Pulp Horns

A Litany of Confession and Trust in Troubling Times

2011-06-28T21:48:00.000-07:00

Leader: Father God, our world is changing. The assumptions we have made and the choices we have made are revealed as shifting sand on which to build our lives. We have lost our jobs. We have lost our savings. We have lost our retirements accounts. We have lost our health insurance. We have lost our homes. We have lost our sense of security. We have lost our way.

Congregation: Father God, have mercy on us.

Leader: Lord Jesus Christ, we confess that we are afraid. The things in which we have put our trust cannot be counted upon. The things in which we have invested have failed us. We look into an uncertain future and we cannot see beyond today.

Congregation: Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.

Leader: Holy Spirit, we find ourselves in a rapidly changing landscape. The rules are not what we thought. We see obstacles everywhere. How can we sing King Alpha’s song in this strange land? We sometimes wonder where you are, you who are Creator and Sustainer of the universe. Do you still hear our cry? Do you still offer comfort? Do our concerns concern you?

Congregation: Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.

Leader: And yet, we know, by your sacrifice on our behalf, that you know our sufferings. We know you have walked in our place. We know that nothing we fear escapes your notice. We have known your mercy, your provision, your comfort in other seasons. We have walked through valleys of death, and your rod and your staff have been a comfort to us. We know your grace.

Congregation: Oh, Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief!

Leader: You are in the business of wresting good out of evil. You did not remain on the cross; you conquered death and brought us eternal life. You did not leave us in the dust at the foot of the cross; you raised us up and called us your friends. You have not left us obstacles; you have directed our paths.

Congregation: Oh, Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief!

Leader: Help us to see that our priorities are not always your priorities. Use the circumstances of our lives to direct us in new ways. Allow us the joy of radical dependence on you. God promised Abraham a multitude of descendants but Abraham waited until his old age to see even the beginning of the fulfillment of that promise. God caused Esther to become the pagan king’s wife so that she could be the rescuer of her people. The Holy Spirit prevented Paul and Silas from preaching in Asia, and instead directed them to Lydia in Macedonia, and a new community of believers was formed.

Congregation: God’s ways are not our ways.

Leader: But you are trustworthy, working in us and through us for your kingdom purposes.

Congregations: Father, align our hearts with yours. Jesus, enable us to trust you. Holy Spirit, comfort us.

Leader: “The Lord is my shepherd.”

Congregation: “I shall not be in want.”

Leader: “He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside quiet waters.”

Congregation: “He restores my soul.”

Leader: “He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake! Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . .”

Congregation: “I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

Leader: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil.”

Congregation: “My cup overflows.”

Leader: “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Congregation: “Amen.”

Congregational Song: Blessed Be Your Name (Matt Redman)

Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

Blessed Be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me

When the world's 'all as it should be'
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

Have We Domesticated Jesus?

2011-03-23T18:02:00.000-07:00

When I began a close reading of the gospels some months ago, I studied a chart of the major Jewish groups at the time of Jesus. I was shocked that I found myself identifying most closely with the Pharisees (the group we love to hate). They believed, for instance, that both free will and the sovereignty of God exist together without cancelling each other out, in the resurrection of the dead, in the immortality of the soul, in a view of the afterlife with retribution and reward which many Christians would consider orthodox, in human equality, and in an ethical emphasis in teaching, even that human sin and movement away from the law was preventing God’s blessing. Sounds like me; sounds like most of my Christian friends and acquaintances.

So if the Pharisees who are much like us could not understand Jesus’ challenge, is it possible that most middle-class Christians today would have the same blind spots? Do we want Jesus to heal us, keep our fortunes secure, find us a parking place when we are running late, and keep us and our children safe, in return for our going to church, tithing, recycling, and not swearing, drinking, dancing, or having sex outside of marriage? Have we transactionalized our relationships with Jesus? “Okay, God, I’ll have family devotions and make sure my kids go to church, and then you make sure they don’t do drugs or get pregnant and that they get into a good college and have a comfortable life that causes me no worry.” We may not say these things out loud, but our lives reveal that this is what we at core believe.

Jesus said some shocking things. He asked us to hate our family members, to refuse to worry at all about tomorrow or our clothes or our food, to become like children, to pray and fast and give to the needy in secret instead of publicly, to act like a slave in order to be great, to rejoice in persecution, to avoid sin not only in action but even in thought, to store up treasures in heaven instead of on earth, to refuse to judge others, to move mountains, to be utterly dependent on others when we share the gospel, to forgive others who don’t deserve forgiveness, to prefer children and the oppressed to those with status and honor, to choose the kingdom of heaven over absolutely everything else, even our own lives. To the Pharisees who were probably very sincere in their efforts at avoiding sin, Jesus said they were following the law in very particular ways and missing its heart—“justice, mercy, and faithfulness.” Jesus preached a discipleship that demanded everything, that cost everything, that was radical and counterintuitive in almost every sense. Do we get it?

What would it mean to follow Jesus the way he asked to be followed? Maybe more of us would lend to those who need help without expecting to be repaid. More of us would donate money anonymously and sacrificially; the widow would give her mite and the wealthy would give their fortunes, and neither would make the evenings news. More of us might sell our property and go where Jesus asks us to go in radical dependence on him. More of us would see our vocations not as security but as a means of service—to our coworkers, clients, and customers, with the salaries or profits that we earn, or even by choosing lower-paying careers in the fields of justice, health care, education, immigration, and social services, or by serving populations who cannot afford to pay us what we deserve. More of us would truly recognize that everything that we have—our resources, talents, skills, educations, homes, children, and time—are gifts from God intended to be used for his kingdom purposes, and we would constantly be asking how we can invest those gifts wisely. More of us would take seriously learning how to hear God’s voice through study and prayer, and we would be so radically transformed by God’s love and presence that our radical love for God and neighbor would not seem radical at all to us, but the natural outpouring of God’s character through our lives. God would get more of us.

Jesus Christ, have mercy on us! We know not what we do! We know not what we know not! Heal us of our blindness, and give us the courage and understanding to be true disciples!

A Primer on Lent

2011-03-08T17:34:00.000-08:00

This post was adapted from a chapel speech I gave at Shoreline Christian School in 2009.

I did not grow up in a tradition that promoted any special practices having to do with Lent. My Catholic friends told me that “giving up something for Lent,” usually something they liked such as candy, was a way of paying Jesus back for all he had sacrificed for us. That never made much sense to me because I had been taught that it was impossible to give Jesus anything he didn’t already have, and what he had sacrificed for us was a free gift. But the church I attend now has some Lenten practices that I have found worth considering as I seek to be more like Jesus. We practice Lenten traditions as a way of experiencing God’s presence and remembering our dependence on him rather than as merely a time of abstinence from earthly delights such as chocolate.

For those of you unfamiliar with the history, some background is in order. My pastor, Mike Guerrero, has taught us that Lent is the 40 days before Easter, not counting Sundays. It begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Saturday (the Saturday before Easter). Lent means simply springtime. Some believe that the 40 days were related to Jesus’ 40 days of fasting and solitude in the desert before he began his earthly ministry. In the church, Lent is usually observed as a time for reflection on the sacrifice of Christ, and that is why it has often been associated with repentance, soul searching, reflection, and re-dedication.

The Tuesday before Ash Wednesday is often known as Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday or Carnival. It was a day to get all your indulgence in before beginning a period of fasting or abstinence from some activity or food. Because many traditions abstained from red meat during Lent, Fat Tuesday was sometimes called Carnival, which means Farewell to Meat. Many people still celebrate Mardi Gras, but they forget the period of solemnity or reflection on the sacrifice of Jesus which was to follow.

Nowhere in Scripture are the traditions of Lent commanded, but they have been a part of the church’s practice since the early centuries. We choose to participate in Lent willingly, not out of obligation. So why the period of abstinence? Why do we or should “give something up for Lent”?

On the one hand, as I said earlier, what sacrifice could I make that would be at all significant in the light of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus on our behalf? On the other hand, it’s hard to spend time reflecting on Jesus’ sacrifice when you’re stuffing your face or playing video games or whatever it is that’s distracting you from this kind of worship. (A disclaimer: Eating and playing video games CAN BE worship. But there is a time for everything, and sometimes that means there is a time to refrain from our ordinary pleasures so we can focus on God in a different way.)

A couple of years ago my pastor that giving something up for Lent was not about paying Jesus back, but about creating reminders in our lives that would help us to meditate on Jesus’ love and sacrifice for us. He also said that we could participate in Lent by giving something up or by adding a discipline to our lives such as praying for someone specific daily.

I decided that made some sense. A built-in way to reflect on Jesus’ death and resurrection made sense. So then I prayed that God would show me what I should do, whether I should give something up or add a discipline to my life, and what that should be. And while I was praying, guess what popped into my head? Diet Coke! People have been trying to get me to give up Diet Coke for years. They told me it would make my headaches go away, I’d sleep better, I’d lose weight, blah blah blah. But none of those reasons was strong enough to make me want to try for very long. I mean, I really really like Diet Coke. I wasn’t going to stop drinking it without a really good reason. But there I sat in church, very much feeling that this idea was given to me by God in answer to my prayer, and now I had not just a physical reason to give it up, but a spiritual one. I knew that God was directing me to obey him in this way. I started immediately. I didn’t want it to be a legalistic practice but rather a spiritual one, even though it would require a pretty strict physical discipline on my part. (Did I mention that I really really like Diet Coke?)

Here’s what I discovered. Every time I thought, “Gee, I’d really like a Diet Coke right now,” instead of reaching for a Diet Coke, the thought of Jesus’ crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection would come into my mind. Seriously. And I would think, “No, I’m not going to drink a Diet Coke. I’m grateful that God is bringing this to my mind.”

My headaches did not go away. I did not lose weight. I did not sleep better. But I sensed daily, hourly, even sometimes moment by moment, the presence of God. I was refreshed by this period of voluntary abstinence. And it sounds crazy, but in some ways this experience was easy. Don’t get me wrong; I still really really wanted that Diet Coke. But suddenly the rewards of God’s presence and reflection on his sacrifice on my behalf were much much greater than the rewards of a cold, perfectly carbonated Diet Coke sliding down my throat.

So what are some ways we can practice the discipline of Lent? Two ways: putting off and putting on. Ephesians 4:22-24 says: ”You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Putting off disciplines might include such things as:
• Giving up a favorite food or drink or dessert.
• Giving up something that takes up too much of our time such as video games, TV, Facebook, texting, shopping, reading for pleasure (sorry, you can’t give up reading for school), etc.
• Giving up anything that is beginning to take on addictive qualities in your life.
• Going to bed on time every night (at a more reasonable hour).
• Giving up spending money on a personal treat, such as Starbucks or McDonald’s or buying music.

Putting on disciplines might include:
• Praying everyday for the healing of a broken relationship or for the end of human trafficking or some other problem that has been on your heart.
• Getting up earlier in the morning to help make the school lunches for the family or to read your Bible and pray.
• Looking every day for an opportunity to serve someone, preferably without anyone ever finding out about it.
• Doing your homework daily before you turn on the TV.
• Volunteering regularly to do community service or to take on a responsibility in your church.

It is helpful to keep in mind four contexts that shape our lives as we seek to be more like Jesus, especially as we pray about, choose, and implement a Lenten discipline: community, solitude, humility, and awareness.

First, community—Although this is primarily a private endeavor, we still participate in Lenten traditions as members of a faith community. We can support one another in prayer, encourage one another to be disciplined, and especially if we choose a “putting on” activity, look for ways to serve others.

Solitude—Jesus was very critical of those who fasted publicly. The Pharisees would fast on Mondays and Thursdays because those were market days and everyone would notice and admire their fasting. We should choose to do our Lenten disciplines in such a way that we don’t draw attention to ourselves. It should not become an issue of pride but one of worship.

Humility—One of the important qualities of choosing a Lenten activity is dependence on God. If we give up something we don’t care about, we are not allowing God to strengthen us. Instead, we can manage it ourselves. We should allow God instead to bring something to our minds that will force us to be humble before him and allow him to have the glory for enabling this discipline.

Awareness—the point of this whole Lent exercise is not to prove to ourselves how tough we are or how spiritual we are. It is to reflect on the sacrifice of Jesus in preparation for Easter, and to allow the presence of God to become more real to us. This requires an active participation of our hearts and minds, saying, “I do this to remember Jesus,” instead of “Look at what a great Christian I am!”

Finally, one more reminder. Ash Wednesday, Lent, Good Friday—none of these are ends in themselves. Instead, as my pastor says, they are meant to aid us in our walk of faith. They are intended to help us remember this central truth: “Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” That is a truth worth celebrating in whatever way will help us remember daily. We can be refreshed by a humble, voluntary discipline that points to the miraculous, salvific work of Jesus and allows him to be our strength.

This year I’m giving up internet Scrabble. I’ll be back at it the day after Easter.

Aspiring to Spiritual Maturity

2010-11-27T17:43:00.000-08:00

The Marks and Methods of Spiritual Maturity

In my younger years, I thought that spiritual maturity meant having all the right answers, both to the big questions of faith (Why is there evil in the world if God is good?) and to the daily conundrums (How should I respond to my child’s failing grades?). As a result, I tried to live that way for many years. But having the right answers implies that those answers must be shared with those who have wrong answers or no answers, and that was not always welcome. Indeed, it often did more harm to the kingdom than good. Having all the right answers also promotes intolerance for those who cannot get on board with those answers; we begin to believe that people have brought their troubles on themselves because they are illogical and wrong-thinking. In the end, I was miserable and I was making the people around me miserable.

I asked some friends what qualities come to mind when they think of spiritual maturity. They gave me answers such as faith, wisdom, perseverance, consistency, trust in God’s provision and direction, peace, calm in times of trouble. “Right answers” only made the list in this way: “He or she seems to know what God would probably say about what’s bothering us.” My list as I was brainstorming included many of those same qualities. As I reflected on the spiritually mature people I admire most, one idea seemed foundational to all the others: love. Spiritually mature people are empowered by the love of God to love others.

The interesting thing about that is that no two people experience or express that love in the same ways. In general, the spiritually mature people I know, besides the qualities already listed, seem to be comfortable in their own skin, service-oriented, humble, diplomatic, confident, kingdom-focused, empathetic, grateful, and forgiving, but those qualities come wrapped in different bodies, different personalities, different vocations, different politics, different denominations, different income levels. Understanding how the spiritually mature practice dwelling in God’s love and sharing it with others can help us in our journeys towards spiritual maturity.

Most spiritually mature people take seriously their time with God. They practice “pray without ceasing” and “search the Scriptures daily” with intentionality, regularity, and commitment, and often Scripture and prayer are intricately woven together. This is how they receive God’s love; this is how they learn it, understand it, experience it, enter into it. They understand that God’s love is revealed in Scripture, particularly in the story of his incarnation, so their time reading and meditating on Scripture helps them to hear God’s loving voice. They also hear answers to specific prayer requests, direction, correction, correct thinking, even “right answers,” but those who have been walking with God for a long time hear even these things as God’s love. More importantly, they learn intimacy, apart from which one can no longer be sure of love. Just as a man and a woman who neglect time together begin to doubt their love for each other, so we doubt God’s love when we have not learned to dwell in his presence.

The forms this intimacy with God may take are manifold. Some may practice specific contemplative disciplines such as lectio divina, “reading in the quest for God . . . reading for holiness . . . sacred reading;”[1] the Jesus Prayer (“Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner” or some variation), “a way of focusing attention on God and combating distraction,”[2] including the distraction of words; or modern approaches such as SOAP (“Lectio Divina Light”)—Scripture reading, Observations, Application, Prayer.[3] Others may take a more incarnational or sacramental approach in which “the crying need to experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life”[4] is addressed. A shining historical example of this is in the life of Brother Lawrence, who practiced turning his inward attention towards God whether he were reciting a Psalm or washing pots and pans “having accustomed himself to do everything there for the love of God”;[5] he could even “take up a straw from the ground for the love of God.”[6] Still others will approach the Bible in a more formal study, through seminary or Bible study programs such as Bible Study Fellowship. Those who “sit under the Bible for sustained periods . . . will be formed by the experience.”[7] In one way or another, those who combine Scripture with prayer hear God’s voice and are able to receive his love. I believe it this daily renewal of the intentional experience of God’s love that enables spiritual maturity.

Then as God’s love permeates the Christian pilgrim, that love can spill over into genuine kingdom service towards others. Spiritually mature Christians serve others out of the abundant resources of God’s love. They may do this in many ways. They may evangelize,[8] seek social justice in any number of ways,[9] provide meals for a sick neighbor, give sacrificially to their churches and other worthy causes, become intercessory prayer warriors, work as teachers, ushers, servers, musicians, pastors, and other roles in their churches, and seek to serve God in whatever occupation they have, in church, government, industry, and so on.

Indeed, one of the marks of a spiritually mature Christian is a sense of vocation—of calling. If we see vocation as the voice of God “calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God,”[10] a calling which can only be discerned in process, trial and error, prayer, and love, then we can turn our love towards the world more effectively than if we are trying to serve God and others in ways we think we “ought,” but are not actually created and gifted to do. Refusing to understand our God-given limitations arising from our uniqueness (as opposed to the ones imposed by others[11]) makes us “more likely to exceed [our] limits and to do harm to others in the process.”[12] The spiritually mature Christian can serenely say “no” to opportunities that would, because he or she is not fit for that opportunity, damage the reputation of the kingdom of God. But in ways for which he or she is suited, the answer can freely be “yes.”

An important distinction must be made here; not every service-oriented Christian is spiritually mature. Some try to prove their maturity by their service, but this has it backwards; they lack the fuel and motivation of God’s love, and so become frantic when things do not go well, or resentful at the expectations of others, or frustrated at the lack of recognition they receive for their efforts, or “dry,” or “burnt out.” Although even the most mature Christian can become weary and need a focused time of recuperation or renewal, and we all need to create “rhythms of work and rest,”[13] those who lack a regular experience of God’s love tend to serve in their own strength and eventually become unable to handle the natural stress of service.

Those who have learned to spend time regularly at the fountain of God’s love also get to know God in such a way that they become humble. They recognize God’s vastness and greatness and are awed by it. Therefore, their service to others is marked by humility; it does not seek recognition but instead diverts any glory to God. They are also grateful people, grateful for God’s love and his condescension to us, to live among us and redeem us, to be present to us, when he has no obligation to do so other than the “obligation” of his holy and good nature. That gratitude spills over into their lives in others ways; they express gratitude to others easily. Because of their humility and gratitude, they acknowledge the work that God has done in their lives and can therefore have empathy for others who are on different stages of the journey or indeed on different kinds of journeys altogether. Because they have meditated on the freedom of God, they do not insist that others’ experiences mirror their own to have validity.

Spiritually mature people, having invested in intimacy with God through Scripture and prayer, share many of his attributes. They are wise, gentle, perceptive, forgiving people who easily wait upon the Lord for his provision, for his action, for his timing, for his answers, and expect that, although God will do as he pleases, he also has our best interests at heart. Like Antonius, the spiritually mature may pray for miraculous healing but are “neither boastful when healing occurred nor disgruntled when no healing occurred” because they recognize that healing belongs “only to God.”[14]

Love marks the spiritually mature Christian, and it is a love that mimics the love of God in that it is incarnational. The most significant aspect of God’s love for us is not his gifts or benefits or any other way of thinking of what he can do for us, but his presence: Emmanuel—God with us. The mature Christian has spent time in God’s presence and in turn offers his presence to a hurting world. He or she sits beside the bereft in hospital waiting rooms and funeral homes, prays for God’s presence when easy answers are not available, and listens without needing words to bring comfort. As friends of God, the spiritually mature can become friends of anyone in need of God’s love and presence.

My Own Spiritual Growth

Although there are many tools that can be useful on the journey towards spiritual maturity, the essential element of almost all of them is drinking at the fount of God’s love through Scripture and prayer. This year I have made it my nearly daily habit to read and meditate on a portion of Scripture and then use that meditation to pray the Scripture back to God. Intercessory prayer has naturally flowed out of that. I have tried the SOAP method of journaling, something I initially resisted but have found quite useful in concretizing my intentional time in God’s presence. Nothing I write in that journal is particularly profound; I have no expectation that future generations will be so inspired by those scribblings that they will publish and widely distribute them. But the act of writing helps me to stay focused, to remember that I have actually interacted with a portion of Scripture, have actually prayed about a specific thing, have actually had the loving presence of God at my side. Without my expecting it, it has also become a record of answered prayer, which is another way God reminds me of his love. Another benefit is that, when I become frustrated or frantic or distraught or harried, I no longer so often think, “Woe is me! Why doesn’t God DO something!” Instead I think, “I need God. This is not who I want to be.” The rhythms of my life call me back to God’s presence.

My plan for future growth is to continue with these new habits and learn to listen to my life; it (or the Holy Spirit in it) often tells me what I need. I will consider “the way of the heart,”[15] as Nouwen calls it, to be a necessary focus; ironically, it seems that to be truly selfless, I must insist on time alone—alone with God, that is. I will make way for solitude, silence, and prayer. I have already considered entering a formal relationship of spiritual direction, for the purposes of vocational discernment—an immediate need as I consider why God has me in seminary—and for recognizing the voice of God in general. I have prayed often for spiritual discernment and wisdom as I consider my own life choices and as particular circumstances arise. For instance, can the Spirit guide me when I have to make a decision about whether to give this particular homeless person money? In this I have been led by the example of one of my mentor pastors in my internship, and I have adopted it as a specific goal for this year.

I left my job to attend seminary full-time, and I am grateful for a kind of leisure that has come with that choice—a leisure to order my day differently, more openly, more attuned to the Holy Spirit. A different set of struggles comes along with that, but the time I have to spend in intentional communion with God has provided some progress against those struggles. I am learning to be more fully myself, to be comfortable with my particular personality, gifts, limitations, life circumstances, and struggles, to recognize the hand of God in all of that. I want to become the kind of person I admire—a person of peace, wisdom, confidence, humility, joy, gratitude, empathy, forgiveness. I want to become a person overflowing with God’s love. I recognize that I have a part to play in this process, as God enables me to make room in my life for him.

Bibliography

Barton, R. Ruth. Sacred Rhythms : Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2006.

Foster, Richard J. Streams of Living Water : Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith. 1st ed. ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998.

Lawrence. The Practice of the Presence of God. Springdale, PA.: Whitaker House, 1982.

Louth, Andrew. The Wilderness of God. London: Darton Longman and Todd, 2003.

Maas, Robin, and Gabriel O'Donnell. Spiritual Traditions for the Contemporary Church. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990.

Nouwen, Henri J. M. The Way of the Heart. 1st Ballantine trade pbk. ed. ed. New York: Ballantine Books, 2003.

Palmer, Parker J. Let Your Life Speak : Listening for the Voice of Vocation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000.

[1] Robin Maas and Gabriel O'Donnell, Spiritual Traditions for the Contemporary Church (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), 45.
[2] Andrew Louth, The Wilderness of God (London: Darton Longman and Todd, 2003), 56.
[3] Dr. John Bangs in a lecture on spiritual disciplines, Fuller Northwest, September 2010.
[4] Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water : Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith, 1st ed. ed. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), 237.
[5] Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God (Springdale, PA.: Whitaker House, 1982), 10.
[6] Ibid., 7.
[7] Foster, 232.
[8] Ibid., 185.
[9] Ibid., 137.
[10] Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak : Listening for the Voice of Vocation (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000), 10.
[11] Ibid., 42.
[12] Ibid., 43.
[13] R. Ruth Barton, Sacred Rhythms : Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 130.
[14] Foster, 30.
[15] Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Way of the Heart, 1st Ballantine trade pbk. ed. ed. (New York: Ballantine Books, 2003).

Why Does Church Suck?

2010-07-17T16:18:00.000-07:00

A young woman who is very dear to me recently asked the question, "Why does church suck?" Later she said, "I don't go to church, really. I've been once in the past eight or nine months. Every church I go to I get so frustrated because it feels so fake and useless and a waste of time. God feels distant, life feels hollow. I don't read the Bible, I don't pray, I don't have a devotional because I hate devotionals, and I have yet to find a person that I can talk to intelligently about the Bible without becoming massively frustrated or massively disappointed." Here, edited for this blog, is my response to her. It's not perfect, but maybe it's a start. Maybe if you are feeling some similar things about church, some of this will help you get a little perspective, too.

Short answer--Church sucks because you're focused on everyone else instead of on God and your relationship with him. Is that harsh? Maybe, but it's in that reality that you will find peace, ironically.

Long answer--So you look around and you see hypocrisy and insincerity. Well, none of us is living as much like Jesus as we should, so basically we all fall short. The church is made up of a bunch of people who know they should be better than they are (in their good moments), who try and fail, and yet who keep coming back for more. Including you. You want to believe that someone is doing it right, if nothing else because you want an example to follow, proof that it's possible, and instead you're surrounded by failures!

Well, guess what? That's exactly right. Being a sincere Christian is admitting daily that you aren't what you want to be. But it's also living in God's grace and therefore recognize that you are being made into God's best version of yourself. It's being content with the progress--in your own life and in everyone else's life, too. Every time you see someone fooling himself with his own holiness, just remind yourself that on another day, you're doing the same thing. Give others the grace you need.

The authentic Christian life is trying, failing, falling, and allowing God to pick you up again and show you a better way--over and over. And the life of a "model" Christian is way more effective when it actually does model what happens when we goof, instead of believing that God's kingdom is somehow irreparably damaged when we goof and so we must hide it. Think of the people you most respect: Are they the kind of people who can say, "I was wrong; please forgive me," or the kind who either never admit they're wrong or who rationalize their bad choices? (The latter category become abusers, and Christian abusers are the hardest to take; but that's a topic for another day.)

But also, we were made for community. We cannot become all that God wants us to be outside of a body of people committed to corporate worship of God. Ironically, when we focus on bringing honor and glory to our maker as a community, we bask in his grace, which makes it possible, sometimes even easy, to grow, to love ourselves, and to love one another. The same people who were just driving you crazy, you now want to hug and invite home for lunch. In other words, honoring God together is good for you.

That's the whole amazing thing about the authentic Christian life; whatever you do that's supposed to be good for God or good for others, somehow becomes even better for you yourself, especially when worship is a part of it. It's an upward spiral.

My advice? Go to church. Look at God. If necessary, spend the whole time begging him to fill you with his presence and love so you can love all those hypocrites sitting in the pews, including yourself. When it becomes a little easier to love those around you without so much judgment, you might be starting to get it.

Brokenness is Not the End of the Story

2010-06-20T16:49:00.000-07:00

Written February 2007 before Darrel and I were engaged.

And I will wait for the Lord who is hiding His face from the house of Jacob; I will even look eagerly for Him (Isaiah 8:17 NASB).

In January of 2007, my older daughter Rachel took me to The Round, a monthly arts gathering in the Fremont Abbey in Seattle. Two or three groups of musicians, some visual artists, and a poet or two gather on the tiny stage in the basement. The artists, mostly young and hip although refreshingly down to earth, each complete a single painting during the evening, while the poets and musicians take turns performing, sometimes jumping in on backup on one another’s songs and poems. For a $5-10 donation, the audience members enjoy a stimulating evening of music, poetry, art, and sometimes spontaneous collaborative new pieces.

I noticed that one of the artists began her work by painting in bright white, unruly letters across the canvas, “Brokenness is not the end of the story.” I was intrigued. Brokenness, it seems, is a major theme of my personal story right now, and I wondered what worldview birthed the artist’s proclamation. This was not a Christian gathering per se, so I had no reason besides her slashes of white paint to think that she was a believer. From time to time throughout the evening, I traveled from my seat at the back of the small auditorium to a better vantage point to observe her progress. Bit by bit, she covered the words completely with her painting—which turned out to be a brooding landscape, mostly black, with bits of Japanese red and teal suggesting a mountainous backdrop, flecks of white and grey forming rocky outcrops or perhaps a waterfall, and a gold foreground hinting at a treeless plain. I couldn’t wait to talk to her. My daughter was an acquaintance and told me the artist’s name was Jen Grabarczyk.

I fought my way through the chatty crowd and waited impatiently for her to finish a conversation with another interested attendee. Finally, I introduced myself, called upon my scrap of journalistic background as excuse to take notes, and asked her, “Why did you write that phrase on your canvas before you began?” Jen told me that earlier that day she had gotten word that a 24-year-old high school classmate, not a close friend but someone she knew, had shot his girlfriend and then committed suicide. News like that, she said, is devastating, even if you aren’t personally involved. You come face to face with the brokenness all around, and you have to believe that there is more to the story than that or you go crazy. Our understanding of the world can’t end with how broken everything and everyone is.

Fishing, as Christians often do when they’re trying to find one another, I asked, “Do you have a particular philosophy or worldview that drives your work?” And she answered in that hesitant way that we do when we’re not sure how we’ll be received, “Well, I’m a Christian.” Of course. So we talked a bit more (and I thought a lot more) about her art, about her studies at Mars Hill Graduate School, about brokenness, about using a simple “abstract landscape” to communicate something small and significant about meaning in the universe, about beauty that covers brokenness, about beautiful brokenness, if there is such a thing.

The next day I bought her painting.

It seems to be part of my journey. After my separation a year ago and subsequent divorce six months later from my husband of 27 years, a step we never thought we would take, brokenness is on my mind—and in my strength and my heart and my soul. The first few months were consumed with survival and transition: moving twice in three months, finding a permanent place to live, experiencing the relief that comes with the absence of conflict, finding comfort in the support of friends and colleagues, working out the custody schedule for my younger daughter, enjoying my work and my students with a new freedom, learning to breathe again. For a while, I felt more whole than I had in years, in spite of the devastation of divorce.

I moved into my condo at the beginning of summer, school ended, and suddenly I had too much time on my hands. Some of it was spent with my younger daughter Emily, but she spent chunks of her time at summer classes and camps and with her father. I had never before in my life lived alone. I’m a project person, so I should have had plenty to do. I took time to settle into my new home, worked a couple of part-time summer jobs, did some decorating, all things I enjoy. I should have enjoyed the time to read and write. But I slogged through books with little joy, and my computer got used more for Solitaire than for writing.

As the pace of my life slowed, I became aware of a haunting hollowness in my chest.
I made a profession of faith when I was six years old. My father was a pastor. I have never strayed from belief in God for any serious length of time. I believe God is sovereign, even through divorce. I trust God for my present and my future. I understand that we live in a fallen world, that bad things happen to good people, that God’s grace should be sufficient for me, and that sanctification is a lifelong process—blah blah blah—so I get that Christians are supposed to be the ones with the peace that passes understanding. But here I was with a wind-sucking hole in my heart. I felt like a failure—not at marriage, but at experiencing the Christian life.

I tried to describe the sensation to a friend in an email: “I think I'm discovering that there will often or always be this sort of hollow spot in my chest that can't quite be talked or cried or reasoned away. It's a kind of loneliness or something, but it doesn't necessarily mean I want to be around people. Maybe it's the shape of abandonment or longings for things I can't have—at least not right now—or knowing that even if I had certain things, I'd never be able to trust them again. . . . It's not just that, though. I think that's the whole point of the hollowness. Nothing fills it—not a great teaching day, not a friendship, not a wonderful moment with my child, not knowing that I'm ‘better off,’ whatever that means. At the end of the day, I have an emptiness I can't explain and can't solve. And I'm thinking this is just how it's going to be, and I'm trying to figure out how to live with that reality.”

I finally paid a visit to my counselor, a godly Christian woman with the gift of telling the truth in a way that makes so much sense that my life actually changes. She told me, “This is going to sound cheesy, but what you’re experiencing is ‘the God-hole.’” The God-hole? How can that be? Wasn’t that supposed to be filled when I “invited Jesus into my life”? Christians aren’t supposed to have a God-hole!
She went on to explain that the emptiness I was experiencing is what most people, including Christians, spend most of their lives trying to deny, trying to run away from. We were created for perfect relationships with each other and with God, even with the cosmos, for that matter, and in this lifetime we can never have that. We can have better relationships, we can create beauty and make others’ lives more bearable, we can live lives that model joy and service and meaning, but something will always be missing. “The longing for Eden,” I said, and my counselor nodded. The longing for shalom—the way things were meant to be. Instead we experience our very real brokenness, even after we begin to know God.

I wasn’t crazy; I was just at a point in my life where I could experience the pain that is common to humankind, the pain at the core of every human desire. Nonbelievers and believers alike try to cover up those longings, deny the brokenness, deaden the pain, with obvious space-fillers such as illicit relationships, alcohol abuse, overeating, materialism, entertainment, workaholism, judgmental attitudes, and so on, and with not so obvious placebos such as community service, hospitality, church work, literature, art, commitment to family, intellectual pursuits, praying, fasting, self-righteousness, and other “good” things. But as Christian psychologist Dr. Larry Crabb suggests in his book Shattered Dreams, any desire, even a legitimate desire, that becomes more important to us than a desire for God himself, becomes idolatry. If saving our marriage, rescuing a drug-addicted child, remaining by a spouse’s side through cancer treatment, or ending world hunger become all-consuming passions, then we have missed the point.

Armed with the new knowledge that I wasn’t an aberration, I began to feel some hope, if not quite the lessening of the hollowness. In some ways, I thought my original impression had been correct, that I was just going to have to live with the sensation of incompleteness for the rest of my life, but at least now the sensation made sense. The brokenness began to feel like a dull headache—uncomfortable but manageable; sometimes I could even ignore it.

But I still felt that the picture of Christian existence on earth was incomplete. Yes, I understand that the shalom of perfect relationships—God, man, cosmos—cannot happen in this lifetime. Yes, I understand that I am called to be a part of restoration on this earth, knowing that perfect restoration is not possible. But is that it? Do I just shut down all that I long for, that I desire? Do I pretend I don’t crave satisfying relationships and for God to make himself known to me? Do I pretend that the events of the past year did not break me? Do I pretend that I am overflowing with joy when some days I am so transparently empty?

Dr. Crabb responds to this notion as follows: “We Christians are often practicing Buddhists. We kill desire in an effort to escape pain, then wonder why we don’t enjoy God.” Jesus is not, he continues, “agreeing with Buddha in prescribing a form of contentment that requires us to cut off the nerve endings of our souls and to report peace when what we feel is a void.” In other words, the unmet desires, the emptiness, the brokenness, the unfulfilled longings—they are real and they serve God’s purposes in our lives. They are not good things, but neither are they to be ignored. They point to something we can experience no other way.
They point to our desire for God Himself.

He is the desire above all desires, the existential longing we try to ignore, the purpose of our suffering. Our desire to know God in a restored, authentic relationship drives every other desire, legitimate or not. Our brokenness strips away all the promise of those secondary desires and allows us to taste our truest longing—to be in genuine, profound, significant communion with God, a communion that cannot begin before we have recognized and embraced the hollowness of our “good” lives, before we have come face to face with the ugly reality of our emptiness and been left wanting more. Then we can begin to want the One who can usher the only true joy into our existence.

On a day when I feel weak, I want financial security, a new husband, well-adjusted children, satisfying relationships with my family, friends, and coworkers, freedom from every kind of pain, and an end to world hunger. On a day when I feel weaker, I want only Jesus. I lie awake at night sometimes praying, “God, make it possible for your grace to be sufficient for me. I want too many things, and I know that the things I want won’t fill up this emptiness. Help me to allow you to do the work in me. I give you myself; please give me your Self.” I believe; Lord, help my unbelief.

A few days after I arranged to purchase Jen’s painting, I returned to the Abbey to pick it up. It was bigger, darker, and less colorful than I remembered, and I had to wonder how I would make it work in my tiny new condo. I took it home, awkwardly carried it in, and propped it on my piano to get it out of the way until I could find a place for it. Much to my surprise, it worked perfectly right there. The colors were perfect, the size was perfect, it had presence, but it did not overwhelm the room; it looked like a decorator had ordered it just for that spot. For a moment, as I pondered the perfection—even the shalom—of this otherwise insignificant moment, I heard the still, small voice of a God who loves me enough to bring me face to face with my own emptiness so I can one day be fuller than I could have hoped or dreamed. Months later, when I enjoy my new painting, I remember my truest desire.

Brokenness is not the end of the story, but it is a necessary, if sometimes ugly, plot point on the road to eternal resolution.

Winter Isn't Over Until Easter: Christological Motifs in Lars and the Real Girl

2010-04-06T14:35:00.000-07:00

Lars and the Real Girl, written by Nancy Oliver, directed by Craig Gillespie, starring Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, and Patricia Clarkson, 2007

Lars and the Real Girl is a quirky, independent movie about a socially awkward young man, made so by the death of his mother at his birth, the parenting of his heart-broken father, and his older brother’s escape from the home as soon as he was of age. Lars find human contact so difficult that touch causes him physical pain, which he compensates for by wearing gloves during handshakes and dressing in layers to resist the discomfort of a hug. He declines frequent invitations to join his brother Gus and Gus’s wife Karin for meals. When his sister-in-law becomes pregnant, Lars’ fears, the result of his own mother’s death, surface. Eventually, to create a “safe” relationship for himself, he orders a life-sized mail order love doll, names her Bianca, and introduces her to his family and friends as a real girl, his new girlfriend. She is a paraplegic (which explains why she can’t walk), shy (which explains why she doesn’t talk), the victim of the theft of her luggage (which explains why she has only the clothes she is wearing). Lars, it seems, has created a quite consistent explanation of Bianca’s quirks before he introduces her to the world.

Religious imagery and values abound throughout the movie. Lars goes to church, even uses it as an excuse to avoid an invitation. Bianca is explained as the Brazilian-Dutch daughter of missionaries who died at her birth, raised by nuns, now doing missionary work herself, but visiting the “real world” for a time. Lars asks Gus and Karin if Bianca can stay with them, since they are young and single and “religious”; he doesn’t think it would be right for them to share his garage apartment during her stay. According to Lars, Bianca has nurse’s training and believes it is her calling to help people. When Lars finds himself increasingly attracted to his coworker Margo, he finally tells Margo that he would never cheat on Bianca.

Further, one of the first places Karin and Gus go for help, after Dr. Dagmar has said that the best way to help Lars is to go along with his delusion and treat Bianca as real, is to the local church, where a small group of elder members agrees to play along after the pastor says, “The question is, as always, what would Jesus do?” And my question is, “Who is Jesus in this movie?” Bianca, the life-sized doll, functions as an unlikely Christ figure in the movie at first; quite soon after Bianca is introduced, the community as a whole picks up the role, deliberately choosing to act as they believe Jesus would.

Bianca is the Christ figure because she shares several important traits with Jesus. First, she becomes “human” to identify with Lars’ condition and help him find healing. And, of course, she loves Lars unconditionally and expects nothing in return except the freedom to be herself. Since Lars is creating all her “dialogue,” he puts whatever words suit him in her mouth. Bianca reveals herself through his words to be modest, gentle, and self-giving. She even declines to defend herself when Lars yells at her for not being available when he wants to spend time with her, much as Jesus declined to defend himself before Pilate. Thirdly, according to Lars, she is not interested in superficial, material things, so she is willing to wear Karin’s cast-off clothes.

More significantly, Bianca enables Lars to become all he was created to be; she is the catalyst for healed relationships with his family and community and even of his ability to tolerate physical human contact. For instance, when Lars gets invited to a party that he would normally not attend, he finally decides to go as long as he can bring his “girlfriend.” At the party, because he must make sure that Bianca is comfortable, he is able to see beyond himself and begin to speak with other people. It is also here that he notices Margo in a new way, when another man at the party is flirting with her, and the seeds for a “real” relationship are planted. Also, because Bianca needs medical treatments for her various tropical illnesses, Dr. Dagmar spends significant time with him while Bianca is “resting” from those treatments. She discovers his extreme fear of being touched (he describes the pain he experiences as a “burning,” similar to when one’s feet freeze and then they begin to thaw out) and begins to treat that; his ability to withstand touching becomes a barometer for how healthy his real human relationships are becoming. The longer he is with Bianca, the more human contact he can handle. This is signified by a couple of glove-free handshakes later in the story, one with Margo herself. Dr. Dagmar also discovers the root of Lars’ fears about Karin’s pregnancy and helps him to put those fears in context. Bianca’s presence helps Dr. Dagmar “cast out fear” in Lars.

Bianca even makes it possible for him and others to admit to and confess their “sins,” and seek forgiveness, especially for self-centeredness. In one remarkable scene, Lars speaks of the rites of passage of Bianca’s culture and asks Gus how he knew when he became a man; he wonders if the sex act was his rite of passage. Gus, clearly uncomfortable with the topic, finally is able to put words to his thoughts; perhaps he is even just then truly forming the thoughts. He says that becoming a man is when you do the right thing even when it hurts, when you think about other people instead of yourself all the time, that you don’t act like a jerk even when that’s what you feel like doing. Then he looks Lars in the eye and apologizes for leaving him with their damaged, “heart-broken” father and thinking only of himself; this is clearly something he has been needing—but unable—to do until now. And Lars forgives Gus, immediately. Significantly, during this scene, Gus is chopping celery and folding towels for his tired, pregnant wife.
The community, out of their love for Lars, accepts Bianca as real and finds ways to include her, and by extension Lars, in their world. Much as Bonhoeffer believed that the church is the post-resurrection Jesus on earth, the community in which Lars lives does the work of Jesus in Lars’ life. When Lars takes Bianca shopping, she is invited by one of Karin’s friends to model at a local clothing store two afternoons a week and “all day Saturdays.” Another of Karin’s friends styles Bianca’s hair. The children in church are gently taught not to stare at Bianca or try to touch her. She is invited to read to the sick children at the hospital, which she does with the aid of an audiobook propped in her lap. These people had tried to be kind to Lars in the past, but he was unable to accept their kindness. Bianca makes it possible for him to begin to have relationships with real people.

Mrs. Gruner, who takes Bianca to a banquet, admonishes Lars not to be so selfish about his time with his girlfriend—she has a life of her own—and Lars learns that relationship means not just that he is free to be himself, but that his significant other must be free to be herself, too. In other words, he learns empathy. His own pain had kept him from that adult skill until now. When he gets angry over Bianca’s absence and complains to Karin that no one cares, she lets him have it, telling him that everything everyone does to welcome Bianca, they do because they care about Lars; they love him. It is a slight reversal of Jesus’ admonition to care for the hungry, naked, and imprisoned, “When you do it for the least of these, you do it for me.” When the community does it for Bianca, they are really doing it for the suffering Lars.

In another scene shortly thereafter, Lars sees that Margo is suffering over a coworker having “hung” her teddy bear in a noose and the end of a casual dating relationship. Sweetly, and with concern for Margo instead of for himself, he listens to her story, loosens the noose, and does CPR on the teddy bear. Margo laughs. Lars is learning the lessons that Mrs. Gruner and Karin have tried to teach him, and the result is the beginning of Lars’ empathy for others.

Later, after Bianca has been elected to the school board, Lars agrees to go bowling with Margo while Bianca is at a school board meeting. As they are leaving, and we see Lars struggling with his growing affection for Margo, they step outside and see snowflakes. Lars says, “I was hoping winter was over.” And Margo replies, “Winter isn’t over until Easter.” This line is the heart of this movie. Lars’ winter will not be over until Bianca dies, as our winter is not over until Jesus dies and rises again, as winter in Narnia is not over until Aslan returns to the land. Bianca develops a fatal illness; the women of the community bring food and sit with him, actually instructing him in how to handle a crisis. When she finally “dies,” the church holds a funeral, and Lars celebrates what Bianca has brought to his life. In the end, as Jesus did, Bianca sacrifices herself so that others—Lars in particular— may live. At the graveside, Margo stands next to Lars, who finally says, “Would you like to go for a walk?” Margo says yes, they turn slightly away from each other, and both of them smile. And as in the story of Jesus, healing replaces brokenness, relationship replaces self-centeredness, and hope replaces mourning.

Inking of Age--A 100-Word Novel

2009-12-29T17:58:00.000-08:00

On her eighteenth birthday, she came home, found Ma in the kitchen, and rolled up her shirt. Ma, predictably, gasped.

“That’s permanent, you know. That ain’t gonna look good when you’re eighty.”

“Ma, nothin’ looks good when you’re eighty.”

Ma stared at daughter for a long moment and finally, with just enough movement to change the light reflecting off her bifocals, nodded. She found another glass, poured a half inch of wine into it from her own glass, and handed it to her daughter.

“Okay, then.”

Fuchsias--A 100-Word Novel

2009-12-17T16:56:00.000-08:00

I want to say to her, "He's all wrong for you; you're breaking my heart." A mother knows things, and I know I'll be helping her sweep up the debris—again—when the whole thing implodes in a few weeks or months—or worse, a few years, when another big chunk of her life has disappeared forever.

Instead I tend my potted garden. I pinch the hips off the wilted fuchsias, as I've learned to do, so that the plant will put no more energy into something that is already dead.

Thanksgiving: A Love Story

2009-11-22T17:19:00.000-08:00

When I was a young mother, we attended a growing church in Phoenix, Arizona, which was to be the place that formed me as an adult. Several extended families—brothers and sisters with their spouses and children, some with parents or grandparents—made Desert Springs Bible Church their church home from the early days of the church’s existence, which began shortly before we began attending in 1981. I envied the relationships I saw between these extended families. Something about these grown siblings, worshipping together and maintaining regular contact with one another through their shared church activities, essentially raising their children together, sharing values and meals and in many ways their lives, created a longing in my heart for something similar.

Since the time I left for college at age 17, my family never again regularly worshipped together. As each of us left home for college and marriage and all the other usual adult activities, we somehow never ended up in the same church again, at least not all at the same time. Of course some of this was because we didn’t always live in the same town, but some of it was due to divergent ideas about what church should be, divergent needs and expectations, and divergent preferred worship styles. I could not see how the longing to have my extended family with me at church would ever be fulfilled, so I suppressed it. Eventually we moved to the Seattle area and found a church home here.

During and after my divorce in 2006, I briefly attended a friend’s church while I was trying to get my feet back beneath me, and I will always be grateful for the care they extended to me, but I never felt completely at home there. When Darrel and I became friends (I had bought the condo next door to his), we eventually visited each other’s churches. Immediately, I felt welcome at Shoreline Covenant Church, a feeling I chalked up to being with Darrel, because everyone who has met him knows and loves him. But I did notice that two of his brothers and their families attended SCC as well. The alternate visits continued, as did my relationship with Darrel.

Eventually, much to the surprise of both of us, Darrel and I decided to get married. And, much to Darrel’s surprise, I told him that I wanted to go to SCC permanently. He had been willing, and indeed expected, to attend the church that was my temporary resting place during that long transition in my life. One of the reasons that SCC was so attractive to me was Darrel’s extended family. Finally, the longing I had carried in my heart for so many years to worship and be regularly involved in the lives of an extended family in church together could be fulfilled.

I believe that when the Bible says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4), it means not only that he will give us things we desire, but also that he is actually the one who creates the desire within us. I believe God planted the desire for an extended family worship experience long before I ever met Darrel. And when that desire was met, I sensed the nearness of God in a new way. When I sit in church, and Darrel’s brother Doug and wife Katie are sitting behind us, and their daughter Sarah and her husband and three children are nearby, and Darrel’s brother Dan and wife Cindy and their two daughters are sitting next to us, I sense God’s love for me all over again.

But there’s more. I’ve been attending SCC regularly for about two years or so now, and I find that I look forward to church, can’t wait to be there, am sorry when circumstances or illness force me to miss church. Maybe you are the kind of person who has always loved church, but I can’t honestly say that I have always really wanted to be there; sometimes I have gone to church just because I should, not because anything in particular draws me there. But it’s different at Shoreline. Although there is nothing flashy about the Sunday morning experience—we don’t even have a video projection system, for pete’s sake—my heart is filled with a gladness so profound that I am almost embarrassed by it each week as I await the start of the service. As I have pondered this recently, I have identified a few things that draw me back again and again.

First of all, SCC people are genuinely welcoming. I know that being with Darrel was a natural opener for many people to talk to me, but that doesn’t explain it all. I went to a women’s event which my sister-in-law Cindy promised to attend with me, but at the last moment she couldn’t go, so I went by myself. Most of the women there did not know me personally, but I was busy in conversation and activity for the entire morning. At no point did my natural shyness (yes, I know it’s hard to believe, but I actually find the process of meeting new people to be somewhat grueling) win the day; I went home glad that I had been there, and with names attached to several new faces. Every Sunday someone asks me a specific question about a specific detail of my life. Often I have a conversation with someone I have never met before who wants to ask me a question because, for instance, they heard I was going to seminary. SCC’s members are not just doing their duty; they are spilling forth the self-giving, others-centered love of God. They are genuinely interested in one another’s lives. I want to be like them; I try to emulate them, to copy them, to memorize their love-strategies, because I have been loved by their interest in me.

Secondly, SCC provides space for silence, built into the fabric of worship. I cannot remember in my nearly 50 previous years of church attendance a regular experience of silence as a legitimate and welcomed part of worship. A period of silence shortly after the service begins invites us to orient ourselves to God’s presence “in the quietness of our hearts.” A period for silence and sharing our needs and joys, where no one is expected to speak but we may if we wish share something that is on our hearts, often comes later in the service. Occasionally, we are invited to come forward and pray with a staff member or board member, and we are specifically asked to give one another the freedom to participate without morbid curiosity. We even have whole services devoted to silence—without music, without conversation, with Scripture readings and prayer and little else. Our services are not rushed, not cramped; we have time to breathe and reflect between this song and that reading and the next prayer. We have time to sense God’s interaction with us instead of somehow trying to demand it with a ceaseless flow of words, music, and noise. The ebb and flow of silence and sound creates context and space for me to worship more fully.

Thirdly, although almost all the people I know at SCC take their relationship with God pretty seriously, they don’t take themselves too seriously. I love the way Pastor Mike says in Sunday School, “Here’s a question. Now I want you to read my mind before you answer.” Or Pastor Erika says, “I am the most agenda-less person I know.” Or “You see what’s listed in the bulletin? We’re not going to do that,” or “Here’s where I was hoping we would get in this lesson. We didn’t get there.” Even the leaders of our congregation seem to accept themselves—with all of their gifts and limitations—with good humor. They accept that sometimes God’s agenda is different than ours, that the best-laid plans sometimes go awry. They stay calm. They are good models for those of us who sometimes get too excited when things don’t go according to plan.

Fourthly, SCC gets itself. The first Sunday I was there, I read in the bulletin: “SHORELINE COVENANT CHURCH is the name given to a group of people seeking to be, individually and together, everything God wants us to be.” I like that; we don't claim to have arrived; we are all becoming together. This is a place where I was accepted as I was, given an opportunity to serve and grow, and without any sense of guilt or pressure, encouraged to continue becoming all that God had created me to be. This is a body that seeks to have a meaningful impact in the local community, and while still struggling to discern what that might mean, does what it can right now in the form of service to the local elementary school or a Halloween Family Fun event or gifts of safety supplies to day laborers. And so (and this list is far from complete):

•To all of you who came to the Sunday School class that Darrel and I taught together and claimed to be blessed by it
•To Audrey and Barb K. for serving cake and asking me about my life every week
•To Barb W for your kindness to me when I first showed up with Darrel
•To Candace for remembering my daughter
•To Cindy for hosting a wedding shower for me
•To Debbie for asking about my son in Iraq
•To Dennis for catering our wedding when you thought there would be 25 guests and it was more like 200
•To Doug and Katie for Tuesday nights, even when I was just Darrel’s neighbor
•To Doug for inviting me to sing on worship team
•To Erika for sharing in my English class
•To Flo and Keith for Shakespeare
•To Kailee and Macy for being the most beautiful flower girls ever
•To Mike for lending me books
•To Patty and John for helping out at the reception even though you didn’t know me
•To Sam for processing with me every Monday night
•To Sue for the gift of your violin
•To so many others, too numerous to mention here, who have loved me with God’s self-giving love and enabled me to grow in my love for God and others—thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are why I love Shoreline Covenant Church; you are Shoreline Covenant Church.

10 Little Things I Love

2009-10-08T18:05:00.000-07:00

1. The way my hair looks when I first get up in the morning—I wish I could just neaten it up a little and spray it and go, but that never works.

2. When the dip and the chips you dish up end at exactly the same bite—Otherwise, I have to keep getting more dip and/or more chips until it comes out even. Same thing, but with homemade cookies and milk.

3. A nap before dinner—I have never been a napper, but I hit that half-century mark recently, so now the most delicious feeling is giving in and falling asleep on the loveseat.

4. My own stuff—I hate using someone else’s tennis racquet, golf clubs, car, socks, bathroom, toothbrush, whatever.

5. Office supplies—Seriously, I could stand for hours at Office Depot fondling the Post-It notes, paper clips, various sizes of envelopes, ink cartridges, accessories for personal planners, short little Sharpies on key chains . . .

6. Not setting the alarm—On Saturdays, I often wake up at the same time as I do on weekdays, but not to the horrible screech of the alarm. Plus, I know I can go back to sleep without guilt if I want to.

7. Clean sheets, clean PJs, clean bodies, all at the same time.

8. Crossing things off my list—The truth is, even though I hate being too busy, I hate doing nothing even more, and I love a sense of accomplishment. I’m one of those nuts who will write tasks on my list after I’ve already done them and then cross them off, so at the end of the day I have a visual record of my successes. Laundry counts as five items: sort, wash, dry, fold, put away.

9. Design shows on TV—I’m seriously addicted, and I don’t even have much space in this 847-square-foot condo to decorate. Favorites include Color Splash, Divine Design, and Design on a Dime. How can I get them to come to Seattle and help me with my guest room/office/craft room? (Note from Emily: You mean MY room?) I get a big kick, too, out of noticing when they are shopping at the same fine establishments that I frequent; for instance, the chrome floral bowl that sits on my coffee table I have seen on Divine Design (Candice Olson shops at IKEA a lot, I think.) AND Deserving Design.

10. Having someone else to take out the trash—If you are an astute reader, you will notice all the subtext in that one.

Top Ten Reasons Why I Cannot Get My Homework Done on Time

2009-08-13T20:39:00.001-07:00

I teach junior high and high school students, so I know about excuses. “The dog ate my homework” has morphed into “My printer blew up,” but the kinds of excuses and their frequency are pretty consistent over the years. I started a graduate program in theology this summer, and now I am the one keeping up with homework. With my summer schedule, I should be able to manage. I am a good reader and writer, and I am interested in the topics at hand. So why oh why am I behind? I have three more papers to write for the class I finished two weeks ago, and I just now finished my reading for yesterday’s class period. I have yet to begin the reading due today, let alone what I should have done before tomorrow’s class period. So here is my list of excuses, and I swear every single excuse is true.

10. I am interested in everything, so when I am reading my digital library sources, I click on every red, green, brown, or blue word that leads to a link that explains everything. This essentially doubles or triples my reading time.

9. I got the wrong copy of the course outline and ordered the wrong book.

8. I got the wrong copy of the course outline which did not include any of the pre-class assignments on it, including “Begin a careful reading of Acts to Revelation” and “Read as much of Dunn’s [2000 page book] . . . as possible.”

7. I had to go to my own 50th birthday party.

6. I live in an 850 square foot condo, and when my daughter or husband have the television on, there is nowhere to flee from its presence—and between the two of them, it is always on.

5. I ordered a book from an Amazon seller, and they accidentally sent it to the wrong person.

4. One word: Facebook

3. Some of my extended family has been visiting from out of town.

2. Three words: America’s Got Talent

And the number one reason I cannot get my homework done on time: I started a blog.

The Second Half

2009-08-12T21:34:00.000-07:00

Today I am 50 years old. Most people hate turning 50. For that matter, many people hate acknowledging birthdays at all. I had a party (or rather my husband and daughters and best friend threw me a party) and welcomed my fiftieth birthday with open arms. Why? I am, after all, older and wrinklier and heavier and tireder and slower and have to make more visits to the doctor (and dentist--cf. note on blog title) than when I was younger. I've failed in relationships, and I'm not as accomplished or successful as I would like to be, and I often say the wrong thing in public. I have yet to write, let alone publish, my first book.

But I'm happier. And although happiness isn't everything, it's something--a big something that gives me energy and hope for the rest of the journey. My grandmother lived to 98 years of age (and with her hair naturally brown, I might add!), so I feel justified in saying I could be beginning the second half of my life. I have in some ways my life over again to get things right. Besides all the limitations of age, how will the second half of my life be different?

For one, I hope I am finally beginning to learn from my mistakes. I was reading the other day in John 5 about Jesus' healing of the man at the pool in Bethesda. He asked the man who had been an invalid for 38 years, "Do you want to get well?" Simple question--and it knocked me flat. Do I want to get well? We sometimes have a vested interest in being sick: physically, spiritually, emotionally. Do I want to be a better person? Do I want to smooth out my rough edges? Am I willing to do what it takes to be healthy? Do I want to learn from my mistakes? Do I want to grow? Or do I want to rationalize and justify and complain away all those imperfections and flaws and biases and judgments? One implication of Jesus' question is that he does not heal until we give permission. Is it possible that I'm less healthy than I could be because I have not assented to my own health and growth? If that's the case, then I answer, today, Yes, I want to get well. Maybe on weaker days I merely want to want to get well. Regardless, I will endeavor daily to choose the way of wholeness.

For another, I now know that love really is what makes the world go round, all you need is love, love is a many splendored thing, love is the answer, love, love, love. The two great commandments Jesus taught, paring down the whole law to these principles, are simply love God and love others. I have not always been very good at this, and unfortunately it's often the people I cherish the most who know this about me. I confess to being completely inadequate, to not knowing how to love, to being too worried about my own insecurities to love. Admittedly, it's not easy to love when my own feelings are hurt or when someone is attacking my reputation or my motives or when someone disappoints me. But I get that love is the only answer; nothing else makes anything better. So I will endeavor daily to choose the way of love.

And thirdly (because the best sermons have three points), I can finally trust that I am who I am supposed to be. This "me" is not an accident, it has purpose and calling, its uniquenesses are necessary to some small corner of the world, and I don't have to apologize for being this crazy confluence of strengths and weaknesses, gifts and limitations, qualities and flaws, beauties and uglies, and lots of in-between. Learning to "become what I am" is the greatest gift of getting older. Part of the reason I married my husband a year ago is that, when I am with him, I find it easier to be my best self and so diminish the power of my insecurities and flaws (oh, they are still there and come out from hiding when I least expect it, but I can feel their icy talons loosening from my throat). So I will endeavor daily to choose to be my best self and to quit apologizing for who that is.

Three daily endeavors I think are enough for anyone, but I have no illusions that I have the power to carry them out for even one day. I will depend on the God of love for that power, and learning to live in union with God's love is the only power that makes these goals even possible. I'll make mistakes. I'll fail. I'll procrastinate. But I'll also know that's not the end of the story.

So I had a party and said, "Yes, I'm 50!" I celebrated with friends and family, the people I want to love more fully, the people to whom I'm grateful for loving me, the people in whose presence I am becoming what I am. I have a long journey still ahead of me, but a big part of it is now behind me. I'm not the same person I was 10, 20, 30 years ago, and thank God! Nor am I yet who I will be, and thank God! A friend wrote this birthday wish to me today: "I hope the world is ready for what you are becoming!" I hope I am becoming more whole, more loving, more myself--and more empowered by the God of love.