Seeking Him

Mutiny Against Excess- Week 1

We are rich.  There really is no way around it.  By every definition of the word, we are rich.  We own two houses and 4 cars.  We go on nice vacations, eat out often and buy anything we want at the grocery store.  We give to a number of organizations, including our church, and have been able to save for college and retirement.  We live in a safe community with wonderful schools.  Our kids have had every advantage that money can buy.  I am grateful for the Lord's provision and my husband's hard work.

Last month, I read a book called 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker.  As I told my friends on Facebook, it rocked my world.  You should read the book to really understand, but essentially Jen and to some degree her family looked at their life of relative wealth and decided to dig a little deeper.  To do that, she looked at some of the excess in her life of affluence and decided to do an intentional "fast" in 7 different areas: food, clothing, possessions, media, waste, spending, and stress.  She fasted for a month in each area and wrote about her experience and what God taught her in the process.  In the study guide that she published later, she suggests a week long "fast" in each area for those who were intrigued enough by her experience to go deeper themselves.  That is what my friends and I are going to do for Lent.  

FYI, my family thinks I'm crazy.  

Let's take a detour for a minute and talk about what a fast is.  One definition I read was "fasting is an intentional reduction, a deliberate abstinence to summon God's movement in our lives.  A fast creates margin for God to move."  Another definition said "it is exchanging the needs of the physical body for those of the spiritual."  God talks about His ideas of fasting in Isaiah 58.  When Jesus brings it up, He says "when you fast," making the assumption that we will be doing so.  

SO, we begin this week, as Lent officially begins on Wednesday.  This week, we examine our relationship with food.  In the book, Jen picked 7 foods that she would eat exclusively for one month.  Our group decided that each of us would decide for ourselves what our "fast" would look like this week. 

Back to my wealthy lifestyle.  We have loads of food in our house.  Pantry is full.  2 freezers are full.  One refrigerator full, the other partly full.  We buy food that we end up throwing away because it goes bad.  I have thrown out things in my pantry that were 2 years past the expiration date.  Some evenings, I look in the refrigerator, don't feel like thinking/cooking and go out for fast food instead.  I don't actually know what a gallon of milk costs anymore because I know I can afford it.  We are privileged that we have never for one day known what it feels like to go hungry

But the abundance, and the opportunity for excess, is internal as well as external.  Like most of us, I often eat when I'm not hungry.  I indulge a passing craving, the bag of chips catches my eye, Steve leaves a bag of candy on the counter (clearly, that one is his fault.)  A handful of this, a spoonful of that...many times eating that has little to do with the real purpose of food which includes, in my opinion, nourishing our body and living and celebrating in community.  My relationship with food may be symptomatic of a deeper condition that plagues our culture: I want, what I want, when I want it.

I read this scripture this morning from 1 Peter 4: 2 (The Message:)

Think of your sufferings as a weaning from the old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way.  Then you'll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want.

For me, much of the excess in my life, in all the areas mentioned, is based in that "old sinful habit" of expecting to get my own way.  I want what I want now- so I buy, eat, listen to, watch, sign up for, do- what I want now.  

Don't get me wrong.  The food or other stuff we buy or do is not in and of itself the problem. The problem lies in the priority, power and purpose it has in my life.  I am often overwhelmed by the clutter...of things, choices, possessions, information overload...with which I am inundated every day.  

How can I hear God's voice amidst the noise?

I've thought about this food fast all weekend while I was in New York with a group of kids eating out every meal.  With two daughters watching, I have been very careful about never getting legalistic about food.  Food is one of life's great pleasures and I believe God meant for us to enjoy it....every holy day He established included feasts after all!  Food is for nourishment certainly, but sharing meals is often the setting where we celebrate our time with the ones we love most.  On our trip this weekend, it was during the meals that I got to really get to know the people with whom I was traveling.  Food is a blessing and I want my fast to reflect that.  For that reason, my fast this week will be about trying to put food back into its proper place.  For this week, I will only eat nourishing foods, no snacking, no grazing.  I will eat slowly, in a chair, only at meal time, and when possible, with other people.  No sugar, no junk food, no fast food.  In addition, I will clean out the pantry and the freezers with all the excess stuff and either cook it or take it to the food pantry.  

I'll let you know at the end of the week how it goes!

Love with a capital L

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy. ― Thomas Merton

 

The Pharisee takes as his aim keeping the law rather than becoming the kind of person whose deeds naturally conform to the law...Jesus does not call us to do what He did, but to be as He was, permeated with love.  Then the doing of what He did and said becomes the natural expression of who we are in Him....It is the very core of what we are or can become in His fellowship, not something we do. -- Dallas Willard

 

'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments  --Jesus

I stumbled across all these words today.  The connection between them is the part that seems especially important...the part that drew me back here to wonder out loud.  

What I think I hear is this:  on my own, no matter how hard I try, I am simply unable to love like Jesus.  I can not love others and I can not love myself...not really.  My love is a skinny little anemic wannabe love compared to the big Agape Love of the Kingdom Come.  My love weighs its options, my love makes judgements, my love holds back and stays safe.  In all honesty, my love saves itself for the ones that love it first....just in case. 

My only hope for big Love is to focus on loving God with everything I have in me.  The more I look AT Him, the more I look LIKE Him (2 Corinthians 3:18.)  When I lean into God, drink Him in, rest in His presence, abide in Him, walk with Him and talk with Him,  I cannot help but be changed.  Fruit of the Spirit and Fruit of the Vine.  It isn't about trying harder to "be good," it is about loving Him more and, by doing so, becoming a Lover like Him.  Transformation is real, but not my job.  

What is my job?  To love God with all my "passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence." (Luke 10:27, The Message)  

 

 

 

 

Uncomfortable?

The school where we send our daughter and our money, American University, was in the news this morning.  Apparently, a professor teaching a Sex, Gender and Culture anthropology class made the choice to breast feed her child during her class.  Her child was sick and couldn't go to day care so, rather than canceling her class, she brought the child to class and ended up having to feed her.  Of course, everyone has strong opinions about the appropriateness of this action, but that's not really my point here.  I personally think that it is no coincidence that this happened in a class about gender norms and culture; in fact, I think she did it on purpose to make a point....but I could be wrong.  If she did, I think it is a great idea and probably will likely trigger meaningful discussion on just the types of issues that these classes are designed to address.

Here is the part that I found interesting.  In pursuing the story, Channel 4 interviewed some students at American University.  Most didn't see it as a big deal.   One young woman, however, said "It made me uncomfortable and I don't go to class to feel uncomfortable."

Hmmm....interesting.  

In the book I referenced in my earlier post this week, we are examining what makes our life a "good" story.  As I mentioned before, the author suggests that a good story is when a character wants something and is willing to overcome obstacles to get it.  In the following chapters, he goes on to talk about the things that get in our way.  For many of us, our addiction to comfort is the number one obstacle to living the meaningful story we crave.  Even though we dream of a "better" story, we often struggle to move out of the patterns and habits with which we have grown comfortable.  Even the undesirable can become familiar and safe.  And that can keep us paralyzed in inaction.

As I traveled around to colleges with my daughter over the past year or so and listened to their spiels, I grew more and more excited about the opportunities she will have to dig deeper and explore her place in the world.  I like to think that we have given her a good foundation, but now I hope she meets people who see the world differently and challenge her to really think about what is meaningful, what she believes and what her contribution to the world will be.  I hope she is stretched and, yes, I hope that it is sometimes uncomfortable.  And I hope that discomfort is much more compelling and provocative than being "forced" to see your professor breastfeed her child.  Seriously! 

Some of the best sermons that I have ever heard were the ones that make me uncomfortable.  This is also true of some of my favorite books.  Yet we live in a culture that is all about us maintaining a certain level of comfort....an underlying assumption that if I am uncomfortable in any way, then something is "broken" and needs to be "fixed."  

To some extent, this is true.  If I am feeling pain in my body or my spirit, then I may need to look more closely and give attention to the source of that pain.  However, I think we sometimes miss an opportunity in those times when discomfort or discontent is simply an invitation to wrestle with something, to dig deeper, to look more closely....simply put, an invitation to grow.

As I talked about in a post long ago, Jacob told the angel with whom he was wrestling "I will not let you go unless you bless me" in Genesis 32.  Really wrestling with something, being uncomfortable, being challenged, being unsure, living in that "in between"  and "I don't know" place can sometimes bring about the greatest blessings on the other side.  I am learning that sometimes I need to rest for a moment in those places and see what they may have to offer.

That doesn't mean I have to like it though.  :-)

 

 

 

Pet Squirrels and Storytellers

I have a five year old friend who started Kindergarten last week.  As part of the "getting to know you" activities, she shared with her new class that she had a pet squirrel at home.  She described the squirrel with such enthusiasm and in such detail that her teacher decided to check with mom to see if perhaps they had indeed tamed a squirrel!   Mom responded that it would be in the teacher's best interests to confirm the veracity of any "larger than life" stories she might hear this year with her; my five year old friend has what some might call a "vivid imagination."  As the youngest of 5, that imagination and creativity has been nurtured and encouraged, as well it should.  The story made me smile and it brought back wonderful memories of my own little storyteller.

When my friend shared the tale of the pet squirrel with me, I recalled that I had had the exact same conversation with my youngest child's Kindergarten teacher.  In fact, I am pretty sure I had it with most of her early elementary school teachers, although these flights of imagination began long before she started elementary school.  When she was 2, she would begin her tales with "Once upon at time, there were two wittle dirls..."  For those who don't speak toddler, that would be "little girls' because the adventures always starred two little girls suprisingly similar to the two that lived in our house.   When she was a little older, her stories often included her alter ego "Fireball" who was a boy and something of a super hero.  Fireball had many adventures and always conquered the bad guys in the end.  Sometimes, when she arrived downstairs in a certain outfit, we knew that my daughter had temporarily left the building and Fireball had taken her place. Eventually, Fireball outgrew his special super hero clothes and we had to rely on our imagination to conjur his presence.  

Fast forward 10 or 12 years and "Fireball" has become a lovely young woman who is still a gifted teller of stories.  Whether on a stage or on the page, her creativity and imagination continues to delight her unabashedly biased mother.  She paints pictures with words and makes me laugh with her zany way of looking at the world.  I have no idea what God's plans are for her in terms of a vocation, but I have no doubt that it will somehow have something to do with telling good stories and I feel quite certain that she will be successful.  The world needs more good storytellers.

We love stories.  Books, movies, plays...even the commercials to which we only give cursory attention...people universally love to hear a good story.  Stories engage us at our most creative and imaginative level.  We picture ourselves in the role of the hero and we conquer our greatest fears and insecurities as we lose ourselves in the struggle to defeat the forces of evil.   The power of a good story is the power to influence and change minds and hearts.  It is why I love books and it is why I love theatre.

I am reading a book right now called "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" by Donald Miller.  Mr. Miller is best known for his best-selling book "Blue Like Jazz," one of my all-time favorites.  In this book I am reading now, he talks about the power of a good story as he recounts the process of turning his book "Blue Like Jazz"- a memoir of his own life- into a movie.  In the process, he explores what makes a story a good story.  Along the way, he decides that a good story is about a "character that wants something and is willing to overcome obstacles to get it."  He then goes on to discover that his real life isn't really telling a very good story and sets out to change that.  I haven't finished the book yet; I'll let you know if he succeeds.  I saw on his website that he has a new book coming out this week called "Storylines," so I bet he does. :-)

Anyway (and yes, I know I am rambling a bit here) I have been thinking more about stories and what makes a good story and whether my life is telling a good story.  If I am the main character in my story, what is it that I want and, perhaps more importantly, am I willing to overcome obstacles to get it?  And, as a follower of Jesus, whose life is arguably the greatest story every told, how does His story impact my life's story?  

I think I will leave us there for today because this is getting long and I have a meeting to attend tonight. We will let this marinate a little longer and see what comes of it.

What do you think of this definition of a good story?  What kind of story is your life telling?

And yes, my dear friend, I do think your pet squirrel story would make a great blog!

 

Thoughts on Simplicity from Richard Foster

We are doing an adult education class on Sunday mornings based on the Christian classic Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard Foster.  I initially read this book in June and I have really enjoyed spending time going back through it more slowly with friends.  Each week, we discuss one chapter and this week's focus is the spiritual discipline of Simplicity.

As I prepare for class each week, I have been using a study guide also written by Richard Foster.  Here is a very thought-provoking excerpt from this week's entry in the study guide:

Simplicity is openness, unselfconsciousness, naturalness.  It is the opposite of subtlety, cunning, duplicity.  Where simplicity abounds, words can be taken at face value: there is no hidden agenda.  Simplicity frees us from the tyranny of the self, the tyranny of things, and the tyranny of people.

The self clamors for attention, self-recognition, applause.  Through artful deception, it appears to be younger, wiser, richer, saintlier than is actually the case. 

Confront and challenge the tyranny of the self with the following questions:

• Am I pretending to be an expert where I am only an amateur?
• Do I really read the books I quote?
• Do I use rhetoric as a curtain to conceal my true intentions?
• Do I give the impression of being more godly (or more profane, whichever will give more status in the group) than I truly am?
• Do I try to impress people with my degrees, titles or honors?

Simplicity also prevails against the tyranny of things.  Out of fear that others might discover who we are, we create an artificial world of ostentatious display, extravagant ornamentation, and pretentious style. 

Rebuke the tyranny of things with the following questions:

• Am I living contentedly within my income?
• Do I act my age?
• Am I a compulsive buyer?
• Do I try to impress people with gadgets?
• Do I buy what I can afford and what my responsibility to the poor suggests?

Finally, there is the tyranny of people.  What horrendous guymnastics we will put ourselves through just to insure that others will have a good opinion of us.  How desperately and sincerely we labor to create the right impression.  Instead of becoming good, we resort to all sorts of devices to make people think we are good.

Joyfully attack the tyranny of people with the following questions:

• Can I allow an unfavorable comment about myself to stand, without any need to straighten out the matter?
• In recounting events, do I shift the story ever so slightly to make myself appear in a more favorable light?
• Must I always make excuses for my behaviour?
• Do I aim at excellence in my work without regard for what people may say or think?
• Can I accept compliments freely without any need to shrug them off in self-conscious modesty?

Only the simple are free.  All others are tyrannized by the ambitious self, the demand for recognition through things, and a preoccupation with the opinions of others.  Francois Fenelon declared, "Simplicity is an uprightness of soul which prevents self-consciousness.  Verily such simplicity is a treasure!"

Comments, thoughts, insights on these words from Foster?  What do you think?  What does simplicity mean to you?  Is there value in simplicity?  How does it work in an increasingly complicated world?

Fertile Soil

In my last blog entry several weeks ago, I continued my springtime practice of finding the connections between gardening and my spiritual journey. In that entry, I wrote these words:

Any transformation that takes place, any fruit that my life bears, is entirely His doing, His creation, to His glory.  I can create an environment where I am more likely to see Him work His magic, but I cannot create one single beautiful flower on my own.

Since then, I have thought a great deal about what constitutes the environment of which I spoke...what is the "fertile soil" where God can work His gifts of transformation in my life?  What is my responsibility and what is His?

In the last couple of weeks, I have been reading a couple of books by Richard Foster.  One of them, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, beautifully echoes the discoveries I found in my garden.  Here are a few excerpts:

"When we despair of gaining inner transformation through human powers of will and determination, we are open to a wonderful new realization: inner righteousness is a gift from God to be graciously received.  The needed change within us is God's work, not ours.  The demand is for an inside job, and only God can work from the inside.  We cannot attain or earn this righteousness of the Kingdom of God; it is a grace that is given."

"God has given us the disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving His grace.  The disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that He can transform us."

"A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain.  He cultivates the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then the natural forces of the earth take over and up comes the grain.  This is the way it is with the spiritual disciplines--they are a way of sowing to the Spirit.  The disciplines are God's way of getting us into the ground; they put us where He can work within us and transform us.  By themselves the spiritual disciplines can do nothing; they only get us to the place where something can be done.  They are God's means of grace.  The inner righteousness we seek is not something that is poured on our heads.  God has ordained the disciplines of the spiritual life as the means by which we place ourselves where He can bless us."

Of course, the term "spiritual discipline" can be one of those church words that needs definition to be useful.  Mr. Foster, in this case, is speaking of practices such as the following when he uses the term spiritual disciplines: prayer, meditation, study, solitude, submission, service, confession and worship, among others. While all of these practices can be used by God to bring growth and healing, we as human beings often have the tendency to abuse that which is good for us.  Mr. Foster addresses this as well:

"The spiritual disciplines are intended for our good.  They are meant to bring the abundance of God into our lives.  It is possible, however, to turn them into another set of soul-killing laws.  Law-bound disciplines breathe death."

"When the disciplines degenerate into law, they are used to manipulate and control people.  We take explicit commands and use them to imprison others.  Such a deterioration of the spiritual disciplines results in pride and fear.  Pride takes over because we come to believe that we are the right kind of people.  Fear takes over because we dread losing control."

"If we are to progress in the spiritual walk so that the disciplines are a blessing and not a curse, we must come to a place in our lives where we can lay down the everlasting burden of always needing to manage others.  This drive, more than any single thing, will lead us to turn the spiritual disciplines into laws.  Once we have made a law, we have an "externalism" by which we judge who is measuring up and who is not...when we genuinely believe that inner transformation is God's work and not ours, we can rest our passion to set others straight."

So, the theme for the summer...what creates the fertile soil in my life?  What is my business and what is God's?  Am I using the good stuff God has given me to get in my own way or in the way of someone else's spiritual journey?  Must run do "last day of school" stuff...more later!!

 

The Shack

I have another great book to recommend to all of you.  I just finished reading a novel called The Shack by William P. Young.  I absolutely loved it!  The first 80 or so pages moved a little slow for me, as the author attempted to set the stage for the main focus of the book.  However, once we were into the heart of the story, I found that I chose to read it slowly to savor the richness and the beauty of the picture that the author was painting.  I don't want to give anything away, but essentially the book details a fictional account of a man's up close and personal encounter with God after a tragedy has occurred in his life. 

Sometimes, I like to read a different translation of a familiar bible verse, so that I can really hear what the verse says.  Having heard it in that particular translation many times before, the truth becomes buried in the familiar cadence of the words.  Reading The Shack was like reading the story of the God who loves me in a different translation than I had ever heard it before.  Looking through a different lense, I was deeply moved as I was reminded once again that God is "particularly fond of me" and pursues, but will never demand, an intimate relationship with me.  The author turns traditional religious stereotypes upside down in his depiction of the three members of the holy trinity and some readers might find this unsettling.  For me, it broadened and deepened the biblical perspective with which I am familiar and reminds me that we can never fully understand that which we have no frame of reference to grasp.  God is too big to keep in our little man-made boxes. I like that Mr. Young created a work of art that speaks to our heart, yet doesn't avoid dealing with the some of the very hardest questions of our faith.

I can't say anymore without spoiling it.  Read it and then let me know what you think!  And to my mom's friend Yvonne who took my hands in hers, looked me in the eye and said "you must read The Shack," I say thank you so much!!  Papa is especially fond of you!

Same Kind of Different As Me

I stayed up until 2:00 this morning reading one of the best books that I have ever read.  I couldn't put it down.  I read a lot of books and this was probably the most beautiful story I have ever had the privilege of reading.  I haven't stopped thinking about it all day.  It is a true story called "Same Kind of Different As Me" and you have to read it.  Truly, here is the Amazon link.  Go buy it right now.  That is all that I am going to say.

Obedience, Freedom and Joy

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post on the subject of Obedience.  Since then, I have been continuing to think about that topic. As I said in my previous post, the term obedience gets a bad name in our independent-thinking kind of culture.  While we believe in the value of obedience in our children, the term seems better left behind as we move into adulthood.

Obedience within the context of our faith journey is not necessarily characterized by adherence to the beliefs or practices of another person or a particular denomination.  I ran into that confusion as an adolescent when I tried to tease out the differences between following Jesus and being "religious."  I was raised by parents who believed in Jesus and I don't remember a time in my life that I didn't talk to Him and love Him.  I formally gave my heart to Him when I was 8, but that only seemed a continuation of a relationship that had already been established.  I never doubted His love or His presence, but sometimes felt like I didn't fit in at church.  I wanted to be a good Christian, but I didn't know if I could ever be like the "good Christians" that I thought I was supposed to emulate.

When I was in high school, I went through a training on how to share my faith in the most effective way....effective being defined by the numbers of people who made a decision to be "saved" at the end of the presentation.  This was a training curriculum that has been used in many churches for a number of years.  I think the training lasted 10 or 12 weeks.  Turns out, I was really good at it....at least in the eyes of the instructors.  I memorized all the lines and the scriptures easily, I was a naturally persuasive person and I wasn't afraid to talk in front of people.  I was chosen to be the youth representative that did a presentation of this new skill for the adults.  So they put me on a stage and had me do my thing in a role play.  I remember feeling very torn.  I enjoyed the accolades that I received from the adults, but I simultaneously felt like the biggest fake and liar in the world. 

On the one hand, I knew all the things in the scripted presentation were true.  On the other hand, I would never in a million years share my faith with one of my friends in this mechanical, hard sell, fear-provoking way.  It simply wasn't me.  At that point in my life, I had already had the joy and privilege of seeing some of my friends come to know this amazing God that I loved.  Any part that God had allowed me to play in the process was based in my love and caring for that person and in sharing with them something that meant everything to me.  They saw that I was excited about something, they saw me find peace in the storms that were erupting in my life during that time, and they wanted to know more.  The saw in me, and also in my mom, a real-life relationship with Jesus.  I didn't have to sell them or scare them.  I just shared what I knew to be true for me, with no strings attached.

So, I was confused.  I committed myself to God over and over again, thinking that I hadn't quite gotten it right yet because I still wasn't like "them."  I wanted to be a "good Christian" but some of the religious people to whom I was looking for guidance seemed to have ideas that didn't feel right to me.   I acted one way with my "church" friends and another way with my other friends....trying to be who I thought everyone wanted me to be and only succeeding in feeling guilty about the ways that I could never measure up...the ways that I didn't really fit in with either group.  I was, in many ways, too wild and free-spirited to fit in with the "religious" kids and too crazy about Jesus to feel at home with the wild kids.  Like many adolescents, I didn't know which one was the "real" me.

This in no condemnation of the churches where I began my journey with God.  I believe strongly that we can't do this journey alone; we must be living and growing in a community of other believers.  I learned to love God's word in my adolescent church home and I am grateful for the many ways that I was nurtured within that community.  My point is that I was confused about who or what I was called to obey.  God never meant for me to be a carbon copy of the religious people that I saw around me.  God never intended for me to change the way that He made me in order to become some sanitized version of myself that seemed holier and more proper.  I was simply called to follow Him.

It is a story too long to continue in this particular post, but I eventually found my way to a different understanding of being obedient to God.  I should say, God was patient with me as He slowly revealed what I needed to hear to begin to understand the connection between obedience and peace...the connection between a habit of obedience and the freedom to be exactly who God made me to be.  An obedience for which we were created....a daily, minute by minute conversation with the God who made us and loves us.  "What next, God?"  "Now what, God?"  "I can't do this alone, God."  "I'm sorry I messed up again, God."  "Thank you for these blessings, God."  "Help me to help them, God."  "I love you so much, God."

I just finished a FABULOUS book.  It is called A Long Obedience in the Same Direction by Eugene Peterson.  He is the gentleman who "wrote" the inspired paraphrase of the bible called the Message.  Here are some of many wonderful things he says about this journey of discipleship:

...I hadn't yet found an organizing center for my life and a goal that would demand my all and my best.  The Christian faith is the discovery of that center in the God who sticks with us, the righteous God.  Christian discipleship is a decision to walk in His ways, steadily and firmly, and then finding that the way integrates all our interests, passions and gifts, our human needs and our eternal aspirations.  It is the way of life we were created for.

Joy is not a requirement of Christian discipleship, it is a consequence.  It is not what we have to acquire in order to experience life in Christ; it is what comes to us when we are walking in the way of faith and obedience.  We come to God (and to the revelation of God's ways) because none of us have it within ourselves, except momentarily, to be joyous.  Joy is a product of abundance; it is the overflow of vitality.  It is life working together harmoniously.  It is exuberance.

We cannot make ourselves joyful.  Joy cannot be commanded, purchased or arranged.  But there is something we can do.  We can decide to live in response to the abundance of God and not under the dictatorship of our own poor needs.  We can decide to live in the environment of a living God and not our own dying selves.  We can decide to center ourselves in the God who generously gives and not in our own egos which greedily grab.  One of the certain consequences of such a life is joy...

  

It's The Beautiful Things That Get Us

I am reading a new book right now....actually, I am simultaneously reading several good books right now...but this one is particularly thought-provoking during our current focus on our country's future leadership.  The book is called Jesus for President.  I am only about a third of the way into it, but found this excerpt from Section I to be quite powerful:

Its the beautiful things that get us.  Perhaps the greatest seduction is not the ANTI-GOD, but the ALMOST GOD.  Poisonous fruit can look pretty tasty.  Thats what is so dangerous about ideas like FREEDOM, PEACE and JUSTICE.  They are all seductive qualities, close to the heart of GOD.  After all, its the beautiful things we kill and die for.  And it's the beautiful we market, exploit, brand, and counterfeit.

WE FIND OURSELVES POSSESSED BY OUR POSSESSIONS...and enslaved by the pursuit of freedom.  Nations fighting for peace and perpetuating the very violence they seek to destroy.  Serpents are slippery and slimy things.

MOST of the ugliness in the human narrative comes from a distorted quest to possess beauty.  COVETING begins with appreciating blessings, MURDER begins with a hunger for justice.  LUST begins with a recognition of beauty.  GLUTTONY begins when our enjoyment of the delectable gifts of GOD starts to consume us.  IDOLATRY begins when our seeing a reflection of God in something beautiful leads to our thinking that the beautiful image bearer is worthy of WORSHIP.

 

To Go on Trying

As I mentioned to you here, one of the authors that I have been enjoying lately is Frederick Buechner.  This morning I was reading and ran across the quote below.  It fits in so beautifully with the thoughts that I was having about Pastor Neil's sermon on Sunday.  Again, the message God is telling me is to simplify.  K.I.S.S, Keep It Simple Stupid....although God usually doesn't call me stupid (even when I am behaving stupidly!)

We try so hard as Christians.  We think such long thoughts, manipulate such long words, and both listen to and preach such long sermons.  Each one of us somewhere, somehow, has known, if only for a moment or so, something of what it is to feel the shattering love of God, and once that has happened, we can never rest easy again for trying somehow to set that love forth not only in words, myriads of words, but in our lives themselves.  And when, as must always happen, we sometimes give up this trying either because for a moment it seems unreal or because we are tired or bored or because we forget or choose to forget, we cannot even enjoy our moment's release for the sense of failure that chokes us.  This is of course as it should be.  Fruitless and destructive as so much of our trying must always be, and tormented as we are by knowing this and by beholding the shallowness and duplicity of our motives, we have scarcely any choice but to go on trying no matter what, and there is much that is beautiful and brave and true about it.  Yet we must remember this other word too: "Unless you turn and become like children...."

Isn't it a relief to find out that we all struggle with the same things?  Clearly, it is in our wiring to flounder about aimlessly when we attempt to leave ourselves to our own devices.  It is only in those moments that we flop down onto our knees and admit our total helplessness without Him that God can begin to work His awesome, transforming power in us.  Why do I keep forgetting that?

Thoughts from Frederick Buechner

My mom gave me two books by Frederick Buechner for my birthday last week.  Buechner is one of those authors of whom I knew little, only that all my favorite authors quoted him and referenced him.  He was on my list of authors to check out one day and then two books arrived in the mail!!  My mom is fabulous that way and she has this wonderful pastor at her church with whom I apparently have similar tastes...although I have only met him briefly, he has referred me to several of my favorite authors through her.  Thanks, Ben!

I am off to see my brother and my extremely pregnant sister-in-law today, so I only have a minute.  They have a new boat and two sons, 4 and 6.  I see much to entertain us there!  Because the personality tests are even more self-indulgent than my usual self-centered blog entries, I felt the need to get something of a bit more substance on the blog today.

I am currently reading a collection of Buechner's works called "Listening to Your Life."  It is meant to be a daily devotional type book, but I am reading straight through.  I am in April, but somehow I've read most of October as well....go figure.  Anyway, here are a few gems to whet your appetite.  I love him!

"Theology is the study of God and His ways.  For all we know, dung beetles may study man and his ways and call it humanology.  If so, we would probably be more touched and amused than irritated.  One hopes that God feels likewise."

"If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party.  The world says, Mind your own business, and Jesus says, There is no such thing as your own business.  The world says, Follow the wisest course and be a success, and Jesus says, Follow me and be crucified.  The world says, Drive carefully--the life you save may be your own--and Jesus says, Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.  The world says, Get and Jesus says, Give.  In terms of the world's sanity, Jesus is crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow Him without being a little crazy too is laboring less under a cross than under a delusion."

"But instead of feeling any pride or sense of superior accomplishment by the comparison, I remember a great and unheralded rush of something like sadness, almost like shame.  I had been very lucky, and he had not been very lucky, and the pleasure that I might have taken in what had happened to me was all but lost in the realization that nothing comparable, as far as I could see, had happened to him.--------All I can say now is that something small but unforgettable happened inside of me as the result of that chance meeting---some small flickering out of the truth that, in the long run, there can be no real joy for anybody until there is joy finally for us all----and I can take no credit for it.  It was nothing I piously thought my way to.  It was no conscious attempt to work out my own salvation.  What I felt was something better and truer than I was, or than I am, and it happened, as perhaps all such things do, as a gift."

"The grace of God means something like: Here is your life.  You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you.  Here is the world.  Beautiful and terrible things will happen.  Don't be afraid.  I am with you.  Nothing can ever separate us.  It's for you I created the Universe.  I love you.------There's only one catch.  Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it..---------Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too."

Enjoy!  More later---

More Harry Potter Fun

You scored as Hermione Granger, You're one intelligent witch, but you have a hard time believing it and require constant reassurance. You are a very supportive friend who would do anything and everything to help her friends out. Hermione Granger 85% Albus Dumbledore 80% Draco Malfoy 75% Remus Lupin 70% Ron Weasley 60% Sirius Black 55% Harry Potter 50% Severus Snape 35% Ginny Weasley 30% Lord Voldemort 25% Your Harry Potter Alter Ego Is...? created with QuizFarm.com

Deep in Wizard World

4:00 p.m. Monday afternoon  Took possession of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

7:00 p.m.  Tuesday evening   Reluctantly finished the book.  It was AWESOME!!!

In between, I think I participated in feeding my family once or twice, spent $200 at Walmart buying mission trip supplies and did 4 loads of laundry.  Other than that, I pretty much sat in the green chair in my family room with a book and frequently, a dog in my lap.  Now that the book is finished, I guess I better go fold all that laundry!

In my opinion, being truly and deeply immersed in a great book is a little slice of heaven.  It reminded me of summers when I was a little girl and my mom would wander by me occasionally and say "why don't you put that book down for a while and go play?"  I would generally say "one more chapter" or "5 more minutes" and crawl back within the pages of my story.  I love that I have the freedom right now in my life to take a day off to do nothing but read.  Bless my sweet husband!  Usually I feel too guilty to read all day while my husband works hard for a living, but we only have 2 books and 4 people who want to read it!  I think it was a selfless act on my part to get that book read so that I can pass it on, don't you?  :-)

I wish I could discuss the book more fully, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone else.  Suffice it to say, it was all I hoped it would be.  A great end to a great series!  I look forward to re-reading the whole series from the first to the last book.  I am grateful that my kids love to read as much as we do...what a fun thing for us to share.  My first-born, the only other one to have finished the book in our house, thinks we should have a Book Club when we are all finished with the book.  I can't wait!

Harry Potter has arrived!

Here is a picture of our house for the last couple of days; since Saturday mid-day to be precise.

We discovered after HP5, that we needed more than 1 book...mom and dad had to wait too long for their turn!  With HP6 and now with HP7, we pre-ordered 2 books from Amazon and then sat by the door all day waiting.  I was in the backyard, petting my flowers, when the mail came on Saturday.  This is what I found when I came inside.

Here is what happened to the rest of the mail that day:

  What fun!  There is nothing like opening a new book that you KNOW is going to be fantastic.  The girls have been reading non-stop since Saturday, with only occasional breaks.  The big one is taking less breaks, so I think she will probably finish it today.  I will be standing over her shoulder ready to grab it the minute she finishes!  In fact, yesterday I told my little one to go read when I saw her taking a break...."hurry up, finish that book!"  Now, if I can just keep them from telling me how it ends before I get my hands on it!

I've Been Tagged

Ok, Neil tagged me to play a little blog game about my favorite books.  You will notice that the questions ask for one book, which I will often ignore if I can't come up with just one.  Hey, my blog, I get to make the rules!!  Here are my answers:

1. One book that changed your life: Probably "Feathers from my Nest" by Beth Moore.  This was my first introduction to Beth and I fell in love with her passion for God.  Since then, I have done 9 of her intensive bible studies.  Those studies led me to a deeper, richer love for God's Word as evidenced in the Bible (truly the book that changed my life!)   More recently, Brian McLaren's "A New Kind of Christian" trilogy has also REALLY impacted my thinking and my faith.  How is that for an interesting mix....Beth Moore and Brian McLaren!!!  Oh wait, and one more, "God's Politics: Why the Rights Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It" by Jim Wallis also gave me a tremendous amount of hope and a sense that I wasn't alone.  Ok, that's it...
2. One book that you've read more than once: "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis...actually a series of seven books.  Also "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis.  When I was a kid, I read "Little Women" over and over again.
3. One book you would want on a desert island: (besides the Bible, of course.)  Hmmm...this is a tough one...I could never be happy with only one!!  Maybe "The Chronicles of Narnia" again...maybe Anne Lamott's books.
4. One book that made you laugh:  "Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith" and "Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith" by Anne Lamott.  Anything by Anne Lamott makes me laugh really hard (and often cry as well!!)  Recently, Donald Miller's books have been cracking me up as well.
5. One book that made you cry:  Not really a fair question for me...practically every book I read makes me cry at some point...a beautifully written phrase can make me cry.  Here are a few that I have read recently that I remember making me cry more than usual.  "A Song I Knew by Heart" by Bret Lott and "Night" by Elie Wiesel.
6. One book you wish had been written: "How I Came to Follow Jesus" by Osama Bin Laden (ok, maybe that is a pretty simplistic solution!)
7. One book you wish had never been written: All books are a reflection of the journey of the human race, both bad and good.  If it's not written down, we have no record of those thoughts...both the good and the evil.  In my opinion, all books have some value for that reason...even as a warning of the evil that exists in the world (such as Mein Kampf)
8. One book you're currently reading: "Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense" by N.T. Wright...some people are saying this may be the "Mere Christianity" of this generation.  I am just about to finish it and it has been wonderful!
9. One book you've been meaning to read:  Ok, here is the stack from which I am currently working and which I will be taking to the beach next week:  "March" by Geraldine Brooks, "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho, "Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life" by Queen Noor, "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" by Barack Obama, "Practicing Resurrection" by Nora Gallagher and "Velvet Elvis" by Rob Bell. 
10. Tag 5 others:  I am supposed to list 5 of my blogging friends here, but I don't know anyone that hasn't already been tagged.  So, to you my reader, please respond in the comment section by telling me the one book that changed your life!

Things Seen and Unseen

We flew home from Texas last night and I finished another great book during the flight.  My mom's pastor recommended this author to her and she allowed me a chance to read the book first.  Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith by Nora Gallagher is an absolutely beautiful book.  She uses the seasons of the church calendar to share her journey of faith during the course of one year; a journey marked both by doubt and revelation.  During the course of the book, she uses the voices of her beloved friends in her church community and the words of a number of well-known writers to help articulate her struggles and triumphs in her walk towards God.  While I sometimes got bogged down in her stories about the day-to-day life of her parish, I was rewarded over and over again with some incredibly profound insights.  Perhaps, as she says, "the road to the sacred is paved with the ordinary."

Here are a few of the lines that touched me:

On the voice of God--"...and we felt that if we just listened hard enough, we could make out the words.  That is how it is when I hear God speaking, when I see what could be or even what is, but too dimly to make it out.  I can almost hear, I can almost see.  I can almost touch the peace proclaimed.  Sometime I think that faith is only about increasing peripheral vision, peripheral hearing."

On the story of Jesus turning the water into wine----"What I'm hearing is that we are asked to turn something ordinary, something like water, into something full of life.  We are asked to take ourselves--our ordinary souls and bodies--to be a 'living sacrifice', to make of our own ordinariness something fully alive."

On going deeper---"If it can be put into words, what I yearned for was to embody my shaky faith, to feel my faith in my flesh, acted out, incarnate."

On living as a new creation---"drowned to the old life, to insensibility and unconsciousness, and risen into a new life, into compassion, availability, abundance."

On walking with a dying friend---"She needed me to help carry the load.  I didn't.  That had nothing to do with respecting her autonomy; it was about washing my hands.  We pretend to respect the autonomy of people who are sick or dying; in actuality, we hang them out to dry.  I see something then, just at the periphery, about faith.  I want to remain clean, innocent, above the fray, but faith requires me to get down and dirty, to risk making a mistake for the sake of another, to join in the awful intimacy of her suffering."

On the excessive love of God---"Excess marks the lives of saints and pilgrims.  Viewed through the lens of faith, however, these lives reveal this truth: the love of God for us is excessive and deserves, even demands, extravagance in return."

On commitment---" we have a choice in our culture, to have a cultural Christianity or a committed Christianity. A cultural Christianity is a Christianity where you go to a nice church and you take your children to a nice church where you have a liturgy that pleases you without any depth of commitment.  A committed Christianity challenges people to cross that bridge from a cultural inclination to a commitment in faith."

On the "least of these" among us---" In our midst is a homeless man without a blanket and shoes too large for his feet.  We have organized our lives so that he is hidden from us.  He lives, like God, in invisibility.  But when we do see him, I think tonight, we keep a rendezvous.  In the seeing is a glimpse, a foretaste of the Kingdom; it will be a place where everyone is seen, including us.  Here we are together, in Ordinary Time, learning how to see."

Blue Like Jazz

I just finished a great book called Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller.  I have had it on my Amazon list for a while as one that I wanted to read, but hadn't gotten around to it yet.  When I arrived at my mom's house, she had it set out for me to read.  She said that she knew I would love it and she was right.  She said that as she read it, she often would think to herself "Kelly is going to love this."  Going into the book with that knowledge was kind of intriguing...I often thought about which parts "reminded" her of me!  Anyway, my mom knows me pretty well and I absolutely loved it. 

His writing is, first of all, very honest.  One of the things that I really related it to was his struggle with what he called our "self-addiction."  I think if we are honest, we all suffer from self-addiction to one degree or another.  He suggests that it is our addiction to self that is at the root of our brokenness and that we are unable to cure ourselves by ourselves.  I thought this passage was particularly poignant:

For a moment, sitting there above the city, I imagined life outside of narcissism.  I wondered how beautiful it might be to think of others as more important than myself.  I wondered at how peaceful it might be not to be pestered by that childish voice that wants for pleasure and attention.  I wondered what it would be like not to live in a house of mirrors, everywhere I go being reminded of myself.

This passage was found near the beginning of the book, as he is explaining the beginnings of his journey towards a deeper love for Jesus and his confusion about the Christianity that he witnessed around him.  I could quote a hundred more wonderful passages along the way, but I really loved this part near the end of the book when he talks about his deepening understanding of Jesus.

I think I realized that if I walked up to His campfire, He would ask me to sit down, and He would ask me my story.  He would take the time to listen to my ramblings or my anger until I could calm down, and then He would look me directly in the eye, and He would speak to me; He would tell me the truth, and I would sense in His voice and in the lines of His face that He liked me.  He would rebuke me, too, and He would tell me that I have prejudice against very religious people and that I need to deal with that; He would tell me that there are poor people in the world and I need to feed them and that somehow this will make me more happy.  I think He would tell me what my gifts are and why I have them, and He would give me ideas on how to use them.  I think He would explain to me why my father left, and He would point out very clearly all the ways God has taken care of me throughout the years, all the stuff God protected me from.

I have found that I enjoy books that remind me of truths that I already know but that I may have forgotten temporarily.  Miller's musings give voice to doubts that I have had and confirms answers that feel like truth to me.  He gets to the heart of our struggle to be "good" and the beauty and simplicity of the answer that is Jesus.  He also expresses frustrations that I have also experienced with "religiousity" and those who wound with tools meant to heal.  I also appreciate his humility in knowing that none of us have even a fraction of the answers.  Here's one last quote on the beauty of the mystery of God:

At the end of the day, when I am lying in bed and I know the chances of any of our theology being exactly right are a million to one, I need to know that God has things figured out, that if my math is wrong we are still going to be okay.  And wonder is the feeling we get when we let go of our silly answers, our mapped out rules that we want God to follow.  I don't think there is any better worship than wonder.

The Rest of God

I have just finished a wonderful book!  You may remember earlier this month an entry of mine entitled Slow Down and Listen.  In response to that entry, my friend Neil recommended a book called The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath.   Slowing down is something very foreign to our Northern Virginia/ middle class mentality and this book addresses the toll our busyness takes on us...the consequences of living our lives on a "hamster wheel."  The author, Mark Buchanan, maintains that we have lost "the rest of God--the rest God bestows and, with it, that part of Himself we can know only through stillness."  The book invites us to look at the meaning of Sabbath; both as a particular day and, perhaps more importantly, as an attitude. 

When I initially began reading the book, I was distracted by the writing style of the author.  His language is poetic...often whimsical...sometimes almost musical.  I found that, as I relaxed into his style and quit trying to read it as a "textbook" (I am forever the student!) I found it inexpressibly beautiful.  This book spoke to me, not at an intellectual level, but to my soul...to my heart, not my head.  It will be a book I read again and again to mine for more treasures.  Here is one of my favorite paragraphs from the book:

Sabbath (or the rest of God) is the stranger you've always known.  It's the place of homecoming you've rarely or never visited, but which you've been missing forever.  You recognize it the moment you set eyes on it.  It's the gift that surprises you, not by its novelty, but by it familiarity.  It's the song you never sang but, hearing it now, know inside out, its words and melody, its harmonies, its rhythm, the way the tune quickens just before the chorus bursts.  It's been asleep in you all this time, waiting for the right kiss to wake it.

Life is meant to be much different---fuller, richer, deeper, slower---from what it is.

You know this.  You've always known it.  You've just been missing it your whole life.

One of the many things I liked about the book was that each chapter was followed by a suggestion of something we could do to make the concepts he had discussed practical in our own lives.  As he says in his introduction, these suggestions are "...a way to set what we know in motion...to render thinking into doing."  I tend to devour books that I am enjoying; showing very little constraint about how quickly I blow through it.  I'm sure that I miss some things that way.  At Neil's suggestion, I purposely read this book slowly and tried to digest the contents before I moved on to the next chapter.  If you decide to read this book, I would recommend that approach.

I'd love to hear from any of you who read this book...in fact, I would love to gather a group together (for those of you locally) to discuss it.  Let me know if you read it and I will organize something!

Thanks for the recommendation, Neil!