redefining adventure

i used to have grand ideas about the kinds of fantastic and exciting places i would go and crazy things i would do. i used to dream of backpacking across europe. roadtripping all over the united states. eating exotic foods. skydiving. going to glitzy, star-studded events. drinking coffee in european cafes. finally seeing italy. moving to india and living with those of lowest caste. moving to uganda and living with my beautiful friends there. camping in the national parks. and i pictured myself in well-planned outfits to match each adventure.

i haven't accomplished any of those lofty and wonderful goals. i'd still like to do those things. but i find myself living out very different kinds of adventures. adventures that i would have previously scoffed at and certainly never would have willingly participated in.

i am living in a small farm town that doesn't boast a single european style cafe. and i wouldn't have the money to enjoy it if it did exist. i have done a lot of roadtripping in the last two years, but it has been mostly confined to the tri-state area of michigan, indiana, and ohio. i haven't eaten many curries, but i have sampled the southern indiana staple of persimmon pudding (and i am not at all convinced of it's deliciousness). i still haven't seen italy and i definitely haven't gone skydiving, but it turns out that the hills of salem are so breath-takingly beautiful when in the throes of springtime that i haven't craved the retreat into any national parks. in fact, i find that some of the adventures i thought i wanted to have are easily replaced by others that are just as wonderful and valuable.

i am learning to bake - i'm quite proud of my very first two layer chocolate cake and my delicious chocolate chip cookies.

we are doing our very first vegetable garden and i honestly have no idea what i'm doing, but i am having fun learning about soil and seeds and watering.

i learned how to make homemade strawberry jam thanks to a wonderful family from our church.

i got married to the only person i've ever met that i'd consider marrying (though if i ever met hugh jackman i could conceivably change my tune) and it turns out to be one of the most joy-giving adventures of all.

steve and i are testing out our parenting skills on the cat, toto baggins. i am hoping that, in the eventual adventure of having children, we will be more successful changing diapers than we have been changing cat litter.

so, my current life is much smaller and less ambitious than i once hoped that it would be. but, i find that in the simplicity of my existence i have found something that often eluded me in my city life.

joy.

maybe thoreau had it right all along. maybe all this time i just needed to "simplify! simplify! simplify!"

words flowing in some sleepless early morning hour

i don't know where i fit. i know church is not what it is supposed to be. but i don't know how to fix it. i don't even know how to begin. that is why i pulled away from institutional church. i know it is broken, but i am terrified to begin trying to renew it. and now i've moved to salem, indiana and find myself thrust back into the institution of church.

st. augustine once said "the church is a whore, and she is my mother." there is all this imagery in the bible of the church as a bride. pure. full of potential. hopeful. in love. selfless. and we've gone and turned that beautiful bride into a whore. corrupted. static. selfish. power-hungry. she is messed up. dysfunctional. and yet - people are still being nurtured; growing up; finding their estranged mother because buried underneath all the ugly muck lies the original calling of the church. though we have turned our mother into something that only slightly resembles Christ's church, i must believe that there is hope. i must believe that God still loves his bride. his people. i must believe that the church - that we - can be renewed, cleansed, and brought back to our original purpose.

i believe that must happen, but i don't know how to believe that the church can be a community of radical, world-changing love, but exist within an institution that is bogged down in thousands of years of whoring itself out. that is a lot of centuries of baggage and disease and i don't know how to deal with it. my instinct is simply to wallow in anger and resentment for the injustices that the church blindly embraces. but that anger does not always inspire action. it usually just eats away at my joy until i am empty and hopeless. so what can i do? do i just quietly go about my business? living love as much as i can without causing too much of a stir? though i think real, lived out love always causes a stir. do i pick battles? do i challenge the institution? do i demand justice, awareness, equality, selflessness? do i cause a stir? and if i do - are my motives pure? the model Jesus sets is not timid. the great church reforms have not been without controversy. but i am no martin luther or tyndale or christ. so, what do i do? i am a 22-year-old woman with too little knowledge and far too much pride and angst. i am a self-confessed hypocrite. i do not practice much of what i rant about. i struggle to read my bible. sometimes, i struggle to believe in God. i am so broken. what can i do?

Lord, give me the humility to know i cannot fix the world on my own, but give me the courage and strength to do what i can. help me. amen.

hair extensions.

you've heard that in order to understand someone you must "walk a mile in their shoes." i didn't have to borrow any shoes. i inherited her hair.

"i had this hair when i went to auschwitz. it was always braided, but not when i went to auschwitz. on that day it was exactly like yours."

those were some of the first words out of ann's mouth when she saw me.

ann rosenheck is a holocaust survivor. She was "born in czechoslovakia near the mountains." she went to auschwitz and dachau. she lost her entire family in the holocaust. she experienced great suffering, and she survived. and we share hair. and now we share a story.

yesterday, i told the story of her survival to a room full of other survivors, their families, and community members in miami, florida. Ann's story, along with nine others, is told in the reader's theatre production of ...Who Returned My Soul, written by Kelly Brock.

by telling ann's story and meeting her, i am now a part of her story as she is a part of mine.

it may sound cheesy or ridiculous...but maybe God made my hair big, and frizzy, and the perfect length for just that moment. to tell just this story. so i could be ann rosenheck for those few minutes. is it so preposterous? we believe God does the big things - like world-wide floods and resurrections. maybe God works in the little things too. maybe he works through my hair.

maybe he loves ann and i enough to work this little miracle for us. i believe that he does.

anne prayed this prayer everyday that she was imprisoned, and she still prays it today: "i am thankful before you, living and sustaining Ruler, who returned my soul to me with mercy. your faithfulness is great."

amen.

forgive me...

to the beautiful woman who sat at the top of the exit ramp:

forgive me for driving past you on more than one occasion. forgive me for hoping that the light would be green so i wouldn't have to stop and see you. forgive me for turning away when the light turned red. forgive me for not wanting to see. forgive me for ignoring your cardboard cry for food. shelter. love.

you did not look at me. i think you must know that your need makes me feel uncomfortable. and i didn't look at you either. because i don't want you to see the pity in my eyes. and the self-loathing in my eyes. as i pray for the light to turn green. so i don't have to see you anymore.

there is no shame in you. there is shame in me. i don't want to see you and accidentally find out that Jesus is in you. that Jesus loves you. and that Jesus told me to love you too. shame on me.

shame on me.

'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me'

confession

i run from you.

most of the time i have a hard time even believing in you.

i'm not so much embarrassed of you as i am horrified at the actions (and inaction) of the people who say they think you are the greatest.

i'm trying. i really am trying. to be humble. gracious. forgiving. patient.

love.

i'm trying to realize that i am no better than the people i am frustrated with. i know i am insufferable. i know i am occasionally illogical. i know i am usually stubborn.

i am trying. i am also failing.
i am so sorry.

i am so sorry that i can't express myself. that i can't love. not really. i'm far too selfish. i am sorry that i argue so much.

i'm sorry that i've changed my mind.

i'm sorry that i'm struggling to love you.

i'm sorry for admitting it.

i wish simple was the answer.

it probably is.

but simple is hard.

i'm sorry simple is so hard for me.

please forgive me.

please help me.

amen.

still i will worship

i don't like church

i don't like most christians

i don't like theology

i don't like shallow people who think christianity is easy

i don't like conservatives

i don't like liberals

i don't like argumentative people

i don't like most praise and worship music

i don't like fundamental christianity

i don't like praying

and i resent a lot of people and movements and factions and actions

...but my resentment is precisely the opposite of christian love...

...and i am the poster child for the behavior i judge so harshly in others...

and despite it all...i do love Jesus...but sometimes i wish it was easier

i am certainly a far cry from the idealistic, crusading girl i was only a few short months ago. and that is ok. but i have spent most of my time lately wishing for joy. wishing i was less jaded and more hopeful.

this morning was easter morning.

and i just decided that i must worship my God. because he is God. not because i feel like it. not because i feel him. but because he is God. so i did. i lifted my hands and i prayed for forgiveness and i worshiped my God who is love.

and i can't say that i feel entirely transformed. but i can say that i know my God is with me. i know he is here. and i am taking baby steps toward him.

still i will worship still i will worship still i will worship still i will worship still i will worship

even when it is the last thing my flesh wants to do.

still i will worship still i will worship still i will worship still i will worship still i will worship.

please, help me, jesus!

change (and beauty)

the rain is pouring outside my window. it signals change that has been all too slow in coming. i am tired of the snow and cold. i hate wearing coats (in fact i haven't worn one since december). i hate confining my feet to the prison of shoes. and now the rain has come and it is washing away all of the dirty, icy snow that has lingered over this long winter season. and soon...very soon i will liberate my feet. i will take those first glorious barefoot steps. i really can't wait. the thought fills me with joy...really.

i feel as though the rain has been flooding my soul for some time now. the last year has been full of discovery, grace, justice, and healing. the waters have poured over my broken heart and spirit and i have been cleansed. over and over again. One year ago last weekend James broke up with me. this may seem trivial to some, but i gave my heart to that boy and he didn't want it. i know this is not an experience that is exculsive to me, but it has had a tremendous impact upon my life. it took sooo long to find healing. too long for me. i don't like emotional vulnerability.

in examining my journey, i have been blessed to have mentors and counselors who have spoken the promises of my God to me. this summer i told kevin butcher the story of my unwanted heart. he told me that i was beautiful simply because God made me and loves me. he told me that i shine with the beauty of God. he told me that women and men are designed to lead each other into relationship with God. he told me that someday there will be a man who will see this light in me and will pursue it.

these are beautiful words. they are words that i needed to hear from my brother. but these are also hard words for me to hear. i have trouble believing them. i have discovered that many women also long for these words. we spend our time lamenting the lack of manhood in males. we spend our time hating our bodies and desperately trying to get attention with the bodies we hate. sometimes we need to be told that we are beautiful. that God loves us. that we are lovable. that the light of God shines through us. we need to believe it. only then can we enter into edifying, God-breathed relationship with our brothers.

business in the front...party in the back

i know this guy with a mullet. actually, i don't know him. i have seen him. it's a very impressive mullet. i have seen his family. his sons all sport mullets as well. i sat next to his son last sunday. i might have said hi to him once. or given him one of those "i don't know you, and i acknowledge your presence, but i don't want to have a conversation with you" smiles. i don't even know his name, or the names of his children, or his wife. i only know him as the mullet man. i recently had a conversation about the mullet man. it was not a very nice conversation. maybe i should make it a point to have a conversation with the mullet man instead of judging him blindly (well, not quite blindly). maybe i should stop deciding the value of people based on their choice of haircuts. maybe i should learn his name...

it's a complicated life...

so...i am struck today by how complicated my life has become. i want so badly to please everyone in every circle, but it is entirely impossible. so, i have ended up all but abandoning my family. i have virtually missed my cousin's pregnancy. i get facebook posts and phone calls and text messages from family members complaining of my absence. sphere 1.



Kevin Butcher spoke in chapel today. he once again reminded me of my love for the city. my love for people. i looked into his eyes and i remembered the power of that crazy, sacrificial, risky love. And i told him i would be home soon, but i wonder if i can keep that promise. sphere 2.



and here i sit on my couch in my dimly lit room. i should be doing homework, but i've been doing it all day, and i am having trouble facing the mountains of scholastic stress. i have so many papers to write, and articles to read, and lessons to plan, and people to greet, and i feel trapped in it. i love this place, i love these people, but i am trapped in busyness. sphere 3.



so i am failing to fully exist and thrive in any of my three spheres, but i can't get rid of any spheres any time soon. and i don't want to. but i am tired. and add onto this my overwhelmingingly complicated web of human relationships. my hopes and fears and disappointments and frustrations. and i wonder why things can't just work out. and i want to be free to love. and i have never felt so trapped in circumstances. i am impatient for peace.

I am so grateful for all that i am given and all that i do not deserve. i do not deserve three spheres of love and support, but they have been given to me. and i don't know quite how to manage them all, but i am glad for them.

God, help me to be full of thanks instead of resentment. help me to find peace and definition in you. - Your daughter.

2009

2008 was a pretty crazy year. A whole lot has happened this year. A WHOLE lot. I experienced true heartbreak. I fell in love with a city. I completed my Existential philosophy class. I moved to Detroit for the summer. I helped to plan and run KSA. I fell in love with 50+ kids. I gained a family at Hope Community Church. I found value. I was a friend. I struggled with belief and hopelessness and selfishness. I withdrew. I stayed. I loved and hated and tried and failed and lived. I changed. More than I can remember ever changing before. It's been an angsty year, but I have also experienced the most beautiful, joyful community of love. That is where I want to stay.

So, I want 2009 to be a year of hope. I want to get rid of all darkness and bitterness and needless cynicism. I want to believe in Jesus, and I don't want to doubt anymore. I want to be faithful and joyful and radical and real.

I believe in You, Jesus. I do. Help me believe this year! This day. Please.

times

You know those times in your life when you are full of thoughts and ideas and crises and beliefs and doubts and hopes and fears and everything all at once but you don't have the strength or desire to deal with any of them?

That is where I am.

So...last wednesday I attended the Thanksgiving Conference at New Hope Baptist Church. For most people, this means nothing. You have no memory of hours of pew-sitting and fiery preaching and endless cheek-pinching. This conference is a three day event that boasts the best preachers that the independent Baptists can wrangle, an endless buffet of food, and an evangelical agenda. I can remember the childish awe I felt as I listened to the blending voices singing the approved songs of the faith. The pews were full then. It has been many years since the pews have buckled under the weight of the masses. The pews have had decades of rest now.

If you spend any significant amount of time with me you will undoubtedly be subjected to at least one of my frequent rants on the evils of legalism. I grew up in a culture of rules instead of grace. I often say that, "Jesus died for me, and I refuse to live as though he did not". This passion rises from years of observing the oppression of grace, and women, and sinners. given my angst, I was a bit worried about again visiting this church that represents my past.

I suppose a part of me expected to explode upon crossing through the doorway. I was convinced that I would not be able to handle the hypocritical, oppressive, blind conservativism that I have come to despise. Much to my surprise, I did not explode. I did not feel oppressed or angry.

I felt love. I felt sadness.

In my righteous anger I had forgotten that the system I resented was full of people who are dear to me. I love the people who are entrenched in the Baptist tradition. And more remarkably, they continue to pour out their love to me. I am horribly undeserving, but they are the embodiment of Christ to my wretched soul.

So these people, my famiy in Christ, have torn away the elitist, judgmental attitude that I never knew existed. I find myself still distrustful of the institution, but full of love for the people who embrace the institution. Perhaps I am not always inherently right.

Then I looked around the sanctuary and I counted perhaps fifty people in the crowd. Scarcely any soul under the age of fifty. And I asked myself, where are the people that used to fill every pew and even spill into folding chairs? It is a dying subculture. It certainly left me scars, but it also gave me the gift of Jesus. As I sat in one of those mostly empty pews I wrote this:

Cavernous

rows and rows
pews and pews
warping wooden cage
scratches and scrapes
hymnal's truth in
happy? harmony
melody
silence
screaming bloody muddy red
comfortable cushion
crossed legs
lying lips
empty
but full
of bald white heads
suit coats
neck tie nooses
lacy, flowery mask
A-effing-men
preach it true
young and old
and old and old
and older...
dead.

This conference, while perhaps not well attended by human standards, managed to raise $25,000 for mission work in various countries. It is not, as I may like to believe, a pointless practice of out of touch, nominal Christianity.

Failure

I fail pretty much all the time...ALL the time. And I am rarely conscious of my blatant failure. I think that is what scares me and shames me most. I am hesitant to even write these words outside of the confines of my journal...because I want everyone to think I am perfect. Yep. It's true. In spite of all my efforts to be genuine...I am lying to myself, and God, and the world. I am an expert face painter. I am really, really good at making you believe in my deception. I am crippled by my overwhelming desire to make you think that I am righteous and virtuous. I am, in reality, depraved and crooked in every way. I like to spout my noble ideas of justice and love, but I fail. I once cross-stitched a pillow (mostly my cousin cross-stitched the pillow) with the phrase "actions speak louder than words" ...and my inaction exposes my own lack of justice, my own hatred.



I promised God that I would not abandon the children I grew to love. I have abandoned them. I promised God that I would pray more often, more sincerely. When I manage to remember my God it is a half-hearted cry. I promised my Savior that I would actually read the Bible and live out it's message. It has been weeks (at least) since I have found true joy in His words, and I mostly pretend to live out the gospel. I promised to be more selfless and loving. My every act is inherently selfish and self-loving. I promised to be open minded. I have closed my mind to past thoughts and old allegiances. I promised to speak out for Detroit. I have become a self-righteous, hypocritical, inactive voice.



I have failed in every conceivable way.



And I don't even know if I want to change. I hate all of my ways, but it is easier to remain as I am. I am terrified at the prospect of seeking God and missing him. I am overwhelmed by the Bible, and social justice, and my human promises...and my failure.



I would like to end this with a nice, upbeat, tie up the lose ends sort of conclusion. But that would be insincere. I suppose I should say that all of my feelings are normal and human, and to not lose heart because God is in control. And that is certainly true. I believe that with all that I am. I would be lost without that conviction. But some days, I just don't feel like believing it. That might be blasphemous or heretical...or human.



I want to see my Jesus. I want to see him. Touch him. Watch him. Love him. I want to want him.

I think that life really is beautiful and wonderful and miraculous. I also think that life really is ugly and unfair and painful. The paradox is one that tears at my soul. I am infuriated that humanity is forced to exist somewhere in between blissful perfection and disgusting depravity. The last few months of my life have been full of great darkness. The beauty that should exist alongside my pain seems to have disappeared. I find myself increasingly pessimistic, and increasingly hostile to the idealism that I once held in high esteem.

I witness so much hatred and ignorance and injustice. I watch the masses walk blindly by their begging brothers. I watch the cycle of the city- and the world - as children grow up fatherless and women grow up unprotected and men become their absent fathers. I see it in the faces of the children who so eagerly seek love that so violently evades them. I hear it in the silence. In the bullhorn. I see it in hoarding hands and selfish service. There is no one righteous, and that truth has never been truer than in this moment.

As I sit on my comfortable couch, in my heated room, at a private college, in an affluent city, I see the hypocrisy of my pen ( or keyboard). Close by, I have friends who are sitting on cold, hard, lonely benches. Perry, Terry, Gwen, James, C... These people are the people of the benches. They are the people of the park. And I say they are my friends...but I would not let my real friends live on a bench. in a park. all alone. I would not visit them once a month to throw food and Jesus into their faces. I would sit on those benches with my friends. To mourn. To laugh. To pray. To cry. To heal. And we would move together toward our hope.

I am crushed under the weight of the despair and darkness of the world and my own selfish existence.

And then. I am on the brink of insanity, and light shines through the murky waters. And I am given miracles. I am given the joy of my Savior. I am surrounded by giggling girls whose tiny, precious fingers form braids in my frizzy halo of hair. I am embraced by a homeless man who transcends social and racial and cultural boundaries to spread love and erase inequality. I am given hope by the girls of AG and their voices and encouragement and thoughts.

So, I am convinced that I will continue to live within this infuriating contradiction of pain and pleasure. And I have no answers. But I'm beginning to become accustomed to that feeling. That is all I suppose...I love life. That is really the lesson I have learned. Life is great. But life is also difficult. And that is ok.

Volcano

Majestic Woman
Beauty Towering
- covering truth in mountainous bounty
Beneath –
Flows the mystery of the deep
Simmering below the mounds of glitter and dirt
The passionate Throes
Rumble and groan
Crack open
The deep heart exposed
diseased blood?
cuts
uproots
Peace
- fire water rage
The Womb violently banishes the toxins
the pressure
red-hot fire
Burns under the surface flow slow and steady destruction fast and fiery extrusion
- purification through expulsion

Pastry filling – strawberry life/will kill you*

Life
Clouds of freedom release the heat of
Death-Life

Collapse
empty sparse dead
The life-fire escaped
The stirring Soul
Now a gentle dust left on the surface
tame

Only nothing left
A deep chasm the only memory of struggle
Crater of cold barren sorrow
The monument proves meaningless
Life - only a myth
Struggle - the ultimate deception
Life now death
Death now life
Life
- stripped naked
- jagged gray
- beauty in blissful dormancy?
- rest in memory of Truth?
meaningless meaningless angry burning flow cutting cold silence

Life and death in the power of the Pressure
- but nothing means anything
- anyway…
at all


* "pastry filling" contributed by Kyle Hogan

** original formatting is not shown. aka - ask me if you want the real poem...