Dreams, Risk, and the Movement of God.

I have long been amazed and inspired by people who were seized by a dream or by a hope bigger than them, driving them to take unimaginable risks.

My latest inspiration has been that of my friends' dream. It started with one friend seeing the needs of his community and being moved by a dream to do something. It led him to take a rough, difficult journey. Another friend of mine was also moved by this dream, by this hope, by this need to [re]create. She has joined in and become an intricate part of this dream. Many others have been essential to what they are doing, but these are the two that I have known most closely.

What blows me away is the amount of risk they have each taken. They have both been willing to lose it all to continue to carry this dream to fulfillment.

Isn't that the story of God? The parable of the Treasure in a Field has typically been used to describe the calling for those who follow Jesus. It's sometimes been used to try to make people give up their all to follow Jesus. I don't think this is the appropriate interpretation.

First, it was the beauty and the recognition of the value of this treasure that compelled this man to sell all he had (probably sacrificing his source of livelihood), risking his all, to gain something greater. It seems like foolishness. Or the Pearl of Great Price. The merchant knew what he was looking for. He sold everything to gain a pearl with great value. It doesn't seem to make sense. Wouldn't someone rather sell the pearl to gain the profits? But no, this merchant bought this pearl.

It's like how Jesus says that we must lose our lives to find them. To gain such treasure, we must risk it all. The treasure is not so much our reward for doing so, but our reason for doing so. Likewise, the parables describe God's actions towards us. He gave his all, risking everything in order to gain His treasure - the Kingdom come - among us.

What makes the dream so compelling is that once you know the risks another takes to bring dreams to fulfillment, the more you want to be a part of it, because you recognize that it is quite simply worth giving everything for. It is worth the risk, worth the loss, and upon its fulfillment is an indescribable gain.

I recognize that my friends have risked everything they have for this dream. I am compelled by it, and I feel moved by recognizing the worth that drives them to take such risks. As a result, I am compelled to take risks and to join in this dream. I invite you all to join me in this dream and to be so moved by its beauty and worth that some would risk everything in hopes of its fulfillment.

Please consider helping fund this dream. Go to Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/978638463/re-create-englewood) and watch the video. If you are so moved by this blog and by the dream that God has imparted to people willing to listen and make such leaps, make a contribution.

In everything, may we be encouraged by our God who gave his all to gain us. Would we join with him, recognizing the worth and beauty of our Lord, his reign, and his ultimate dream. Would we reflect his love and take risks, losing everything to gain something even greater.

*For more info on the dream of my friends, go to Kickstarter and search "[re]create"

The Capacity to Hate.

I have been working at a non-profit with teens and kids for the past couple months. I was glad to once again be a part of something that was bigger than me, but did not anticipate to feel swallowed completely by it. There's a lot going on there, and due to confidentiality, I will refrain from giving identifying details, but lately my work has been exhausting and confusing and incredibly painful (both literally and figuratively).

To date, I have been hit on the cheek with a highlighter (hard enough to make me cry out in pain), in the forehead with a large Lego block, and in the back of the head with a book. Only one of those was unintentional.

A young child I have worked with confuses the mess out of me. He is horrible to work with. I have never felt so degraded and belittled in all my life (at least not in my immediate memory). He's discovered that we can't actually physically force him to behave and he uses that to his advantage. I doubt if he knows the meaning and implications of the things he says and does to me, but the words he uses and the physical nature of his disdain hurts me deeply.

This kid has discovered that the best way to show contempt and an utter rebellion to what we say is to spit on people. I have been spit on by him more times than I can count. I have been given the middle finger, been told to "shut the fuck up", been told to shut my "bitch ass" up, been called a "bitch" and a "fucker", been hit, been spit on, been hit by objects thrown (quite intentionally) at my face. And all of it actually hurts me. If you are offended by the language (and by the lack of warning in my using such language), good. You come moderately close to experiencing the offense I have felt. Except none of it was used against you. By a child. By the one you are trying to protect, that ends up assaulting and diminishing you in almost every way a child possibly could.

There are moments, fleeting moments, when I am reminded he is a child. He tells me his favorite colors are pink and purple, and he doesn't understand why the other boys laugh at him. He's told me "I love you" (which confused the crap out of me). He's given me a big hug and kissed me on the cheek. He's burst into song, singing the Barney theme song. He's a child. A young child at that.

An older child recently told me to "die and go to ____" (and yes, he left it blank too, for fear of getting in trouble). He said it while smiling, but he wasn't really joking either. It confuses me.

I know that some kids echo what they have experienced in their own lives. In fact, all do that, to some degree or another. What they mean by what they do and what I take from what they do are different. But I started thinking today... At what age does a person develop the capacity to hate?

I don't believe a baby has the capacity to love or hate. At the risk of sounding callous, I think babies are primarily biological beings. They cry for what they need. They smile and calm down at their mother's voice, not because of some emotional connection, but because of the biological environment that led them to become most accustomed to their mother's voice during pregnancy, thus making them feel more at ease. Pure biology. No more could they hate than they could possibly love.

I started wondering which develops first: love or hate. I started wondering whether this had been studied. I'm sure it's been attempted, but what could possibly be the operational definition of hatred? What quantifiable measure could encapsulate and reflect the internal hatred? What even is hatred? Is it wishing ill upon another? Is it treating them with cruelty? Is it acting upon an impulse to cause them pain? Is it wishing them dead? Could it be one of those things without being all of them or is it something less than hate if not all of those things are present? Is hatred possible without putting oneself in another's shoes to consider how they will experience the words/actions?

What about how it develops? Does love or hate develop first? Does it depend on environment? Most children raised by abusive parents still love their parents. What does that mean? Does it mean love is more natural than hate? Is there any evolutionary benefit to the emotion of hatred? Is hatred an emotion or an action?

I am deeply confused and troubled by the capacity to hate. I think all people eventually develop the capacity to hate. What causes some to develop a greater degree of hatred than another?

If you could choose for your child NEVER to be ABLE to develop the capacity for hatred, would you choose that? Or would you think it would make them less than human? Or more than human? Which would it be and would it be worth it to you?

Anyway, the stuff with my job was a springboard to these questions. I have no resolution, but I wanted to invite you into my life and into my mind today because it was weighing on me heavily. What's scary to me is how much this job reminds me of my own capacity to hate or at the very least to be filled with anger, to be so wrought with an onset of anger that my blood runs cold. To drive home so worked up that I have to turn on the heat so that I don't feel cold inside even though my body is physically sweating.

These questions are relevant. With the recent shootings and with the recollection of past shootings, this is relevant. With our ability to argue about gun control laws when children have been killed, this is relevant. With my ability to literally forget that a child is just a child, this is relevant. With children who are taught to act hatefully, this is relevant.

I'm inviting others with me to choose to act against cynicism in this. I'm inviting others to encourage me not to grow bitter and not to be filled with despair.

There is a Kingdom that stands as a light shining in the darkness. There is a Lord who stands as light in our darkness. There is a Jesus who, though at once he looked like an extinguished candle, rose again, proving that light rises again. There is a Church that is called to bear witness to that light and to be light in darkness, knowing that we too may face extinguishment, but to live in the faith that light prevails.

Recontextualizing Gleaning.

I have been fascinated for the past few years by the idea of "gleaning" in the Old Testament. Basically the idea is that those who grew crops were to leave the edges of the field unharvested so that the poor and the foreigners could harvest the food and take it for themselves. The reference I find for it is Leviticus 23:22 - “‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God.’”. 

First, what is the reason that God gives for doing this. Because he is God, right? When I read that verse as a kid, I accepted that as justification for why. Sure. God is God, I am not. Do what he says. It's not much different than "because I said so", and kids are expected to go along with that (even if it's ridiculous to expect them to). I think it's more than that. 

By identifying himself and by implying that it is because he is God that they should follow this law, it seems that identity is a major part of this law. Israelites were chosen to represent God to the world. They were to be a blessing. By declaring who he was (and remember, LORD in all caps is actually The Name of God, not just a generic title), God was identifying himself, his nature, his character, and his mission to the world. As his people, who were told over and over again to do things that would bear his image in the Old Testament, "so that the world would know that he is God", they were to do the same. 

Okay, so it's in God's character to care for the poor. Jesus made this clear when he declared (or re-contextualized) his purposed by quoting from the prophet Isaiah, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."

People of God, this is our identity too. I am so enamored by the idea of gleaning. It's interesting because if we were to witness this today, we would hear a lot about it. We would hear about how the poor are leeching off of the wealthy (or the middle-class, or whoever). We would hear it as though they pilfered the goods. We might be shocked that someone would give over some of their abundance. In fact, maybe not abundance, since for the landowners, the crops were their very livelihood. This action, this participation in God's mission, pushed for more than just following a rule, but for a change of mindset.

In psychology, one of the topics I found fascinating was the idea that behaviors could change the mindset. I know mindsets change and cause behaviors. But behaviors have a significant effect of mindset. This is even highlighted by the gospel of John, wherein the author proclaims that those who do good love the light. His logic makes sense, but it's the reverse of what we would expect, so that it somehow condemns the Pharisees and uplifts those who are looked down upon.
  
How could we participate in God's mission in a similar way? I was blown away recently when I considered that tithing is not much different than leaving a portion of your fields open. It's a refusal of profit. It's accepting a sort of loss along with your gains. It's recognizing that your gains are somehow linked to the loss of others. It's recognizing that your gains may even be at the expense of others (in the U.S., we either know this is true or choose to be ignorant of that fact). 

I have always been resistant to the idea of tithing. And I'm not known for being a scrooge. Tithing bothered me because there was no reason given. It bothered me because in my church background, you never knew where the money was going. Early church writers talked about distribution practices. They knew where their money/belongings were going. They were going to the poor, the widowed (who in those days had no protection), and the orphaned. They went to the world's most vulnerable. Tithing today shouldn't be much different. And in fact, if you are distributing your means to the most vulnerable, I would say that is a form of tithing. 

Can we do this in a way that is directly linked to our spending practices, to our gains? The main difference I see between gleaning and tithing, in our modern context especially, is that the practice of gleaning was directly linked to gains made. It caused cognitive dissonance. It brought to the forefront the question of identity, as I believe God does of himself and of his people when giving this command. Perhaps tithing did the same, but it's more removed (I contend) in that way in our modern lives. 

I once heard about this bank with a program that, any time you made a purchase, rounded up the total to the nearest dollar and donated the change from each purchase to the cause of your choice. This, to me, is a good start. This seems undeniably linked to the idea of gleaning and to the question of identity.

At some point these things become automatic. "Okay boys, only harvest till the line with the big rock." That can pose the danger of no longer requiring the landowner (or resource-holder) to be mindful and to be at a greater risk of divorcing one's gains from the recognition of another's need. But at the same time, its becoming automatic may have positive meaning as well. At some point, what you had once regarded as yours, which you did work for, and which in all rights is yours, is no longer considered yours in your mind. 

This is a question of identity and mission. This is a recognition of who is our God, a recognition of our identities as those who bear God's image and do his work in the world, and of how we view the identity of others. 

I am forming ideas of how to do this in my own life more intentionally. I think there is beauty to generosity being unplanned. In fact, I think most of it is. But I think intentionality plays a role in forming us so that we become the kind of people who do what we do because we are compelled by compassion.

Is Justice a Fluid Concept?

Over the past handful of years, I have learned a lot about justice by being exposed to an unfathomable realm of injustice. This journey started with Mission Year and my time in Englewood. Now having been exposed in such a way, my life will never be devoid of the questions of 1) What is Justice?, 2) What does it mean to live a life of justice?, 3) What does my position in the world mean for the way I live my life?

The first question has a basic answer. What is justice? In the Bible, I think justice is shown to be the righting of wrongs, and particularly through Jesus, I see it as administration of mercy. In the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament, but one of my professors dislikes that term and prefers HB), there is the system of gleaning, which I think is an incredible economic idea that the Church should have a role in enacting somehow today. There is also the Year of Jubilee, where things are returned and set right. In Jesus, we see justice as not giving people what society thinks they should deserve (or even what religion thinks they deserve), but giving mercy (i.e. the story of the woman caught in adultery and the parable of the good Samaritan). "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8)

After having read theories on social justice and the perpetuation of systemic injustice, I find no way to live a life in the U.S. that is devoid of injustice. Take sweatshops for example. Most of the clothes we buy are made by people working for cents a day, many of which are literally chained to their work stations. Do we boycott those stores? Refuse to shop from them? Besides the economics of it, where masses of people boycotting would collapse our own economic system and ultimately would cause the people currently working in sweatshops to have no means of making a wage, there are other things to consider.

Do you buy from other stores and companies? Do you know where those clothes come from? Do they? Do you only buy from thrift shops? Do you purchase any of the clothes that come from sweatshop brands? After all, your money isn't going to actually support those companies.

It's complicated.

Being the way that I am, I feel that anything that contributes or partakes in injustice to be wrong. But, what about Jesus? He ate food with the Pharisees, He accepted the gift of perfume spilled on his feet, He went to the house of Zacchaeus and ate food that he prepared...

I began to wonder if it was different for Him because He was on the side of those being treated unjustly. Howard Thurman wrote a book called Jesus and the Disinherited. It's written from a liberation theology by a black man in the midst of a decade of racial segregation. He's writing to others who are oppressed. So many books are written to the oppressors, to those who have privilege on their side.

This one's on the other end. Thurman demonstrates in his book how Jesus was on the oppressed side. Ethnically, religiously, economically... Those things shape his responses to the world.

For me, as a young woman with privilege on my side, do I respond to the world in like fashion to Jesus or differently? It wasn't even until after the death of Jesus that Gentiles, who were considered a privileged group ethnically, were even included. Would the gospel look different to them? What about to those with power? What about to Romans? Would the gospel look different to them?  What does it look like in my own nation, which I think is unfortunately, yet aptly described by Psalm 73.

The Magnificat, Mary's song in Luke, talks about an overturning of status and wealth. It is consistent with the Hebrew understanding of justice and the Messiah. Were they mistaken? Did Jesus amend this image or conform to it? And what if Jesus had been a person of privilege? How differently would he have done things? Or would it even have been possible for God to come in a form affording Him worldly power or would that, by its nature, require Him to be less than He is?

I don't have a lot of answers. I do think that God had to come in the form of the oppressed in society. He turned down worldly power, even escaping from those who intended to make Him king by force. Does that mean power is evil? No. He raised many leaders to have powers and He gave privileges that were to be used for the Kingdom, including the "least of these". It is not the gospel for one to have privilege and power that will not be used to benefit those who are disinherited.

What that looks like, I don't know. I think that the Quaker John Woolman had a pretty good idea of it. Woolman didn't support slavery. As a young adult, his boss required him to write a bill of sale for his boss's slave. Regretfully, he did. That was a formative moment. He felt that he had enacted an injustice. Had he refused, he would have lost his job, and the bill would be written by another. But he realized that had he refused, he wouldn't have participated in an evil.

From that point on, his entire life approach changed. As an advocate among the Quakers for the release of slaves, he had to deal with the fact that many of his friends had slaves. What was he to do when they invited him to dinner that the slaves prepared? He could refuse to go, but that would have hurt the community that God had put him in and in the end, probably would not lead his friends to question or change their beliefs. He could go and do/say nothing, but that would, in his mind, make him complicit with the evil he witnessed.

Instead, he went to dinner and enjoyed time with his friends. But he always paid the slaves for their services towards him. He could not speak for his friends, but he would not receive services for free from a person he believed should be free. This allowed him to maintain community, maintain his personal standards, and hopefully cause his friends to question their role in the situation as well.

Chris Heuertz writes on my questions and confusions in his book Friendship at the Margins. He tells a story of wearing a GAP shirt to his friend's house. His friend had worked in sweatshops and when she saw him that day, she recognized the shirt. She had made many just like it and had in fact, been doing work for GAP. He wrestled with how to deal with it. His answers aren't fully sufficient for me. He admits that there is and will be inconsistency at times with what we believe and what we do. His experience with those in the sex industry leads to even more difficult questions. He struggles with the answers. In the end, he doesn't always have them. In the end, he has more insight into the questions to consider that most of us would never think about. But his humility and how he deals with the idea of justice gives me hope.

It seems to me that in the world as it is, justice has to be a fluid concept. It can't be much else. But I will enact Justice as best as I can as I look to the New Heaven and Earth where justice is the mode of being. Where its fluidity is not so much in its conception, but where its fluidity is seen in this light:

Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! 
(Amos 5:24, later quoted by Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Seasons vs. Days and My Worldview

Due to a number of factors: my current job/life situation, my recent obsession with TEDtalks, and my ways of coping with life, I started thinking about Life.

Sometimes I classify life by lists. Lists help me to evaluate life. I make lists for things that I actually plan on doing and for things that I don't have any real intention of doing at all. I almost never make grocery lists but I often make lists of thoughts, condensing them to simple, bullet-pointed formats.

I started out this morning by trying to figure out my life's aspirations via lists. I have done this any number of times. In high school I had a folder on my computer's desktop entitled "My Ideal Life". it was separated into various sections of ideals I valued at that time and goals I aspired to. Eventually I deleted it so I wouldn't be haunted by all that my current life is not. But for better or worse, I almost always have some such mental list in my head at any given moment.

Sometimes it helps. For instance, I've discovered my life is much better when I sing often. Best if I sing daily. Writing gives me an outlet that allows me to discover hidden worlds within my thoughts (hence my journal and the existence of this blog). Art and music allow me to participate in a singular moment of time in a way that almost nothing else can.

These are facts about my existence in the world and my flourishing in the world. So I decided once again, in response to my search for "what I should do with my life", to list out different things. The things that I value (list 1) and the things that give me life (list 2). My goal being that I would find combinations of those two lists that would give me insight into a career path. And that, as a result, I would figure out how to structure my day so that each day I participate in life fully.

I have also done this ever since I was a kid. I used lists to make a schedule, an hour-by-hour schedule that dictated what I should be doing when to allow me to do the things that are most life-giving (to myself and to others).

What I realize every time is that what had, at one point, been life-giving becomes life-demanding. If I follow the schedule, it limits me rather than freeing me. It produces stress rather than reducing it. It diminishes me to small components rather than acknowledging that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts (Gestalt theory?/I'm a Psych nerd).

I have a very Western frame of mind. In this instance, a very Type A, Western frame of mind. I thought about how life tends to be lived out in seasons. In Ecclesiastes, the writer talks about various times: a time to laugh, a time to mourn, etc., etc. I, on the other hand, have a 24-hour mindset to conceptualize Time. I see a day as units to be filled, with each day ideally holding a particle of every separate essence of myself. Self-actualization, in my mind, is actualizing every bit of myself in a given day. People with this mindset would hypothetically arrange the literal seasons of the year into a day, where we could experience fall, summer, winter and spring every single day.

That doesn't work at all. It would be like mixing all of your favorite foods into a single morsel. It ruins and depletes each item of its beauty by assigning it such a small place in a mix. Sure, if you ate every meal in this way, you might finish what would have typically been a single-serving of your favorite food, but you would never appreciate its distinctness from anything else. You would never be able to revel in just that one thing and all of its intricacies.

It's useful for me to consider this in life. I'm a hardcore idealist. An extreme idealist who constantly re-envisions life, its meaning, and my place in the big picture, and I want to live into that reality immediately. Everything to me feels urgent. Everything to me is a global issue. Everything contributes to the positive or negative well-being of the cosmos. And I often feel that if I am not vigilant in producing things of value or living into everything that I value all at once, that my decisions are actively destroying what I care about the most.

I forget about seasons. I forget about the Being vs. Doing dichotomy. I lose myself in trying to be myself so that I can be less but serve more in the bigger picture. It's too much. I can't do it all in a day. I can't do it all.

There are seasons. Those seasons 1) are revealed by God, 2) are demanded by your circumstances, or 3) are only revealed to you in hindsight, or some combination of these three. I am not sure which one in I am now. Probably all three. And I will probably figure that out in hindsight. But recognizing the season I am in, defining it, and reveling in the moment and recognizing its distinctness will allow me to live fully into it, offering the most I can of myself to God and to those around me.

A TEDtalks person said, "We all need a fishbowl." Considering my natural tendencies, I think this is especially true for me, and true to my nature, nothing scares me more.


*Note: This is coming from an INFJ. Read a description online and this entire post will make more sense if I seem crazy to you now.

Joy and Unknowingly Joining God's Movement.

I've had a lot of thoughts lately that I reply to in my head by saying, "Ooh, that'd make a good blog entry!" I haven't blogged on a single one yet, but now I'm going to try to combine them into one and hope that they somehow relate to one another (and that this isn't as long-winded as it could be).

One of the things I've been thinking about is how hard it is for me in this exact stage of life to just be present with a moment. It used to be a lot easier for me to just exist in a moment that somehow seemed unbound by time. It seems to be a contradiction, to be so in a moment of time to be unaware of the concept of time, but somehow I know that state because I've experienced it.

Maybe it's the cool of the fall, maybe it's the stress of feeling like I'm in a place I am ill-equipped for, but whatever it is, I keep returning to memories from years ago. One memory that has kept coming back, like a ripple in a small enclosed area that keeps reverberating in space, is the memory of the jacuzzi.

In high school, one of my best friends and I had this tradition of sneaking into this jacuzzi that was owned by a condo out on the Island. There were a few variations to the tradition, but the overall effect was, we would sneak into this jacuzzi late at night. We snuck past the "No Trespassing" sign without a second thought. It became our place. It was as though we always belonged there. We never did anything crazy. We were quiet and respectful. Sometimes we invited friends and sometimes it was just us. It was our escape. We could be joking around or having a serious conversation. Some of our deepest conversations happened out there. Somehow there was an openness there that we couldn't experience in the light of day in the realm of our normal lives.

I remember the feeling of the water. I remember how badly our frozen feet hurt when we first stepped into the hot water. I remember how cold it was in the dead of winter when we ran from the car to the jacuzzi in our bathing suits. I remember the sounds of the ocean waves lapping onto the shore, just  a couple dozen yards from the hot tub. I remember the stars above and the way the moon shone through the clouds on so many nights. It was almost a sacred place.

I have missed being so present with people, with nature, with God, with a single moment. I have been so boggled by a sense of unbelonging in some ways. I am in a new place and I feel right about it. Mostly. But there are still so many questions. Am I supposed to be working where I am? Where am I supposed to live? How is making an actual living possible? I have no doubts that I am supposed to be here. I have doubts about HOW I am supposed to be now that I am here.

I am living in so many moments that don't exist, mentally and emotionally trying on different solutions as though I was picking out the right dress for prom. There's the hope of this beautiful dress, with elements of a few of the special dresses I have tried on. This color, with that waist-line, that intricate beading, and those materials. It would make a beautiful dress. But if such a dress existed, would it really fit? Would it even be as beautiful as I envisioned it?

My saving grace in this has been reading through my journal. Old entries. I had all these ideas of what I wanted. Often God has led me to places that have been different than what I've wanted:

1) I wanted to go to college in Florida, where I had a Bright Future's scholarship with my name on it and acceptance to an academically competitive school. I ended up doing Mission Year in Chicago.
2) I wanted to continue living in Englewood and go to school there afterwards because it fit with my understanding of how God wanted my life to be.
3) Then I wanted to go to school at UIC, where I had already been accepted into the school and into the Honors program. I ended up at a private, Christian school (incidentally, since I was a young teen, I have *never* wanted to go to a Christian school). But I still did live in the inner-city.
4) I ended up moving out of the type of neighborhood I envisioned myself living in. I ended up in a neighborhood that, to me, seemed quite posh in comparison. I moved up near my college.
5) I intended to major in Psychology, but I ended up majoring in Biblical and Theological Studies.
6) After graduating, I intended to stay in Chicago and to start a home church with friends. I ended up moving here, to South Carolina, to become part of a church and God knows what else.

I was amazed at one point, looking at all of these things, trying to make sense of it. I felt like I'd never chosen anything in my life until I moved to South Carolina. But hadn't I chosen each thing in that list?

So often people rely on God to close doors for them to know what to do. Strangely, the way God has often worked with me is by not closing doors. He hasn't closed doors. In fact, He's often left doors open to the very things I thought I wanted.

How? How have I so consistently chosen against that which I so very desired?

Joy.

Somehow, at each step, when I was faced with what I wanted and what else was available, joy is what so often grounded me. This isn't always the case, and it isn't the case for two of the numbered examples above either. But it has so often been that indication of God's movement.

I remember when I was in high school, I imagined myself leaving everything behind, stepping into a canoe somewhere and seeing where it led me. I have lived in the hope of one day being able to do that in life without realizing I was in the darn canoe the whole time. How much I have feared and fretted and kept myself from living in the moment when the whole time I have been exactly where I have tearfully, fervently prayed and hoped to one day be.

I am here.

The phrase that keeps coming to mind to describe where I am now is that I feel as though I have accidentally stepped into a stream that is now carrying me.

Joy has been part of what has kept me in the stream. I have made some darn foolish decisions based on joy.

I chose to move to the inner-city, far away from anyone I knew. I chose to stay. I chose to leave the neighborhood I thought I was staying in Chicago for. I turned down acceptance to a fairly prestigious university - actually two. And an honors program and full-fledged scholarship (that I worked hard to get) to boot! I chose a degree that is unmarketable, especially for my gender. I chose to move to South Carolina without any sort of job security and I am still very aware of that fact.

But I am overwhelmed with joy. And I see God pulling together pieces from my past and piecing them together here now. Things that I had journaled that I wanted in my life, just days before I found out about the option to move here... Seeing those desires finding root here. Seeing my purpose in Mission Year being rediscovered in a non-urban environment. Seeing my love for singing and teaching finding homes.

Joy keeps me present in the moment. Joy keeps me united to God's heart and His purposes for me. Joy directs the way I live my life. The decisions I make sometimes that look stupid. I doubt sometimes. But then I find myself seized by a joy and an assurance that I am still in the canoe in the stream. And God keeps proving to me piece by piece that I am okay. And I can see for myself that I have ended up with a life that is better than the one I dreamed for myself. Not better in a worldly sense. But better nonetheless. And I praise God.

Being a Woman as a Follower of Christ in the World.

This blog is very different than usual. Its message (if one can dig through to find one) is not easily applicable, it is founded on generalizations which have often but not always been true in my life. It is simply a personal rant designed to help me process things and to help me not feel alone in experiencing what I'm experiencing. I do not claim that what is contained here is true always or that it should limit anyone in any way. I'm not even writing this to cause males to question how they interact with women.

If nothing else, I hope this entry, if any of you have accidentally stumbled into this hot mess, will allow you to step into another's shoes. My shoes. I know I am speaking very one-sidedly and entirely from my own experiences. I hope you can have grace with me and recognize that this is coming from a place of pain for me.
________________________________________________________
There was an incident the other day that infuriated me on a deep level. Seriously. My immediate prayer thereafter was *not* pretty. The incident itself will remain vague because it's not unique. If it was unique it might warrant explanation. But this incident is one of many just like it. In fact, this incident was milder than many/most others.  This time, though, the implications bothered me more than ever before.

This post is not about a woman's place in the church. I have plenty to say on that, but I'll spare you. For now. It bothers me that women aren't allowed a place in the church a lot of times, but I am far more bothered that a woman's place in the world as a Christ-follower is at stake.

The overall dynamic that I commonly experience, and what I believe it means, follows.

The Dynamic
 I belief in embodying a missional life. This means that I believe in loving people fully. It means engaging the world around me - followers of Jesus and not. It means not withholding who I am because who I am is a beautiful part of God's mission for the world at this time. It means interacting to cross barriers - barriers of race, religion, gender, politics, language, culture, etc. It means being fully present and acknowledging the full presence of the Other (who is distinct from me, yet in some weird way is like me).

Being a female in a cross-gender context like this is disastrous. Not always. But in my experience, often. Often the case is that after a moment of genuine connection/engagement is experienced, the language changes. The dynamic shifts. When this happens, my ability to do ministry (and by "do ministry", I literally and simply mean "engaging in a genuine/honest/authentic way with another") is undercut. The power shifts from a balance of two people interacting to one person usurping that power to change the dynamic.

To be less vague: I am talking about a shift to the romantic or lustful sort of thing. And "romantic" is putting a sweet spin on it. I get romantic attraction and there is nothing wrong with it. Lust to me has been wrongly defined often. I think lust is simply desiring something in a way that counteracts the good that is, was, or could have been in something. I think lust is a word of power or a claim to power. Or its a power that seizes and controls you. Something to that effect. Romantic attraction, done right, doesn't take power to lay claim to another person. THAT is the sort of dynamic I am referring to.

My Defense
Before I go into why it bother me so much, I need to set the record straight because inevitably people will want to harp on the whole "pearls to the swine" idea or the "guarding your heart" verse or the general concept of wisdom in a ministry/relational context, especially a multi-gender context. I'm not going to break down each one, though I could certainly try to do so.

All I will say on this is that the types of interactions I am describing are NOT ones in which I am being unwise. They are not ones in which I am being in any way flirtatious. They are not ones in which I am doing anything that any male would ever be accused of exercising poor judgment in. Which leads me to...

Why I Am Irate About This

1) The double standard
Because I am a female, I am aware of the double-standard in culture that is in place. It's in place everywhere you look. In the workplace, in physical/sexual relationships, in the porn industry, in the church, in the home, etc. It's a mess.

A man would never be accused of exercising poor judgement in the situations that I'm describing, whereas, because I am a female I have been accused of that or at the very least expect to be.

2) The one-sided power shift
I do not believe that in most situations a woman can usurp power from a man the way a man can from a woman. At least in the situations I am describing. In conversation. In relationship. The feelings that those dynamics evoke in me, because I am a female, are not simply annoyance or frustration. The feelings are those of fear (at worst) and belittlement (at best). 

Even when women take a lustful interest in a man that subverts his ability to relate in authentic communion/community with her, the woman still does not assert power over him the same way he could over her. It still demeans the fullness of who he is, but it does not render him unable to speak or interact with her the same way it does for a woman. And please hear me on this: It is just as wrong for a woman to relate in that way to a man as vice versa. I'm just saying that gender dynamics cause the effect in that dynamic to be different for women than for men.

3) The result this seems to have for me
Taking these things into account, it feels there are a few inevitable results.
1. I can expect to never be able to relate in an authentic way with a male without it being counteracted.
2. I can expect that because I have a gender which I didn't choose, that by nature of the twisted dynamics that often happen, my ability to impact the Kingdom of God will be limited - not because I am not stepping out on faith, but because when I do, another person has the ability to immediately quash its intent.
3. I can expect that because I am a woman, the most effective place of ministry I will have is a place where my being female doesn't matter (which mostly means roles where I am quiet and not interacting openly with males).
4. Therefore, the only places where my gender doesn't matter are places where my gender's stereotypes are strengthened and where I will never be able to be fully authentic.



Okay. I'm done. No neat wrap-up. I'm not actually all that cynical. I am just incredibly frustrated that this is what I have encountered again and again. Though I think those results I described can be encountered and can be contextually true, I do not believe they are True in the sense of the ultimate ethic of the Kingdom of God.

No. I will not sit back. I will not take the place that people occasionally try to put me in. I will not guard myself the way so many seem to think I should. In doing so, I am guarding the message that I believe to be True from those who desperately need to see it. I will live into what I believe is possible. I have relationships with males where the dynamic is right and good. I know it is possible.

I am just tired of questioning my place in the world as a woman who follows Jesus when so many men, that have never experienced this dynamic in the ways that I regularly have, have been the cause of it so much in my life.

It scares me that because of something I didn't choose, I will never be able to relate the way I feel created and called to relate to people in this world.

Jesus: Mary Poppins?

A few months ago I had my first real hit of a real "crowning moment". On the day that I graduated college, I was awarded with a medallion and the title of Valedictorian. My university doesn't tell the Valedictorian who he/she is until graduation day, when that person is awarded with a medallion. In May of 2012, just a few months ago, I was awarded with this honor.

I didn't really think much of it till others did. It was incredible the amount of support and congratulations I received. It meant more to my family I think than it meant to me. But it meant a lot to me that my family could be so blessed by it, and I was too.

Since  then, the moment of my highest honor/glory, has become one of the biggest sources of condemnation. In the quiet, doubtful moments of my graduate life, I look at what I have and what I am, at least from a worldly view, and I cannot believe that I was the Valedictorian.

I'm currently living with some amazing people, who have graciously accepted me into their home until I get on my feet. It's been 6 months since graduation and I'm still not there. I work 20 hours a week at not much more than minimum wage. At times when I feel a lot of pressure, I look at my bank account and I hear, "And you were the Valedictorian? And this is how you've ended up?" What had been a symbol of success has become the comparative image that declares my current state of utter defeat. Or so it seems.

I used to think of Jesus this way. I once wrote in my journal about how I thought of Jesus the way I thought of Mary Poppins. Anytime I read the gospel, I saw Mary Poppins.

He was a performer of miracles, who could have pulled a lamp out of a bag if he wanted. He did plenty of weirder things. And in my head, he most certainly had a tape measure exactly like the one she did.

"Jesus Christ: Practically perfect in every way"

And of course, anytime this measure was used for anyone else, like myself, it certainly would yield just as distasteful results as it did for the poor little younguns in the movie.

Jesus had become to me this divine measuring stick who walked the earth to show everyone they didn't measure up. Literally that was the exact sermon I was told again and again about the Sermon on the Mount.

I never had the fondest of feelings for Mary Poppins. I really didn't. She was unpredictable. Some moments she was fun-loving and cheerful. Others, she was irritable and she always had high, yet unclear, expectations of the children. And she was always, in her best and worst, absolutely full of herself.

I felt the same way about Jesus. I'd even had people tell me, "Jesus is the only person who could be full of himself and not be sinning. Because he is sinless, he can be full of himself because its him being full of righteousness." Philosophically there is an interesting argument there, but I think it falls flat to its face. I think its entirely false. Philosophically, if that's how pride worked: where it's sinful only if the person is sinful, it would be an interesting theory. A fun little thought excursion for nerds like me. 

It's interesting to me that Jesus seemed to me for so long to be a Divine Measuring Stick. He, who was supposed to be my very glory, had become, in my mind, the biggest source of condemnation. Everything I did became wrong in light of Jesus, this measuring stick. It's interesting to me to think that our understanding could be so perverted that our greatest glory and hope could seem to us to be the exact opposite.

For a minute I had thought that Jesus' death was the symbol of the Divine Measuring Stick being broken. At first glance that seems true. I mean, as someone I greatly respect reminds me, the Bible says that it wasn't simply our sins that were nailed to the cross, but actually the whole system of indebtedness was. That is true. Absolutely true.

But my previous conclusion, that Jesus as the symbol of the divine measuring stick being broken conveyed this truth, is absolutely incorrect. For this to be a fair reading of the gospel, Jesus would have to be set up as the divine measuring stick. And guess what. He never was set up to be that.

Was he sinless? There are debates, but I believe so. So was he perfect? In my beliefs yes. If so, could one set themselves up to Jesus to measure where they stand? One could try, but Jesus himself never uses this approach because it's not the right approach.

I'll close with one of the most faith-changing things someone has ever spoken to me.

I approached a close friend of mine a handful of years ago about my frustrations with God and my disbelief that I was really truly forgiven freely, when I had always believed I was forgiven begrudgingly.

I said to him, "Okay, listen. Let's say I came up to you every and asked for a pencil. Then I broke it every single day in front of your face. But every day I still ask for a new pencil. Would you still keep giving me the pencil? If you did, wouldn't you resent me for putting you in that position?"
He said, "Emily, He would take the pencil and break it himself because it's not about the pencil, it's about you and Him."

That changed me life. I don't say that lightly. We cannot allow Jesus, who has become our glory, for we are co-heirs with Christ, to become our source of shame and condemnation. He is not, was not, and will not be our measuring stick. He never set himself up that way. Don't put Jesus where he would not go himself.

Colossians 1:21-23
Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.

Hoping, Waiting, and the Necessity of Imagination.

Hope is one of the most confusing concepts I have ever encountered. Hope has carried me through darkness, giving me strength to make it through. It gives me the ability to see God when I'm surrounded by situations that are so devoid of His nature. Even if I can't see Him, it gives me an insane, illogical purpose to not lose myself because I have a hope that He is and that because He is, I will be too, one day.

On the other hand, hope has plunged me into the depths of insanity, of an unmet urgency, of burdens that I feel alone in bearing. It has led me to irrational choices. It has been the source of tears and of a gripping pain that seizes me on occasion.

Hope, by nature, is unfulfilled. Faith is the substance of what we hope for. Hope is this illusive glimmer. A spark of light you see in a dark tunnel and you're not sure if you imagined it. It is the glimpse of an image that could be an immanent reality or a mirage. Hope is always amidst an emptiness, a void. It is usually amidst uncertainty and ambiguity.

It seems to be tied regularly to waiting, which is one of the most painful places to be. Waiting, in my mind, is a position that most people don't choose to take in most situations. In a post office, in the DMV, for a future spouse, for enough money to get that car, for the right time to go to school, for the ease of summer break. Hope is tied to an unsettling disatisfaction with things in their current state and it exists by one's ability to see into or live into another reality. This necessitates a period of waiting as things change or an ability to live into the change knowing that its fulfillment will not occur, making the wait indefinite.

 Waiting without hope is passive. At an amusement park, one waits in line in the hope of riding the new roller coaster. Of course, the line could actually end up being to the restrooms, disappointing that hope. Or it could be met by its fulfillment at the end when one reaches that ride they imagined. No one waits in line with nothing at the end of the line. People wait in line with the sole purpose of eventually not being in line anymore, which is where hope comes in.

I'm realizing more and more that hope thrives on imagination. That probably makes some nervous. Imagination can be the cause of detrimental beliefs or of delusions. The danger isn't in having and using imagination. The danger is in not having an open imagination. Imaginative solutions to problems can become a problem themselves when once this imagined reality is created, that there is no ability to amend and adjust it, or that there is no openness to receive from other voices and other imaginations.

God, the most imaginative being of all, created. Because he created and gave us the ability to imagine and create, he gives us the ability, in some senses to create the worlds we live in. We can advance the kingdom of darkness or the kingdom of light. The kingdom of darkness is advanced by active participation in its purposes and in the passive acceptance and adoptions of its ways. The kingdom of light is advance by an active and a necessarily imaginative existence and interaction with the world and with God.

Romans 8:22-25
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

To wait patiently doesn't mean the waiting is inactive. To wait patiently also doesn't mean that we can't groan as we wait. We DO groan as we wait, but we wait and we hope for what is unseen. How do we do that? By imagining the Kingdom that Jesus describes, by imagining our roles in it, by imagining the fulfillment of all things, by imagining what wholeness looks like, and by actively living into it while we wait. It can be painful; it can be joyous. But hope, in the Biblical sense of a spirit-filled hope, does not disappoint (Romans 5:5).

Sometimes I like to go into nature. I feel like nature teaches me how to wait. Nature, the whole of creation, groans knowing what has been, knowing what it was meant to be. We groan, only imagining what can/could/will be. I like the certainty I feel in the groans of nature - the certainty of a wholeness that is to come. It is one of many places that fuels my hope and teaches me to wait patiently. I think it's important for us to find those places and to find places that feed imagination.

Thank God that he has enough hope for the Kingdom that he revealed himself to us in Jesus so that we could share in his hope.

The look of defeat, the triumph of God.

During my senior year at North Park University, I took a class on the gospel of John. The entire class was spent developing a one-sentence thesis of John's gospel. Aside from writing my very first 147-word sentence, this class challenged me to look again at Jesus.

John's portrayal of Jesus is very unique. Every gospel portrays him different (here I will highly recommend Four Gospels, One Jesus? by Burridge). If Luke displays Jesus in accessible and tangible terms, John likes to overturn expectations. He seems to take delight in presenting an idea of Jesus, then expanding it, modifying it, or turning it completely on its head to present an alternative view.

The quick sum of what John seems to set out to do is three-fold to me (though my own synthesis project is more caveated, these are the three main points that I believe are unavoidable and are the thrust of the text):

1. Jesus in John's gospel is all about self-revelation; revelation of the very nature of God, making God known to His followers and to the world
2. God's character in Messiah is most clearly revealed through his repeated I AM statements throughout the gospel that lead to a definitive declaration of His ironic kingship (demonstrated by the crucifixion, which is referred to as the "glorification")
3. Jesus calls His followers to carry on the work of revealing the nature of God; the very work Jesus did, His identity, and His mission have been passed along to us

God's self-revelation through Jesus in John's gospel is even more important than the idea of Jesus dying for sins. Soteriology, salvation, is not shown to be about personal belief in a Jesus that dies for your sin. It is simply to know God and to continue making Him known, the way that Jesus did, by following Him (John 17).

1. Self-revelation: Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. (John 17:3)
2. Identity through the glorification: I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. (John 17:4-5)
3. Followers carry on the same mission: I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. (John 17:14-19, note the parallel language).

If the glorification, the crucifixion, is the pinnacle of Jesus' revelation of the character of God, we must know that we bear that mission. We don't seek martyrdom. And bearing our cross doesn't mean dealing with personal demons or a difficult past or a current "thorn in the side". It means following the way of Jesus. Jesus himself didn't seek martyrdom. 

If we truly seek to follow Jesus and to continue God's work of self-revelation "so that the world may believe" (John 17:21), we cannot expect our glorification to look like anything that the word glory would typically imply. John turns that term on its head. Or Jesus. Or John's interpretation of Jesus. 

Whatever the case, in John 14-17, Jesus again and again states our relation to Him, Jesus' relation to the Father and the purpose of His/our work, so that the world may believe Jesus was sent from God, so that they may know God in truth. 

Sometimes it looks like the utmost defeat. But it is triumph in the Kingdom of God. All of this comes from a question I've been mulling over the past week, which I will now close with:

When we follow Jesus, whose glorification according to John's gospel WAS the crucifixion, why do we expect our way of life to look like a conquest of nobility? Are we seeking to pick up our crosses or our crowns?

A Fire in the Fire Station

I had a dream two nights ago that I felt so strongly depicted some of the issues the Church struggles with these days. So I'll go through the dream and explain how I think it relates.

The Dream:
In my dream I was at a fire station. At some point, I slid down the firepole and on the lower level of the fire station there was, ironically, a fire. I panicked. As I looked around, I realized no one who was a part of the fire station was around. I sounded the fire alarm and no one came. Assuming they hadn't heard it, I sounded the alarm another couple of times. Nothing.

I ran out from the station and noticed that people were outside the fire station. These were people that have been associated with the church in my life, and they were having spiritual conversations. The alarm sounded, but they were all outside talking. When I confronted them about it, they responded that they weren't worried about it because it seemed to be a contained fire.


That's all I remember about my dream. I have a few points to make about this.

1. The station was threatened by the very thing it was established to challenge.
The fire station was built and established to create a safe presence in the community/world, not just for its own self. Just like the fire station, the Church doesn't exist for itself. The fire station wasn't created to protect the fire station from fire. For the fire station to function at all, according to its purpose, it cannot itself have a fire. Its purpose is to protect the surrounding community from fire and to combat the effects of fire in the world.
Likewise, the Church exists for the benefit of the world. A Church existing to protect the Church is limited in scope and purpose. And if the Church houses the very thing it claims to combat or protect others from, it condemns its own self, rendering itself completely useless.

 2. The fire station was equipped to put out the fire.
It would be one thing if the firehouse did not have hoses and running water, but by definition and by name, it claims that it does. If it is not equipped to put out fires, it cannot be a fire station. It may claim to be one, but the actually details would show that it is a liar.
The Church cannot claim to be the Church and not do what the Church was made to do, or more importantly, to BE what it was made to BE. If a Church is not fulfilling its purpose in the world, it is not what it claims to be. If the Church is the Church, there is no excuse for it not filling its purpose, because by definition, it is equipped.

3. No one responded to the distress signal.
It is important to know what the distress signal is. Fire stations have very distinct alarms that firefighters are trained to recognize.
Certainly some churches hear and don't respond. But I think the bigger issue is that the Church often is unaware of what the distress signals are. These vary greatly at the local church level. Every church has a distinctive way of communicating problems. In fact, every person does. The trick is to learn those signals. Paul knew those signals and his letters respond to them. We need to be conscious to learn the distress signals of the individuals around us and the church we are specifically a part of, and to respond as a result.

4. The fact that the people preferred to talk rather than to respond to needs.
In every facet of life, people have their ideas about how to handle situations. We can do a lot of talking about solutions, and ironically, sometimes it's the very discussion of the problems that keeps them from being solved. And talking can also prevent us from learning our church's distress signals. If we are singularly focused on the importance of our own words and ideas, we become deaf to the ideas, words, and cries of others.

5. The way their complacency was excused.
It's not simply worth noting that the people's complacency was excused, but how it was excused. The biggest excuse was that it was a grease fire on a non-flammable surface. It seemed like a contained fire. So long as it didn't spread and get worse, people decided to live with the flames.
As followers of Jesus, we cannot excuse the darkness within/among us and claim to be light. Rather than actively entering into a way that is more loving and truthful and good, the Church often tries to contain its fires and "suck up" (if you'll excuse the phrase) their existence.
"Well, we'll just try to avoid going there with ________"
"It's not great, but I think as long as it doesn't __________, I think we're okay."
So often we don't believe that the power of Christ really can and does transform us and/or our Church communities. So we attempt to contain our fires, or simply attempt not to spread them. And so we accept defeat and limit our participation in the mission of the Church. Or of the fire station.

That's all. No wrap-up. Just food for thought.

Identity and Being In the World

Preface: This blog is a half-developed thought. It's an inspiration to me to share the stories that I have experienced that have changed me. Other blogs are more developed in thought, so if you want that, click on another one. But if you read this one, hopefully it will inspire you the way writing it inspired me.

If you grew up in the church, you have heard the phrase, "Be in the world, but not of it!" used as a condemnation to those that are judged for being too much a part of the world. You may also have heard the verse used as an excuse, wherein the speaker claims that whatever thing they have done that is in question has been simply a part of being in the world, but it's okay because they are still not of the world.

In either case, I believe that the verses this concept is based on are being stretched like a contortionist's body. Its untwisted form may be somehow present, but only with some imagination. Though no verse says this phrase directly, "in the world, but not of it", some roughshod googling suggests that it is a religious construct of the Sufis.

The Bible verses perhaps primarily responsible for our adoption of this phrase are from Jesus and Paul. In the upper-room, Jesus says, "As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you" (John 15:19b). And Paul says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2a).

Fairly, both verses seem to imply the Sufi concept. Clearly both verses assume that we are in the world, which seems like common sense, but I think a lot of Christians forget that from time to time. That said, both verses also demonstrate that the followers of Jesus are decidedly Different and Apart. 

My concerns in our understanding of this concept are:

1) The artificial, legalistic lines we draw between being in the world and being of the world, which often lead an exclusion of the world or to seclusion from the world
2) The tendency of the affluent, privileged, and modern world to determine for themselves which world(s) they want be a part of

I'll rush through the first point a bit. When we draw lines between what being in the world and of the world means, we can easily become like the Pharisees who shut the door of the Kingdom in people's faces (Matt. 23:13b), which excludes the world. Or it leads to a full-out seclusion from the world. Probably all of us are familiar with so-called Christian bubbles. The culture of "gosh darn it,"of "got Jesus?" T-shirts, of WWJD bracelets, and other things that make the Christian community a great punch-line for a certain type of joke. I won't go into the details here. You know the drill. 

The second part, which has actually a lot less to do with these verses directly, is what I am going to focus on.

Something that eats at me is the fact that a large number of us in the western world have the ability to choose what world or which worlds we are a part of. Have any of you seen the show Dance Moms? It shows the studio and tour lives of mothers who have daughters that dance competitively. In an episode I saw recently (I don't watch often, but when I do, I watch a marathon and then hate myself for days after the fact), a new-coming mother/daughter pair swooped in. She, as a single, working mother, asked the other mom's what they do. Sitting in the window room, watching her daughter perform, one mother replied, "This is what we do. This is our lives." 

Their worlds are centered around competitions for fame and fortune for their children. It's what they do. It's how they identify themselves. It's how they decide how and what to be in the world.

In some party schools, the worlds that exist for college students involve a lot of sleeping, homework, binge drinking, going clubbing, etc.  

In some Christian circles, the world that exists is one that centers on weekly meetings, vigils. People identified with this world may have Jesus bumper stickers, fish, and of course, extensive knowledge of the Christian film industry (which some of you didn't know existed). 

If you asked the students about their favorite Kirk Cameron film, they might ask if he was the dude from Growing Pains, then proceed to say, "Wait! He's in movies?" If you asked someone from the Christian circle to make you a Jagerbomb, they might say, "Oh, I can't - I'm a pacifist."

The dance mom said it well. This is what we do.

It concerns me when we choose to limit which worlds we are exposed to. I may not want to feed into twisted dynamics of separate worlds, like any of the three described above, but I want to know them. Part of white privilege is never having to be exposed to the injustices that the people of color have been exposed to, never having to come to terms with the fact that we have been a part of creating this dynamic (not just in history, but in the present). Part of class privilege is that those who are rich never really have to cross paths with the poor. They have enough money to pay for a way of life that would ensure that they would never have to see another poor person again.

I'm speaking in extremes. Most of us do come into contact with these realities from time to time. But do we let them change us? Do we let the things in these worlds inform us, transform us. We are not to allow them to conform us, but to transform us. The dance moms have it right again (I'm saying that as much as possible - there aren't many situations where this phrase is appropriate or true) - it does come down to the question of identity. Do we let our worlds inform our identities or do we let our identities influence the world around us?

If enough of us walk in power and truth, we can be the presence of transformation in the world, bringing hope. We should be able to echo Jesus' own self-proclaimed (or proclaimed by a prophet, affirmed by Jesus) decree of His mission in the world (confirming his identity as the Messiah):

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free, 
    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Why I don't owe God my life.

This is probably going to be one of the most controversial blogs I post, and almost definitely one of the most offensive.

Almost exactly a year ago I was dealing with the all-too-common issue of guilt. Guilt is the primary broken way in which I relate to God, myself, and others. Guilt, I've discovered, is one of the most important tools of manipulation, and is arguably one of the strongest driving forces of motivation. Even in the church, as Wayne Jacobsen notes.

So almost exactly one year ago while on a retreat at school, I was pondering the idea of grace. In an atonement model of the resurrection, where Jesus bore our sin and "paid the price", the "debt is cancelled". I started thinking about what it means for a debt to be cancelled. The balance is emptied. Even without the idea that Jesus' righteousness is imputed to our accounts, the balance due is 0. Nothing. That tripped me up for a minute.

Wha- I don't owe God anything? Get this: You don't owe God anything.

A famous hymn says, "Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe." That is the most contradictory phrase I have ever heard in a religious song. Let's reword this. "Jesus paid it all", roughly means "Jesus made it so that there is nothing to owe". So let's run through this again. "Jesus made it so that there is nothing to owe. All to Him I owe." That's what I call a logical fallacy. Especially if we aren't setting up a false dichotomy between Jesus and God.

It's been paid. We don't owe God obedience. We give it to Him. We don't serve Him because we owe it to Him. Is He worthy of all? Absolutely. So why make the distinction?

1. Because God is worthy of our true love and devotion.

If we are so caught up on paying a debt that no longer exist, our good works become a selfish means of self-justification which suggests we believe that Jesus didn't pay it all. On a deeper level, it reduces our ability to truly love God because 1) We don't really believe the extent of God's love for us - that He would truly cancel the debt (and we know that we love God because He first loved us), and 2) Love isn't the driving force behind our actions. If we relate to God out of guilt rather than from love, we aren't devoted to the God that we love so much as we are indebted to the God that we feel enslaved to.

2. Because our God is unique.

In Acts 17 Paul appeals to the men of Athens who were "very religious in every way" (vs. 22). His proclamation of who God is was set up to directly contrast the ways the men of Athens were taught to relate to their own gods. Section by section, his proclamation overturned the expectations of who or what "God" is. There were stringent requirements that had to be made to appease the gods of Athens. Not so with the God who was made known through the crucified and resurrected Messiah, for "He is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else" (vs. 25).


The God we follow, as revealed to us through Jesus, never gains followers through manipulation and He never seeks appeasement. Even to those for whom He performed miracles. If I healed some dude and he tried to sell me out to the Pharisees (see John 5), I would be like, "Really? I healed you! You owe it to me to follow me - or at the very least not try to stir up trouble for me."

Is obedience commanded? Is love a command? Yes. Yes. But the basis is never from what we owe. The basis is instead, in my understanding, from what we receive.


Matt. 20:25-28
Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.



Jesus paid it all. All to Him we give.
Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it, now we live.

God, I don't get your love. It offends me that I can't ever pay you back. Not in full, nor in part. God, if this really has been paid in full, any and all of my attempts to alleviate my guilt are in vain. You have called me blameless. I thank you that when I learn what it means to abide in you that I live into that reality. Give me the faith to trust that what you said is true. I want all that I do for you and for others to be motivated by love. Thank you for that freedom Jesus. Help us to get it. Help us to have faith when we don't.