkikng of. let me know which one you think would be best. thanks.

also, i just realized that the sigma at the end will need to be different - i'd change that before gettign the tattoo, but i don't have time right now.
the flowers could be red too.

A Winding World of Seeming Subjectivity

A poem i wrote yesterday morning:

You pound down the stairs, eyes glued to the floor
You enter my soft silent morning with penniless words
I am a cold, quick daughter running for the door
Not quick enough
You peer over my shoulder with unwanted unedited commentary
Your gaze is a bullet aimed past the plank to my busy speck
I am a hurting, lost daughter running for a door I though was opened but know is closed

You are a mist in the air an accidental memory
You enter my young hopeful morning with a theiving recollection
I am a resiliant, lonely three year old behind a baracaded door
Not strong enough
You peer past my humanity with unloving, unsavory contact
Your affect is a lingering, often forgitten bullet imbedded for 20 years
I am an angry, protective older sister of a girl too long lost behind a door blocked with hatred

You raise your gaze to meet mine, eyes begin to well
You enter my red shouting morning with penniless hope
I am a kind, trying daughter standing in the door
Too quick
You peer past my wishfulness with unsatisfying unsatisfied brokenness
Your gaze is a bullet aimed away but penetrating an already bleeding heart
I am a disappointing, hard working daughter standing in a door that swings too slowly shut

You invite me to your bank terminal
You enter my rushed important morning with pennies
I am a nice, smiling no one running round a revolving door

Your voice reaches my ear through airwaves, ear glued to the phone
You enter my winding hopeful morning with willingness
I am a weary, immature approximation of a boss fainting through a door way and on to the floor

You rush your fingers across keys and tap a button
You are absent in my lost over-used morning with penniless un-expectation
I am a caffeinated, disappointed approximation of a friend standing miles from a doorway

You look past me answering phone call upon phone call
You enter my filled unfulfilled morning with absent stare
I am a worn, un-encountered unknown stepping in and out of a heavy door

The morning ends as I am careless and heavy
I run you over
Your insides come out
Your tiny feathers and now crushed legs and beak
Break
My
Heart
And draw my tears
I feel sick and want the morning back or erased either will do

There is evening and there is morning
A new day beacons on the horizon
You’ve entered each morning though I gaze past you into abyss
I am an ever-blessed beloved
I am a forgiven, for giving daughter
I am a protected, beloved child
I am a valued, created someone
I am a faith-given, faith filling servant
I am a sought after, intimate friend
I am a rejuvenated, known continual encounter
Never truly subjective – simply seeming so
Or maybe subjective only to your great light-filled presence

christian: a many edged dagger

last night i heard that mars hill - the church - preached that jacob represents the christians and esau the "non-christians". the idea was that you should be okay with "non-christians" being blessed on earth because it is the only heaven they'll see.

crap. i hate christians sometime. i wish i weren't one. i wouldn't be one except that the actual "christ" looks nothing like most "christ"ians.

i ended up in a room with a bunch of evangelical women and one proud fundamentalist. this is how the mars hill story was related to me. they also hypothesized who would make it into heaven. one lady is expected to be there because she recieved good sunday school curriculum mail. i guess i'm in then. too bad i wasted all that time praying for grace when all i had to do was order a magazine.

another woman complained about a tarp her husband put up in her yard - she said, and i quote, "this is my house, not a place where, you know, a bunch of mexicans live or something."

they also slammed on mars hill though - not for fundamentalism, not for how they treat women - instead because they play loud rock music that hurts children's ears.

my ears were hurt. if those kids go deaf, they've been well served by mars hill.

am i any better? i'm judging and classifying them for judging and classifying others.

it just depresses me so much. what the f is wrong with people that they can read the bible and come up with a pietistic, judging, merciless product? what can be thought of a God who has more mercy on these women than on "non-christians" who spend their lives serving others and alieviating pain? what can be thought of this mercy if it does not free from a sinful cycle of alienation based on titles and creeds - or lack there-of? what can be said of a faith that takes its name, attaches "non" in front and creates a new group of leppers - unclean, unholy, undeserving of any good and bound for eternal fire?

i told my mom a while ago that i didn't want to be called "christian" anymore. i've gone back and forth and back and forth and i want to stand my ground. i want to grow more and more in the image of Christ - i want to reclaim an abused name and i don't want to use that name for further separation - alienating myself from a group i belong to and becoming a spiritual lone ranger. still, i feel like throwing up when the word "christian" tumbles off my tongue.

a struggle i'm sure has no near end.

fusion

fusion
Originally uploaded by eyeheartseattle.

check it out - the new name/logo for my youth group.

wierd to think that after years of dreaming up names "fusion" is what we're going with.

its pretty cool though. the last youth pastor alienated the kids from the church and the popular kids from the rest. he named the group "gap." (going after the prize) how cool and hopefully symbolic is the difference between "gap" and "fusion"?

if you pray, maybe toss john 17 up as a prayer for my group.

idolatry

One of my wisest friends, in whose presence i wish i could morph into a sponge and absorb every dew-drop of insight (save a few attempts as profundidty that are really, as my friends admits, piles of beautiful, but sort of worthless in a jedi way, bull shit - but, they wound pretty, so they're still cool), once explained a new concept of idolarty - worshipping a God we have created in our minds but that is not God at all.

willful sin, then, is maybe the refusal to see God as who God is though God reveals God's self - cleaving to our imaginary, hideous idols rather than to our unspeakably beautiful God.

I think I came within milliseconds of a nervous breakdown twice this weekend and once last. I had to literally stop and breathe - then dive back into the daunting responsibility of christian education (both mine and the children and youth at my church). As i launched back into studies and plans, i felt my jaw clenched with stress. then i heard a voice (no not audible - my life hasn't drven me to that level of insaity - yet). God and i proceeded to converse:

"What are you doing"

"Um...I'm studying...duh."

"Ok, but why?"

"Well, for you."

"Really?"

"Why else would I kill myself like this?"

"Umm, yeah, that's not what I had in mind with the whole 'die to yourself' thing. I think you're missing the point. You're certianly missing me. In fact, you've made me into a idol - or, more correctly, you've made yourself an idol in your own image to worship - one that is demanding, unforgiving, judging and can't begin to comprehend joy. Remember when I taught you about grace and it changed your life? Remember when I showed you how everything breaks down to love? Remember how that changed everything you know? Where has that gone? Stop. Rest. Breathe - breathe the breath I give you - breathe me. Stop performing for an idol and start singing and dancing for me - you'll find that I dance with you, restore you, reveal more and more of love and grace to you, and provide your every breath."


Conscious of time and of eternity, I held the two in tension, slowed my breathing, stopped to see Seattle's love-letter-esque quality unfolding around me and continued my studies feeling loved and knowing God's grace covers my failures (academically, vocationally, spiritually etc.) and that God's grace takes the repugnant weeds of idolatry and transforms them to breath-takingly, tear invokingly beautiful roses.

Two days later....my brother told me he's worried I'm literally going to kill myself working. He reminded me, this isn't what God wants for you - it's idolatry. Crap. Why does rest even have to be a journey? One more repentance. One more exposure of idolatry. One step closer I guess - but the joy, somehow, is the trek and not the arrival. Time to stop and smell the metaphorical roses.

Deep Concern

Every year, my church has a civil war aka rumage sale. Tempers are short and little old people have flooded the fellowship hall for anything but fellowship as they are out for blood. I've been warned by our sweet, awesome secretary not to go down there. This raises a question: should I see the depths of discord which infect the congregants...or should I run for dear life?

Anyway, this is beside the point. Last night the fellowship hall -- and every other room in the church was filled completely. The youth had no place to meet. So...we sinfully treked to the evil empire (starbucks). Two of my youth asked me to buy them coffee but I firmly stated that I would buy no coffee product from *$. So they got chocolate milk - whatever.

One of my favorite kids, Luke, asked if we could sit outside. This seemed reasonable. The seeming reasonability of this, however, shows my extreme lack of insight. Such is life.

Cars zoomed by, construction on the road overpowered, no one would pay attention. So, I found myself talking louder and louder and getting more and more frustrated and losing the eloquence with which I had planned to deliver the message. In Zach Morris style, time stood still and I commented that I hated who I was being. By the end, I was pissed. I was pissed at them not for being loud and refusing to pay attention but for forcing me to a place where I had to choose between raising my voice and striving to hold their attention and some other unknown option. Worse, I was pissed at myself for choosing the former and not being creative enough to uncover the latter.

I know the kids heard some things. I had the amazing opportunity to explain grace to one of my youth -- and the blessing of having all the other youth constantly interrupt me giving him sound bites from previous lessons I'd given -- they, at least cognitively, get grace and love! :) It was in no way a loss. These kids are learning to think and the beauty of that is beyond description.

However, I hate being in that place. I'm the youngest of all the leaders and one of only two women - but I'm THE LEADER. I don't want to be the fledgling chic striving to be heard (literally or figuratively). I've never wanted to be that. I hope I'm not becoming that.

one more thing

I'm also doing a film festival instead of weekly youth group this summer and am looking for a cool but not cheesey title for that - jeff and jeff-like people resist too much sarcasm if possible :).

any ideas?

the coolest VBS ever

I'm working on VBS-ish thing for youth. I'm going to use the seven episodes in McLaren's "The Story We Find Ourselves In" as seven topics - one for each night. Here's the probable format:

5-6 - youth from my church make dinner together (form community?!?)
6-7 - eat dinner (my youth, their friends, youth from other churches)
7-7:30 - games that are fun but create community and have at least some form of meaning (without being cheesey)
7:30-8:15 program

• Music (a couple of worship songs some connected secular songs)
• Video - I'd like to have a video for each episode - I might have to make them all though and I don't know that I'll have time for that.
• Short Message
• Related Testimony (as in testifying story not as in conversion story)
• Question and answer (we'll take questions but also have an annonymous question drop box where no question will be off limits)

8:15-8:30 - small group time
8:30-8:45 - recap program
8:45-X optional worship and prayer time (game room also open)

So...the reason I'm posting this is that I want help with ideas - parables, videos, games, food, titles for the event (some one suggested "the 7 seas since McLaren has the 7 "c"s -- but...yeah, I'd like to try something else), cautions, insights, prayer etc.

Incase you don't know the 7 episodes, they are:

1. Creation
2. Crisis/Chaos
3. Calling
4. Conversation
5. Christ
6. Community/Church
7. Consumation

So feel free to either post or email me ideas -- or to pass this post on to other people who might have ideas.

If you know any youth ministers (or youth) in the seattle area who might want to collaborate, let me know.