please send rain

love is the flag flown high

2010-08-30T09:44:00.000-07:00

and then everthing changes again. this year has been the year of change. just like last year and the year before. and i long for something the same. my heart wants to find a place to rest that is monotonous and everyday. but i am not sure that is possible. if we are on a journey shouldn't the scenary keep changing? i am physically in the same place i was last year but everything looks so different here. and i am learning to trust the truth. my mind may tell me all kinds of lies. but for today i will remember: my God never changes, there are no guarantees except that God won't leave me, love also covers a multitude of fears, it's important to hustle - the days are short and the years are long.

free

2010-06-14T08:56:00.001-07:00

Don't follow a defeated foe. Follow Christ. It is costly. You will be an exile in this age. But you will be free. ~ John Piper

all the way my Saviour leads me

2010-06-09T08:26:00.000-07:00

last week i was hiking with my husband in maine. it was lovely. it was hard work for me. the first day we hiked on a well travelled trail. on the second day of hiking we took off on a less popular trail. it was foggy and rainy. there were no people around. it was just us, a trail map, and the cairns to follow. we scrambled on rock and we kept climbing higher. and each time i thought we could not possibly go any further my eyes caught sight of another silly pile of rocks. someone had been there before. someone carefully piled stones to guide my steps. it was windy and i was frightened of losing my step, of losing my way, of losing the comfort of shelter.

Take me by the hand;
Lead me down the path of truth.
You are my Savior, aren't you?

Mark the milestones of your mercy and love, God;
Rebuild the ancient landmarks [psalm 25 - the message]

and so now at home again i walk a path. and just when i think - this is it, i must be at my destination - i must travel further. i am thankful for the piles of stones - the promises of peace, of hope and a life abundant. i am thankful for a faithfulness that never leaves me wander on my own.

holding hands

2010-05-18T11:53:00.000-07:00

bring it in close

2010-05-12T05:56:00.001-07:00

there is so much beauty in this world. sometimes i wonder if other people see it. often when i am in a large crowd of people i will slowly look around and silently beg them not to waste this time. i hope they are noticing the beauty. and i have to believe that too often others are not seeing the beauty at all. because if one could see the wonder in the spring flowers how he could ever harm another person? if he would listen to the birds singing their arrival for the season how could he fill his soul with hate? if just once a day she took in the grandeur that has been created for our benefit how could she ever think that she is not loved?

wait for me

2010-05-10T06:27:00.000-07:00

the evidence of a well lived weekend. i woke up sometime in the early early morning and i thought about the dirty dishes in the sink. i thought about how the apartment was a mess. and then i remembered. we ran to the bottom of the stairs during the worst of the storm and were so thankful for our home all the while the lightening pulled the thunder close. we woke to sunshine and wrote out a grocery list and listened to the wind. we worried over wardrobe and the timing of our arrival to our next thing. and we waited for friends to arrive. and we hugged and we laughed and we sang and let the night get away from us. we drove through the dark remembering our present past and how wonderful the wine had tasted. we talked about hiking and comfortable socks and we bundled under blankets to keep the weekend in close to us. we went to sleep tired and well fed. we rested and dreamed. and today i will re-order the house. i will wash the dishes. i will do all the things i should never do on a weekend. time is tricky. it's fast and it's so very slow. and i am thankful for this time.

not just sometimes

2010-04-17T06:28:00.000-07:00

so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

do you believe this? i mean Paul says right here that it will take strength to actually get all that Christ has to offer us. may we pray for such strength.

labels

2010-02-03T08:44:00.000-08:00

We get and give labels so automatically that we barely think of them. For the past few days I have been thinking about the labels we give to ourselves.

I sat in a room of strangers recently and listened carefully to these individuals describe themselves. The words they used were so old and tired and painful. The words hurt me to hear.

I have been struggling with identity lately. I happen to think this is a common struggle. A secret struggle. And as I sat and listened to someone describe herself in such a sad way, I started to think more about how I think about myself.

I am not brave enough to tell you the words that popped into my head. But I will tell you I did not like them one bit. So on my way to work this morning I came up with a new list. As I was creating my list the Comforter brought to mind something I read just last week:

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called
children of God; and so we are. I John 3:1

Over and over the Bible shows us the power of words. I love that the world was created with a word. And just because I am called a daughter – so I am. Amazing.

I am a daughter of the Creator God. I am an adventurer – ready to explorer the world. I am a maker – when I create the Creator meets me (wait until you see the hat I am knitting). I am an amateur baker, a dreamer, a lover of all things good.

Who are you?

let's try this again

2010-01-27T17:33:00.000-08:00

i stopped writing. i was in a spot for quite some time when my thoughts seemed muddled and not processed enough to be written.

i am ready to try this again. maybe.

these past few months i have had several conversations with people about the unfairness of life. i have thought long and hard about things i have thought to be unfair. and i have tried to cheer myself up by thinking about all the unfair things happening around the world that seem a bit less fair than the unfair things happening to me.

here is the deal. i suppose the way it ought to work is to just not compare. not compare myself to your good stuff or your bad stuff either. in comparing myself to your good stuff my own lack is revealed and in comparing myself to your bad stuff my struggle may be minimized.

i woke up this morning. i did life today. and some of it was awesome and some of it was not awesome at all. and that's okay. and i can pretend that some of it was crappy because i haven't quite captured the dream life yet. but i believe that there are certainly some crappy moments for those people working in their dream jobs, or living in their dream houses, or driving their dream cars.

maybe instead of asking what how i can make this life less unfair for me - i could be asking different questions . . .

how am i making more really good moments? how am i loving people right in the middle of the unfairness? is this crappy moment really unfair or is it my own perspective on fairness

please pray

2009-07-09T18:23:00.001-07:00

a friend of mine has a beautiful baby girl named abby. abby just had heart surgery this week. please pray for abby's little body to heal. please pray for abby's mom and dad.

"The prayer power has never been tried to its full capacity. If we want to see mighty wonders of divine power and grace wrought in the place of weakness, failure and disappointment, let us answer God's standing challenge, "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not!'" (J. Hudson Taylor)

forgiven

2009-06-05T03:46:00.001-07:00

more than optimism

2009-03-17T03:58:00.000-07:00

yesterday while listening to the radio a natalie grant song came on and one of the lines caught my attention. "more than my optimism" wow. all my good intentions and conjuring up a great attitude will never do justice to the power of God. i can think good things but ultimately i am weak and soon enough the negative thoughts will creep into my mind.

however, God's grace is not dependant upon my optimistic outlook. i don't have to muster up the desire for God to provide - He will and He has.

what i must do is focus on my Provider.

i don't have to force my heart into believing in His love. He chose to love me long before i ever chose Him.

it's up to me to live in His love.

this concept is a life-changer. i don't have to put on a fake smile. i don't have to have false ideas about this world and it's darkness.

this is grace.

so much

2009-03-10T04:19:00.000-07:00

i am learning so much these days. i want to capture it all and remember it and live it. i want to take these days so slowly and like always i want to rush through to the end. although i am not sure where the end of learning is located.

seems to me that love just cannot pick a team. seems to me that love just must be so inclusive in order to be himself.

and that's so hard to grasp. because i pick teams. i have my favorites. i already have someone in mind to win. it's me.

but love keeps picking the people i thought would lose. choosing the people that i disagree with from way deep inside of me. he keeps picking the people that disagree with him. like me.

and i don't know what to do about it.

it seems as if this new way might be so much more difficult. and so much sweeter than i have ever known.

beliefs

2009-03-07T06:23:00.000-08:00

as i settled into my seat the radio blared the ideologies of the host. and i cringed.

but the more i think about it . . .

where do my beliefs come from? how am i reinforcing my own beliefs? what websites to i look at that confirm something i have determined to believe? what tv shows am i watching? what radio stations are on my favorite buttons?

how can i understand your beliefs if am selecting to only consume the information that supports my own ideas?

courage

2009-03-03T03:53:00.000-08:00

“...perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.”
- Rainer Maria Rilke

language

2009-02-27T03:53:00.000-08:00

I wish I could take language
And fold it like cool, moist rags.
I would lay words on your forehead.
I would wrap words on your wrists.
“There, there,” my words would say-
Or something better.
I would ask them to murmur,
“Hush” and “Shh, shh, it’s all right.”
I would ask them to hold you all night.
I wish I could take language
And daub and soothe and cool
Where fever blisters and burns,
Where fever turns yourself against you.
I wish I could take language
And heal the words that were the wounds
You have no names for.

Words For It
- Julia Cameron

silence

2009-02-06T04:02:00.001-08:00

Silence
A day of Silence
Can be a pilgrimage in itself.

A day of Silence
Can help you listen
To the Soul play
Its marvellous lute and drum.

Is not most talking
A crazed defence of a crumbling fort?

I thought we came here
To surrender in Silence,

To yield to Light and Happiness,

To Dance within
In celebration of Love’s Victory!

- Hafiz

darkness

2009-01-18T08:24:00.000-08:00

so i have spent some time the last couple of days thinking about the season between christmas and lent. this morning i listened to a great sermon by rob bell regarding this very topic. all of this is culminating in me attempting to decide what i am going to do for lent this year. ash wednesday is february 25th and i really want to be purposeful about how i spend my lenten season this year.

i am thinking about blogging lent in much the same way as i did advent.

what do you think? what do you do for lent?

december twenty-fourth

2008-12-24T03:33:00.000-08:00

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register. Luke 2:1-3 NIV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 NIV

So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazereth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David’s town, for the census. As a descendant of David, he had to go there. He went with Mary, his fiancée, who was pregnant. Luke 2:4, 5 Message

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times. Micah 5:2 NIV

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. Luke 2:7 KJV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. John 1:1-5 NIV

The people who walked in darkness
Have seen a great light.
For those who lived in a land of deep shadows –
Light! Sunbursts of light! Isaiah 9:2 Message

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14 NIV

For a child has been born – for us!
The gift of a son – for us!
He’ll take over the running of the world.
His names will be: Amazing Counselor,
Strong God,
Eternal Father,
Prince of Wholeness.
His ruling authority will grow,
And there’ll be no limits to the wholeness he brings.
He’ll rule from the historic David throne
Over that promised kingdom. Isaiah 9:6,7 Message

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. Luke 2:8 KJV

GOD, the Master, says: From now on, I myself am the shepherd. I’m going looking for them. As shepherds go after their flocks when they get scattered, I’m going looking for my sheep. . . And I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep. I myself will make sure they get plenty of rest. I’ll go after the lost, I’ll collect the strays, I’ll doctor the injured, I’ll build up the weak ones and oversee the strong ones so they’re not exploited. Ezekiel 34:11,15,16 Message

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. John 10:11 NIV

With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said “Surely this man was the Son of God!” Mark 15: 38,39 NIV

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. Luke 2:9-12 KJV

He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53: 2-5 NIV

Then they looked up, saw that it had been rolled back – it was a huge stone – and walked right in. They saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed all in white. They were completely taken aback, astonished. He said, “Don’t be afraid. I know you’re looking for Jesus the Nazarene, the one they nailed on the cross. He’s been raised up; he’s here no longer. You can see for yourselves that the place is empty. Now – on your way. Mark 16:4-7 Message

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. Luke 2:13, 14 KJV

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang:
“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!”
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them singing”
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power, forever and ever!”
The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped. Revelation 5:11-14 NIV

december twenty-third

2008-12-23T03:43:00.000-08:00

hush now.

quietly . . .

quietly . . .

. . . a king is coming.

can you see his kingdom?

a baby king must have a loving kingdom. a shepherd king must lead a kingdom of servants. a just king makes right what has turned so terribly wrong.

do you see the kingdom? Simeon saw the kingdom coming in the answer to an ancient promise. those men at the sea saw the kingdom come in a renewed hope and purpose to their lives - they began to follow after a great rabbi as just ordinary fishermen. that woman at the well - she saw the kingdom come in her brokenness and shame and was brave enough to embrace a different way.

do you see the kingdom? are your hands and feet creating a new world? are you seeking another way? have you become a part of the restoration movement?

hush now.

. . . a king is coming.

"I say the system has to be changed. It has to be destroyed and replaced not with another system but with an entirely new way of life. I see it happening, and it gives me great hope. I see leaders getting help and refusing to stuff it anymore. I see communities embracing their brokenness and the brokenness of their leaders, and healing is taking place. I see honesty. I see people who want to be fully alive. I see people who want the life Jesus promises and who are willing to let go of ego and prestige and titles to get it.

. . . I'm learning that very few people actually live from their heart. Very few live connected with their soul. And those few who do the difficult work, who stare their junk in the face, who get counsel, who let Jesus into all of the rooms in their soul that no one ever goes in, they make a difference. They are so different; they're coming from such a different place that their voices inevitably get heard above the others. They are pursuing wholeness and shalom, and it's contagious." -Rob Bell

december twenty-second

2008-12-22T03:46:00.001-08:00

Emmanuel

The prophecy of Isaiah foretells a sign to be given by God:
a virgin will conceive and give birth to a son
whom she will call Emmanuel:
a name which means God is with us.
Jesus is the word made flesh,
God in the midst of the people.

december twenty-first

2008-12-21T04:22:00.000-08:00

King

God is the king above all kings,
and the prophet Samuel is reluctant
to anoint a king for the Israelites
as this will seem like a rejection of God's rule.
Pilate asks Jesus if he is a king;
Jesus answers indirectly,
because his kingship does not accord
with the expectations of the Romans,
the Jewish authorities,
or even his followers.

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times. Micah 5:2 NIV

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. Luke 2:7 KJV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. John 1:1-5 NIV

december twentieth

2008-12-20T06:01:00.000-08:00

Rising Sun

The sun is a sign of God's creation,
God's endurance, and a sign of God's glory.
God's glory outshines the sun,
and will endure after the sun and moon have failed.
Psalm 84 describes God as the sun:
"For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
he bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does the LORD withhold
from those who walk uprightly." (Psalm 84:11 NRSV)

The people who walked in darkness
Have seen a great light.
For those who lived in a land of deep shadows –
Light! Sunbursts of light! Isaiah 9:2 Message

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14

. . . a king is coming!

december nineteen

2008-12-19T02:37:00.000-08:00

Key of David

Jesus is not simply a ruler descended from David,
but a liberator, a redeemer.
This name echoes the mission of Jesus to bind and to loose,
a mission Jesus passes on to his disciples.

He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53: 2-5

december eighteen

2008-12-18T03:31:00.000-08:00

Stock of Jesse

Jesse was the father of King David,
and Jesus is a descendent of David.
From David comes the association of Jesus as royal, of David's line.
Jesus inherits the throne of David,
re-defining his role as King of the Jews.

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. Isaiah 9:6,7

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
"I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

. . . And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!"
- Henry Longfellow

december seventeen

2008-12-17T03:36:00.000-08:00

Adonai

A name for the Most High God,
whose true name could not be uttered,
and of whom it was said that no-one could gaze
on the face of God and live.
Adonai is the Lord of armies,
who will march out to save the people in battle.

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. Luke 2:1-5

"Joseph took his wife and her child and they went to Africa
To escape the rage of a deadly king
There along the banks of the Nile, Jesus listened to the song
That the captive children used to sing
They were singin'
My Deliverer is coming - my Deliverer is standing by
My Deliverer is coming - my Deliverer is standing by" - Rich Mullins/Mitch McVicker

december sixteen

2008-12-16T02:59:00.003-08:00

The angel said to Zechariah: "Fear not!" He said it to Mary: "Fear not!" And now He says it to the shepherds: "Fear not!" It's a natural thing for a sinner to fear. The more guilt we have, the more things we fear: fear of being found out for some little deceit, fear that some ache we have is God's judgment, fear of dying and meeting the holy God face to face.

But even though it's natural, God sends Jesus with the word: Fear not! Hebrews 2:14 says: Jesus became man "that through death He might destroy him who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death have been held in lifelong bondage." Doesn't this last phrase imply something tremendously liberating for our daily life? If the worst fear--fear of death-has been taken away through the death of Christ, then surely God does not want us to fear the lesser things in life: job insecurity, not having enough time to finish a sermon, having over for lunch someone who can't speak English, failing a test in school, being rejected by your friends, etc. The message of Christmas is fear not! God is ruling the world for the great good of His children. Believe His promises: "Fear not for I am with you. Be not dismayed for I am your God. I will help you; I will strengthen you; I will uphold you with the right hand of My righteousness... Do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall wear... Cast all your anxieties on God because He cares for you ... The Lord is my light and my Salvation: whom shall I fear. The Lord is the stronghold of my life: of whom shall I be afraid?"

- John Piper

december fifteen

2008-12-15T03:41:00.001-08:00

When the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci went to China in the sixteenth century, he brought along samples of religious art to illustrate the Christian story for people who had never heard it. The Chinese readily adopted portraits of the Virgin Mary holding her child, but when he produced paintings of the crucifixion and tried to explain that the God-child had grown up only to be executed, the audience reacted with revulsion and horror. They much preferred the Virgin and insisted on worshiping her rather than the crucified God.

As I thumb…through my stack of Christmas cards, I realize that we in Christian countries do much the same thing. We observe a mellow, domesticated holiday purged of any hint of scandal. Above all, we purge from it any reminder of how the story that began in Bethlehem turned out at Calvary.

Philip Yancey

december fourteen

2008-12-14T08:43:00.000-08:00

I remember how the shepherds lay in slumber
And the angels came and broke them from their dreams
And Mary raised her weary head
And Joseph stood there grinning
When the world awoke to the coming of a king

But there were haystacks in his palace
And a manger was his throne
And the hillside never shined so bright
As early Christmas morning
You could almost hear the very heavens sing

They sang, 'Rise, rise and shine
The sun is coming in
And the morning light is shining in
Your eyes, rise and shine
The day is coming on
And you know the night is gone so rise'

I remember how the sunlight turned to thunder
And the people ran for shelter from the rain
And the curtain tore and the saints awoke
And the whole earth seemed to tremble
From the fury of God's anger
Or was it the fury of his love?

There were shadows on the tomb there in the garden
And the mist was rising slowly through the trees
And when Mary saw the silhouette on early Easter morning
I remember how he smiled at her and said

He said, 'Rise, rise and shine
The sun is coming in
And the morning light is shining in
Your eyes, rise and shine
The day is coming on
And you know the night is gone so rise'
-Andrew Peterson

december thirteen

2008-12-13T06:25:00.000-08:00

Poor sinner! Christ has not left going forth yet. And when he goes forth, recollect, he goes to Bethlehem. Have you a Bethlehem in your heart? Are you little? will go forth to you yet. Go home and seek him by earnest prayer. If you have been made to weep on account of sin, and think yourself too little to be noticed, go home, little one! Jesus comes to little ones; his goings forth were of old, and he is going forth now. He will come to your poor old house; he will come to your poor wretched heart; he will come, though you are in poverty, and clothed in rags, though you are destitute, tormented, and afflicted; he will come, for his goings forth have been of old from everlasting. Trust him, trust him, trust him; and he will go forth to abide in your heart for ever.
- Charles Spurgeon

december twelve

2008-12-12T03:20:00.000-08:00

silence.

for four hundred years. nothing.

and then the cry of a newborn.

and that was supposed to be the hope of the world? those people had real problems. occupation, an economic crisis, rampant crime, poverty, and starvation. they needed a bailout. they needed solutions. they did not need just another mouth to feed.

darkness.

maybe if they just waited it out. focused on the upcoming census. prepared their meals and their travel plans. things were bound to ease up. the depression and sadness couldn't last forever.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

light.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined. Isaiah 9:2

as if seeing for the first time. clearly seeing.

hope.

. . . the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Colossians 1:27

not just a crying baby. not just another mouth to feed. not just another holiday or another thing to think about. not for some future date or an appointment after death. right here and right now. CHRIST IN YOU - HE IS THE HOPE OF GLORY.

life.

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Romans 8:32

it is now. it is with darkness and it is with difficult things. but it is not without hope. it is not without light. it is not without the birth of a king who offers great love.

we are on a journey thinking about a birth that changed everything. we are waiting and we are watching. our king is coming . . .

december eleven

2008-12-11T03:38:00.000-08:00

It is a time of preparation and waiting, because even though, as autumn grinds to a dark and murky halt, everything is dying and falling asleep and falling off,something brand new is coming. Hope is coming. And so one of the messages of Advent is, don't weep over leaves.

The belief is that enough hope and tenderness will lead to world peace,one mind at a time. All nations will come together in kindness and justice,swords will be beaten into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks . . . But setting aside one's tiny tendency toward cynicism, in the meantime -- in Advent -- we wait; and hope appears if we truly desire to see it. Maybe it's in tiny little packets here and there, hidden in the dying grasslike winter wildflowers, but we find it where we can, and exactly as it comes to us, while the days grow dark. We remind ourselves that you can only see the stars when it is dark, and the darker it is, the brighter the light breaking through. Advent is about the coming of Emmanuel, which means "God with us," and so as the fields outside our windows go to sleep, we stay awake and watch, holding to the belief that God is with us, is close and present, and that we will be healed.
-Anne Lamott

december ten

2008-12-10T03:41:00.001-08:00

"Through all the Advents of our life, we shall wait and look forward with longing for that day of the Lord, when God says, "I am making everything new!"
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

december nine

2008-12-09T03:45:00.000-08:00

And I think the analogy of the river helps us see how. Picture the river as redemptive history flowing toward the ocean which is the final kingdom of God, full of glory and righteousness and peace. At the end of the river the ocean presses up into the river with its salt water. Therefore at the mouth of the river there is a mingling of fresh water and salt water. One might say that the Kingdom of God has pressed its way back up into the river of time a short way. It has surprised the travelers and taken them off guard. They can smell the salt water. They can taste the salt water. The sea gulls circle the deck. The end has come upon them. Christmas is not another bend in the river, It is the arrival of the salt water of the Kingdom of God which has backed up into the river of history. With the coming of Christmas, the ocean of the age to come has reached backward up the stream of history to welcome us, to wake us up to what is coming, to lure us on into the deep. Christmas is not another bend in the river of history. It is the end of the river. Let down your dipper and taste of Jesus Christ, his birth and life and death and resurrection. Taste and see if the age to come has not arrived, if the Kingdom has not come upon us. Does it not make your eyes sparkle?

But scoffers will say -- they have always said -- 2000 years is a long river delta! Too long to believe in. Christmas was just another bend in the river. The salty taste in the water must have been done to some chemical plant nearby. Who can imagine living in the last days for 2000 years? To such skeptics I say, with the apostle Peter, "Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day" (2 Peter 3:8). As far as God is concerned the incarnation happened last Friday.

- John Piper

december eight

2008-12-08T03:31:00.000-08:00

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. Luke 2:8 KJV

GOD, the Master, says: From now on, I myself am the shepherd. I’m going looking for them. As shepherds go after their flocks when they get scattered, I’m going looking for my sheep. . . And I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep. I myself will make sure they get plenty of rest. I’ll go after the lost, I’ll collect the strays, I’ll doctor the injured, I’ll build up the weak ones and oversee the strong ones so they’re not exploited. Ezekiel 34:11,15,16 Message

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. John 10:11 NIV

. . . a shepherd king is coming.

december seven

2008-12-07T05:26:00.000-08:00

oh come let us adore him
oh come let us adore him
oh come let us adore him
christ our king

december six

2008-12-06T06:02:00.000-08:00

. . . a baby king is coming.

december five

2008-12-05T03:40:00.000-08:00

The shipwrecked at the stable are the poor in spirit who feel lost in the cosmos, adrift on an open sea, clinging with a life-and-death grip to one solitary plank. Finally they are washed ashore and make their way to the stable, stripped of the old spirit of possessiveness in regard to anything…They have been saved, rescued, delivered from the waters of death, set free for a new shot at life. At the stable in a blinding moment of truth, they make the stunning discovery that Jesus is the plank of salvation they have been clinging to without knowing it! All the time they were battered by wind and rain, buffeted by raging seas, they were being held even when they didn’t know who was holding them. Their exposure to spiritual, emotional, and physical depravation has weaned them from themselves and made them reexamine all they once thought important. The shipwrecked come to the stable seeking not to possess, but to be possessed, wanting not peace or a religious high, but Jesus Christ.
~Brennan Manning, Devotionals for Ragamuffins,

december four

2008-12-04T03:49:00.000-08:00

mary sings a song . . .

My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.

. . . a just king is coming.

december three

2008-12-03T03:28:00.000-08:00

"For generation both before and after Jesus' birth, the Galilean and Judean people repeatedly protested and revolted against the Romans and their client rulers - the Herodian kings and the high priests in Jerusalem. It was an age filled with popular unrest, suppression, and protests, movements, and riots. Uprisings and slaughter plagued entire cities. In the decades before Jesus was born, Roman armies marched through the area burning villages, enslaving entire towns, and killing all who resisted.

. . . Herod the Great had ruled the empire with an iron fist for forty years, and just before his death. Jesus entered the scene. For some reason, King Herod was not excited to hear all the buzz about the birth of a baby King of the Jews (go figure). Even royal wise folk were coming from afar to find the new king. So Herod gathered these magi and ordered them to report to him when they found Jesus. Herod said it was so he could "go and worship him." But they knew better (after all, they were wise folk) and defied the royal order. The Scriptures say that after they brought their presents to Jesus, they were "warned in a dream not to go back to Herod," so they returned to their country by another route. Jesus' birth was a divine conspiracy."
- Shane Claiborne

O holy night, the stars are brightly shining . . .

. . . a king is coming.

december two

2008-12-02T03:41:00.000-08:00

Consider the story just for the sheer poetry of it. Jesus is born to teenage peasants under questionable circumstances. His mother gets pregnant before marriage. He's born amid the dung and straw of a stable. He's placed in a feeding trough. His brothers and sisters think he's out of his mind, and after his first sermon in his hometown, the people he grew up with form a mob and try to kill him.

. . .His entire life is about the stripping away of power and control. Jesus always chooses the path of love, not power.

Inclusion, not exclusion.

Connection and solidarity rather than rank or hierarchy.

Touch rather than distance.

Compassion rather than control.

. . . This is not weakness as we think of weakness. Jesus knows exactly what he's doing. There is a weakness that is truly weakness, that has nothing else to it - no depth, no intention, no greater purpose. But Jesus is intentional in what he's doing. His vulnerability is for a purpose.

There is a weakness that is actually strength.

And there is a strength that is actually weakness.

- Rob Bell

december one

2008-12-01T03:40:00.000-08:00

Beyond living and dreaming
there is something more important:
waking up.
-Antonio Machado

. . . a king is coming.

i read some of the story again today. not the part that i normally read.

there was a priest named Zechariah. from all i could tell Zechariah was not doing anything extraordinary with his life. i picture him as a bit apathatic. his people were under oppression and his wife was not able to have children. maybe he was at that point when his dreams were gone and he was just punching the clock and getting through the days. i bet it was hard to face his wife at night - knowing the sadness that she carried. i bet i was hard to see the boys in the temple - knowing none of them were your own. but Zechariah was faithful.

and then one day he was shaken awake. nearly at the end of Zechariah's story and he woke up to a brand new world. a new life was on the way and Zechariah could sleep no more.

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. - Wayne Dyer

how lovely

2008-11-14T04:04:00.000-08:00

How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment: we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can made a contribution toward introducing justice straightaway -anne frank

hope

2008-11-05T04:15:00.001-08:00

[St.]Francis reminded himself daily that he would be dead...I think that while we live, the one sure thing about being alive is that we will die. Everything else is kind of "iffy". I mean, you may be rich, you may be poor. You may have a job tomorrow, you may not. Nothing is sure in life except that you will be dead. There's something really great about living in the awareness that we will someday die. For one thing, that makes all that is hard about life more endurable because we know it will pass. So I think that it teaches us to not hold onto things, to live with some sort of detachment. Not the sort of detachment where we are unmoved, but the sort of detachment where we allow ourselves to be moved easily and quickly, but we don't try to possess those things that move us.
- Rich Mullins

2008-10-23T03:57:00.000-07:00

"Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, “He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.” This is not the way we should be doing it in America." - Colin Powell in his endorsement of Barack Obama

the song in my head

2008-10-21T17:03:00.001-07:00

You do your work the best that you can
you put one foot in front of the other
life comes in waves and makes it's demands
you hold on as well as your able

You've been here for a long long time

Hope has a way of turning it's face to you
just when you least expect it
you walk in a room
you look out a window
and something there leaves you breathless
you say to yourself
it's been a while since I felt this
but it feels like it might be hope

It's hard to recall what blew out the flame
it's been dark since you can remember
you talk it all through to find it a name
as days go on by without number

You've been here for a long long time

- sara groves

'the glory of God is man, fully alive'

2008-10-13T04:02:00.000-07:00

“To be united with God within the midst of the Church does not mean that our unique personalities are destroyed. We are not engulfed by an impersonal force or power. As with all love which is true and valuable, God’s love for each of us respects our personhood. His love is not one which destroys. God’s love is one which reveals, elevates, and perfects our true selves. By entering into the life of God, we become the persons we are meant to be. “

-Fr. Thomas Fitzgerald

my king

2008-10-05T05:17:00.001-07:00

sue monk kidd quotes

2008-09-22T04:21:00.000-07:00

"The whole problem with people is--The problem is they KNOW what matters, but they don't CHOOSE it...The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters."

"Knowing can be a curse on a person's life. I'd traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth, and i didnt know which one was heavier. Which one took the most strength to carry around? It was a ridiculous question, though, because once you know the truth, you can't ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies. Heavier or not, the truth is yours now."

"And when you get down to it, Lily, that is the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love but to persist in love."

"The world will give you that once in awhile, a brief timeout; the boxing bell rings and you go to your corner, where somebody dabs mercy on your beat-up life."

adventure

2008-09-17T16:28:00.000-07:00

“I'm such a girl for the living room. I really like to stay in my nest and not move. I travel in my mind, and that that's a rigorous state of journeying for me. My body isn't that interested in moving from place to place.” - bell hooks

monday

2008-09-08T04:03:00.000-07:00

Rule 1: We are all family.

Rule 2: You reap exactly what you sow, that is, you cannot grow tulips from zucchini seeds.

Rule 3: Try to breathe every few minutes or so.

Rule 4: It helps beyond words to plant bulbs in the dark of winter.

Rule 5: It is immoral to hit first

- anne lamott

a little shane claiborne

2008-09-03T04:22:00.000-07:00

"And I think that's what our world is desperately in need of - lovers, people who are building deep, genuine relationships with fellow strugglers along the way, and who actually know the faces of the people behind the issues they are concerned about." -Irresistable Revolution

"One thing that's clear in the Scriptures is that the nations do not lead people to peace; rather, people lead the nations to peace." - Jesus for President

"Most good things have been said far too many times and just need to be lived."

fear and hope

2008-08-30T05:58:00.000-07:00

so after watching the speech given by Barack Obama last week i have been thinking a lot about the people that make up this nation.

i have been thinking about how he transferred the responsibility for change from washington to that of the people. and how it is a very fearful thing to be hopeful. to imagine a reality different from what one knows and then pursuing that reality can produce a fear that is disabling.

i have been thinking about how the people have had the responsibility all along to bring about heaven on earth. and yet sometimes we remind ourselves of the hell that we see everyday and refuse to believe that we have any we have any duty in cooperation with our prayers.

i have been thinking about Barack Obama's reference to all that is unseen and how easily i get captured by the limitations of my eyes.

"Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” -Dale Carnegie

i carry your heart with me

2008-08-24T09:50:00.001-07:00

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

ee cummings

good words

2008-08-19T04:00:00.001-07:00

To pray, I think, does not mean to think about God in contrast to thinking about other things, or to spend time with God instead of spending time with other people. Rather, it means to think and live in the presence of God. As soon as we begin to divide our thoughts about God and thoughts about people and events, we remove God from our daily life and put him into a pious little niche where we can think pious thoughts and experience pious feelings. ... Although it is important and even indispensable for the spiritual life to set apart time for God and God alone, prayer can only become unceasing prayer when all our thoughts -- beautiful or ugly, high or low, proud or shameful, sorrowful or joyful -- can be thought in the presence of God. ... Thus, converting our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer moves us from a self-centred monologue to a God-centred dialogue. - Henri Nouwen

the divided life

2008-07-10T11:49:00.000-07:00

i am currently reading a great novel by Wendell Berry titled Jayber Crow. it's really well written and kinda challenging it some of the ideas he presents. today it has be thinking about the divided life. here is a quote from the book - taken from a time when the main character resides in an orphanage . . .

At The Good Shepherd I entered for the first time a divided world - divided both from me and within itself. It was divided from me because it did not seem to be present unless I watched it. Within itself, it was divided between an ideal world of order, as prescribed and demanded by the institution, which was embodied most formidably by Brother Whitespade, and a real world of disorder, which we students brought in with us as a sort of infection . . . Order was of the soul, whose claims the institution represented. Disorder was of the body, which was us.

. . . Everything bad was laid on the body, and everything good was credited to the soul. It scared me a little when I realized that I saw it the other way around. If the soul and body really were divided, then it seemed to me that all the worst sins - hatred and anger and self-righteousness and even greed and lust - came from the soul.

so i have been thinking about all that we clean up to make others believe we are 'okay.' we clean up the fleshy stuff - the symptoms. and it made me wonder if authenticity is possible. if we can clean up the soul stuff so that it matches the fleshy stuff. afterall it's difficult to know even ones own motives.

but then i read this - For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. Ephesians2:14-16

yes we can.

2008-07-03T06:12:00.000-07:00

whether you like him or not . . .

learning

2008-07-02T06:51:00.001-07:00

“It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things.” - Donald Miller

time

2008-06-26T04:53:00.000-07:00

i have a lot of time on my hands these days. and i am easing into that. i am being reminded that i am not what i do. it's a very difficult thing for me to grasp.

one thing that i am loving is the time i get to spend with my new husband. we have an amazing life.

we have been reading a lot lately - something we both enjoy. it seems like once i am able to relax enough to read for fun again i just can't get enough of it. yesterday i needed something poetic - something hopeful. i found this:

In Earthly Good: Reflections of Life and God, Martha Sterne writes:
Because it is hard to see God, find God, know God, love God, when we get busy posing like the strongest, richest, happiest people who ever walked. Because it’s just terribly hard to connect with God when we don’t need God, it’s just a terrible curse to suffer from the awful soul-killing delusion of self-sufficiency.All of us know the word “woe” from the inside. The woes are part of the truth of what it means to be human. Yen and yang, blessing and curse, heartbreak and heart open, life and death. We know that. And yet and still we people with much riches, much laughter, much power, we say “cheese” so well. We, more than poor people, can delude ourselves. So, for Christ’s sake, remember that self-sufficiency is not the truth of us, lest we forget our need for the One who made us and gives us every breath.

i like the words but i love the reminder. i can't do this on my own. but i really don't have to keep trying. this is a good rest.

west coast

2008-06-13T14:18:00.001-07:00

i am married!

2008-06-09T15:41:00.001-07:00

It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love. -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

an observance

2008-05-26T06:51:00.000-07:00

i have been in a bit of a whirlwind of activity lately. but the last few days things have slowed down enough for me to realize there is this whole world out there (and it isn't focused on weddings).

there is an election and horrible natural disasters occurring all around me without my even noticing. people are busy and distraught about the economy. so i woke up a bit and took note.

and i decided that perhaps one of the hardest things for people to do is to move from the place where they are to the place of their beliefs. see - if you say you believe something but never actually act upon that belief - in your mind you are already there and you will never move towards that belief. if i say that i am confident that God has a wonderful plan for me and yet i run around worrying that it might be ruined by the cost of gas or a new leader in this tiny nation - then what do i really believe? and maybe it's not bad to think that a powerful president can thwart plans. maybe the problem is figuring out what i believe and then actually living it out. and maybe the trick is reminding ourselves of our beliefs.

i do believe that time is linear. there will be an end of all time. (i also happen to believe that it will be a dark and scary, gloriously wonderful day).

i do believe that people are in desparate need of great love. i believe the game plan is for us to love each other with a great love.

i do believe that power and money are more tempting and destructive than we will ever know.

i do believe that there is much that is out of my control - stuff i could worry about until i vomit. or i could live like i actually believe the stuff it's become so easy for me to say that i believe.

“We do not come to God in Prayer as if he had left us absolutely penniless, and we cried to him like starving prisoners begging through prison bars. We do not ask as if we had never received a single farthing of God before, and hardly thought we should obtain anything now; but on the contrary, having been already the recipients of immense favours, we come to a God who abounds in lovingkindness, who is willing to bestow good gifts upon us, and waits to be gracious to us. We do not come to the Lord as slaves to an unfeeling tyrant craving for a bone, but as children who draw nigh to a loving father, expecting to receive abundantly from his liberal hands. Thanksgiving is the right spirit in which to come before the God who daily loadeth us with benefits.” - Charles Spurgeon

a word or two on marriage

2008-04-23T04:29:00.000-07:00

From "The Irrational Season" by Madeleine L'Engle
But ultimately there comes a moment when a decision must be made. Ultimately two people who love each other must ask themselves how much they hope for as their love grows and deepens, and how much risk they are willing to take…It is indeed a fearful gamble…Because it is the nature of love to create, a marriage itself is something which has to be created, so that, together we become a new creature.

To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take…If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession, but participation…It takes a lifetime to learn another person…When love is not possession, but participation, then it is part of that co-creation which is our human calling, and which implies such risk that it is often rejected.

From "Gift From The Sea" by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern. The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now.

hmmm . . .

2008-04-21T12:45:00.000-07:00

“If you are a follower of Jesus, a middle eastern man living in an occupied country who was crucified by the global military superpower of his day, and the leader of the global military superpower of your day, in celebrating victory and occupation of a middle eastern country, quotes hymns in the military victory speech about Jesus, if you are a Christian, this should make you nervous.

The Bible is a story of people living on the underside of military super powers.The Bible comes to us from a small minority of peoples, who are conquered peoples. So when you read this story, and you read this book, as a citizen of the most powerful empire this world has ever seen, you may miss some of it’s central ideas. Because when it says some trust in chariots but we trust in God and you have 42.8 percent of the worlds weapons, You’re the one with the chariots.

My interest is in how we understand the story of the scriptures, and in some way separate the cross and the flag, just long enough to make sure that we haven’t bought into somethings that are the very type of things that Jesus came to set us free from."

- Rob Bell

language

2008-04-16T18:49:00.000-07:00

so this post has been brewing in my mind for a long time now. i will admit that it is still not fully formed - but today is the day that it becomes public.

as an undergrad i took a great interest in linguistics. i had a wonderful professor who was passionate about the topic and i learned a great deal from her. i remember sitting in one particular class as she had us do an exercise. she read common words to us and we were to write down other words that we immediately associated with her spoken word. after that part of the exercise, the original words were written on the board and we all took turns writing our associated words on the chalkboard next to them. the associated words were unique and varied.

see, no one in the classroom came into that room from the same place - the same family, background, or even from having the same experiences that day. then the professor said some things that literally changed the game for me. she explained that our brains create paths or patterns of association for language. so much so that when i hear a certain word my mind naturally couples it with words i know to be connected to that word. now, i don't claim to know much about neuroscience, but i picture this as an etching of a fine groove in the mind. over time that groove starts to become significant. it's way hate becomes easy and complaining becomes prevelant.

here is the amazing part. it is possible to change the pattern. my professor did an experiment in her own life. she re-trained her thought patterns. now, don't get me wrong - it's difficult work. one must be consistent and patient.

now as i was mulling this over i remembered what Paul had to say in Romans - "do not conform any longer to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." (12:2) and later in Philippians he told us how to go about this transformation "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things." (4:8)

today the checkout girl at walmart let me in on a secret that she deals with depression. and i can't fix that (i really wish i could). my job is to think on wonderful, lovely things. my job is to train my brain so that my words don't fit the description established by the thought patterns of everybody else. my job is to speak words of truth and hope. reality is i know how it feels to be depressed - it hurts and it's a lonely place. reality is i have a choice in the patterns i establish in my brain. that is hope.

attention please . . .

2008-04-02T08:49:00.000-07:00

on may 31st, 2008 i will marry this man - bradley walk. yep, i'm going to be his wife!

good words

2008-03-24T11:28:00.000-07:00

"Anything you do from the soulful self will help lighten the burdens of the world. Anything. You have no idea what the smallest word, the tiniest generosity can cause to be set in motion. Be outrageous in forgiving. Be dramatic in reconciling. Mistakes? Back up and make them as right as you can, then move on. Be off the charts in kindness. In whatever you are called to, strive to be devoted to it in all aspects large and small. Fall short? Try again. Mastery is made in increments, not in leaps. Be brave, be fierce, be visionary. Mend the parts of the world that are within your reach. To strive to live this way is the most dramatic gift you can ever give to the world."
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
American Author, Poet and Psychologist

the song in my head

2008-03-21T07:23:00.000-07:00

He is jealous for me
Loves like a hurricane
I am a tree bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy
When all of a sudden I'm unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
And I realize just how beautiful you are and how great your affections are for me

Oh, how He loves us so
Oh, how He loves us
How He loves us so

We are His portion and He is our pride
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
And grace is an ocean and we're all sinking
So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy, wet kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don't have time to maintain these regrets
Well, I'll think about the way
He loves us

i just saw this song on another blog and i am standing in the lyrics - i am standing in the amazing love of a Saviour who would choose to give his very life for me.

amen

2008-03-01T08:32:00.000-08:00

part of what i do at my job is pray for people. i have been given the opportunity to pray for people who are scared, lonely, frustrated, and confused. i mostly feel overwhelmed by this. i don't know how prayer works exactly - but i don't feel like i might be the best advocate for these folks (until i remember that there is only one advocate [1 John 2:1] - and it's not me). i have prayed for people to be healed and they never got well and i have sought answers only to hear the loudest silence. and yet, i am not saying that prayer doesn't work. it's like that conversation with a good friend after a stressful day that doesn't make the day better - it just reminds you that you are not alone and somehow that is enough. recently i was taught that in prayer we can give up all that crap that we are clinging to that makes us unhealthy and we can gather up all the grace and forgiveness that we need. seems like a good deal to me. so why don't i pray more? why do i doubt? why do i keep trying to carry all this stuff on my own?

i found this prayer in a book a while back. i love that thomas merton is so honest. how can we know the motives of our own heart? i love that we don't have to have everything figured out (well maybe i don't love that but i am learning to live with it). i love that i have a saviour who is pleased to simply listen to my heart.

A prayer of Thomas Merton "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know my self, and the the fact that I think I am following you does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone." Amen

quote for today

2008-02-21T13:19:00.000-08:00

love has a hem to her garment that reaches the very dust.
it sweeps the streets and lanes, and because it can, it must.
- Mother Teresa

i saw this quote on jacob's comment section of his blog. how amazingly wonderful! what would your week look like if you loved simply because you had been given the great ability to love? i have the feeling i would spend less time worried about anti-freeze and projects and laundry. i feel like maybe i would have noticed life just a bit differently.

focus

2008-02-11T16:11:00.001-08:00

it's the lenten season. last year i was more focused - this year i am busy and distracted. i found this really long quote (sorry) on another blog last year. i need it to remind me of the journey towards the celebration that is easter.

The reflection below is written by Barbara Cawthorne Crafton:

We didn’t even know what moderation was. What it felt like. We didn’t just work: we inhaled our jobs, sucked them in, became them. Stayed late, brought work home - it was never enough, though, no matter how much time we put in.
We didn’t just smoke: we lit up a cigarette, only to realize that we already had one going in the ashtray.
We ordered things we didn’t need from the shiny catalogs that came to our houses: we ordered three times as much as we could use, and then we ordered three times as much as our children could use.
We didn’t just eat: we stuffed ourselves. We had gained only three pounds since the previous year, we told ourselves. Three pounds is not a lot. We had gained about that much in each of the twenty-five years since high school. We did not do the math.
We redid living rooms in which the furniture was not worn out. We threw away clothing that was merely out of style. We drank wine when the label on our prescription said it was dangerous to use alcohol while taking this medication. “They always put that on the label,” we told our children when they asked about this. We saw that they were worried. We knew it was because they loved us and needed us. How innocent they were. We hastened to reassure them: “It doesn’t really hurt if you’re careful.”
We felt that it was important to be good to ourselves, and that this meant that it was dangerous to tell ourselves no. About anything, ever. Repression of one’s desires was an unhealthy thing. I work hard, we told ourselves. I deserve a little treat. We treated ourselves every day.
And if it was dangerous for us to want and not have, it was even more so for our children. They must never know what it is to want something and not have it immediately. It will make them bitter, we told ourselves. So we anticipated their needs and desires. We got them both the doll and the bike. If their grades were good, we got them their own telephones.
There were times, coming into the house from work or waking early when all was quiet, when we felt uneasy about the sense of entitlement that characterized all our days. When we wondered if fevered overwork and excess of appetite were not two sides of the same coin - or rather, two poles between which we madly slalomed. Probably yes, we decided at these times. Suddenly we saw it all clearly: I am driven by my creatures - my schedule, my work, my possessions, my hungers. I do not drive them; they drive me. Probably yes. Certainly yes. This is how it is. We arose and did twenty sit-ups. The next day the moment had passed; we did none.
After moments like that, we were awash in self-contempt. You are weak. Self-indulgent. You are spineless about work and about everything else. You set no limits. You will become ineffective. We bridled at that last bit, drew ourselves up to our full heights, insisted defensively on our competence, on the respect we were due because of all our hard work. We looked for others whose lives were similarly overstuffed; we found them. “This is just the way it is,” we said to one another on the train, in the restaurant. “This is modern life. Maybe some people have time to measure things out by teaspoonfuls.” Our voices dripped contempt for those people who had such time. We felt oddly defensive, though no one had accused us of anything. But not me. Not anyone who has a life. I have a life. I work hard. I play hard.
When did the collision between our appetites and the needs of our souls happen? Was there a heart attack? Did we get laid off from work, one of the thousands certified as extraneous? Did a beloved child become a bored stranger, a marriage fall silent and cold? Or, by some exquisite working of God’s grace, did we just find the courage to look the truth in the eye and, for once, not blink? How did we come to know that we were dying a slow and unacknowledged death? And that the only way back to life was to set all our packages down and begin again, carrying with us only what we really needed?
We travail. We are heavy laden. Refresh us, O homeless, jobless, possession-less Savior. You came naked, and naked you go. And so it is for us. So it is for all of us.

2008-02-08T16:33:00.000-08:00

went to see alanis and matchbox twenty in cleveland last night. the lack of sleep was well worth it.

attention, please.

2008-02-03T18:39:00.000-08:00

i'm going to be an auntie!

quote of the day

2008-01-31T11:12:00.000-08:00

Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. You know ~ all mystics ~ Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion ~ are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare.

Last year on Spanish television I heard a story about this gentleman who knocks on his son’s door. "Jaime," he says, "wake up!" Jaime answers, "I don’t want to get up, Papa." The father shouts, "Get up, you have to go to school." Jaime says, "I don’t want to go to school." "Why not?" asks the father. "Three reasons," says Jaime. First, because it’s so dull; second, the kids tease me; and third, I hate school. And the father says, "Well, I am going to give you three reasons why you must go to school. First, because it is your duty; second, because you are forty-five years old, and third, because you are the headmaster." Wake up! Wake up! You’ve grown up. You’re too big to be asleep. Wake up! Stop playing with your toys.

Most people tell you they want to get out of kindergarten, but don’t believe them. Don’t believe them! All they want you to do is to mend their broken toys. "Give me back my wife. Give me back my job. Give me back my money. Give me back my reputation, my success." This is what they want; they want their toys replaced. That’s all. Even the best psychologist will tell you that, that people don’t really want to be cured. What they want is relief; a cure is painful.

Waking up is unpleasant, you know. You are nice and comfortable in bed. It is irritating to be woken up. That’s the reason the wise guru will not attempt to wake people up. I hope I’m going to be wise here and make no attempt whatsoever to wake you up if you are asleep. It is really none of my business, even though I say to you at times, "Wake up!" My business is to do my thing, to dance my dance. If you profit from it fine; if you don’t, too bad! As the Arabs say, "The nature of rain is the same, but it makes thorns grow in the marshes and flowers in the gardens.

-Anthony de Mello

hugs

2008-01-27T20:04:00.000-08:00

because i am learning to be a good hugger:

it's the most wonderful time of the year

2008-01-14T17:55:00.000-08:00

so i stood in that glorious bookstore line today. the one that indicates the first day of the new semester.

did i mention i LOVE school? the saddest part of the day was the fact that i only stopped by the bookstore on the way to picking up my graduation application. only a few short months left of this learning experience . . . sniff, sniff.

this i believe

2008-01-10T16:47:00.001-08:00

so one of the weekly podcasts that i really enjoy is an NPR program called this i believe. anyone may submit an essay about what they hold as core beliefs. most of the time the writer of the essay reads the essay. all kinds of people, from various walks of life and with various beliefs have shared essays.

this week the essay was written and read by Sister Helen Prejean (the author of Dead Man Walking). she said something in her essay that i am having a hard time not thinking about. she said that she watches what she does in order to know what she believes. wow. can you imagine? what would happen if we were just a bit more honest with ourselves?

in the next couple of weeks i want to be especially careful to watch what i do. i don't think it's enough to spout out neat belief statements or well-packaged doctrines. do i believe something enough to actually live as if i believe it?

random thoughts

2008-01-09T05:15:00.000-08:00

yesterday was so beautiful - and i only had to work until 2! yeah! i took complete advantage of the situation and raced home to go to the bike/hike trail. i walked for four miles and listened to my ipod and just enjoyed the weather. hurry up spring!

so these are some random thoughts i had on my walk:

it's probably poor landscaping to make one's entire backyard a jungle gym. i am sure they didn't mean to do that.
does a lot of brown on the wooly worm mean good things? or bad? i can never remember.
music is powerful. one song on my ipod can take me right to a moment that i haven't thought about in over a year. how does it do that?
i want to learn how to drive a forklift. i am adding it to my list of goals.

well there were other thoughts, but i am not seeming to be able to put them into words. i love walking. i really need to do it more often. so hopefully this post will serve as a reminder. hey joy - walk more.

one moment please

2008-01-03T13:38:00.000-08:00

so no more bonhoeffer. apparently i am the only one in this house who loves him. i will have to move on to other topics.

this past weekend i escaped austintown and traveled to the pittsburgh region and visited a favorite bookstore of mine. i finally broke down and bought alan lightman's einstein's dreams. i seem to always forget this book and so i was pleased to see the copy on the shelf. in each chapter of the book lightman describe a reality in which time is different. one reality holds no future, one alters cause and effect allowing them to appear in any sequence, one reality a life only lasts for one day, and so on.

i love thinking about time. i love trying to be. here. now. i love thinking about the future. i hate when i get stuck in those larger than life moments of the past that need to be left back where i found them. i want my story to be about time not wasted. but i do waste time. and so i wonder if there might be a way to redeem time. cash it in for all it's worth. maybe this year will be about using up each moment just the way i receive it.

and in the end the tortoise beat the hare . . .

2008-01-01T14:29:00.000-08:00

so 2007 is over. it's now officially the past and yet it's still part of the story.

these william fitzsimmons lyrics keep crowding my mind lately:

Ain’t seen you in quite a while, seems i forgot
how your face looked when you smiled
the interest in you that i gave
the interest in me that you faked
have you heard that i’m coming home, much as i can
cause home has been out on the road
i’ll let you know when i’m in town, so i just might
see you when you come around
turn on the light, ready or not
i’m not what you wanted, i’m what you’ve got
open the door, roll out the mat
a welcome is welcomed, but you’ll take it back
when i come home
i wish it could be like it was, when we were young
those memories fade into dust
i’ll let you know when i’m in town, so i just might
see you when you come around

i am so thankful for the last year - it's not what i wanted but it's what i got. i am a bit excited to make it into a really amazing story.

time out

2007-12-21T19:29:00.000-08:00

i want to take a brief break from bonhoeffer and just share some things that i am particularly thankful for today:

my job and the wonderful people i have met there so far
the cheerful supervisor at work who greets me whole-heartedly every time he sees me with a "Hey Jill - how are you?" and my quick response of "i'm doing well - how are you?"
having dinner with a good friend and catching up on her life
seeing old friends and talking like no time has passed at all
snow and white christmas lights
emails that make me laugh and friends that write them to make my morning much better
a warm place to come home to after the end of this particularly wonderful day

what does your list look like for today?

part two

2007-12-16T10:04:00.000-08:00

The challenge continues in this sermon that Dietrich Bonhoeffer prepared regarding the goodness of God:

When we sit down this evening to a full table and say grace and thank God for his goodness, we shall not be able to avoid a strange feeling of uneasiness. It will seem incomprehensible to us that we should be the ones to receive such gifts and we will be overwhelmed by such thoughts and will think that we have not in any way deserved these gifts more than our hungry brothers in our town. What if, precisely at the moment when we are thanking God for his goodness towards us, there is a ring at the door, as so often happens these days, and we find someone standing there who also wants to thank God for some small gift, but to whom such a gift has been denied and who is starving with his children and who will go to bed in bitterness? What becomes of our grace in such moments? While we really feel like saying that God is merciful to us and angry with him, or that the fact that we still have something to eat proves that we have won a special favour in God's sight, that God feeds his favourite children and lets the unworthy go hungry? May the merciful God protect us from the temptation of such gratitude. May he lead us to a true understanding of his goodness. Don't we see that the gifts of his goodness become a curse for us if we have such thoughts about them and act in such a way; if we look at ourselves, instead of growing humble in our richness as we consider the unexplained mystery of God and the need which surrounds us, and if we thank God only for his goodness to us instead of becoming conscious of the immeasurable responsibility which is laid upon us by this goodness? If we want to understand God's goodness in his gifts, then we must think of them as in trust for our brothers. Let no one say: God has blessed me with money and possessions, and then live as if he and his God were alone in the world. For the times will come when he realises that he has been worshipping the idols of his good fortune and his selfishness. Possessions are not God's blessing and goodness, but the opportunities of service which he entrusts to us.

amazing that this sermon was written in 1931 and yet holds a truth that may be more relevant today than ever. these words change the game for me. i am so rich in stuff - what is my attitude towards all that i possess?

hold onto your hats - part one

2007-12-15T06:03:00.000-08:00

i am about to do something a bit risky. i am going to post a long quote. and i know a lot of times i don't read long blog posts - but i can assure you that this is a life changer. i was bored one day in the kent state library and came upon this and i still am challenged by it a few years later. this quote is from a book entitled No Rusty Swords by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

'BETTER THAN LIFE ITSELF'

'For thy goodness is better than life' (Psalm 63 v.3).

Two and a half millennia have now passed since the ancient Jewish saint, far from Jerusalem and his homeland, devoured by misery in body and soul, surrounded by mockers and enemies of his God, pondered the strange and wonderful ways God had led him. It was not easy, peaceful meditation. It was a struggle, on the brink of despair, a struggle for meaning in life, a struggle for faith in God. The pillars of life had crumbled away. Where he expected to find a firm foothold, he found nothing but emptiness. 'God, where art thou? God, who am I? My life falls crashing down into the bottomless abyss. God, I am afraid, where is they goodness? And yet, thou art my God and they goodness is better than life.' Those are his words. And when they are understood, they set a man free again.

The words of this text, 'Thy goodness is better than life', seem to shine gently, but inwardly they are hard words. These words are full of passion conceived in the conflict of two worlds, the world of the Bible in conflict with our own . . .

. . . At some point in our Psalmist's life something quite decisive happened: God came into his life. From that moment his life was changed. I don't mean that suddenly he became good and pious - it may well be that he was that before God came. But now God had come and had drawn near to him, and that fact alone made his life remarkable. It completely tore him apart. We so often hear and say that religion make men happy and harmonious and peaceful and content. Maybe that's true of religion; but it is not true of God and his dealing with men. It is utterly wrong. That is what the Psalmist discovered. Something had burst open inside him, he was divided by the struggle burning within him, which every day became more and more heated and terrible. From hour to hour, he came to feel that his old beliefs were being torn from him. He struggled desperately to hold on to them; but God had taken them from him and would never give them back. As God conquers him, he resists the more firmly and desperately, holding on to what is left; bu the more firmly he holds on to what he has, the harder must God strike to break it free and the more it hurts when it is torn away. And so the breathless struggle goes on, with God the victor and man defeated; he no longer knows where it will all lead to and he sees that he is lost; he does not know whether he hates or loves the one who has forced his way so violently into his life and destroyed his peace. He struggles for every inch and in despair yields to the weapons of God. And his position would not be quite so hopeless were it not for the fact that God's weapons are so strange and wonderful, that they cast down and lift up, that they wound and yet heal, that they kill and yet bring life; God speaks: 'If you want my mercy, they let me have victory over you; if you want my life, then let me hate and destroy that which is evil in you; if you want my goodness, then let me take your life.' And now comes the final struggle. Everything has been surrendered up and only one thing has been left to the man, which he is determined to hold on to: his life. Still God will not call a halt, but storms this last citadel of all. And so the battle rages on for the last thing which he has; the man defends himself like a madman, God cannot want this, God is not cruel, God is good and kind. And yet the answer comes back: ' If you want my goodness then give me the last thing that you have, give me your life. Now choose!'

hold on with an open hand

2007-12-12T07:02:00.000-08:00

i like stories.

there is a story that has always amazed me. the story is about a man named Abraham. he lived an amazing life - traveled a bit and did some great things. well, in this particular story he was sitting around one day when God spoke to him. and He asked Abraham to do a very difficult thing. God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac to Him. back in the day - grace was offered but sin required a blood sacrifice. and here's the thing - Abraham took this son that he loved so much and climbed a mountain with the full intention of sacrificing his son. well, the story ends and God provides a ram for Abraham to sacrifice instead.

one day i was reading this story. and once again i was amazed at Abraham's obedience and God's provision. but suddenly i remembered a bit of the back story. see Abraham and his wife couldn't have kids for a really long time. so they thought it might be a good idea if Abraham just went ahead and had a kid with another woman. Abraham had a son named Ishmael. now i have to believe that Abraham loved Ishmael so much. but you know how family situations can grow uncomfortable. Sarah, Abraham's wife, started to really resent this other woman and Abraham's first son Ishmael. and so she asked Abraham to send them away. and he did.

i am not saying that this takes away from Abraham's obedience to sacrifice Isaac. but it's part of his story. he had already given up a son.

sometimes there is a provision that allows us not to have to do the hard thing. sometimes we have to do the hard thing anyways. and i think there is great hope in this. we can choose to be obedient with or without an immediate reward. God told Abraham that there was no reason to be afraid because He - Yahweh, the creator-God, would be his shield and his very great reward. (Genesis 15:1) and i have to believe that this is more than enough.

a poem

2007-12-08T08:53:00.000-08:00

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

- W. S. Merwin

and again . . . one more time

2007-12-07T20:33:00.000-08:00

i am processing a lot of thoughts right now. after a great evening with some really amazing people, i am digesting the conversations of the night. and i keep thinking - it's so daily. whether it's just life or a faith journey or a relationship - it's so very daily. and sometimes it is just this fact alone that has the ability to break us.

to use my dishwasher example one more time . . . everytime i eat, i generally dirty a dish. this action causes me to have to rinse the dish and place it into the dishwaher. eventually, i must run the dishwasher, empty the dishwasher, and then fill the dishwasher yet again.

i must love you over and over again - whether the sun is shining, i'm having a good hair day, or you just threw my failures of last week into my face. i have to love you today and i have to love you again tomorrow. and sometimes that just seems impossible. not because it's not in me to love the people that i love, but sometimes it's just so hard.

and i don't know the secret. i don't know how to bear up under the constant strain of having to do the same things over and over again. but i am certain of this - it's useless to think one can store up all the good stuff on one day. the walk is too long. it's not about what i say i will do next week or next year. it's never about what i want to do. when next week arrives, i have to choose to do it all over again, whether i want to do it or not.

can a story change the world?

2007-12-06T11:42:00.001-08:00

that is the question asked by the folks at Invisible Children. http://www.invisiblechildren.com/ they are an amazing group of people dedicated to making the voice of those without a voice be heard.

i encourage you to go to their website and check out the great work they are doing in uganda and other nations.

'tis the season

2007-12-02T13:27:00.000-08:00

“A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes - and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

this is a simple kind of life

2007-12-01T05:24:00.000-08:00

20 bucks. that's all i spent at the grocery store today (including laundry soap). i have been challenged to spend just $3/day for the next five days on food stuff. with the extra some friends and i hope to make a difference to those who live in the reality of spending much less than $3 a day, every day.

see, more than half the world's population lives on less than $2 a day. and i can't even pretend to be able to fix that situation. i work everyday with people who live without things i have grown to consider as basic. God asked his people this question - "What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?" (Isaiah 3:15) God is always on the side of the oppressed and poor. i would argue that sometimes we are on the team that oppresses because we are so far removed from the poor. i would argue that sometimes we do this without even knowing it. so i guess the real challenge becomes not what i can give up. because later in that same book, God says he doesn't care about what i have given up - He insists that I "loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke" (Isaiah 58:6) now that's a challenge!

if you don't know someone that fits into the category of the oppressed or poor, i challenge you to find someone. not so that you could pity them or have a charity project. i think perhaps you need to do this so that you could get free from your stuff. i think perhaps you need to do this so you can see how God provides in unimaginable ways. i think you ought to do this so that you never get into a situation where you might be tempted to become the oppressor.

all this stuff is just for a moment. it will vanish like this earth and the sea. and to borrow a lyric from john mayer (or perhaps he borrowed it from someone else) we are too often slow dancing in a burning room. and seriously - we don't have time for that.

so get creative - use your time, use your money, live a life of freedom so others might be freed. "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 10:39)

rain?

2007-11-28T08:27:00.000-08:00

why is this blog titled please send rain? well . . . i'm glad you asked. it's a bit of a long story. you may want to grab cup of tea.

a few months ago i was reading my Bible and came across a curious statement. John records esus as telling his followers "If you forgive anyone his sins they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." (John 20:23) this seemed so huge to me. i did some study on my own and asked other people what this could mean. my friend reminded me that what we do here and now matters. i mean - if i claim to follow Jesus Christ than i have the Holy Spirit in me. and that's a big deal.

so what does that have to do with rain?

well, i kept thinking about this whole issue of forgiveness. what does it mean to forgive and to be forgiven? and round about the same time i read one of my favorite stories. it's in 1 Kings 18, if you would like to read the whole thing. only this time i read it - i really read it. see there had been no rain for three years. and God asked Elijah to do a very brave thing. He asked Elijah to create an altar and sacrafice to Him, but he wanted Elijah to pour water all over the altar and then God would send fire down and consume the sacrafice. Elijah was to do this as well as the people who were worshiping another god - this god's name was Baal. see it's crazy. there wasn't enough water - it was three years since the last raindrop. well, Baal never showed up and God sent fire and consumed the altar and the sacrafice. see - good story, huh? God tells guy what to do, guy obeys, and God shows up. but this is the part that i never saw before. Elijah prays to God to turn the Jewish people's hearts back to God. see i think it would have been enough for God to display his power over the false god. but this next part is amazing. God answers Elijah's prayer, He forgives the people He loves so much, and the people cried out - "The LORD - he is God! The LORD - he is God!" (1 Kings 18:39) and then . . . the story goes on to say that Elijah turned to this guy named Ahab and said - "Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of heavy rain."

i started thinking about how God forgives. and i keep seeing that when he forgives - it's not like he thinks about it for a couple days or just says the words. He shows us in spectacular ways that we are indeed forgiven. throughout the stories of Jesus, we keep seeing that he would heal people or show up at their houses and eat with them. and then he would look at them and tell them they were forgiven.

can you imagine how that could change the world? if instead of just kinda forgiving you for hurting me, i showed up at your house to shovel your driveway. or as followers of Christ we danced in the rain a bit more. we offered this living water to the world - cause the life offered in this living water is forever.

i mean, i am forgiven afterall. it's going to be okay. it's raining.

Q and then R

2007-11-25T12:12:00.000-08:00

one of the best books i have ever read is a book by Virginia Woolf, entitled To the Lighthouse. it's definitely not a book for everyone. it's slow paced and very character driven. she details the thoughts of each character.

the father in the book is a very intelligent man. here are some of his thoughts:
"It was a splendid mind. For if thought is like the keyboard of a piano, divided into so many notes, or like the alphabet is ranged in twenty-six letters all in order, then his spendid mind had no sort of difficulty in running over those letters one by one, firmly and accurately, until it had reached, say, the letter Q. He reached Q. Very few people in the whole of England ever reach Q . . . But after Q? What comes next? After Q there are a number of letters the last of which is scarcely visible to mortal eyes, but glimmers red in the distance. Z is only reached once by one man in a generation. Still, if he could reach R it would be something. Here at least was Q. He dug his heels in at Q. Q he was sure of. Q he could demonstrate . . . A shutter, like the leathern eyelid of a lizard, flickered over the intensity of his gaze and obscured the letter R. In that flash of darkness he heard people saying - he was a failure - that R was beyond him. He would never reach R. On to R, once more. R-"

recently i realized that many of the goals i once had have slowly changed. i see things differently. some of you know i quit law school. maybe getting a law degree means reaching the letter R. to me - it doesn't mean that any more. R might be hard. it might mean giving up things i don't thing i can do without. honestly, some days i stay around E or F - i just barely get out of bed and make it through the day. but overall, i sure don't want to settle for Q. Q means being comfortable. Q is too easy.

how about you? what is the next letter for you? what are you doing to get there?

quote o' the day

2007-11-24T09:19:00.000-08:00

"There are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one." - G.K. Chesterton

so i like to read a bit

2007-11-19T13:41:00.000-08:00

i love to read. for as long as i can remember, reading has always been a favorite activity of mine. even when i was scooted outdoors, i would crawl up into a tree branch and read.

a few years ago i read a great book by G.K. Chesterton entitled Orthodoxy. i have been thinking about a particular section of the book lately, so i thought i would share it with you:

"Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening. "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."

to write love on her arms

2007-11-17T10:46:00.000-08:00

there are amazing people everywhere doing wonderful things. sometimes these people are hard to find. their stories are not always featured on front pages.

the organzation to write love on her arms works with those struggling with depression and self-injury. i cannot imagine the kind of pain that would cause someone to hurt himself. i really encourage you to go to their website http://www.twloha.com/. get involved, become informed, be prepared to offer hope to others.

we are the ones

2007-11-14T16:37:00.000-08:00

in the last couple of days i have read and heard several things that are sorting themselves out in my mind. there is a saying that i first heard about a year ago. the saying is - "we are the ones we have been waiting for." whether you are familiar with this statement or just read it for the first time, i know that you know what it means. but what does it look like?

from what i can gather it looks like doing the right thing over and over. sometimes the right thing is unloading the dishwasher or taking the trash out, sometimes the right thing is silence and rest. and sometimes the right thing keeps you very busy. sometimes the right thing moves you to africa and sometimes it means renting an apartment in the suburbs of boise, idaho.

we have choices. the hard part isn't figuring out the right thing to do. we know what the right thing to do is - the hard part is choosing to do it. the hardest part is choosing to do it with a good attitude.

see, we cannot wait for the new president to take office. we cannot wait for terrorism to go away. we cannot wait for people to be kinder or more loving. we are the ones we have been waiting for. just at this moment we have arrived on the scene to do the right thing. so what is that going to look like?

raking leaves

2007-11-11T06:07:00.000-08:00

My friend Samantha brought her two kids over for a leaf raking party.

Of course we had to play in the leaves.

But then it was time to get serious and bag those leaves.

i had such a fun day!

beginning . . .

2007-11-08T17:16:00.000-08:00

i am fascinated by blogs. people tell personal stories or share random details of their lives with complete strangers. is that how we build community these days?

anyways - i have been thinking about giving it a try for a little while. i will most likely write about what i am reading or learning at the moment. so i thought i would begin by telling a story. a beginning kind of story . . .

i am currently taking classes to obtain my master's degree in library science. in class a few weeks ago a professor of mine was speaking and to be honest i don't even remember what he was talking about. however, i do remember him repeating the phrase before the beginning - before the beginning. and it struck me odd. i think about time often and so time words sometimes sound funny in my ears. and then i realized why that phrase sounded so odd to me - it's supposed to be - in the beginning. sitting in that class i came to the conclusion that the entire idea of christianity started off in an upside-down kinda way. and this notion of a God who created a world more wonderful than we can believe and then entered into that world to be with us couldn't be more difficult to believe. he wasn't just before the beginning - he was right there in the middle of the beginning. he entered into our time and one day he will free us from the weight of time.

oh the things i am learning while i am supposed to be understanding the finer points of the dewey decimal system.

Alan Lightman has a similar interest in time - the following quote is from his wonderful book - Einstein's Dreams - "A man stands at the graveside of his friend, throws a handful of dirt on the coffin, feels the cold April rain on his face. But he does not weep. He looks ahead to the day when his friend's lungs will be strong, when his friend will be out of his bed and laughing, when the two of them will drink ale together, go sailing, talk. He does not weep. He waits longingly for a particular day he remembers in the future when he and his friend will have sandwiches on a low flat table, when he will describe his fear of growing old and unloved and his friend will nod gently, when the rain will slide down the glass of the window?"

is there a day in the future you are remembering?