morning glory

it's not yet 9am
i'm wide awake
thankful
happy
glad to know that stretched before me
many hours to complicate

it's not yet 9am
i'm satisfied
trusting
hopeful
glad to know that God has blessed me
peace to share with those who cry

thoughts on communion

at the invitation of a friend, i had communion (outside of my denomination for the first time) this week. it was new. no foot washing. just bread and wine. i read the prayers. i ate. didn't dip (coz i don't do alcohol).

i never like taking communion without first knowing about it ahead of time. communion, to me, is a very serious journey, one that needs prior moments of reflection to clear one's head and get one's heart on the right track. am i worried sick about a bad interaction? do i have some unconfessed sin? have i talked to God lately? these are the sorts of questions i ask myself and aim to feel at peace about before taking the bread and drinking the cup (when it's grape juice).

that said, this monday's experience was very different from my norm. and i'm not quite sure what to do with it or whether to repeat it. i could go every monday. my norm is 4x a year and includes foot washing. i value the washing, the singing (at a traditional adventist church) of hymns while we wash, the praying together of husband and wife or children-parents or friends, the hand wipes some churches give out as you return to your seats for the emblems, the formal serving by deacons. Or. the more contemporary agape feast, the french bread we each grab a chunk of, the larger cup of grape juice that doesn't leave you parched, the grapes and other fruits that make up the pre-communion meal. and the singing.

but so what? is all that necessary? and how do we define necessity within this context of remembering Christ, his life-death-resurrection? what adds or subtracts from the celebration of his sacrifice of love and whether or not i'll be able to recall it sufficiently and positively impact other's lives as a result for the sake of the gospel? admittedly, the routine i'm used to could be perceived as mere tradition. why wash feet when they're not even dirty? why use grape juice instead of wine when the Bible doesn't give a clear enough distinction between the two...you're being legalistic! and why add on the singing or anything else that makes it a much longer service than need be? cut the time and you could comfortably do it more regularly like everyone else...

regularity. i think that's the kicker in my head. the longer process is really beautiful to me and i don't want to do it every week; i want to savor it.

but who am i and why do something just because i like it? what about the community? good question! that's another part of the equation--everyone else. the mass exodus from the sanctuary to the smaller rooms in which we wash feet, sing and pray. talking to others along the way, some of whom you haven't seen all week and may not have seen during a regular service. there's the feisty elderly woman who gives everyone mints, just because. and the young couple with their 3 children--there's nothing quite like watching a teenage boy wash his mother's feet. it's a communal journey. and once everyone has been served and has chewed and swallowed, we form a large circle around the church, take the hand of our neighbors and sing "bless be the tie that binds." we're in this together. we're remembering Christ together.

and then we leave with cleaner feet and the peace of God in our eyes, dropping money in an offering plate at the door to help others in need. Others...b/c we're all on that level with Christ as our ultimate provider.

this is communion, too.

having to think

There once was a time when I just did ministry. Just did it. No deep queries into minds and patterns. No reading up on the experts' opinions. Just action. Pure action. So what changed? 


Those I serve are no longer peers in terms of expectation and experience. 


Expectations will kick you, kick you hard, all over. And un-shared experiences? They create distance. The solution seems simple: hang out! Time spent will create shared experiences so that in spite of differing expectations, you'll at least have a trust relationship. And once you know each other better, you'll see a little more eye to eye. 


Voila! Bingo! 


But you'll still have to think coz it won't happen overnight. (And current expectations and distance will continue to get in the way.) And perhaps this is what folks were trying to tell me a year ago. I just wish I'd been able to get it a year ago and that they'd been able to say it like this.


And there I go with my crazy expectations...

http://shsuonline.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/expectations.jpg

lessons from email

Another online account. Another password. Another moment to decide whether or not to use the same 6-8 letters/symbols/numbers that my other 30 online accounts hold, even the Hotmail that I would delete if I were brave enough. I'm not even sure when I created that account. It's so last decade, before I learned that email accounts shouldn't be treated like underwear but more like a GenX teenage romance--pick one; go steady. And eventually you break up. It's fine because it wasn't meant to be more than summer love anyway. It's a miracle you made it through 2 semesters, choir tour and the talent show. Your duet was stunning, or at least as good as it gets for a sophomore. By graduation, you talk every now and then. Cordial. No Friday-sweatpants-wearing, cool-girl drama. But you haven't tossed out his notes.


And I haven't sifted through all my account options to figure out where that "deactivate account" button lies. Experience confirms that the chances of essential email dropping into that inbox are ridiculously slim. Hotmail, like AOL, makes savvy potential employers shake their heads. "Who does this?"


I do. I'm a horder. But certainly not as bad as the messy house people who show up on reality TV. I hold on to bigger things. Ideas. Ridiculous ones. Like surely I'll fall deeply in love with my job every day, surely the average citizen will say smart political things all the time, and of course Hotmail is worth keeping.


Miracle, where art thou?


The best item in my collection, though? You ready for this? It's the notion that people will be good even on their worst days. I know. Completely unrealistic. Utterly idealistic. Downright ridiculous. I mean, who am I to suppose that even on Mondays, after 1 cup of leisurely bliss, 2 oz of religious patronage and a dash of road rage the worst of us would give the world a wink and a smile? But I do. And Monday after Monday proves disappointing. If you've ever looked for the "keep hope alive" poster child, look no more. She lives in my head and expects you to come inside, make yourself at home. It's cozy here just inside the front door that thinks too hard and is probably to blame for massive stress levels. Reason can take a hike.


Bear with me another 20 seconds. It's not easy to convince others of my 30-year delusion. After all, I also still have yahoo.

tears & love

i have the best husband. (okay, yours may be great too...)


yesterday was a rough one, one that brought to the surface a load of my frustrations and i overflowed. he was there. holding me. reassuring me. and then he said, "can i pray for you?"


and this is love...

sunsets are good for your health

very rarely do i leave work bright eyed and bushy tailed. today was no exception. and with so much time spent in my head (from just a few minutes after waking up), processing questions and frustrations, thinking through possibly needed rebuttals, and all other manner of madness that i've done for so much of my life, by the time i drive home, my mind's about to explode. it's great.

well today was exceptional in a very unexpected way, a very God kind of way. as i drove west on I-40, i spotted the last few minutes of sunset. now i've seen the sun set a lot and i've marveled at the sunset a lot but today was exceptional. i had the sort of experience that makes Romans 1:20 so real.

as soon as i noticed the sunset, God said to me, "Okay, you see that sunset? You need to let the sun set on all your frustrations, all your fatigue, all your anger, all your unresolved interpersonal drama, etc." and just like that, i had peace AND a smile. talk about radical change! that's something only God can do.

and just as i crossed the light at the last major intersection before home, God said, "You've only got a few more moments of sunset so let it all go!" and i packed up the remaining junk and threw it out the window. it's the sort of liter cities welcome--if more people did it, there'd be fewer accidents, i promise you!

Or are they?

Now I feel as if researching validity and worth is a quality and necessary endeavor. Yet I’d rather just come up with an answer: Yes, they are. No, they aren’t. Alas, they could be under different circumstances. Like if I were the woman at the well or Nicodemus, experiencing a private tête-à-tête with Jesus coz then my frustrations would be fully known to the one who can actually do something about them—as if worth is based on the ability to conquer, fix, etc.

Tension. I can’t be fixed. Well, I believe God doesn’t want to. So what do I do with my frustrations? I conclude that they bear no discussion, at least not too much. I shouldn’t make them into my shtick, my “past routine” that emerges with each new speaking engagement like the tale your grandfather always tells simply because it’s his favorite, not because you need to know it.

No!

No? Is God mean? To say that He would say “no” sounds so harsh and lacks all the warm fuzziness we’ve often associated with divine Jesus love. To say that God would actually tell me that He won’t fix my eye, and to allow for the inference that there are some things God doesn’t fix no matter how hard we’ve prayed, seems so wrong. And trust me when I say that I’ve prayed about this as have so many others. I have no idea just how many God-fearing prayer warriors have interceded on my behalf. And we believed that God can and that He would. Be He hasn’t so I’ve decided to act as if He won’t.

And as I thought about my professor’s question throughout the rest of that class period, I realized that my one request to God reveals my deepest pain and I supposed that it was time I got some new pain, the kind that God has when He thinks about trying to save us. I don’t want to downplay personal experience like a former boss of mine would do almost daily. He’d step into my office and take a few moments to share some concerns he had regarding the incredible work our department had before us directly and indirectly related to teaching all the university’s Freshmen how to write well. Then after a passion-filled unloading, he’d walk away saying, “But how can I complain when there are people starving around the world?" I wanted to smack him but instead I simply reminded him that his frustrations were both real and valid…as are mine…right?

can i get my sight back?

It’s the first day of class, one of those large classes that can make grad school frustrating. Too many bodies. Too many opinions. Too many reasons to think my ideas aren’t necessarily the brightest. But I respect the professor so I’m here. To my surprise, we don’t begin with the usual introductions of selves and syllabus. Instead, our professor boldly probes: “If you could ask God for just one thing, what would it be?” I immediately have my answer but quickly determine to keep it quiet as I listen to fellow classmates say, “Save me” and “Save my family.” Those are the right answers, the good pastor answers, the true shepherd answers. My answer is completely wrong, self-seeking, ridden with pain. But perhaps I can pride myself in knowing it’s actually a question which the act of asking creates. My answer is, “God, can I get my sight back?”

Not that many people know about my eye and those who know don’t always realize the degree to which it affects me—it just looks lazy. The truth is, I had a stroke. (At least, that’s what the doctors said. A friend recently put me on the idea that perhaps it’s related to my C2 which a chiropractor could have fixed had I gone to one right away. But that’s not at all conclusive on a professional level so I’ll leave it alone for now and return to the stroke idea.)

There. I wrote it, a much easier task than saying it. The memory of that Sabbath morning in 2004 when my left eye became clinically blind is still fresh. My lack of depth perception still frustrates me. I still wish I could be the goalie in a soccer match or the receiver in a flag football game. I still wake up every now and again wondering if today is the day God would like to perform a super miracle in my life after which I’d tell the world, help us all believe in miracles. And even though it still hurts, I’ve essentially come to terms with the idea that God’s reply is, “No.”

something beautiful

i've come to really enjoy this song by need to breathe. and now, as i make my way to slumberville, i'm remembering the beauty i've recently experienced:

girlfriend time
a reminder that my man knows me well
leaving work before it's pitch black outside
inspiration
God's unconditional love as evidenced by all of the above and more...

i want to be angry

and i am.

there's a lot of crap in the world. there has been for a long time. just so happens that right now a lot of it's in my face and i don't want to deal with it. well, maybe parts but not all.

folks, stop dying.

thank you.

i don't care how you get here...just get here!

frustrated by time ill spent, i finally opened up the Bible for my daily reading time. i'm at Matthew 20--parable of the vineyard workers.

i've always only focused on the idea of fairness/unfairness regarding how the vineyard owner paid his workers. today i read it differently and i hope to always remember this reading.

Jesus (the vineyard owner) doesn't care when/how i get to heaven (how much i get paid); he just wants me to get there (get paid). and heaven (the pay) is the same for everyone. whether you started walking with him (working in the vineyard) at age 8 or 98 (at 10am or 5pm) heaven is the same (equal pay for unequal work coz obviously it's not about your work!).

"just get here," Jesus is saying. "i don't care how you get here...just get here"

and with my new-found desire to live in the present, the journey with God begins now all the time. doesn't matter that i was baptized at 14. the journey begins now...every second it begins now.

i haven't taken the time to polish up my reading of Matthew 20. that'll happen down the way. so if you find some weakness in my reading, pls forgive me. this is where i am right now. perhaps later on i'll have something considered more profound. : )

till then,

YSITB
(your sister in the battle)

the strength of focus

i'm quite amazed at how focused attention overrides chills and other flu symptoms. if i make up my mind to do something, i'm okay--not perfect, but okay. then i just chill and literally chill as fatigued muscles call out for rest. 

i will obey though still quite amazed.

yes!

my fiance makes my day, every day. just thinking about him. or reading his post. or seeing his pic on my bookshelf, etc, etc, etc... he honestly makes my day.

and yes, we sometimes get on each others nerves and yes, we'll probably have to unfortunate moments post the "i do's"; nevertheless, he'll still make my day. and i'm really determined to make his.

i love you justin jeffery.

i do!

(and i can't believe this is my first time posting for 2010. shame!)