I miss this blog.
Mostly, though, I miss the conversations we used to have through and because of it.  And even without it.

I really need a group like you guys out here.  I feel like I'm sleepwalking, like I'm stuck in a routine with no one to wake me and ask me what the hell I'm doing with my life.
Well, that's not entirely true--people DO wonder what I"m doing with my life.  But nobody is walking with me down this strange and twisty road.

Remember when we had shiny-eyed dreams and hopes of changing the world, of chaning the church? 

I don't know what happened. 

Some days I get so cynical and down.  I'm trying hard to hold onto hope here, and some days I feel like I'm losing that battle.  I can't do this on my own, but I just feel stranded.  I need my sisters around me, my community, my anamchara.

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

A Place

[I thought I would post this poem that I wrote almost two years ago, since this is sort of our "safe" artistic forum. I was inspired to write it while star-gazing one night off of my back deck (no surprise, since I love to star-gaze). This is the first poem that I've ever written for pleasure and that I was truly inspired to write; I have written other poems for school assignments that were merely that: a fulfillment of an assignment. Fused with my recent change of opinion on what Heaven is like, my love affair with the beauty of the stars has been a huge inspiration in quite a lot of my writing.]

A Place

Come with me to a place
Where distant stars are an intimate grace
A place
Where the scales have fallen from our eyes
We can’t see color, creed or race
A place
Where the earth would show us how to live
If we would listen, if we could taste
The infinite beauty of this place
With waterfalls and crescent moons
Crashing breakers and sandy dunes
Comet tails and fire flies
Sunset colors and stormy skies

Come with me to a place
Where roaring rivers are a calming grace
A place
Where soldiers lay their weapons down
The fighting ceases as peace they embrace
A place
Where all of nature will demonstrate
A perfect rhythm, a flawless pace
The infinite music of this place
With waterfalls and crescent moons
Crashing breakers and sandy dunes
Comet tails and fire flies
Sunset colors and stormy skies
All of this beauty for us to share
Free for the taking, found everywhere

"I'm SO Bad"

...So why does Jesus love me?

Well, Sara's recent posts about "The Basics" have got me thinking. There's an assumption I've noticed that runs rampant in the church, and it kind of confuses me. It seems to fly in the face of scripture, yet it's a very common attitude. It goes like this:

"I am a really horrible person. I mess up a lot, and I think bad thoughts. I'm a wretched scum of a sinner, and my heart is desperately wicked. It sure is nice of God to love me anyway."

I disagree.

Let me just make one thing clear upfront: I am not in any way trying to make the case that I'm somehow sinless. I just think the way in which we look at ourselves needs to be adjusted.

The bible is pretty clear about certain things. Sin is one of them. It's like a disease, and everyone is infected. Everyone. Some seem to have it worse than others; some seem to only have a touch of it--but the kicker is that it only takes one tiny germ to infect you, and the diagnosis is death.

Fortunately, there's a cure. Not a vaccine to ward it off, but an injection that will wipe the disease out of your body. Sounds great, right? So a couple thousand years ago, this guy Jesus walks around offering this cure to people. People that knew they were really sick and knocking on death's door came to him, and he gave them the cure for free. But there were other people who didn't like that. They'd been exercising and eating extremely well for years to keep the illness at bay--and telling other people that was the best way to live-- and here Jesus was giving the really sick ones a free cure!

So, now here we are, all these years later, acting mostly like the second group of people. We take our vitamins, we exercise, we eat a lot of salad.* Because we don't want to get sick. We know we are sick, and that we will die, but we like to pretend to everyone else that we are fine, just fine. Yet, when we talk about it with each other, the first thing we do is talk about how ill we are! "Boy, I sure am sick," we say to each other. "I am on death's doorstep! Thank goodness there's a cure that will keep me from totally kicking the bucket."

Seriously, this is how we talk about sin and ourselves. We have a cure. We want to look healthy, but perversely, we also don't want anyone to think we're TOO healthy. Am I exaggerating this? We have this duality about grace. On one hand, we try to live very good lives. We keep our checklists. But the minute we mess up, we moan about how fallen and sinful we are. Talk about extremes!

Imagine coming face-to-face with Jesus after receiving his cure and lamenting to him how sick we still are. "But, I healed you," he would remind us.
"I know," we would moan, "but I'm still sick!"
"That's not who you really are," Jesus says. "I'm making you well. It make take some time for the medicine to come into full effect, but you ARE cured. You're not sick. You're well."

We are WELL. We spend a lot of time focusing on our flaws and failures, and that's not what Christ sees in us. Sometimes scripture talks about our transformation in the past tense; other times, in an ongoing sense. The point is, to God, we are changed. So why don't we see ourselves that way??

Once upon a time, God made man and woman in his image. He bestowed on them great glory and responsibility. That glory was diminished through the fall, but it was not destroyed. For God never gave up on us, but pursued humanity throughout the ages. Why? Because we were worthless?

Proponents of the Pro-Life movement like to use Psalm 139 to remind us that God formed us in the womb. If that's true, then why don't we act like it? Why don't we apply that same logic to ourselves, and remember that he lovingly knit us together, just the way we are? He designed us for a purpose, each of us. Yet the common refrain amongst Christians is how utterly wretched we are.

Yes, it's important to be aware of our sin. Like David in the psalms, let us cry out to God to search our hearts and root out the bad. But let us also end as he does, focusing on God and his redemption of us. Let us say with Paul, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." (Gal. 2:20) Let's not focus on how bad we are anymore. That's not the truest thing about us anymore--our redemption is.

This isn't being proud, it's being humble--because we know that we didn't bring about our own healing. It wasn't by eating well and taking vitamins that we got ourselves better. It was the heavenly cure, given freely to us. Not grudgingly, in spite of our sickness, but because He loves us and wants us to be healthy.

God loves us! He has healed us! Grace is a joyful thing! It is the good news that we carry into the world. There is a cure for this disease, and it's living in us. It's making us whole and well. Sometimes we will have a coughing spell or lapse into a fever. But we're not the diseased ones anymore. We're well, and it's time we started living like it.



*This analogy does not mean I have anything against eating well, taking vitamins, or exercising. In fact, they are valid ways of taking care of the body we've been given. It was just a handy illustration.

The Basics, Part II

This second thing that I've been struggling with lately may not seem like some to be one of the "basics". To many people, though, especially circles that I've been a part of, this subject is fundamental at best, and is at least considered to be a subject of common sense, for if you disagree with the status quo, you are certainly a heretic. The subject that I'm referring to is homosexuality. I struggle with what I believe about this controversial subject scientifically, spiritually, practically, and just about every other level imaginable.

Last night was a perfect example of my struggle with the issue. Last night's episode of Family Guy was about the polar extremes of both sides of the fence, mocking both homosexuality and the religious right-wing, fundamental view of it. And it was twisted, disturbing, and I know that I did not fall on either side. I wasn't the "Straight Camp" leader who tried to "cure" the gay people by telling them to beat up a gay man; nor was I Stewie, who represented the Bible toting, gay-hating, religious zealot; nor was I on the side of the overt homosexuals, engaging in an "eleven-man-orgie" and flaunting their sexuality to the disdain of other characters. The entire show was disturbing, and yet in it's cynical little way, made a huge point. Homosexuality is a huge, important issue, and we need to deal with it. We can't turn our face and pretend it doesn't exist; we can't just be ambivalent about it, but falling on either side of the radicals doesn't work either. There has to be a middle ground. There has to be an answer that promotes the love of Jesus and yet remains consistent with absolute Truth. And this is the answer that I'm wrestling with. I just haven't seemed to be able to find that answer yet.

A few months ago, homosexuality was the topic of the Sunday morning lesson that was a part of a series about that three letter word that doesn't seem to be welcome in church these days: Sex. For the first time, I allowed myself to be objective about the matter, opened my closed-minded view to critical examination, and really listened to a different view that I had ever heard expressed by anyone of the Christian faith. I began to allow logic to come into play in my view. I had always firmly believed that no one is born homosexual. But when I began to think logically about it, some questions began to be raised in my own mind. If I was born a heterosexual female, which was determined by the chromosomes and hormones my embryo was exposed to, then wouldn't it logically follow that it would have been possible for my female embryo self to have been exposed to the wrong hormones? Or the wrong amount of certain hormones? The systems of our bodies are so incredibly fragile, albeit incredibly resilient, but also very, very fragile; so of course the possibility is there, right? I mean, every thing else that typically goes the way nature intended, can go wrong. Babies are born with an extra twenty-first chromosome, thus they have down's syndrome. My little cousin was born without the membrane that connects the right and left portion of his brain, thus rendering him an invalid his entire life. He died in his sleep when he was only six. Some babies are born with both male and female sexual organs. We are reminded daily of the curse that we are under. It seems miraculous when things turn out perfectly. And yet, even when we are born with all of our fingers and toes in tact, our days are counting down to the day we will ultimately die. We are dying.

Jesus said, when the crowd was about to stone an adulterous woman, for the person who was without sin to cast the first stone. Why are heterosexuals always off the hook for the sins lurking in their closets? Jesus was pretty radical when he said that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Jesus doesn't care how good we look on the outside. He cares about our hearts. I'll be the first to admit that being heterosexual does not exempt one from sexual sin. I still have to guard my heart on a daily basis. For those of you reading my book, The Untameable Heart of a Dreamer, I will be even more specific about my heart on this issue.

So right now, even though I am still wrestling with the issue, I have definitely moved toward the middle. I have abandoned my fundamentalist view that homosexuality is a sinful choice that people make just to rebell against God. But neither do I feel comfortable accepting a homosexual lifestyle as okay. (Bear with me, I'm still forming my view.) I wonder if people who are legitamately born homosexual are called to be celibate. I mean, the Bible does say that some people are born "eunichs". If I never married or dated or had sex, I would still be heterosexual. One doesn't have to act on an urge to define her sexuality. So I still believe that there is something innately wrong with a man having sex with a man, and a woman having sex with a woman. I believe it just like I believe there is something innately wrong with a man or woman having sex with an animal, an adult having sexual contact with a child, a mother shaking her baby to make it stop crying, robbing a bank teller at gun point, stealing a piece of candy from the grocery store. There are some things that are just innately wrong. They violate human nature, and the acts themselves do something to our souls. It is not something that can be explained by science, or proved in a lab. But a part of our soul gets chipped away if you will, even dies, when we engage in acts that violate human nature. And yet even this point can be argued, for some would say that we are acting in accordance with human nature when we act on our urges. I tend to fall on the side of C. S. Lewis' view in his great work The Abolition of Man. Some things are just beautiful because they are. And if one does not think that they are beautiful, then that person is less human for it. I believe that Ted Bundy, a raving heterosexual, was nothing short of a beast. Somehow, over years and years of desensitizing his own heart, mysteriously succeeded in the abolition of his own soul. I'm still not even sure how I feel about his "conversion" that supposedly happened right before his execution. You can view his interview with Dobson as the lights flicker in the background, a foreshadowing of his impending execution as the electric chair is being tested in another room. Only God knows where he stands.

The point is, acts of homosexuality are not the only sexual "sins" we should be focused on. We should be focused on the heart, first and foremost, of every individual. And everyone, regardless of sexuality, should feel welcome in Christian communities to express his or her struggles. And truth be told, I can't judge any homosexual, I've got no stones to throw.

The Basics

I still struggle with the basics. Is it okay for someone who's been a Christian almost their entire life admit this? Well, I know it's okay here, with my other sisters who are also making their hearts vulnerable in this blog, The Anamchara Diaries. But if I were to admit this in some circles, I would be scolded, chastised, even questioned about the validity of my faith. But this is real. This is my heart. I do still struggle with the fundamentals of the faith, like prayer. I've wrestled with this discipline for a few years now. It all kind of started when a family member suddenly died of acute leukemia, leaving behind her children and husband, her children also victims of terminal illness, not expected to live much longer past their teens.

And so many people were praying. Praying hard. Praying for her to live, because how could her death be part of God's plan? How could so much pain be God's will for a family who has served him their whole lives? And she died.

That event shook my feelings on prayer to my core. Do we have it all wrong? Is prayer really just an avenue to get what we want, like rubbing a lamp and a genie comes out and grants us any wish? I'm afraid I've viewed prayer like this for a long time. So and so is sick, please heal her, God. So and so's dog died, please comfort her, Lord. I have a test today, please let me get a good grade. Bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies.

It's not that I have less faith than I used to. It's just that I think I've been asking for all the wrong things. Death is not a bad thing. It is on this side of eternity, but this side is only the shadow side of eternity, only the closet that separates us from the entire room, as Lewis describes it in Until We Have Faces. So death is a blessing, a doorway to the greater reality, a threshold to something bigger and better than we've ever known or experienced.

And who are we to complain about pain? We are promised nothing more in this life than pain, both physically and emotionally. In fact, the very acceptance of the Gospel in and of itself creates more pain, because it creates within us this anguish, this hope for something better than what we have. If I had no hope of something better than all of this, I would just accept the way things are, or if I would live consistently with the belief that there's nothing more, I would just commit suicide.

So I approach prayer differently than I used to. I struggle with asking God to do things that I think should be done, or to relieve pain that I think should be relieved. My conscience has been smitten with the fact that much of my prayer life has been selfish at best. So my prayer life has been a bit simplified. I pray for grace, for understanding, for God's will to be done. I pray for his kingdom to come to earth. I pray for forgiveness. Sound familiar? It's how Jesus taught us to pray.

I'm not saying that people who have great faith and ask for great things are wrong. I'm just admitting that I struggle with this. What I am saying is that I am sick of how cliche prayer has become. I get nauseated to sit through the typical "prayer request time". Once when I was listening to prayer requests at a church I used to attend, a girl asked for prayer that God would provide the money she would need to go on a Mediterranean Cruise.

Okay, I'm going to be crass here, please forgive me in advance. But...WTF???

I thought I had heard it all. I mean, atleast asking for relief of pain for other people is sort of noble, sort of unselfish. But this request was flat out self indulgent! I'm sorry for being cynical, I know that can be a fault of mine. But this is where I'm at. I know that my personality tends to be more reason centered than faith centered. I am more of the Jack Shepard than the John Locke when it comes to matters of faith, especially when it comes to the subject of prayer. But where does the balance of reason and faith come in to play? Is it okay to just abandon reason, abandon what we know to be true about God and pain and the curse that this earth is under? Is it okay to just have blind faith in God and treat him like a giant genie residing in the clouds? At what point does the baby get thrown out with the bath?

So I finally have enough time on my hands...

So this week I've decided to cut the cord. I am officially permitting myself to be a loner this week...but in a totally good way.

REWIND to summer. I am nursing a broken heart, have lost a good portion of my friends (well, I don't really have any due to my previous relationship), and have returned from teaching English in Latvia to realize I have NO JOB. Which means no money...which means sitting in my yard, outside, wrestling with God for at least three hours a day....Like why the hell am I so miserable? Why do I have consistent anxiety attacks? Why am I so lonely?...in general, why? So I'm sitting in the sunshine with my guitar, my Bible, and my journal...and that's all that I do. And it's wonderful. Because I've never felt that close to God in my entire life.

FAST FORWARD to today. I go to school. I have a job. I have tons of amazing friends. I'm dating someone. I'm spending time with my family. I tutor. I take the bus everywhere. I'm freaking exhausted. But the thing is that I'm afraid to be silent. I'm afraid that when everything's over I'll be completely alone again. Which is a total lie. But it seems like I'm addicted to the business of life. So I've got to cut something...

ENTER Silence. Time to reflect on my life. On my past. On my future. And figure out where the heck God is in all this mess. Which he is telling me right now that he is with me every second. And the weird thing is I can feel Him around me all the time. And sometimes I wish he would go away because I'm too busy.

TIME OUT.

To busy for God? The one who put me here in the first place so I could simply enjoy life, enjoy what he made for me? For everyone? For humanity? How could I let this happen again? Ahhh, humanness.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist. That is an understatement. I am a HUGE perfectionist. And if I'm not perfect I feel that God doesn't want me, he's disappointed in me some how. So to counter those feelings I really try to hide under this mask of doing. And I'm realizing now that this DOING has to turn to SLOWING down. I'm physically sick. I've gained weight. I've earned back my anxiety. I'm just so...unbalanced.

SO this week is about quiet. About learning where I stand. Where I want to be. Who I want to be. And I can't do that with this bombardment of activity. Every first week is a week of silence. A week of reflection. So maybe I can't change anything. At least I'll have a rest.

peace <3

Community and Contentment

Tonight Bekah and I went to the Open Door church. It's this somewhat emergent community down in East Liberty. I've visited it before once or twice, but never went regularly a) because it's downtown, and b) because I was already pretty committed to CW.

I need to confess something: I haven't been to church very much lately. I don't know why. Every Sunday I think, I should get my a** out of bed and go to church...and then I roll over and go back to sleep. I can't explain this laziness.

I have not been back to a service at MPC since my job ended there, so maybe that's part of it. It's like, i just don't feel like I fit anywhere now. I don't really have a church community. It's weird, and I think avoiding visiting other churches keeps me from feeling so displaced.

But I went tonight, and I really liked it. And the message...it was one of those times when it was just what I needed to hear. BJ, the pastor, spoke on the end of Phillipians, including that ubiquitously christian phrase, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." It's the passage where Paul talks about having contentment, no matter what the circumstances.

I usually hear that or read it and feel guilty. Because I am not very content, especially right now. I'm trying to figure out where it is God wants me. And I can't see it. It makes me very frustrated sometimes, because I feel like I should have it at least somewhat figured out by this point. But I don't; and I keep trying to trust that God has a plan and will show me step by step. I'm not exactly content during the process. I want to be. I wish I was. So, guilt.

But right about this point, this pastor says part of Paul's secret to contentment is tied up in his fellowship with the Phillipians. Contextually, in the passage, Paul just got done raving about how faithful the church of Phillipi has been to him--when no one else has. So BJ said that part of Paul's contentment came from having his needs met by that community.

Now, I've been a Christian...basically my whole life. I've never heard the text interpreted this way, and I was just stunned. He went on to say Paul also had the strength of Christ, as in that oft-quoted verse...but even the way he talked about that made it seem like this beautful, mystical thing--not just some factoid to be applied to daily living.

It just took me by surprise, how the importance of community was so strongly woven into the message. I think most Christans read that and instead focus on the idea that if I grit my teeth and remember that Christ is my strength, I can get through anything. On my own.

The truth is, if it weren't for the interchurch fellowship I've developed here, I'd be a lot worse off. They are the only thing (well, family, too, mostly) that keeps me even remotely content here. And in fact, they have been my "church"...even when I haven't set foot inside a building.

Thank God for my anamchara community.