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My heart beats for love. I want to be different. I want to be who I am called to be. WORTHY and LOVED!

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Weaknesses

So I hurt. A lot. Last weekend I did something incredibly stupid and went camping. I knew I shouldn't, but I went anyway. And now I'm reaping the consequences. Really I haven't felt good since I got off the plane way back in August, a feeling which was accelerated with sleeping on the overnight train to Sydney. Unfortunately, my health insurance doesn't go overseas so I'm a little stuck. It's not quit as bad as coming back from Russia, when no one could touch me for about two and a half weeks, but I fear that its getting there. And I don't know what to do. It got to the point today where I could do nothing but just lay in bed and hope to sleep it all away, but that was quickly crushed.

The funny thing, is as much as the first paragraph sounds like complaining, and believe me it is, it is one of the hardest things for me to write. I hate people knowing that I have some (many) profound weaknesses because I'm so afraid that those weaknesses will become what define me. So I just attempt to hide them. Seriously, the physical ones I rarely even write on a health form. And I'm starting to see how wrong that is, but I still can't articulate all of it yet. I feel like I'm stuck inside of a repetitious conversation with other people who care about me and myself in my head that doesn't have any resolution about this topic.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Time

I've been struggling with this concept of Time. I value time a lot. Maybe too much. But that being said, I need either time or space. One or the other to function. Either I need a place to go to escape or time to work though things, thoughts and assignments, at my own pace. When that doesn't happen I get unhappy, really beyond unhappy. This would be where I am now. Kingsley is too small to have space. Even at Houghton I had space, on the skislope, by the creek, in the chapel on the baloney. But that is a luxury that isn't here. So time would be great/ is needed. And I sort of freaked this week when that was taken away. So please pray for my sanity, which I sometimes feel is quickly shrinking as the semester comes to a close.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Maybe This is a Start

This isn't going to make sense to many of you, and I guess in that vein in doesn't even make sense to me but....I've been spending a lot of time by myself the last couple of days. Like over 5 hours a day the last three days. Before you lecture me on stupidity trust me that I already get these bashings of concern, but its needed. I don't know if I'm hiding or trying to find a place of safety, but whatever I'm searching for cannot be found around Kingsley campus and needs to be found in solitude. A place where you can explore and heal.

I ended up having a very long and complex conversation with a friend last night about my many layers which just spiraled out of control into this thing of a conversation that took on a life of its own. He was encouraging me to let others bear my burdens. This struck me as such a funny concept the more I thought about it. In the Church we hold up this idea of bearing each others burdens, but that involves a mutual commitment, a commitment to be honest but also a commitment to be with that person until they have healed. This isn't for the light of heart. It may involve sitting up with someone night after night as they cry. It may mean noticing the reoccurring bandages on someone's arm. Or moving in with someone when they are sick or hurting. It is Love in the form of a continuous action well above prayer. It is the ultimate sign of family and living out "for better or worse" It's not something to promise to commit to if you know you aren't going to finish. That is the best way to break trust, to promise to be there to care about you so you open up and then walk away. I will not go through that again.

So for the time being, here I sit taking care of myself the best I can, because I still cannot trust to let others take on my burdens. So I run to the silence of being alone, and hope and pray and wait...

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Todd Agnew

I normally don't post songs, but this song has been playing pretty consistently through my head since break. It's touched me in a way I can't really explain. My prayer is that it touches you, too.

PS> Todd is coming to Houghton in mid-November.

If You Wanted Me

I'll admit I'm glad we're not disciples
Out on a lake paralyzed with fright
'Cause I'm afraid I might have laughed at Peter
Until he stepped into that stormy night

If you wanted me to walk on water
Why'd You make the solid ground seem so right?

I'll admit I'm glad I'm not King David
Ruling over everything I see
'Cause I think I've fallen for more than Bathsheba
Your creation's a temptation for me

If you wanted me to love you only
Why'd you make the moonlight sparkle in her eyes?

I'll admit I'm glad I'm not John the Baptist
In a jail cell waiting for my day to die
'Cause at least down here I know what we're chasing
And it's hard to trust Your dreams are so much better than mine

If you wanted me to die to myself
Why'd you make me fall so deeply in love with life?

If You wanted me to surrender
Why'd You make these hands able to hold on so tight?

And if You wanted me to be like You
Why'd You make me like me?

Written by Todd Agnew

Thursday, October 11, 2007

There's a possibility that this will come across very choppy since I'm at the state library trying to multi-task, but hopefully my point can come shining through regardless. At the begining of the semester in PoMo class the statement was made that "there are all types of churches for all types of people". The more I think about this statement, the more I agree with it, as long as a church is being the Church.
Yesterday we got into a discussion about the practicality of Cathedrals in Life in the City. Just because I'm feeling like saying controversial and because I still don't know what I feel about it, what if God likes Cathedrals. What if God likes the fact that we actually have enough reverence for him to build him something lavish. What if it's like raising hands in worship, an expression of a love and awe that we have for God that is too grand to put into words. God wanted a temple built for him in the OT, but that's right, we totally disregard the OT now.
I'm not saying that we should pour all of our money into a building, I'm just saying that we've totally lost the idea of the holiness of God that demands our respect. We've made the Trinity into our best friend. When we relate this to human relationships, we feel like we know God so well that we don't have to be in awe of him, or say thank you. Because he's our buddy, he just knows. That may be true, but what if he yearns for us to express our respect and love of him in some way. And maybe for some people that's a building that speaks to his grander. All types of worship expressions for all types of people.
That doesn't excuse us from using our resources poorly, but I feel too often the reason we criticize other churches is because we are jealous of them or are scared of them. All types of ministers for all types of people, as long as they are preaching the word accurately why does it matter? I am NOT advocating for the pulpit to be a place to preach whatever you feel in the name of God, which I've heard way too many times in the past few weeks, but if its accurate then it will speak to someone. I was reading in John 12 today about Mary lavishly pouring oil on Jesus' feet and anointing him. How often are we like Judas, criticizing the Mary's of this world because we wanted to use that money for something else? Are we limiting God?

Luke 16:19-31

Once upon a time in a land far far away (Luke 16:19-31) there was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich’s man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus at his side. So he called to him, “Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.” But Abraham replied, “Son remember that in your lifetime you received your good things which Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all of this, between us and you is a great chasm that has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, not can anyone cross over from there to us.” He answered, “Then, I beg you Father, send Lazarus to my father’s house for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will also not come to this place of torment.” Abraham replied, they have Moses and the Prophets, let them listen to them.” “No, father Abraham,” he said “but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.” He said to him, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”

While we’d love to look at this story from a story tale perspective, where everything works out well in the end and Lazarus reaches the end of his life victorious, but it is hard to find joy in Lazarus’ situation when his story is being lived out day after day around us. We find it in the faces of the homeless, the hurting, the self-abusers, the addicts, and the prostitutes, whom are avoided and feared even by the church. Or whom we reach out to only as a forced act of kindness. Do we feel sympathy and love for Lazarus in this story, or do we look at him through the eyes of the rich man?

Let’s pause and look at what this story is really trying to tell us. Often we lose a lot of the meaning of Christ’s parables because we are no longer living in 1 CE AD. The rich man is standing in front of Lazarus wearing purple. If you think about a few books further in the New Testament, in Acts, Lydia is said to be a seller of purple cloth. Purple is a color which is hard to achieve, and is reserved solely for the rich. Purple is an outward sign of power and money. A status symbol. So we have this rich man who is concerned with others knowing what he has. And outside of his lavish home, which is gated, another sign of power, is a man named Lazarus. Lazarus would be shunned by the Jewish community at the time because he is covered with infectious sores. We aren’t told what the sores exactly are but skin diseases were considered to dangerous, and thus those who were unfortunate enough to contract diseases found it hard to keep a job or even to be part of the community. Here the contrast emerges between the rich man, filled with the world’s wealth and having much more then he could ever think about needing, and Lazarus, a man who had nothing left to call his own, no money, no power, no family to take care of him, no community to love him, and no dignity. Lazarus is in such a destitute situation that he desires to eat only what falls from the table, a place generally reserved for the animals, who were not seen as friendly pets as they are today, but as unclean. Now Lazarus is not only seen as an animal, but as less then the animals, as the dogs come up and lick his sores, as the rich man sits, reclining at his overabundant table with family and friends, ignoring Lazarus’ needs.

Then we reach the climax of the story, as Lazarus is carried into Heaven and the rich man descends to Hell. One may think that both men have finally gotten what they individually deserved, but that isn’t the point of Jesus’ parable. Remember that to Christ the Kingdom of God, isn’t just in Heaven after we die or on Heaven on Earth after Jesus returns. Often we get so caught up in the aspect of Christ coming again, that we forget that we are the Church. The collective body of Christ who are supposed to be living in the present Kingdom of God. We should be living everyday actively for Christ by reaching out to those whom Christ loves, instead of just waiting and praying that we are taken home. I often find myself wondering if Christ accepts our egger anticipation of his return as a form of worship, or if he has more joyful when we reach out to the needs that we see around us everyday. I think he loves it when we love others, for no reason other then he told us to.

So before we go on and address the part of the parable where Christ speaks of each man “getting what they deserve” let’s look at how the rich man and Lazarus contrasted lacked appropriate, Christ like contact with each other when they were alive.

I recently had the opportunity to get to see the movie, the Jammed, about underground prostitution in Melbourne. I wouldn’t recommend this movie to everyone, but is has a powerful message, and especially touched me as a Christian. The movie tells the story of three women who were pulled into prostitution under false contexts and one woman who got pulled into helping the girls by no choice of her own. I was quit convicted by the end of the movie by a phrase that kept playing in my head from my favorite book, the Irresistible Revolution, by Shane Claiborne. Shane is having a conversation with a friend who just claimed that Jesus never talked to a prostitute and Shane is trying to defend the fact that of course Jesus talked to prostitutes, all the time. But then Shane’s friend replied, “Listen, Jesus never talked to a prostitute because he didn’t see a prostitute. He saw a child of God he was madly in love with.” How are we seeing the people around us? Are we even seeing the people around us at all? Or like the rich man are we ignoring the Lazarus’ that are right in front of us? Are we seeing a child of God or are we grumbling under our breath and in our minds that “those type of people” made their own decisions. Really? How have you made decisions that are any better? And why should that prevent you from reaching out and being the hands and feet of Christ?

I would also like to suggest that being the hands and feet of Christ isn’t something that is always safe. What if Jesus is calling us to be radical as we stand up for our neighbors who are hurting? At a recent bible study on the Book of Acts the point was brought up that almost everyone in the book of Acts dies, most being charged with some form of treason against the government or crime against the Jewish religion. Do we have that type of faith today, a faith that goes against the grain of culture that has seeped into the church? To stand up for our brothers and sisters and speak against the injustices being committed against them even if it means going to jail or lying down our own lives? Am I willing to let God use me in this countercultural way? Are we going to allow ourselves to be political criminals, not carrying about how others see our passions, but caring only about how are loving others? “Give to Caesar’s what is Creaser’s”, realizing that everything is God’s. Or are we going to live in fear of what others will think?

Fear has become such a stumbling block for the Church, creating an us vs. them mentality. We are over here trying to achieve holiness and we’ll interact with a small fraction of the poor and broken hearted once in a while just to meet our quota of “Jesus like” acts. I feel as if that doesn’t matter at all, if we don’t have a Christ like heart when we are reaching out. Why are we so fearful? I generally carry change around in my coat pockets. If I get a coin it goes into my pocket so I can hand it to the next beggar that I see on the street. I have a friend who handed his money to a man who told us he was in need of a train ticket, who we later found out was an addict. But does it really matter if the man ended up misusing his money if my friend has a pure heart when he gave the money? If he took time out of his day to interact with someone whom everyone else ignores. We are all going to make mistakes when it comes to giving money and time, but God is big enough to redeem every pure hearted action we take. What is to say that the love that my friend showed to the man on the street even for a few minutes won’t have positive repercussions on his life later on? When are we going to start trusting God to use our resources for God instead of worrying if we made a good decision or not? What if we just give our change to the Lazarus’ who are right in front of us? What if we just gave a bit of our time to those crying out for the message of Love? As the Church we are called to meet people where their need exists, which may not mean preaching the gospel of Christ to the homeless on the streets, before giving him a piece of bread when is crying out for table scraps, because he is so hungry.

Fast forward to the part of the story where the rich man and Lazarus have reached their eternal destinations. Did you notice that even when the rich man is in Hell, the lowest place you can get, he still sees Lazarus as inferior to him? He wants Lazarus to come and give him water and go to warn his family about what happened to him, so they can go and avoid the same fate, as if Lazarus is under his command. I wonder if our earthly opinions of people and our motives for serving them or avoiding them will carry over into Heaven. When I reach out to someone in need is it because I want to communicate to that person that they are LOVED and WORTHY just because they are a child of God? Or do I have motives of chalking up points with Jesus? I think back to another quote from Claiborne’s book about who is our family, “The same desperate love a mother has for her baby or that a child has for his or her daddy is extended to all of our human family…yet somehow we have family members who are starving and homeless, or dying or Aids, or in the midst of war.” When I look at Lazarus in Heaven or at the homeless man who I passed on the street and I going to see them as my brother or am I going to try to hold up myself higher then them? Isn’t the rich man’s sin not only that he ignored Lazarus but that he didn’t work for others while on the earth with a pure heart? His selfish desire to achieve power, money, and greatness blocked his ability to work for the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ commands us to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. It’s time that we actually start living out those commandments. Because I’m not loving God when I treat the people around me as subhuman. Would you be prepared to give an account to Jesus for your reasons for reaching out to the people around you? Is it a pure love? Is it something Christ could smile at?

Jude has been concentrating the last couple of weeks on the Pauline concept of relationships, which is so important. How we live in our marriage has ripple effects into those we interact with. But so does our relationship to those people who are part of our family whom we don’t really know, which can be mind boggling and overwhelming. We are not meant to stop homelessness or prostitution on our own, but we are to do our part in being the pure-intentioned church, Loving because Christ Loved. Seeing people as Christ saw them. If we collective act as the Church we can actually achieve something. I think back to the civil rights movement in the 1960s in the United States and the vital part that the Church played in those non-violent protests. It has been said that civil rights would never had been achieved if not for Christians being passionate against injustice. What are we passionate about today as the Church? Are we just passively waiting for Jesus to return or are we living out the present Kingdom today? Are we ignoring Lazarus and treating him as undignified or are we actually acting like Christ? I leave you with one final question that Shane Claiborne presented in his book, “Can we honestly worship a homeless man in church on Sunday, that is Christ, and ignore the homeless man on the streets on Monday?”

I Hope this Offends You

I recently received an email in regards to a presentation that I've been trying to get at Houghton. The group coming would be TWLOHA (To Write Love on Her Arms) an anti-addiction, specifically cutting group. (Check them out: http://www.twloha.com/) Unfortunately they will not be coming to Houghton, although our Christian community has so many cutters, people struggling with eating disorders, and those not knowing if they are really supposed to live until tomorrow, because the two people who head TWLOHA never cut themselves. Bull.
So let me see if I get this straight? We've established that this message is NEEDED at Houghton. But they shouldn't present it because they don't struggle with that particular addiction. But we aren't going to find anyone to present the message who has cut either. Does this make sense? I hope not. If it does please explain it to me.
When is the Church going to start placing trust in God again? Seriously, let me know. All we seem to do is sit around and attack other people's ministries for this reason or that reason. They aren't bringing in enough money or people. We don't like who is the figure head for the organization. When are we going to see past all of that and realize that Christ works through ALL for his glory. Have we lost that somewhere in our hard hearts and fists tightly wadded around money.
The above stance about why TWLOHA shouldn't come to Houghton is something I might be able to agree with somewhere, somehow in my heart if their message wasn't for me to, even though I've never cut. If it wasn't the message that we all need to hear that we are WORTHY and LOVED which I need to wake up every morning believing, and some days folks that is just too hard. If the message wasn't for all of us who hate a piece if not all of ourselves and wonder why God placed us on this earth. If the message wasn't one of hope, a hope that we all need. But that doesn't matter because well, the speaker Jamie never took a sharp object to her flesh.
The message is also for me because addictions are part of my daily life. In fact, I've been praying about a ministry for those suffering from eating disorders and cutting back home. But oh well, God will never work through that ministry because I've never actually done those things. Bull. Ahhh....are you getting the point yet? God can't work through us if we never step up and who is going to step up if all we do is shoot them down. It's also saying that all of the times I've sat up and cried with friends, cleaned up wounds that were seeping with infections, listened to people on the verge of killing themselves, etc. But that doesn't matter. I have nothing to say. Because I've never cut.

Monday, October 8, 2007

And We're Back

It's around 4pm here and I'm glad to be awake. I'm sitting in the computer lab, history project done, laundry in process, listening to the new Crowder album and just reflecting. I've actually been reflecting all day. In the wee hours in the morning at the tail end of our 11 hour train ride back from Sydney I asked Shane what his favorite part of vacation was and accepted the fact that he couldn't answer only because that's my answer as well. It's not that I had a bad time or was so overwhelmed that I couldn't pick a few memories that stand out, but that my vacation wasn't in the stunning moments (of which there were a few) but in the simple moments where life seemed to be calm again.
At some point in the past two weeks Shane was reading (for history I believe) a quote that has been tossing itself around in my head. The day is to be divided into eights. Eight hour of work, eight hour of play, and eight hours of sleep. I miss eights. I don't remember the last time I had eights. Is that sad? I was thinking that the life of a college student might not meant to be eights, at least that's not the expectation that comes with all of the work. Then as I was hanging up the laundry today I was wondering if I'm even supposed to continue on to be a pastor, if I woman's life is demanding just with cleaning, cooking, and laundry that seems never-ending. Now don't get me wrong, I know I am supposed to go on in schooling to be a pastor, but that doesn't make my wondering about when the eights come into actuality cease.
The first week of break was spent here in the city. The original plan was to work a divorce care ministry in the morning, get some school work done and hit up museums in the afternoons, then go out for dinner and shows at night to unwind. Did this really happen? No. I don't really know what happened, or even what went wrong, but it was not a restful break. It had its moments of beauty, like going out to see Phantom, but for the most part it was just hard. Probably one of the hardest weeks I've ever had emotionally, but that doesn't make it any easier to put my finger on why. It just was. So by the time Sunday rolled around I felt as if I had wasted (and I really don't believe in wasting time) this huge amount of time. I wasn't any closer to having school work done. I had written one paper that was semi-past due. And I wasn't happy. I was ready to get out of Melbourne when we headed to Sydney.
We arrived at our youth hostel bright and early Monday morning (we pulled into the Central train station around 7am) we were pretty much exhausted. It was all sorts of an adventure trying to figure out the public transportation system in a new city while hulling all of our luggage. We couldn't actually check into our hostel for a while so we found our way to a beach about 1.5 hours from where we were staying. I got to walk on the beach, playing at the water's edge, and sleep. It was like everything clicked and I saw finally that this is what I wanted vacation to be like - relaxing. In our culture we seem to prize who gets to do the most for the least amount of money in the least amount of time. Why is it about most when we think of the best? Isn't the best just enjoying what you have and the people you have it with? It was like this stark contrast arose between the weeks of vacation and I finally felt free.
Monday night everyone crashed pretty early. Mine was a tad out of necessity after getting pretty sick around 7pm, but the next morning I felt great. Tuesday we got to explore pieces of Sydney and doing what we do best, just walking. We somehow ended up at Darling Harbor and down by the Royal Gardens, I think that is my only regret of break: that we didn't get to spend more time there. I really wish America had more gardens, just a place to go and be a part of beauty. Not see it, but feel it. Amazing.
Wednesday and Thursday we spent time in Maitland with Jesse! Oh how I miss that boy. It was here that I probably had what would I consider to be my two favorite moments of break. One was just driving with Jesse who is one of the people that I feel completely comfortable just driving in silence with. It's not awkward silence, but a familiar comfortable silence. But in one of the times when we were talking, the topic of the challenges of being a pastor emerged and I found blessing and comfort in the fact that he's struggling with some of the same things that I am. While they may look different, at the heart they are the same issues.
The second moment came after Shane and I finished a movie we were watching, somehow we got off on this long conversation about life and God and everything in between that felt good, a familiar type of good that I have missed.
Friday we went to Hillsong Youth Conference around Mt. Duritt with a friend of ours from the college, David. I'm not sure how I feel about it. It wasn't anything grand or spectacular, just your basic youth conference. And I had mixed feelings about the speaker. At first I thought he was really good, but then he started talking about praying big, to ask God for things that are outside of your comprehension. On one hand I totally agree, and on the other my brain was wondering if that's really praying for God's will. All too often church's today aren't preaching on achieving God's will, but to run after our own selfishness.
Saturday was another one of those interesting travel days where it took about 5 hours to get from point A to point B. Haha. It was an interesting ride let me tell you. Then we went to our second hotel, and fourth place of residence in a week before heading out to a choarl concert that Shane wanted to go to. Sunday we got up and went to the beach and the Opera house to see the Australian Chamber Orchestra before going home.
And now I'm back. And honestly I don't want to be. Even if it wasn't the stress of returning to work, I still wouldn't want to be back in Melbourne. In Sydney I got to just be myself with different pieces of my family, and I miss that. Will I ever be allowed to have that here?