Mutiny of Self

On this Day in History

2008-10-22T10:21:00.003-06:00

A girl named Copper sat across the table from me. Her pale blue eyes intermittenly caught mine as we observed the excitement of the other girls with us. I slowly munched on a squishy fry, and Copper sipped from a Coke. McDonald's seemed like an odd place to come and celebrate, although Copper and I had no idea what exactly we were celebrating.
That weekend my parents had allowed me to finally go to my friend Terri's youth group, and jumping in with both feet, I went on a weekend retreat with with fifty or so 12 to 13 year olds of whom I'd only met one or two. For a person as shy as me at that time in my life, I was definately in over my head.
The focus of the weekend was The Dawson McAllister Student Conference held at Riverside Baptist Church in Denver, Colorado. I had never heard of Dawson McAllister before that weekend, and really, haven't heard of him since, but whenever I drive through downtown Denver I like to give a wink and a nod to Riverside Baptist Church, which is actually no where near a river, but instead located next door to what was then Mile High Stadium.
In traditional fashion the conference feature alot of cutting edge worship music, performed by a man named Todd, whose bleached blond hair and less than casual use of the word "dude" and the phrase "odd for God" would now nauseate me, but then, endeared him to my heart. I hung on every word that came out of his mouth. If Todd was the looks of the operation, then Dawson was the brains, as he did all of the teachings that weekend. The topic of that conference was something along the lines of spiritual warfare. Actually, the only thing I remember clearly was an illustration of a Roman guard and a fill in the blank sort of excercise in which we labeled that parts of the guard's armor that Paul spoke of in Galatians 5.
By Saturday night, the overstimulation of the weekend lead to emotional vulnerabilty and the time was right for Dawson to share the Gospel. Dawson shared things that I'd heard before, that Jesus was the Son of God, and came to earth to die for my sins, and that I had the chance to accept him into my life as my personal savior. That night it clicked. When Dawson gave the opportunity for people to come forward if they wanted to accept Christ into their lives, my stomach flip-flopped a thousand times over as I knew that I was one of those people. I looked behind me, our youth group had totally scored seats in the second row, and there where hundreds of other kids who I'm certain were staring directly at me. I hunched further into my seat, avoiding eye contact with the kids I was with, I didn't want them to know that I was one of those people whom Dawson was speaking to, with whom Dawson was imploring, "Tonight may be your last night on earth. Do you know what will happen when you die?"
Two things happened at once. I had the overwhelming sense that this really was going to be my last chance to accept Christ into my life, and the boy sitting in front of me, Matt, who played soccer and had lots of friends in youth group got up and started walking toward the alter. I did not have this cognitive thought at the time, but it now seems to me that some where in my brain I figured that if that kid, who did have friends in this youth group didn't have Jesus in his heart, it would probably be okay for me to admit that I didn't have Jesus in my heart as well. I stood up, and -- let me say without irony --that I felt very much like I was being pushed toward the stage. I quickly found myself wrapped in a throng of weeping teenagers grasping on to their friends with one hand, and with the other lifting their hands in worship. I tried to mimic what they were doing, it seemed like they had received some kind instruction that I had missed out on, but the tears weren't in me and when I meekly lifted my hands, I felt quite foolish. So instead, I put my hands in my pocket, and mumbled the words of the song wondering if I had accepted Jesus yet.
Before long those of us standing in front of the stage were directed to exit the auditorium where we were paired up with understanding adults, beaming at the opportunity to share the gospel with some one like me. The woman I was paired up with was kind, with glasses and brown hair. She commented on my brightly-hued, magenta Greenpeace t-shirt as we walked down the spiralling hall into the basement of the church. I told her that it was actually my mother's t-shirt. Her look of relief diminshed slightly when I proudly told her that I also donated portions of my Christmas money to Greenpeace, the Nature Conservancy and had adopted my own whale and gorilla.
We shuffled into a room with several other adult-adolescent pairs, she set up a couple of folding chairs facing each other and motioned for me to sit down. I started to get scared again, like maybe I had made the wrong decision and was some how in trouble, but on the other side of the room I saw my friend Terri, who had invited me on the trip with one of counselors, asking a question that the counselor was clearly not prepared to answer. The woman gave me a little booklet that demonstrated that there was a gap between God and me, as a result of my sin, and the only way to fill that gap was to accept Jesus. There was even a cute little drawing of a stick figure walking over a bridge, formed by the cross, and into Heaven. I liked this idea, and decided to pray with the woman in order to accept Jesus Christ into my life.
There is a gap in my memory from that moment, until sitting at that table in McDonalds with Copper and the other excitable girls, congratulating us on "the best decision we could ever make." I don't disagree with them, but I wonder, if at twelve, they really had the authority to make that sort of declaration in regard to they way my life would unfold. I also wonder, if I'd know then what it really meant to be a Christian, and they way God would guide my life as a result of my choice that night, if I would have have gotten up from my seat at all. I sort of think that I would not have, which may be why that night, in my heart I was so thoroughly convinced that I had to act then, that I would never again have the opportunity that was before me.
"Best" really isn't the word to describe the weight of my choice to accept Christ, because I think some of the "best" decisions I've made were the ones that came after that night, but that I would not have made had that night not happened.
There is a strange fatality looking back at that night. I didn't understand what I was getting myself into, sometimes I still don't understand what I have gotten myself into, but that push is still there. The push from behind me and from within me that tells me there is no other option but to do this, and to live this life according to the opportunities presented to me.

"The Noticer"Episode 1: The Case of the Misnamed Baby

2008-10-10T09:52:00.002-06:00

So I really love mysteries. I'm borderline obsessed with them, and I'm always hoping for a real live (but not scary) mystery to take place in my own life. My favorite dectives are the ones like Sherlock Holmes, Velma and the slighty creepy guy on Law and Order: Criminal Intent who solve their mysteries by paying attention to all the stuff that other people don't notice. Maybe because of all the mystery stories I've read, I kinda think that I notice more stuff the the average person, I also like to learn all sorts of random stuff so that I can understand more about the stuff that I notice. My roommate and I have developed a premise for my eventual mystery show which will more than likely aired on the USA network. So far we've got a title and a tagline. Ready?

The Noticer: I notice shit.

It's good, huh? We haven't decided what the theme music will be, but it will be good. I'm in need of a sidekick too.

Yesterday, I solved my first observational mystery, as The Noticer will probably not want to get herself entangled with a dark criminal element. Here it is:

The Case of the Misnamed Baby

Clue #1: Travis is an associate director of the best group home that brings clients into my office. He's the epitome of returned missionary: clean cut, well dressed, good looking in the boy next door sort of way, and genuinely, profoundly nice. He's married, and he and his wife just had their first baby this summer. Being new parents, they struggled to pick the name that would forever identify and define their daughter. Just before their baby was born they concluded that she shall be known as Reagan. The family prepared, quilting and crocheting, and emblazened the name Reagan on every type of fabric a baby could possibly need.

Clue #2: Travis came into work one day, shortly after Reagan was born to show us pictures of his beautiful new baby girl. When I asked what her name was, he grinned sheepishly, "It's a funny story," he said. Turns out, that about a week after Baby Reagan had been home, her mother gazingly loving into her baby's face, decided that she just didn't look like a Reagan, and that she wanted to change her name. The other name the couple had considered was Shelby and so, per momma's orders, their new daughter birth certificate was changed, all of her Reagan Gear was packed away, she is to henceforth be known as Shelby, the name that Travis has preferred all along.

Clue#3: Whenever Travis comes into the office, while waiting in the lobby he picks up the same tired copy of Car and Driver magazine. More than once, I've heard in make comments about cars that show more that an ordinary interest in the machines. It seems Travis is a Car Guy.

Clue#4: Although I can't remember how this conversation came about, one day, one of Travis's employees mentioned to me that Travis always keeps a model of a Shelby Mustang on his desk. I did not know there was such a thing as a Shelby Mustang before this time, but being The Noticer, my interest was piqued.

Mystery Solved: Travis came into the office yesterday, picked up his favorite copy of Car and Driver magazine, and waited for his client to arrive for the appointment. One of my more "unique" clients was in the waiting room, and essentially started to hit on Travis. He's is a good-looking fellow, so this was nothing new for him, he quickly mentioned that he was married and had a baby girl. My patient asked the baby's name, and Travis began "It's a funny story actually ..." When he'd told the tale to my client, who quickly lost interest, I said to him "Oh, by the way, I've been meaning to ask you, I don't supposed your daughter's name has anything to do with the Shelby Mustang." He turned his face away from me, blushing, but trying to hide a smile. "My wife doesn't like for me to bring up the fact that it's also a name of a car ..."

CASE CLOSED

2008-06-18T10:39:00.001-06:00

So I decided to write another play. This has been rumbling around in my head for quite sometime. Maybe it will actually come to fruition sometime this year. I love that word. Fruition.

Nancy is a normal girl.

She like normal things and desires to live a normal life. Her family on the other hand is not normal, they couldn’t even be considered abnormal. Nancy’s family is just plain weird. But it’s not her family’s fault, it‘s the culture they live in.

Nancy lives in a family of circus folk. She’s been raised on the road, traveling the United States and Canada under the watchful loving care of her father and mother, a clown and contortionist.

After a lifetime of oddballs and weirdoes for companions, Nancy craves nothing more that a normal life with a normal family in a town where she can stay. So Nancy does what any normal girl dissatisfied with her family life would do. She runs away from the circus to join a home.

But this normal life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Nancy soon finds that she’s not so normal and doesn’t belong with the normal family either.

2008-06-14T16:40:00.002-06:00

So, I started writing some stuff again. It's funny how I go in spurts. Some days my brain won't shut off and every event in my life gets transformed into a thousand word essay with a moral at the end. Most of the rest of the 365 days a year my mind is a complete blank and I beat myself up for wasting the single talent that God gave and promise myself the tomorrow will be the day that I put pen to page or fingers to keyboard. It usually doesn't happen though.
But this some, God has given lots of opportunities to write, so I'm doing it. And while I'm writing things that have been "assigned" so to speak, it's help spark my creativity a little bit. I have a lot of half finished, unedited stories, etc that I'm going to try to post here for the summer. We'll see what happens. Maybe it will be another six months before I post again. That's what this "Lions with Dentures" story is, something that I wrote quite a while ago, but it seems like it might be worth a read.

Word.

Lions with Dentures

2008-06-14T16:39:00.000-06:00

Rumor has it, there are certain foods that can’t be eaten while wearing dentures. Delicious items, like corn on the cob, or a fresh, ripe apple are an ever-elusive culinary prize to those who wear dentures. At least that’s what I’ve learned from those Polident commercials featuring Mrs. Brady.
Just as one with dentures craves a fresh cob of sweet yellow corn, dripping with butter and lightly salted, the devil and his minions crave power over humanity. Our souls are a delicacy to Satan. Human beings were made for the purpose of bringing glory to God. Satan is a trickster, and will do whatever is in his ability to distract humans from their purpose of glorifying God.
To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, the greatest trick Satan ever pulled was to convince the world that he doesn’t exist. It is hard sometimes to believe in a completely evil being interfering with humanity. If Satan is so evil, why would he care what happens in my pitiful little life? I don’t think he does care. I don’t think he takes notice of me at all. At least not until I take notice of God.
When we live independently from God, Satan doesn’t care about us. It’s when we start running toward the gentle sound of God’s voice that his interest is piqued in the details of our day. I’ve seen this countless times in the lives of friends teetering on the brink of that precipice of choosing God or choosing the world. It often seems that havoc breaks out in their lives, which either pushes them off the edge and into the loving arms of Christ, or keeps them bound in fear, continuing to live their lives in the dark.
I speak not only that first decision to follow Christ, but of every decision which serves eternal consequences. Choices like where to attend college, what job to accept, who to live with and who to marry impact our eternity and the eternities of those with whom our lives are joined. Every decision we make is an opportunity for us to choose God or to choose the world. When we yield our lives to Christ, Satan tries to influence us, because he wants that power back.
Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not the kind of Christian who believes that every parking space close to the grocery store is a divine gift of my guardian angel, nor do I believe that the maladies and mistakes of everyday life are evidence of the hand of Lucifer himself. I do believe that there is a distinct and real supernatural plane of life that is dominated by angels and demons at work within the mundane human realms of home, work and school. And I believe, because of the reality of both the supernatural and the physical that Christians need to be aware of a few things that happen in this world of ours.
Peters says to his friends and fellow believers that the devil is a roaring lion who is always ready to pounce and devour Christians. Living in a time when a possible consequence of a devout Christian life was martyred by literally being eaten by lions, I’m sure Peter’s friends paid attention when he commanded them to stay alert.
This verse used to scare the crap out of me. I thought at any second, the devil would ambush me, my demise was imminent and it wouldn’t be long before I felt the sting of his bite. I have in fact heard the roar and felt the sting of that lion’s bite. It’s arrogant to think that Satan himself is directly involved in my personal life, he’s got bigger fish to fry, like the blood letting in Darfur, sex tourism in East Asia and poverty in America. But I do think that it is theologically accurate to accept the actions of a lesser demon messing with my head.
It wasn’t until after that first realization of Satan’s influence in my life that I realized something else. Despite his continued attempts to manipulate me, to remove my faith in Christ, and to make me ineffective in spreading the sweet gospel of our Lord, Satan cannot harm me.
Satan, unlike my Heavenly Father, is not omnipotent. He doesn’t have any special powers that I cannot defend myself against. He is just very good at what he does, which is lie. Big lies, little lies, lies that are obvious, and lies that are not so obvious.
I must do precisely what Peter commanded and stay alert. I must stay alert by staying in the truth. I must guard my heart and my mind with the words of Christ Jesus. I must be specific in the truths that I learn in order to combat the specific lies that Satan will whisper into my ear. Satan is not omnipotent or omniscient, he cannot read my mind, but he can read my actions. He can see the ways in which I react to his lies. When I react, he knows which lies work and which do not. By my reactions, I cannot give the devil a foothold into my heart.
Because I am sealed with the Holy Spirit and protected by the blood of Christ, Satan cannot hurt me. His roar is tremendous and I do fear him, but I am not afraid of him. None of his lies can affect my eternity, there is nothing in this world that can separate me from the love of Christ, and because his spirit is in me, I cannot be left behind.
My life is enticing to Satan, I am dripping with butter, and he hungers for a piece of the power that exists in my life because of Christ. But I am that ever-elusive cob of corn. His teeth have no power over me. He can roar all he wants, but he cannot bite.

2008-01-15T03:18:00.001-07:00

No matter how much energy I use to bunch and fluff and tug at my blanket, forming it in to the approximate mass of a person lying next to me, when a distant train whistles, clattering through the night, and I wake to see the moonlight's reflection on my wall, it's still just me alone in my bed as I have been all these years.
The loneliness comes rushing in, the most familiar of all emotions. I should just make friends with it by this point in life, that's what it wants after all, right?

"Hey, loneliness, what are you up to tonight? Yeah, I'll probably just hang out with myself tonight too, you know, a quiet night at home can sometimes be so refreshing. Uh-huh, yeah, okay, so I'll see you about three in the morning, then?"

I don't think it works like that though. Loneliness doesn't really want to be my friend, otherwise I don't think it'd be quite so mean to me. But when loneliness comes a-callin' and I wake up in the night overwhelmed by the desire to simply be loved by someone, to simply stop waking up alone, that's when I start to think that loneliness is quite the bully.
After I've sat in my own self-pity, or try to tell myself a story to calm my heart, I guiltily remember that I'm never really alone and that God is always with me and all that good stuff. So I ask him for some help, sort of.
If I believe that God as the power to make all nations bow before him, why don't I believe that he also has the power to lay my heart to rest at night beside the heart that dwells inside the person that God made for me?
(Why, WHY, is my belief in God contingent upon tangible love from another human being? More importantly, why to I believe that love has to be given by the type of human who can grow a beard?)
When I whisper shards of prayers that I have been praying for most of my life -- that God will fill my whole heart, that will be my one true love -- I wonder if God will ever fulfill that request. Because even as those mumblings pass through my lips, I don't know if I will ever truly be content with only Jesus, with a lover whose touch does not warm my skin, and the timbre of whose voice is not audible.

2008-01-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

The collar of my sweater is much too tight. I tug on it to see if it will strech, but then it chafes my throat and gives me rug burn. The sleeves of my sweater are too short too. I'm trying to decide if they look cute like three quarter length sleeves, or if I look like Lurch, from the Addams Family, wearing an article of clothing that is far too small for my frame.

I dislike this situation. My too small sweater makes me feel too big. When I feel to big, I feel ultra awkward - a step up from the normal level of awkwardness I usually feel.

I wish I did not have such a critical spirit, because part of my fear of people looking at me, is that I assume they are judging me as harshly as I judge them.

I probably should have just hung my sweater up to dry, I could have avoided this entire issue.

2007-12-31T16:26:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow, today will be last year.

2007-12-31T10:30:00.000-07:00

I had the worst dream of my life last night. The worst. That might be a bold statement, but unlike Fiona Apple, I do go to sleep to dream. My dreams are always pleasant and colorful and I usually find myself holding someone's hand or folded into their arms while our silly friends do silly things around us.

Last night though, my eyes fluttered open and the sight of the four walls of my bedroom brought me no comfort. If my roommate had been home, I would have taken my Kermit and knocked on her bedroom door and asked to sleep in her room. Actually, I probably wouldn't have, because we're not close like that yet. I thought about calling or texting one of my friends who lived near by, just to make contact with the outside world, that maybe a dose of reality would shake the lingering images from my mind, but would I say? "I had a nightmare. I'm really scared. But don't be freaked out since I'm calling/texting you in the middle of the night." If they answered at all, I'm sure it would be an uncomfortable conversation, and if they didn't explaining a text like that would be even more uncomfortable the next morning. So instead I just laid there, not moving, making sure all of my body parts were under the blanket, because the boogeyman can't get you when you're under the blanket. That's a well-known fact.

I don't want to write my dream down, because by putting it into words, fleshing out the little details that probably didn't really happen in the dream, but that the mind needs in order to turn it into a cognizant story, it will be even scarier. It was more of a movie dream, where I was just watching everything that was happening, I didn't know any of the characters, and I was not participating in the terrible, terrible thing that was happening. But then, close to the end, when I was still dreaming, but so afraid of what my subconcious was bringing forth, I went to get help.

There was a bus station in this tiny country town where this terrible thing was happening, and I walked into the station, through the terminal and into the dingy diner where people were smoking their cigarettes and eating their hashbrowns, waiting for their Greyhound to take them to whatever place in the U.S. of A. that they could not afford to fly to. I stopped one of the waiters and tried to explain that something was happening just down at the edge of town by that old abandoned barn, and instead of rushing to call the police or alerting the villagers that something was awry, he looked at me suspiciously and asked why I wasn't doing anything to stop what was happening. In my dream I paused, standing in front of the table he was waiting on, a family with cranky children , and said,

"I'm the narrator. I made this happen. Now I need help to make it stop."

2007-12-18T14:37:00.000-07:00

I'm going to the Ocean. Maybe in January or Feburary during one of the three day weekends that our country observes, even though we don't care about the people who gave us that Monday off of work.

The ocean is the only place where I know with out question that God is real. It's the only place where my brain is quiet and my soul will rest. And I need that, I need to know God is real, and I need my brain to be quiet and I need my soul to rest.

2007-12-04T19:43:00.000-07:00

Turns out I've got a thing for Fiona Apple. Never expected that one, really.

Paper Bag

I was staring at the sky, just looking for a star

To pray on, or wish on, or something like that

I was having a sweet fix of a daydream of a boy

Whose reality I knew, was a hopeless to be had

But then the dove of hope began its downward slope

And I believed for a moment that my chances

Were approaching to be grabbed

But as it came down near, so did a weary tear

I thought it was a bird, but it was just a paper bag

Hunger hurts, and I want him so bad, oh it kills

'Cause I know I'm a mess he don't wanna clean up

I got to fold 'cause these hands are too shaky to hold

Hunger hurts, but starving works, when it costs too much to love

And I went crazy again today, looking for a strand to climb

Looking for a little hope

Baby said he couldn't stay, wouldn't put his lips to mine,

And a fail to kiss is a fail to cope

I said, 'Honey, I don't feel so good, don't feel justified

Come on put a little love here in my void,'

he said'It's all in your head,'

and I said,

'So's everything'

But he didn't get it I thought he was a man

But he was just a little boy

Hunger hurts, and I want him so bad, oh it kills

'Cause I know I'm a mess he don't wanna clean up

I got to fold 'cause these hands are too shaky to hold

Hunger hurts, but starving works, when it costs too much to love

Hunger hurts, and I want him so bad, oh it kills

'Cause I know I'm a mess he don't wanna clean up

I got to fold 'cause these hands are too shaky to hold

Hunger hurts, but starving works, when it costs too much to love

2007-11-30T09:41:00.000-07:00

I'm a runner. Except my legs never move. It's only my heart that flees.

2007-11-28T15:17:00.000-07:00

It's three o'clock and I haven't heard from you once. I don't know if I'm surprised or or not. It's funny to me, and embarassing, how secure the the three o'clock hello made be feel. Eventually the three o'clock hello became the one o'clock "Hello, I'm bored." Then the one o'clock "Hello, I'm bored," became the ten am "Hello, what should I eat for lunch?" Then the ten am "Hello, what should I eat for lunch?" became the eight-thirty "Hello, did you get to work on time?" By then we shared so many hellos that the time between the good nights and the good mornings was the only time we weren't waving words at each other.

And now I am lonely.

2007-11-26T12:24:00.000-07:00

No matter what, the smell of rubbing alcohol reminds me of being in my pediatrician's office, four years old, waiting for whatever would happen when Dr. Pete came in the room. Usually, he would bustle in, speaking loundly, and always asking me the same question. "You married yet?" To which my response was always a shy wriggle off of the exam table and into my mother's lap.

Again he would ask, "Well if you're not married, do you have a boyfriend?" All the while in my child's brain I wondered why for goodness sake he was asking me this sort of question. The voice inside my head that was never loud enough for anyone else to hear would say "Of course I'm not married, you fool, I'm four years old, what kind of question is that anyway? And why are you so concerned about it?" Even as a small child, that question made me feel very strange.

Then he would make me stick out my tongue and do that awkward thing where you lay on the table and the doctor presses on your organs until you can't breathe and then I would leave his office with a prescription for amoxocillian, the best and most effective medication of all time.

2007-11-26T11:48:00.000-07:00

I prayed that you would cut your hair so that I would stop wanting to look at you so much. The next day you cut your hair. I guess God does answer some prayers. I still want to look at you all the time though.

2007-11-11T18:27:00.000-07:00

Psalm 130

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; O lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more that watchmen wait for the morning. O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.

**************

I drew back the living room curtain, to let the evening light in, and thought to myself “It’s like a depressed person lives here.” I cleaned to keep from crying, then I sat on the porch drinking a beer, counting the cars until he ran to me, and when he did, I was so confused that he was running.

*************

The morning light greeted my eyes already full of tears. I thought I had reached the end. I would be spending the day entirely alone, and was so very afraid.

I sat in the red chair and looked at the book on the table, trying to convince myself to open it while my coffee was brewing. I didn’t want to have to tell those girls again that I didn’t believe God loved me anymore, and that I wanted very little to do with Him. And what I wanted even less was to endure their encouraging and genuine responses about God’s love and faithfulness even in the hardest of times. So I opened it, halfway out of spite and halfway out of fear. The last words I’d read sent me reeling to the arms of the one whose heart ticks like a clock, and convinced me that there was no where I was safe from pain.

I read Psalm 130.
Once.
Twice.
Three and four more times.

I shut the book because I was actually angry at God for addressing me. If he stayed far away from me, and I could prove that he really did have it out for me, then I would be justified. But he didn’t. He crept right up from behind me and put into words the achings that had been pouring out of my eyes in the form of tears, so many tears that it seemed a little part of my soul went with each and every one until there was no soul left inside of me for God to revive and I would spend the rest of my days cold on the inside, quietly serving him until he took me home.

I sighed. I knew what I had to do. I ripped a page out of my journal, which is basically like cutting Samson’s hair. I wrote the Psalm out on that page, pausing when I wrote the word “Israel.” The name God chose for his hand-picked nation of people means “he who struggles with God.” In some way, that name has always given me hope, reassuring me that God knows how hard it is for us to actually believe in him, and that he doesn’t hate us when we don’t. I would rather fight with God for the rest of my life than blindly accept what someone tells me because they are a “stronger” Christian. And I think God’s okay with that, because I know that he made me, and that it is his hand that instilled that characteristic in me.

I read the Psalm out loud, my voice cracking and shaking, microcosmic parts of my soul spilling out from eyes. “O she who struggles with God, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.” I asked God to redeem me, to restore all the parts of my heart that I had given away, and the parts my heart I still possessed, but were so gnarled and scarred that I am afraid to show them to anyone. I thought about God’s promise in Joel, that he will restore the years that the locusts have stripped away.

Staring at my turquoise wall until they cones and rods in my eyes fired orange, I remembered the last time I felt the way I do now, spending everyday in my pajamas in a basement apartment in a town that reeked of death, and that every single day since I left that place, I have fought tooth and nail, to never, never go back.

But I am back. I am in that place again. I am the depressed person that lives in the house.

And it’s perfectly okay.

I always knew it would come back. For as much as I wanted to be one of those people who God has miraculously rescued from their days of mental illness, I’ve sort of always known that wouldn’t be my story. My diagnosis when I lived in that basement was “major depressive disorder, with personality change.” It’s some pretty heavy duty shit. I sort of always knew that I would fight this for the rest of my life, which is probably why it’s taken me so long to actually admit that I am legitimately depressed, because I was scared out of my mind, that even admitting that I was depressed again meant that I broken beyond repair.

I’m not writing this to elicit pity or sympathy, or because I think it’s cool to be sad.

I am writing this because now is the time when I have to fight. I’ve been fighting the wrong person for a while now, and when it clicked in my mind, that I am legitimately, clinically depressed, I felt free. I am not under God’s thumb, and God is not my enemy. My own brain is my enemy, which trust me, is a strange, strange realization.

Just like a cancer patient has to fight their own body, I have to fight my own mind. And just like a cancer patient needs lots of people around them who love them and will help them fight, I need that too.

In the end, this really is between me and God. But He is on my side, so I’m going to be okay. There’s a good chance I won’t always be myself, and I will probably do some really crazy things, and I don’t know how long it will take to get better, but I will.

2007-11-08T09:30:00.000-07:00

When I was in the seventh grade, I loved a boy named Justin Schaewe. Being familiar with the English language, I’m guessing that you pronounced that “sha-way.” If you did, you would have been wrong. His last name was actually pronounced “sha-VAY.” Tricky, huh? He looked like Ponyboy, played by C. Thomas Howell, in the movie The Outsiders, and I loved him. He was a year older than me.
We had a class together, it was Spanish and I sat behind and to the left of him. Ms. Cervantes was our teacher. Every year she would dress up as an M&M for Halloween because she was short and fat and loved to eat M&Ms. She was married to one of the art teachers at our school, whom I always believed was gay. They had different last names and two dogs of the chow persuasion. I don’t think they really loved each other.
The girl who sat in front of me in Spanish class was named Jennifer. She looked like an eagle. A pretty blond eagle with perfect bangs who played volleyball. She was in my grade, and very, very popular. Justin Schaewe was popular too, he hung out with Mike and Nicole (if you went to Falcon Middle School in the years 1992-1995, you would get the reference). In our Spanish class, we picked out Spanish names to call each other during class. Jennifer picked the name Esperanza, which means hope. I picked the name Cristina, which means Christina, because that was the closest thing I could find to Kristen.
For a brief period of time, Jennifer and Justin Schaewe dated. This was a terrible period for me, because I knew that this meant that Justin Schaewe could not love me. We were not fated to be together. It was also terrible\y awkward because Jennifer and I were in the same grade and had other classes together and we were friends, in that way that a popular girl is friends with the smart fat girl who is good at maintaining a conversation, and listens to you when you talk about your boyfriend whom she secretly loves, but you would have know idea that she loves him, because to you she is so clearly out of his league. Duh.
Just when I was getting over the fact that Justin Schaewe could never love me, his grandfather died and he was not at school for a week. He had to travel somewhere to go the funeral, which was very exotic, because we lived in a small country town and I had only flown in an airplane once. I know all of that because Ms. Cervantes told our whole class. I think there are laws against that now.
Jennifer and Justin broke up eventually, Spanish class ended and we all moved on with our lives. Since Justin was a year older than us he continued his education at Falcon High School. (I am also a proud alumni of Falcon Elementary School. I told you it was a small rural town). Later, I transitioned from Falcon High School to Sand Creek High School, the other, brand new, high school in our district. Most of the kids at that school were the city kids who were bussed out to Falcon High School, and had gone to Horizon Middle School, our rival. But there were a handful of the country kids like me, who opted to attend Sand Creek because of its promising future and because it was a school that didn’t allow students to hitch their horses to the front of the building while they were in class.
One of those was Justin Shaewe. Finally we had a special bond that was shared with only a handful of other students at Sand Creek: we were the country kids. By no means did this make us friends. He continued to be popular, and I continued to be smart and fat. He wore ski goggles on the side of his head, even in the warmest weather and I wore long-sleeved cardigans purchased from Goodwill. Our taste in fashion may have been different, but he and I shared the bond of having known each other through elementary and middle school, and when he nodded casually to me as we passed in the hallway I knew it was because he was remembering the time when I sat behind and to the left of him in Ms. Cervantes Spanish class, and not at all because his silly orange goggles were slipping down the side of his face.

2007-09-17T12:23:00.000-06:00

Bzz.

Bzzzz.

THWACK!

That's what I heard all day long yesterday. A gigantic fly - you know, the ones that are so big you think it's a bee - kept smacking itself into the window in front of the couch I was sitting on. All day. Here's how it would go: I could hear the fly buzzing casually around the room, then a pause and CHARGE!

BZZZZZZZ...... THWACK!

Sometimes, I swear as it bounced off the window, I could see it shakes it little head, furrow its brow in an attempt to figure out what it was doing wrong, and why it could not get outside. All day long, this happened.

A keen reader will note that from the above illustration, that I, in fact, sat on the couch all day. Aside from the ten or so steps it takes for me to get to the bathroom and a few petrifying trips into the Basement of Doom to do laundry, this would be an accurate summation of my day. Some may lambast me for my laziness when there are so many things on my to do list, but truly I think I needed a day to just sit and look out the window.

And I needed to sit and stew on God. Who and what he is to me right now, and who and what I am to him, and what precisely I'm supposed to do with and about the answers to both those questions. In my last couple of real quiet times, the ones when I actually think about what I'm reading and really genuinely pray, in those times, I'm actually starting to be honest with God again.

To be honest with the fact that I feel pretty shitty in my heart, but on the surface I've been acting like everything is hunky dory.

To be honest with the fact that the advice I give other women, is not working in my life ( Here's a great example: If a woman told me she was feeling bad about x, y or even z, I would tell her that feelings are not real, they are part of our flesh and to stake her flag in the truth God provides in his word.)

To be honest with the fact taht I tell my friends I trust God, that I tell God I trust God, but somewhere, deep down in there, I really don't.

To be honest with the fact that I believe God has hurt me and I don't know why he did. (Once again, if a woman came to me with this complaint, I would tell her that God allowed the hurt, but didn't do the hurting.)

To be honest with the fact that I know, or think I know, the "answers" to these sorts of questions, but that I'm not sure if I believe them.

To be hosent with the fact that I am scared of God - not that I fear him, but that I am scared of him - and that is why I have been quietly angry at him for the last year.

Slowly but surely in these last few real quiet times, I've come to understand that this is the place my heart is in. I've been pondering about the dreadful thing in my heart, what I should do about it. What I should do. I am a very foolish girl indeed. Today I realized that there is nothing I can do about it, clinging to all of this nastiness and keeping it trapped down in my heart, going through the motions of my faith, That's what I can do about it, and that's what I have been doing for the last year.
So I asked God for help. For the reals this time.
I told him all of this stuff and I asked him to take out of my heart the thing of which I cannot let loose. And I told him I was scared of him. Because I prayed a prayer not too unlike that one round about this time last year and he shattered me. I'm not to well convinced he's put me back together yet, and I think it's because I have been resisting him. This time though, I asked him, begged him in fact to be gentle with me.

I believe He will, because of this verse:

Psalm 119:41

May your unfalining love come to me O Lord, your salvation according to your promise.

God gave that to me in my quiet time, just after I prayed that he'd gently take apart my heart. And I believe him. I think that's why I'm so confused right now. I genuinely believe God (not just in him, but I believe him) and I genuinely doubt him as well. It's a strange strange place to be.

Midway through Day on the Couch '07 I wrote the words "I am the Lord's." on my hand, something I haven't done for a long, long time. Maybe because i haven't genuinely believed it in an equally long time. I just started to write the letters without even really thinking about it. As I looked at it through out the day, there were some moments I knew it to be true and some moments I felt ashamed to have such a bold statement on my flesh.

But I think it's the start, the beginning of the new place God is taking me, that I certainly have not been to before...

The Silverware Anniversay

2007-08-19T14:55:00.000-06:00

While packing my room getting ready to move for the umpteenth time my life, I came across some of my old journals. I flipped through them, one journal was from this time last year, one was from 2002 and one chronicled the beginning weeks of my new life in Salt Lake City. I found it appropriate to spend a little time this afternoon strolling down memory lane, since today is my five year anniversary of moving to Salt Lake City.

Looking over these journals, I was surprised by how much I have not changed. (Get ready, here comes a tangent ...) My handwriting has not though, which I find quite curious, I didn't think handwriting was actually supposed to change. And I don't mean it's gotten neater, or more like a grown-up's writing, I mean literally, the way in which I form letters has changed. Weird.

My prayers aren't all that different now from what they were five years ago, or three years ago, or even last year. I still spend a lot of time languishing over boys like a twelve year old girl. I'm still begging God to take over my whole entire heart. I'm still praying to be used effectively by him. And I'm still waiting.

I'm still waiting for a nice boy to come along and realize how bad ass I really am - in a Christian sort of way. (No one will ever be able to accuse me of having low self-esteem, that much is true.) I'm still waiting for God to take over my whole heart, because the further along this road I walk with him, the more I recognize the nastiness of my flesh. I'm still waiting to be used effectively by God, because there is so much work to be done.

Does that mean God hasn't answered any of these prayers? At first, after glancing over these journals, I thought maybe it did, but that's just my current dissatisfaction with life affecting my perception of the truth.

The boy thing? Well, that's sort of it's own punchline between me and God (and my closest friends) at this point in time. I can't guard my heart worth a damn, but I certainly can sit on my hands.

In regard to the last two issues, the ones that really are more important than whether or not I ever get married, I think it comes down to this: Yes, I am depressed. Yes, I am disappointed in my current state of affairs. Yes, I am disenchanted with God. All of that is true, and I don't think there is a single shred of harm in admitting it.

Because I have admitted it, and owned up my frustrations, I find myself in a bizarre place with God, somewhere our relationship has never gone before. Simultaneously, I feel that Jesus Christ is both my only hope for anything good to come out of my life and the only person in whom I can put all of my trust in as well as my greatest adversary. (I understand theologically that he is not, I'm just be honest right now.) The very fact that I can tell God that I'm frustrated with Him and what He is doing in my life, but continue to seek His face, continue to follow His word, and continue to desire him, well that has to count for something, right?

Right?

How Long?

2007-08-16T11:41:00.000-06:00

I know you are asking today, "How long will it take?" I come to say to you this afternoon however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth crushed to earth will rise again.
How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever.
How long? Not long, because you still reap what you sow.
How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
How long? Not long, because mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. He has loosed the fateful lightening of His terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpets that shall never call retreat. He is lifting up the hearts of men before His judgement seat. Oh, be swift, my soul to answer Him. Be jubilant, my feet. Our God is marching on.

-Martin Luther King, Jr speaking after a march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama

Crush of the Week

2007-08-15T18:56:00.000-06:00

The first real crush I can remember was on Luke Skywalker. No kidding. I'm more of a Han Solo girl these days, but I can recall the exact place I was seated in my parents living room (on top of the heating vent at my father's feet) the first time I thought "That boy is cute." I could have been no older than four sitting there watching Luke Skywalker crash his X-wing in the into the snow during the opening battle of "The Empire Strikes Back."

The crushes have never really stopped since then ...

I think of a crush as overwhelming feelings of adoration for a person, place or thing, whom for a brief period of time you wonder how on earth you ever lived and breathed without experiencing their presence, and in whom you develop a persistant desire to unfolded every aspect of their being. And then, you get over it.

With this definition in mind, I've had a lot of crushes over the years, and they don't always relate to people.

Here's a list of my current crushes:

Doug Fabrizio, host of Radio West on KUER. I have no idea what he looks like, nor do I enjoy his show all that much, but each morning when he chimes in during the local news report, I find his voice riveting.
Coretta Scott King, I'm just shy of finishing a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr and over and over again he explains that his wife and the support she gave him are what allowed him to be the man he was and lean the peaceful revolution that he did. I want to know more about her, and how to be a wife of a man like that.
Body for Life (I never said it had to be a human being). Um, I never really thought that I would publically admit that I enjoy excerise, but seriously, I've only been doing this program for a week and I can't get enough of it.
Hazelnut Gelato. Reason alone to go to Provo.

R&R

2007-08-02T19:44:00.000-06:00

There's a rainbow and a river outside my door, and the sky is the color I fancy it will be when Jesus comes back. The clouds cover the blue and are so dark they are nearly purple, the living breathing definition of grouchy. But there's light too, coming from somewhere that I can't see, and it's like it's trapped underneath those heavy heavy clouds an it just keeps bouncing and fracturing and shining.

Light never dies, it just goes somewhere else for the time being.

There's a rainbow and river outside my door, and I'm wondering why things are the way they are and why I always wonder why things are the way they are.

We just tried to send my roommates weinerdog down the raging gutter river like baby Moses, but she resisted and flipped us off. It's true, I saw it happen. Then we raced pine cones in the raging gutter river, while our elderly across the street neighbor scowled at us standing at his door in only his short shorts. I waved and he smiled. Sometimes old men aren't angry, their faces just make them look that way. Matt Miller won the pine cone race. Of course.

Mostly, when I think too much or try to withdraw the spiritual symbolism of of standing at my doorstep gazing at a rainbow and a raging river and I remember that God gave Noah a rainbow to show him that He would keep all of His promises after destroying the world, the best thing to do is go run around outside and yell.

Yelling always makes me feel better.

Back in the Saddle Again

2007-07-30T20:46:00.000-06:00

I've been a long time gone.

A long time since I wrote anything, let alone bothered to express my thoughts in some way that might make since to another person. Let's see what happens tonight.

I could go through the list of reasons why I haven't written all summer long, that I broke my right wrist and have hardly been able to journal in my moleskine, and if I can't write there, I can't write anywhere else, but that's not precisely true. It's accurate enough that I've been lacking inspiration, but not because nothing exciting has happened.

Lot's exciting things have taken place. Exciting, heart-wrenching, death-defying tales have filled my summer nights (not so much the summer days, still spending those trapped inside an office), but it seems that I still have nothing notable worth reporting.

Mostly, I've been distracted and distractable. I've been looking for any sort of excuse not to engage with my God in a real and meaningful way. If seasons have names, this has been the Summer of the White-Washed Tomb. I am the white-washed tomb, clean on the outside, but filthy on the inside.

I've spent my summer full of my own pride, of my own deceit, of my own ambition and my own ignorance. For most of these days in between then and now, I've been running away from the truth that I've known all along.

I still don't trust God.

I know he's in control. I know that his plan will prevail. I have entrusted my soul, and the remainder of my life into his hands, but I don't trust him. I can't figure out why. I know his character. I know all the Bible verses. I see the creation, I've heard his promises. Hell, I've taught his promises.

This place that I'm in, that I've been for so long but am just now willing to admit, reminds me of a Jeff Buckley lyric (as always, the only thing that I genuinely know how to relate my life to is music) "It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah."

Hallelujah means "praise you Lord." That much I know I will do. I will praise Jesus Christ as my Lord. I don't have any other option, for the rest of my life I will praise Him. I've come too far and seen too much to believe there is any other purpose to my life than to follow Him, and it's a bold statement, but there is nothing that will take me away from that. Nothing that will make me give up.

But I still don't trust him. Wierd, huh? Yeah. It doesn't really make sense to me either. There's something in there, deep deep in there, that I can't get out of my heart. And I don't know what it is.

Here's the thing: I did trust God once. (Or did I? When I think back to that time, I often second guess myself). In that time when I trusted him, he betrayed me. But see, that's not even true. God can't lie. He's can't decieve. He can't betray. He can forsake, but he has not forsaken me.

I'm thinking in circles again, my favorite thing to do. I think it's time for me to read what I've written thus far, maybe figure out what the hell is going on with the words that come pouring out my fingertips. Whelp, this all makes alot of sense to me. Probably not to you. My apologies. You can stop reading now if you'd like (Sierra, I know you're the only one who reads this ... ).

Okay. I think I have a thought that might explain where all of this insanity came from.

LOVE KEEPS NO RECORD OF WRONGS

All I've been doing lately is keeping a record of wrongs. A lot of the things I've been keeping record of aren't even wrongs, mostly they are annoyances and inconviences, and affronts to my own supposed wisdom. And this long long list I've been keeping in my mind has been puffing and puffing me up with my own self-righteousness, my own vanity, and my own -----

And it's true what my best friend said from across the kitchen table, that the weight of this realization is crushing, that I am completely and totally insuffiecient in the way that I love. My love is not unconditional. (Funny that not many days before I shouted to this same friend over the phone that I of all people knew how to love unconditionally. I'm so full of shit.)

I know I'm supposed to end this with some sort of moral. Some sort of analogy about how God always wins, and even the worst kinds of pain are bearable because someday, I'll get to heaven and all this will be over. That's true. But don't have it in me to try to package all this up in a lovely little metaphor about life or trees or dreams or anything like that.

Maybe it's not that I don't trust God right now. (But secretly, deep down I think that might be it, and it scares me that I don't know how to fix it.) Maybe it's the fact that I don't have any hope right now. Maybe it's that I don't have hope that God will come through on his promises for ME, that one day I will stop treading water and be able to rest. Because that's all I really want. Is just a little rest.

It seems that's not what God wants for me though.

I am a spoiled selfish child. I always have been. I pray to God that I won't always will be.

Sorry for the ramble. My sincere apologies to to whoever made it this far (Sierra ... ).

So It Goes.

2007-04-12T09:10:00.000-06:00

My favorite author, Kurt Vonnegut, died.

He did not go to heaven.

In alot of ways I do not understand the finality of death. No one close to me has ever died. Both of my grandfathers passed away when I was a young child, I did not know them well, but I recognize the the impact those men had on my family and therefore me. My grandmother died a couple years ago. But the ultimate cause of her death, a major stroke, occurred when I was in high school. It was at that time I mourned the loss of my grandma, after the stroke she was not the women who had shaped so much of my personality as it exists now.

But the true shock of death has never struck my life.
==========================================
A list. Chronologically, documenting the last thirty days:

My co-worker's nephew died of a horrible, unknown immune disorder

A man in my church died of liver failure after battling the dehabiliating disease for nearly two years.

Another co-worker's oldest friend died a brutal, but accidental death as a result of years of alcoholism.

Our office mailman died of a heart attack, he was found in his truck in parking lot in our neighborhood.

The grandfather of my best friend at home died after a sudden stroke.

===========================================

And then came Kurt Vonnegut. You would think some of those other events would have impacted me more, but I am a selfish, selfish girl.

A lot of people might not mourn the loss of a favorite author, but it's a big deal to me. Increasingly, I'm surprised by my own emotions or sometimes my lack of emotions. I felt very little in all of those other death related circumstance. I felt sorrow for my friends, the ones who were still living, and I wanted to share the gospel with them, to give them hope, but everytime I opened my mouth, only air came out. I am ashamed that I cannot give to these people the truth that I believe so thoroughly. If I can't share it with them in a time such as this, what good am I?

It seems in a lot of ways that immediately following the death of someone would be a great opportunity to talk about eternal life, but if I put myself in the shoes of the one who has just been eternally separated from a dear friend or family member, my only response would be "How unfair. I can go to heaven, but my friend can't."

In my mind, I can respond to this thought, I can analyze the truth I know and the character of God and come to a solution: God does not owe us salvation. He gives it freely, but He is not required to save us. Even just writing those words give me peace. My God is truly in control of all things, he desires all to be saved, but he knows that some will perish. This thought does not impact my belief in God, but I'm terrified that it will impact someone else.

I love the gospel, I love sharing the gospel, I love hearing the gospel, I love praying with people in that moment when they accept Christ into there lives. There is no greater calling or purpose in life than to rescue those who are staggering towards death, to hold back those who are being led towards slaughter.

Then, why, now, when it seems there is no better chance to give hope to the hope to the hopeless are the words trapped in my throat?

I keep thinking of this verse:

Romans 1:16 "I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for the salvation for everyone who believes first for the Jew, the for the Gentile."

Two things: In that statement alone, it's clear that God extends the offer of salvation, and it's up to us to take it. God does not send anyone to hell. And, the gospel is the power of God. The power of God. The power of God. The power of God.

Kurt Vonnegut went to hell because he did not believe in the power of God. He did not even believe in God.

My friend Micah, who died of liver failure, went to heaven because he did believe in the power of God.

I'm sure Kurt Vonnegut heard the gospel in his life, and I'm sure because of the sort of man he was and because of the sort of mind he possessed he thought about it. And he chose not to believe it. God did not send Kurt Vonnegut to hell. He chose it.

Everytime I consider sharing the gospel, I am afraid that I will say or do something that will be the reason some one chooses not to go to heaven. Everytime. This thought terrifies me, it makes me feel that I will some how be responsible for this person's death. I know the truth is that what I say or do, if done in a loving and kind way cannot overshadow the truth of the gospel. Even if I make a terrible blunder or that person is offended by my statements, they still make the choice.

That doesn't make me feel any better.

I'm still scared.

Father, please give me words.

2007-04-10T12:16:00.000-06:00

Now that I'm in my mid-twenties, I find that holidays are a little awkward.

If you get down to it, most holidays center around children. At Christmas the kids dreams of sugar plums, at Halloween they get all dressed up to go trick-or-treating and at Easter they put on their frilliest outfit and go look for hidden eggs. The adults ohh and ahh at all the silly, precocious things their little tykes do, and then everyone eats a whole lot of food.

But as a single twenty-something, who lives far away from her family, my holidays look a little different. Sometimes holidays can be lonely, but often I get the opportunity to choose the family that I spend it with. Like alot of twenty-somethings, I don't have a family that looks anything like the traditional nuclear family. My family, those who I love and long for, are my friends, the amazing people that God has blessed me with and in His divine providence allowed my to walk the straight and narrow beside them.

So I get to do alot of fun, crazy things on holidays, like climb (and by climb I mean ride a tram) to the top of a mountain in the pre-dawn hours to gather and watch the sunrise on Easter morning ...

Shannon the Instigator ... this hair-brained idea was her master plan.

Oh, the enthusiasm that 5 a.m. brings!

Shoved in the tram like cattle ... Even though it was cold and dark and I couldn't see out the window, and we were hanging from a simple pulley system, I didn't get scared, really, not even a little bit, really.

Who goes to the top of a mountain at night in a snow storm?

We do!

The opposite of dusk ...

The sun came up, but we couldn't find it ...

But we did find snow, just what we were hopingfor ...

Penguin Huddle!

Ben the Canadian seeks wisdom and guidance from an Eskimo, sort of ...

All in all sunrise service was amazing, even if the sun did not grace us with its presence. After, we went down to the valley where the sun was shining and it was clear that springtime was on it's way. I won't make the super cheesy Hallmark analogy that life without Jesus is like wintertime, and life with Jesus is like springtime, full of possibilities. Wait, did I just make that analogy? I did, didn't I? Oh well, I stand by it.

Some Pretty Remarkable Statistics

2007-03-27T12:19:00.000-06:00

These are from an article on Burnside Writers Collective, which has recently been rocking my world. The four of you who read this, should go read that. Particularly you.

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Pretty Remarkable Statistic #1: 1.1 billion people are without safe drinking water, while Americans consume 26 billion liters of BOTTLED water annually.

Pretty Remarkable Statistic #2: Every 16 seconds somewhere in the world someone dies of hunger, while 2 out of 3 Americans are considered overweight.

Pretty Remarkable Statistic #3: Americans spend more annually on trash bags than nearly half the world does on ALL goods.

Pretty Remarkable Statistic #4: An estimated 22 million people died from preventable disease in 2001; 10 million were children.

Pretty Remarkable Statistic #5: 1 in 16 women in sub-Saharan African dies in childbirth.

Pretty Remarkable Statistic #6: 40% of the world lacks basic sanitation facilities.

Consider the costs of eradicating some of these needs:

The cost of basic education for all: $6 billion.

The cost of water and sanitation for all: $10 billion.

The cost of reproductive health for all women: $12 billion.

Basic health and nutrition for all: $13 billion.

To put this in perspective, consider that Americans spent just over $18 billion on consumer products (largely for Christmas gifts) during the weekend of November 24-26, 2006, which is the largest shopping weekend of the year.

**********************************************************

Sometimes numbers and statistics screw with my head, and quite honestly they can be manipulated. I think these are from a pretty legitimate source. But like my pastor says, numbers equal lives.

I believe that these numbers reflect the most crucial issue of our time. Bigger than the war in Iraq, bigger than global warming, bigger than what Paris Hilton did last night, or when the next Pirates of the Caribbean flick comes to a theater near you. These numbers, aside from the gospel, are the most important information you will see today, or tomorrow or the day after that, because the numbers reflect the status in which our world exists.

Yes, they maybe disheartening, and even heartbreaking, when I actually choose to think about what these numbers mean (millions of people dying without knowing the love of the God who created them) I am nearly paralyzed with sorrow. It seems like too big of a problem to even try.

But more than that, these numbers reflect an opportunity. An opportunity to be used as an instrument of God's grace to extend healing, justice and mercy to those widows and orphans who are the very closest to the heart of God. An opportunity to let your (my) mind and your (my) heart be transformed by the Holy Spirit, because it is only when God renews us from within that any of our outward actions will matter at all. This is not about me making myself feel good because I gave some money to the poor and needy. This is about coming into a deeper understanding of who my God is and what is of value to him.

James 1:27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Proverbs 24:11-12
Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, "But we knew nothing about this," does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?

I'm not saying that we all have to quit our jobs at this very moment to go to Africa or India or China, but thanks be to God that we have jobs! And jobs equal paychecks. Paychecks equal dollar bills and no matter the ethics of it, dollar bills equal the beginning of the end of this problem. I do believe that no matter how much money the United States and Europe throws at Africa that the problem will not be completely solved.

All of these crisises are more than just a lack of money or infrastructure or education. These problems are all indicative of the most basic problem that any human being has: SIN. Our world is devastated because of sin and the consequences our own flesh has ravished upon us for generations. Because we at our core are the problem, there is nothing we can do with our own hands that will solve it.

The solution can only come from outside of ourselves. The only solution is the love and grace the Jesus Christ offers us. The only solution is a relationship with the One who made us, and who rescues us from of all these problems that we have gotten ourselves into.

2007-03-22T09:49:00.000-06:00

I spilled coffee on my bible this morning, and nearly swore, but didn't because I really wasn't aware enough to forms words. It made me feel like the cards were stacked against me and that surely Thursday would turn out bad. Then as I was wiping away the warm liquid that should have been in my body instead of on the kitchen table, I scolded myself for having such negative thoughts. Why on earth would a clutzy maneuver like spilling my coffee indicate the outcome of my day? It doesn't.

I'm restless in my skin.

I'm tired of feeling the same thing over and over and over. I'm tired of anticipation, but I don't think I'm ready for whatever it is I am anticipating.

I want the world to change.
I want to change the world.

I want to go, but it's not time for me to leave.

pray.
wait.
pray.
wait.
wait.
wait.
pray.

City Notebooks

2007-03-21T10:35:00.000-06:00

O sweet Moleskine notebook of my heart, you have gone and done it again ...

How Moleskine did you know that the only thing that I love more than your well-bound pages and smooth leather cover is maps?

My hearts twitters.

I Agree

2007-03-19T14:38:00.000-06:00

This is a story from the Burnside Writers Collective. I've been a thrift guru for alot of year now, but never really thought about it in this way.

http://www.burnsidewriterscollective.com/social/2007/03/a_goodwill_emissary.php

I just want the world to change. I want to use every resource available to me to have a hand in that change.

Neva Knows the Score, part 2

2007-03-16T12:34:00.001-06:00

3. A Revolutionary Christian Woman is able to GIVE HER HEART AWAY TO OTHERS and then, someday, BLESS AND RELEASE those very same people that she has invested so much into.

This is how we accomplish the great commission.

“Partir c’est de mourir un peu.”
To part is to die a little.

Isaiah 49: 15, 16
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are ever before me.

This point was especially poignant, as I am still trying to process how to engage and interact with my former roommates.

I love those women more than I love life. I would give anything they ever asked of me. Except that I haven’t been giving them very much of my time, and they haven’t been asking for much of it either.

I will admit that I felt a level of bitterness, and at times still do, as they moved into new homes of their chocie -- without me. But then, I started to notice that their lives weren’t precisely what I wanted. I doubt any of them missed a beat in their relationships with God, but in some ways they seemed to disconnect from the church, while my life was being consumed more and more by new activities and new people with whom to connect. I didn’t know how to balance the two, and I chose nearly full involvement with a new group of people, establishing a new group of core friends.

My old roommates hold a place in my heart that can never be filled by another set of people; they in fact are my very heart. By a "core group of friends," I mean people with whom I spend the majority of my time. I felt that God was leading me to be more involved in the campus ministry of our church, a group of people my old roommates have nothing in common with and would therefore never choose thehang out with them.

So in the new year, I fond myself in a new household with four women, all but one of whom I’d known less than a year. I knew that this situation would require a lot of trust in God on my part, because in a lot of ways I felt very exposed to the world. As soon as I moved in with these women, they would see me for who I really am, and I was sure they wouldn’t like me very much. My other fear – one even more selfish – is that I wouldn’t like them very much. Then, I thought, I would really be alone.

But God surprised me. I love my new roommates, and they love me. Yes, my life is drastically different now than it was six months ago, but if my life had remained the same, I would not have grown in the ways I have. I miss my old roommates, a lot, but I definitely see how God was working to make me more like Him. It’s one hard thing to live in a house with five other women. It’s another hard thing to be a leader of a house of five other women.

A side note: This time last year, although I knew I was no where near being ready to marry, I wanted so very much to be married. Now, even after three short months of “leading a household” I understand a lot more a (or at least I think I do) about what being a wife might entail, which is mostly always putting others before yourself (just like Neva says, she really does know the score), but God has completely removed my desire to be married -- anytime soon.

I really want to keep living this life that God has laid out for me. This life of partnering with my roommates to rescue those women who are staggering towards death. Something that I wouldn’t have event the faintest idea of how to do with out the years that my previous roommates built into my life.

I like that little French saying, that to part is to die a little. The day we moved out of our old house, a part of each of our hearts died a little, but the day I moved into my new house, I felt like a new part of my heart came alive.

If there is one lesson I continue to learn about the Christian life, it’s the act of dying to oneself. Christ died so the others may live, the ultimate mark that He is the one who is revolutionizing my life are the parts of that I let die so that he can give me new life. Usually I think of those as very personal private areas, but I think this time around he did it in a much more public way, so that he could receive the glory.

Neva Knows the Score, part 1

2007-03-16T12:33:00.000-06:00

Marks of a Revolutionary Christian Woman
By Neva Whitney

First and Foremost
Am I a woman of the Word?
Am I a woman of prayer?
Am I a woman of fellowship?

1. A Revolutionary Christian Woman experiences JOY and PEACE, even in the most challenging daily trials.

It is not if we have problems, it is when ...

How will you respond?
Rebel?
Faint?
Complain?
Self – Indulge?

Or will you recognize that God has brought the trial for a purpose.

When faced with trials:
Pray. Ask God for endurance.
Don’t blame God, some trials are self-inflicted.
Don’t assume that just because I am a Christian, that all good things must come my way.
Remember, God is good and he cares.

James 1:2-4
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

1Peter 5:6-7
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

2 Corinthians 9:8
And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

I am most impacted by the point of daily trials. I’ve seen my fair share of trials (pride!) so when women speak on this subject I often tune them out, because I figure I’ve already learned the key to perseverance through trials … keep your eyes on Christ, and keep on keepin’ on. (Pride! I have all the answers!)

But often times I view trials as an event. Some sort of major life change or something or other that somehow operates outside of the details of my daily life. Often, those details are what force me to persevere. In spite of scenario x I will get up and go to work, I will smile at my patients although they have no idea the thoughts in my head, I will arrive at church early and leave late, I will read my Bible, I will pray, I will praise God. Trials usually come in situations that are out of my control, so those little daily things are what I use to maintain control.
But right now, I’m definitely dealing with a daily trial. At this juncture in time, I hate my job and I feel like I’m wasting my time. Because I feel this way about my work, my job performance is starting to suffer. My boss has become aware of my apathy and there are consequences. Because of these consequences, I hate my job more, feel more like I am wasting my time, and care less about my work.

I think you can see where this is going.

I have no JOY at work, which is evident in my interactions with my co-workers which are remarkably different than my interactions with my friends. I do not daily have joy and peace. I daily have sorrow and anxiety and it’s affecting my life. I suppose I haven’t, until this time, seen the specifically as a trial. I’ve just seen it as crappiness.

My job provides me with excellent benefits, including reduced tuition at the University of Utah, so somehow in my mind, I see the lameness of my job as a trade off for the perks. It's a necessary evil I must endure in order to reap the benefits. But I’m not enduring it very well. I haven’t seen it as a way which God is trying to change me and refine me.

To me the process of refinement usually entails a choice. Will I choose my flesh? It’s an easier choice, to whine and complain to my friend, to get annoyed with my co-workers, to live in daydreams rather than reality, but the consequences are bad. I’m rebuked by my boss and my inclination toward anxiety and depression increases. This means that I must choose God. But since this is a trial that exists with I the very details of my life, one of the things that I use to get my through trials, I’m not sure how to do that.

2. A Revolutionary Christian Woman knows there is only one person she should FEAR and one person she should TRUST IN.

Psalm 25:12-15
Who, then, is the man that fears the LORD ?
He will instruct him in the way chosen for him.
He will spend his days in prosperity,
and his descendants will inherit the land.
The LORD confides in those who fear him;
he makes his covenant known to them.
My eyes are ever on the LORD,
for only he will release my feet from the snare.

3. A Revolutionary Christian Woman is HARDWORKING EVERYDAY and as much as possible is FAITHFUL IN ALL THINGS.

2 Corinthians 12:15
So I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well. If I love you more, will you love me less?

Sometimes it’s easier to give to those who love you and whom you love, BUT a woman who claims to fear God are ALWAYS servants to EVERYONE. And we serve our family and people not knowing how it will turn out.

Women who claim to fear God, CANNOT and WILL NOT be inconvenienced.

Whelp, this is pretty much my answer. Thanks God for nailing this one on the head.

Another result of my apathy at work is blatant laziness. If I believe what I do is not important, why should I bother doing it? That is the core of my issue at work right now. I don’t think my job is important (Pride! Whoever said I needed to have an important job?) , and I am too good to do it (pride!). But this is not what I’m called to.

Will all my heart I want to be a revolutionary Christian woman, so I must apply this principle, not waiting until a time when I have a job important enough to work hard at, but to work hard now to prepare me quite honestly for the handwork that I know is ahead of me (marriage, motherhood, CEO of a non-prof).

It’s true, it’s really easy for me to work hard to serve my roommates, to serve the boys in my small group, to prepare for various outreach events, because I will be edified by those whom I love. I guess the answer, or at least what God is revealing to me is to BUCKLE DOWN.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

2007-03-16T12:32:00.001-06:00

As usual, I walked into the women’s retreat with a bad attitude.
I don’t know what it is, but I hate women’s activities. I think they are mostly dumb and unfulfilling. I would rather have my mind challenged through a stern teaching, than be coddled by special “women’s topics” about feelings and stuff.
First, let me clarify. My angst towards the world of women’s ministry has nothing to do with the biblical role of women and other controversial teachings that deal with the genders. I get it. I, like any other thinking woman have wrestled with these topics, what they mean for my life, and I have come to terms with the way the concepts of submission and obedience. But this is not a time for a treatise on gender roles in the church. Let’s such say, if the Bible says to do it, you’d better believe I will.
Back to my grumbling heart …
My pastor has this saying, “Where the feet go, the heart will follow.” So because I greatly dislike women’s activities, for the last few years, I’ve increased my involvement in service at women’s events in my church. This year, I managed in the fall to think it was a good idea to be on the planning committee for the spring women’s retreat.
And it wasn’t that bad.
I enjoyed the women I worked with and fully support the theme for the retreat, “The Marks of a Revolutionary Woman.” In the week prior to the retreat, my excitement for the teachings was really surprising me, I was actually looking forward to the women’s retreat. What sort of pansy had I become?
Until the morning of the retreat. I intentionally arrived late in order to avoid the scheduled morning fellowship time, but I knew I dare not miss the worship because my roommate’s band was playing. Still, when I walked into the church, I felt something seize my heart. It was pride.
Pride, I’m coming to understand is one of my greatest struggles, and the areas of my life that it wraps it’s tentacles around fascinate me.
A couple of nights earlier, I had a conversation with a friend about my opinion on women’s activities and why I hate them so much.
I laid out my reasons for my friend:
1)I don’t need women’s activities (pride!) because I have plenty of women in my life on a daily basis. I live with five of them. There is so much estrogen in my house that I love it when boys come over just so that we will stop sitting around talking about our feelings.
This one’s a little worse:

2) I look at the older women in my church and don’t want their lives (pride!). I have a plan for my life that’s better, you see. When I’m their age my community will not consist only of my husband and children. I will still be involved in other, “important” things (pride!).
God is certainly changing my heart in this area. The key note speaker we invited to the retreat is a woman named Neva Whitney. She is the wife of one of the most influential pastors in the Great Commission Movement of Churches, and is the mother of seven adult children, all of whom live their lives committed to spreading the gospel. I look at her family and know that is I want. I want a husband who will lead our family and follow Christ with fervent passion. I want children (maybe not seven of them) who will live their lives for the purpose of the gospel and change the world around them. It is not inaccurate to say that Neva Whitney has influenced a generation of young adults by being a godly wife and mother. That’s important. Yep, it sure is.

But still, my heart was bitter that morning, looking around the room and seeing mostly married women. As my roommate led us in worship, my heart began to soften. Not by much, but just enough to recognize that I needed God if I was going to learn anything at all the day. So I scrawled this prayer in my journal:

Father, change me on this day. God take the crappy attitude I have about women’s stuff and let me learn. Father, steal my heart away today, because I’m all yours.

I can’t say that God answered that prayer in any sort of miraculous way, but I think He did take some of my pride away to enable me to learn.

Following are the actual teachings, along with some of the lessons I took home that weekend. Despite my pride, God is good to me.

Fan Numero Uno

2007-03-14T16:36:00.000-06:00

Last night Sierra and I met Lovedrug!!

Well, really we met Michael Shepard and the other guitar player, but Michael is prett much Lovedrug, so you know, we met Lovedrug!

Let me explain: Lovedrug is my favorite band. In the universe. They are so good that I can already rule out any future Martian or Venetian music with out even giving it a chance.

So, my favorite band in the universe came to town, and I was there in the front row. Somehow during the course of the night I reverted back into adolescence, if you watched my actions alone, without looking at the stage, you might have thought I was actually watching my long beloved New Kids on the Block. Okay, I wasn't that bad, I didn't cry or anything. But ...

When Lovedrug was on stage doing sound check Michael was setting up his piano right in front of us, Sierra and I giggled together at his presence when she said, "Say something to him." We bickered a moment over what to say, and who should say it, when finally holding her hand, I counted "1, 2, 3 ... Hi Michael!" Yep.

At the sound of his name, Michael looked into the crowd, slightly confused, or mayhaps irritated. Hard to say. To catch his eye, I waved fervently. I might have jumped up and down too, I'm not quite sure. He say me, smiled awkwardly and waved back. For lack of anything else to say, I shouted "We love you guys!" Yep. I turned fourteen just then. Fourteen year olds aren't really known for their social tact.

I didnt' have the time to explain to him that my love of his band has nothing to do with him personally, I'm sure he's great and all, or maybe he's a jerk. It doesn't really matter to me either way. The music he makes has changed my life (dramatic, I know) and is nearly as important to me as Jesus. I'm sure my stalker-like shout from the crowd explain that clearly.

I can't really go into detail about the show. I don't have words to explain it. They are amazing musicians, and actually sound better live than the do recorded. And they are passionate when they perform. Michael in particular doesn't even open his eyes during a song to see the crowd because he so thoroughly absorbed in song. It was tremendous.

As they left the stage, I turned to Sierra and expressed my wishes that they would be at their merch booth. Then I squeezed my eyes shut and aloud said, "Dear Jesus, please let them be at their merch booth. Please." I meant it too.

Sierra and I parted ways to go check on various friends. Chatting with a few people about the overall awesomeness of Lovedrug, my pocket vibrated. It was a text from Sierra, "Talking to Michael. Get to the booth." I ran. I've always had a theory about that venue in paticular, there is only one exit, and while barrelling through a crowd after a show, I've often had the thought that if there were ever a fire there, everyone would die. Turns out, when there is something important at hand, one can make pretty good time through that venue.

I pushed my way through the small crowd behind Sierra at the table exclaiming, "It's okay. I'm her friend." Because that clearly gave me authority to cut in line. Then there he was. I caught my breath for a second because I couldn't believe it. Jesus had answered my prayer. Then I blurted out. "We're going to see you in New York!" Michael smiled and said, "Yeah, that's what she said." We both looked awkwardly at each other. Then I became fourteen again, although I tried really hard to hide it this time.
"I know this is cliche, but I just want you to know that you are genuinely my favorite band in the entire world, and I genuinely love your music with all that is within me." Yep. I said all that is within me. Pretty smooth, eh?
We chatted for a few mintues, the guitarist was much more talkative, and they both signed our tickets stubs. It was strange, because he fully didn't know how to have a conversation with his fans. He seemed uncomfortable. But he did like my David Bowie t-shirt.
We said good-bye, and that we'd see them in New York, and walked away from the table. Sure, I wasn't best friends with them leaving that night, and maybe they won't remember us in New York. But I met someone who has impacted my life, and I was able to express that to him. And Jesus answered my prayer. That's a thought I could write pages about, the simple rewards and blessings that God gives us, that God gives me, simply because he loves me. There is no doubt in my mind that last night was one of them.

XN - (D)

2007-02-27T20:33:00.001-07:00

Age 6:

I sat with my father on the floor of our green carpeted living room. He sat facing our small television, his back up against our slouching, beige and brown striped couch, relaxing drinking a bottle of beer. I sat crossed-legged, facing my dad, looking intently at the Scrabble board, the only board game my dad enjoyed playing. From the static-stained television set news coverage of the 1988 presidential race gurgled into our living room. Although I don’t recall clearly, I think that we were watching one of the party conventions. The men on tv were talking about a lot of topics which my six year old mind could not grasp, but I deciphered two keys words they kept using again and again: Republican and Democrat. From the inflections in their voices, it seemed to me that the Republicans and Democrats did not get along.
After I played my word, I asked my dad, a bricklayer who spent his days laboring in the cold winds of Colorado’s Front Range, “What’s the difference between Democrats and Republicans?”
My father set his beer down, brushed his thick calloused hand through his thinning hair and pushed a sigh out from bearded lips.
“Well,” he said calmly, “Republicans have money and Democrats don’t.”
Again, I looked at the men on our small tv, propped on a makeshift entertainment center. I looked past my father’s large frame at my mother ironing in our kitchen. We had a washing machine, but no dryer, so we would hang our clothes out on the line in the backyard. Those same winds in which my father spent his days mixing concrete and building houses dried our clothes. We lived on five acres of prairie land in a yellow single-wide trailer my parents moved into shortly before I was born. The trailer had just enough room for the three of us, and by just enough, I mean barely any room at all. The kitchen, dining and living rooms, were essentially all one area, the kitchen and living room separated by a small peninsula of counter top next to the front door. My parents installed a wood-burning stove and my father built a hearth with bricks he retrieved from various job sites. Down the hall from where my mother was ironing was my bedroom, which was barely large enough to hold my bed. Past that was the bathroom, where our washing machine was and a space heater ran through the night. The master bedroom, which took up the last section of the trailer, was small enough that an eight foot by ten foot Navajo rug covered most of the wall behind my parents’ bed.
I looked back at my father, absorbing the definition he had just provided, describing the two great political parties of the United States of America.
“So, then, we’re Democrats, right?”

2007-02-27T19:32:00.000-07:00

I hate snow. I really truly with all that is within me, hate snow. It's wet and cold and really mucks everything up, particulary an early morning drive.
When I left my house this morning, it was just starting to snow, when I got to the freeway it was snowing harder and by the time I got near my office I and my other commuters were surviving amisdt white out conditions (by the way have you ever noticed on the news that they always say near white out conditions, but not white out conditions. These were white out conditions.)
Also, the tires on my car are bald like an eagle. And my car is very low on oil, it makes this beeping sound like a bomb about to explode everytime I turn a corner. And my windshield is cracked. My car is a death trap. I in fact defy death at every turn.
About half a mile away from my office, things started getting pretty hetic. I was fishtailling back and forth in my lane, putting all of concentration into predicting the next angle my car would turn at so that I could react appropriately with the steering wheel. During this time, I learned two things. 1. It really does make sense to turn the steering wheel into the direction that your car is swerving and 2. Jesus listens to me when I really desperately cry out for help. Never in my life have the words, "Jesus help me please. Please Jesus I need you." slipped past my lips so many times. My heart was genuine too, I really needed his help.
My office is on top of a hill, and as I turned around the bend, reminding myself to ignore that bomb-like beeping my dashboard emitted, my car stopped moving forward. My tires were still turning, but I most certainly was not going anywhere. I front of me there was a large city bus and a couple cars stuck behind it. To my right, several cars were already stuck curbside. I weighed my options, pushed forward a handful more feet and tried to pull my car over to the side of the road. I can admit defeat. Sometimes.
I called my boss to explain my situation, I was halfheartedly hoping that he would excuse me from work and my roommate who has a truck would come pick me up, no such luck. Dean, my boss, is an interesting fellow. He's British and Mormon and well-educated. He's always worked in the world of florescent lights and cubicles, but he's sort of a man's man as well. Most days around the office he finishes his desk work and finds some sort of project involving a hammer and nails with which to end the day.
So I waited in my car, listening to NPR, and wondered if Dean and another one of my co-workers Mark would actually be able to get my car unstuck. While I was waiting, at least a half a dozen other cars got stuck on the hill where I was, and there was still the bus to contend with.
Dean and Mark came around the corner, carrying a blue snow shovel, covered in snow. In the time that my car sat there, an inch of wet, heavy, hate-worthy snow had accumulated on my windshield. For some reason was really proud of Dean and Mark when they cam around that corner, I knew they were on their way to rescue me, and that eventually, the situatuion would be resolved.
In order to get my car out, they need to move the cars in front of me, so they starting at the top of the hill, pushing and shoving cars in the slush and muck. Once they got to work an interesting thing happened, all the other men in their cars that we're stuck in the snow, or just waiting in traffic, got out of their cars and began a community effort to serve their neighbors, and get us either back on the road or at least to a safe place.
These men had the inititive to lead, because they had a vested interest in the circumstance: me. On both a personal and professional level, they were concerned about my well-being, so the stepped to the plate. The other men perhaps didn't have a vested situation in the circumstance, but they did have an example to follow, showing them was they needed to do.
How often does that happen in the church? Everyone sits in their cars, in their individual lives, minding their own business. We might see what's going on with the people around us, but don't have the drive to really get involved in their lives. It takes a leader to get us up and moving.
Leader is sort of an aggrandized term in both the professional and religious worlds, but it's really just an example, some one to follow. Like Paul said, "Follow me, as I follow Christ." A leader doesn't have to do anything but me one step ahead of the of those who are following.

Via E-mail

2007-02-26T16:49:00.000-07:00

Ten:

Talk me out of buying a digital camera. Suddenly, in the last ten days, it seems to me that I am living a reduced quality of life because I don't have a digital camara. I rel real Really want one, all the sudden. Like I can't go on with out it, and am will to make a huge financial blunder in order to obtain one. I don't know why, it's so ut of character, normally I don't care about stuff.

Sierra:

Do you think Paul sold ALL his worldly belongings in order to buy a digital camera?

Ten:

Damn ... you're good.

Really.

Sierra:

I know how to get to ya.

Proximity

2007-02-16T14:22:00.001-07:00

I drive the same road to work every morning. I’m well convinced that I could do it in my sleep, because most mornings I’m no where near awake.
I am employed by the University of Utah, there’s a hospital on campus, so with the school and medical facilities combined, the U as it’s affectionately known, is the state’s largest employer. Some 30,000 people commute to the U every morning. It’s a city of its own accord, like NORAD or the Vatican. There is only one way by which one can enter this city. When 30,000 people all need to be at work at eight a.m. and there is only one way to get to that work, some of us are going to be late, because traffic stops.
I’ve noticed something in those gridlocked moments. I’m not commuting alone. Obviously there are hundreds of other people on the road every morning with me. But recently I’ve realized that I actually see the same cars everyday.
There's the metallic blue Audi with the personalized license plate driven by Dr. Aaah. I don't get it.
There’s the green Subaru Outback with the KRCL and Sierra Club stickers on the back.
An interruption: My friend Megan has this joke about all the Subaru Outback's in the Salt Lake Valley. It 's a practical car for this part of the world, so there's quite a few of them out on our roads. My friend Megan jokes about how all the Outback's are driven by middle class former hippies, rear windows emblazoned with of bumper stickers of a couple classic rock bands or some anti George Bush rhetoric and there is almost always a golden retriever hanging out in the back of the wagon. I always laugh at this joke, and then I laugh a lot harder when I remember that my parents are middle class hippies who recently bought a used Subaru Outback. They left the previous owner’s Grateful Dead sticker on the hatchback because well, they love the dead. And my parents have two golden retrievers. Their names are Dagwood and Camilla, if you’re interested.
Back to the gridlock.
There’s the grey Pontiac Sunbird, which is probably the only care I see on a regular basis which is more beat up than mine, the grey paint is deteriorating to show some canary yellow and maroon undertones. I’d like to perform an archaeological expedition on this car to determine where its roots really are.
I see these cars everyday. Therefore I see their drivers everyday, I don’t know them, and they don’t know me. Sometimes I wonder what’s going on in their car, what radio station they are listening to, and how they might be counting the minutes on their dashboard clock before they have to rush into their office intentionally grumbling about how terrible the traffic is on Foothill so their boss thinks that it is the reason they are late and that their tardiness has nothing to do with the Starbucks cup in their hand.

What?

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

I’m what I would I consider myself to be a regular at the Starbucks near my office. Or maybe I’m a semi-regular; I don’t know what the perimeters really are. I see the same baristas when I go into Starbucks, but they never seem to remember that I’m the venti vanilla Americano. I’m self-important, I know. I write a blog.
Some mornings I see this kid who is usually wearing an UnderOath t-shirt. He does not wear a coat. He sits outside smoking cigarettes, listening to his iPod and sipping on an iced coffee treat. Most mornings when I walk past him, I take a deep breath of second hand smoke and smirk. He probably wonders what the deal is with this girl who has a breathing problem and a twisted mouth. He probably feels sorry for me. I would.
I smirk because of his t-shirt. Underoath is a Christian hardcore band that is apparently a big deal. I wouldn’t know. What I do know is that by God’s grace and ordinance, once upon a time my friend Jaymi met the drummer of Underoath. Once upon a time, Jaymi fell in love with the drummer of Underoath and to my surprise, the drummer of Underoath fell in love back. (Let me make this abundantly clear. The surprise has nothing to do with Jaymi, she’s rad, in fact I would be more surprised he had not fallen in love with her. The surprise part stems from the fulfillment of the teenage fantasy of the cutest guy in your favorite band actually liking you back. )
So, Jaymi loves Aaron. Aaron loves Jaymi. Jaymi moves to Florida to be with Aaron, and her church family and friends think they will never see her again.
Until this summer. Aaron proposed to Jaymi. After spending some time with Jaymi’s friends and family in Salt Lake City throughout their courtship, Aaron decides to move he and Jaymi permanently to SLC because Aaron knows it’s the best atmosphere for Jaymi to be in while he’s out on tour. Aaron loves Jaymi.

Their house in Salt Lake is about four blocks away from my office. The Starbucks I frequent is about five blocks away from my office.
I smirk each morning at this boy smoking his cigarettes and sipping his coffee wearing a t-shirt of my friend’s band because he is oblivious to the fact that his hero’s house is a stone’s throw away. (Assuming that you are John Elway. If you’re me, this analogy would mean that his house was approximately 12.8 feet away. I throw like a girl.)
This kid has no idea.

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

My computer at work stopped functioning. While I’m waiting for a new one, I’m using another computer in the reception area of my office that I share with my co-worker Alli. This computer is much closer in proximity to Alli’s desk than my old computer was. I’ve been at this job for about six months and I still refer to Alli as my co-worker rather than friend. I spend forty hours of my week with her, and we’re still in the over-polite-get-to-know-you phase of our work relationship. That was before the last few weeks of sitting right next to her. Slowing, she is becoming my friend, Alli. Although we have very little in common, we are physically close enough to share what’s going on in each other lives.

I’ve come to this conclusion. To live in community you must actually, physically live with each other. I’m not talking about some sort of crazy hippie commune (or am I, there is something really appealing to me about brotherly love and common resources … ). I mean we must live our lives with one another. Enough of the whitewash exterior we present our friends during fellowship time at church or at small group or wherever. I’m talking about making a decision individually and within a community of believers to put others before yourself, to live in such a way that your needs are last and others are first. Think about that, if all of your friends, or even most of your friends, or even some of your friends lived that way, your needs would be met. They really would.

I could really go on and on and on about this idea, about the beauty of the church, about our identity as God's children and therefore brothers and sisters. I could quote all the "one another" verses that Paul admonishes the New Testament church with, but that's not my point. Knowledge of what we are supposed to do and actually doing it are totally different things. I can't roll down my window and start up a conversation with Dr. Aaahh. I can't walk my little Starbucks buddy over to Aaron's house to shake his hand. But I can listen to my friend Alli. And I can pray for her. I can listen to my roommates and I can pray with them. I can serve Alli, and I can serve my small group. I can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, act out those "one another" verses in my life with at least one other person, even if that's all.
I don't know. Maybe all this means I should just look into purchasing a Subaru and a new puppy.

Someone's Dreams

2007-02-16T14:20:00.000-07:00

On Mondays, I race home after work with a specific agenda in mind: to change change out of my stuffy workwear into recess clothes, eat a semi-decent meal and perhaps have a smidgen of conversation with one of my roommates before I race off to my six o’clock class. I don’t have the dough to fork over for a campus parking pass, so each week I park in the visitor lot where I’m charged two dollars if I arrive before 5:45. If I arrive at 5:46, I am charged only one dollar. My professor has a bad habit of starting class at 5:55, so it is crucial that I enter the parking lot, find a space, and get to class within the slim window of 5:46-5:53.
One particualr Monday, I was thinking to myself that I was developing quite the knack for timing all these things, and smushing what could take some people an hour and a half into just a half an hour. I felt pretty good while dressing up my day old baked potato with all the fixin’s (because really, what reason is there to eat a baked potato if not for the fixin's?). Then I looked at the clock. I had a mere three minutes to eat my dinner.
I looked at my baked potato, all hot and steamy and melty with butter and sour cream. I looked at my diet coke, refreshingly fizzy after just popping the can open. I sighed and looked at the clock again. I would have to multi-task. So I did what any single person would do, I decided just to take my potato and my diet coke in the car with me. This meal was not exactly what one would consider a to-go food, but it was delicious and surprisingly easy to manage on the freeway.

I love being alone in my car with the radio at high volume. I am that girl who you make fun of at stoplights as she sings and dances, forgetting that a large portion of the material the makes up her car is glass and that she is really not alone at all. As I neared campus a particularly enjoyable song came on the radio frequency 100.7 FM (the music that makes you feel good). This surprises most people, but I have a deep fondness for pop music and bad hip hop. It’s a passion I can typically only indulge in alone in my automobile. Singing along to a certain Nelly song, through diet coke belches (I don’t know why, but soda from a can makes me burp something fierce) and mouthfuls of mashed potatoes I joyfully crooned the words “It’s getting hot in here, so take of all your clothes.” A surprisingly pungent burp punctuated the end of the song and the most hilarious thought popped into my head.

“I am girl of someone’s dreams.”

I laughed out loud. I couldn’t stop laughing at this absurdity and was still grinning to myself at 5:52 when I walked into my comparative politics class.

I like any honest single woman will admit that I spend a decent portion of my time thinking about the man I’m going to marry. I have a list, it’s true. There are obvious characteristics on that list, and there are secret characteristics on that list that I've never told anyone, never even written down, lest the significance of those qualities be marred by their publication. But I’ve also fully surrendered my life to Christ and I know that God has a PERFECT man, exclusively for me.
Logically, if there is a perfect man out there for me, than I am the perfect woman for some man out there. For some reason, until that day, that thought had never occured to me. And well, it made me feel alot better about myself. I don’t genuinely believe that there is a wonderful godly man daydreaming about a girl who knows all the words to Gangsta’s Paradise and joyfully sings them through a mouthful of day old potatoes. I don’t think that specific characteristic is on any particular gentleman’s list. But perhaps it is, maybe it's only number six or numbers seven on the list ... whoever God has designed to be my other half is going to be a pretty kooky fellow indeed.

Vee Day

2007-02-14T17:13:00.000-07:00

My crazy old roommate Lindsay Hand sent me what could quite possibly the best Valentine's Day card ever.

But there's a long story. Years ago, in high school I used to hang out with her, and her brother, and we had this joke ... I'd sit on the couch with her brother Josh on one side and Lindsay on the other and call it a "Hand Sandwich." Adolescent humor is truly the best kind of all.

One time, and I don't remember when, I was very sick and our other friend Terri came to visit me because of the said mind-fogging sickness and she brought with her a homemade card from the Hand children. Lindsay was always artistic and actually now makes her living off of her paintings, so the card she created was pretty neat-o. On the back she had drawn a square and inside of the square written the word "cheese," with this caption: "I looked in the fridge to find a piece of cheese, but there was no cheese. 'No cheese!' I cried."

They were trying to send me a Hand Sandwich!

Recently, while moving my stuff out of storage, I made the fatal moving error of "sorting through so old letters, so you know, I can throw them away." Nope, that never happens. But I did find my Hand Sandwhich card, so there sitting on the cold cement floor of my friend's basement, crying over my letters , I called my crazy old roommate Lindsay. She never actually answers her phone, so I left her a terribly long message recapping that entire moment in time. I never heard back from her, which was really no surprise.

Until today. On of my co-workers delivered my mail, which today included along with medical records and Social Sercurity releases a grease-stained envelope with a queen of hearts and one of those red doily hearts you use in elementary school to make valentine's for your mom glued to the envelope. I thought perhaps my dog had been kidnapped and this was the ransom letter. Nope. It was a card from Lindsay saying how much she appreciated my message that day and how much she loves me.

Wanna know where the grease stain came from? An individually wrapped cheese slice. When I opened the envelope I said, "Oh my God. It's cheese."

We Are The Church

2007-02-09T16:30:00.000-07:00

Here's the thing: If the people who organize corporate computer training classes have not yet figured out that in order for their students to learn anything, the Internet Explorer icon on their training desktop needs to be disabled, well -- I think I know why Asia technologically surpasses the United States.
Last week, I was stuck in a FOUR hour training session on a program that I'm already familiar with, it's a little thing called e-mail. I was bored.
I tried to fight it but the little ball inside my mouse just kept creeping, creeping, creeping until low and behold the World Wide Web was open before me. After a cursory glance at My Space, my bank account and the national news, I still had about 3.75 hours left in class. I hit up Relevant Magazine's Web site and read a story by a guy named Joshua Longbrake. I've read his stories before. I enjoy the way his mind moves the pen, and because I had nothing better to do with my time, I decided to read his blog, www.thelongbrake.com. When Relevant author's post their blogspots, I really don't care much for them, usually because I haven't made up my mind on the whole online journaling thing. Isn't it just a huge ego trip on the author's part to think that there are other people in the netherworld of the internet who really care what that author has to say about life? Heh, heh, heh …
Turns out Mr. Longbrake actually has something to say. I was impressed. By his blog and his photos, but mostly I was impressed by the heart of everything he'd stuck out on a limb for the world to judge him by. His most recent post was about a conference he'd attended at Mars Hill. To me Mars Hill is sort of this icon of a church, and while I was reading about this guys exerience there, my heart became empbroiled with passion for the church as a whole.
A switch flipped in my brain, and sitting there in class began to fervently pray that God that would make The Rock like Mars Hill to the next generation of churches. God has blessed us here in Salt Lake City with an unbelievable wealth of talent, in the realms of music, art, marketing, leadership and words. He has given us an inspiration and vision. I feel in my bones that God will do something huge with The Rock. I just pray that it is all for his glory, and all within his will. God is building an army that will take the world by storm and I believe many will be surprised when it comes out of Salt Lake City, Utah.
While praying, I started to peruse one of Longbrake's photo galleries entitled "I am the Church." Kids from all across the country and the world submitted photos to his blog, each of which featured the term "I am the Church" some where in the shot. I loved the concept instantly, and it humbled me. The Church is so beautiful, we are His bride and as Donald Miller says Christ love us with a drunken passion. Not only does God love us so deeply, but we are the living, breathing, functioning close-as-we-are-going-to-get-in-this- lifetime picture of what God's Kingdom and what heaven will be like. Of course everything about the church isn't always perfect, because we are all still human and have the ability to royally muck up all things good, but God loves us still, and a functioning church family really is in my opinion the most beautiful thing that can exist on this earth. It was amazing to look at all these people and know that I am united with them. We are brothers and sisters because of God's great love for us and we are all fighting for one common purpose, the further glory of God through our lives.
Sitting in my computer class, I fully succumbed to this thought and was getting a little misty-eyed and ready to go take the world by storm there I see before me a beautiful girl standing in her bathroom mischievously grinning into her mirror. The reflection of the gray tile behind her brings out the blue in her eyes and the words "I am the Church" written in shaving cream frame a face I love dearly. She stares back at me from a random page on a stranger's web site.
The girl is Naomi Triggs. A woman who serves the Lord on staff of a Great Commission church plant in Amsterdam. She and I were on the same small group when we lived in Fort Collins, Colorado. She moved to Amsterdam the same week I moved to Salt Lake City to do the same thing in two cities that could not be more different for each other. Since the time we moved half a world away from each other God has grown and changed us aplenty. He's taught, trained, refined and purified us, through heartache and through joy. Naomi spent an unplanned stint as a bonus roommate of mine a little while ago. As a result of that time, she is one of the women whom I most admire in this world, because, well, she gets it.
So there she was, in her bathroom in a tiny apartment in Amsterdam. And there I was behind a computer console in Utah. Both of us serving the purpose that God intended us for: loving Him, loving other believers and loving the lost. We do it in different ways, on different continents, in different languages, and with different people, but the goal is the same.
She is the Church.
I am the Church.
We are the Church.

Everything is More Difficult with Mittens On

2007-02-06T21:17:00.000-07:00

I ran even though I didn’t need to run. I would make the next train, but I wanted on this one, so I ran. The train was approaching, the whistles were blowing, and the lights were flashing. I was going to make it. I would rush through the door, collapse into a seat and have accomplished something for the day.
That’s not how it worked out. I raced across the tracks and as I did so, the strap on my old school Red Cross medic bag snapped. With the snap of that strap my fate was decided. My bag hung limp at my side, and my dreams for the day were crushed. So, sadden by the fact that my beloved bag was broken, I walked back to my car.
It was a cold gray day. When I reached my office, it was pouring rain outside. Pouring isn’t quite right, the sky was pelting pedestrians with droplets of icy pain. As the rain splashed on my windshield, I laughed out loud, thanking God that He had planned the details of my morning so I would be sheltered when the rain hit.
Even though this isn’t the stuff of miracles, it was important to me. It illustrated something God has taught me lately. And not just lately, I think He’s been teaching me this lesson for the whole of my Christian life: TRUST HIM.
Trusting God is the crux of the entire Christian faith. I trust Him with my salvation. I trust Him for forgiveness of my sins. I trust Him for my everyday providence. I trust Him with my future and I trust Him with my heart.
Trusting Him with my heart sounds easy, but has proven to be complicated beyond measure. Trusting God with my heart means that He has possession of it. I do not. But it’s my heart, right? No, it’s not. I gave my heart to Jesus.
If my heart is God’s to with as He wishes, it means that He is in control of my heart. But giving God control of my heart cannot happen in one prayer, or one pronouncement of faith. There are certain areas where it’s easy to give God control. He can have my future because I don’t know what to do with it. He can have my past because I no longer want to be associated with it.
My heart is a different story. To genuinely give God my heart, to take my name off the deed of ownership and put His in its stead, I must understand what’s inside of my heart. My heart is the core of my flesh. For as much as society celebrates the heart as the source for wisdom and truth, mine is not. Mine is full of base selfishness and a longing to gratify my own desires. I've learned that my heart is manipulative. I will say or do one thing which is pleasing on the outside, while on the inside I am scheming to get my own way, leaving God out of the equation.
I’ve always considered myself to be a straight forward person. That is why I was astounded by my own manipulative nature. I know the “rules” of Christianity pretty well and I what’s expected of a “nice Christian girl.” But it I’ve also learned how to work the system.
Lately, I have been desperate for God’s will in a particular area of my life. I gave this precise matter to God and I prayed that His will be done. I begged God to make Himself evident to me so that I would know how to honor and obey Him. Then I waited, and soon I prayed these sentiments again, more fervently and with deeper passion. Only you Lord. Only your will.
God began to work in me. The more I prayed this prayer, the more apparent it became that my actions and even my thoughts were not coinciding with what I was confessing to God. I was telling God everything I wanted Him to know, but my motives and my actions were not corresponding.
I was working the system. I would pray with desperation for God’s will, then act out of my own will, following the rules, but still desiring control over the situation. My prayers seemed like an effort to get God in my side, and with my actions, I was testing the waters to see if I could get what I wanted. That was the problem.
Even though I had spent all this time in earnest prayer, I was not giving God complete control of my heart. I was not allowing Him to take out of my heart the filth and selfish desires which seem to fill it to the brim. I was masking my intentions with truth, like wearing mittens to hide my hands from the cold. I was using God’s protection to my own advantage and hiding the sores that lay underneath. When God finally showed me this, I realized I had behaved this way for years, showing the world and even God one version of myself and at the core still working to achieve my own means.
When I understood that about myself, I was disgusted. I came face to face with the vileness of my own sin. On the outside, my actions would not seem that horrible, but to me they were wretched because I knew that by seeking this control I wasn’t trusting God. By not trusting God, I was sinning against Him. It’s one thing to recognize your own sin, and it’s another to recognize your own hypocrisy.
But I don’t have to stay that way. The most freeing thing in the world, is to not just coming face to face with my sin, but to come face to face with the unfailing grace of my God. His mercy allows me to live my life unfettered, grasping his unconditional love with naked hands.

The Pre-Me

2007-02-05T09:14:00.000-07:00

I lose things. Often. I’ve lost my wallet, my keys and I’m always looking for that other shoe. The old adage is true – no matter what it is that I’ve lost, it’s always in the last place I look. I’ve learned the fastest way to find my lost item is in fact to retrace my steps, to go back to the place where I saw it last.
Except for my faith. When I lose my faith, even if only for a moment, I cannot go back to the last place where I saw it. I cannot retrace my steps to find it lying on the kitchen table.
To say something like “the moment I lost my faith” seems cataclysmic, but it really wasn’t. It was quiet. I was alone, in my car, in my office parking lot the moment I listened to the whisper that God could not be trusted. I had certainly heard that whisper before, but this time, I listened. It was terrifying.
In that split second, my heart busted wide open. That moment in time changed my future. I knew I could not go back to the way that life used to be, but I also knew I could not put one foot in front of the other with out Jesus. I quickly humbled myself before God, but like Peter, in my very heart I could not ignore that I had just denied my Jesus.
This loss of faith was not something that was noticeable on the exterior. I didn’t leave my church, or abandon my principles. I didn’t rebel and decry the notion of a personal God. Instead, I begged God to come to my rescue. I may have lost trust in Him, I won’t deny that, but I still knew of His goodness and His faithfulness to me. I knew that He would not abandon me.
I came to a point when I recognized that so much of what I had been basing my reality on simply was not true. Even the way I had interpreted God’s hand in my life was based on these misassumptions. I had based my life not so much on a lie, but an inaccuracy, and I needed to rebuild. I was living for the storybook ending I thought was coming, but I wasn’t even reading the right story.
God did restore my faith, with one that was greater than ever before. Different most certainly, but greater. What I have now is a faith of quiet confidence. My Father will prevail. I am His child, victory is mine, and I wait patiently for the day when all things hidden in darkness come to light.
I love God and believe He is doing a good work in my life. But this new way of faith is a little bit shaky and the truths that calm my fears now aren’t exactly the same as the truths to which I once clung. I would like to go back because that other faith was easier and my circumstances now are hard. But I can’t, I can’t pretend that I’m the same and I can’t ignore the new place God is taking me.
Each moment of each day, God is using something to change part of me. Maybe He is also doing something else to keep another part of me exactly how it is. Because of this ebb and flow, I understand the truth of the biblical promise that I am a new creation.
For many years, I thought that newness only applied to the tear-filled moment after the 12-year old me prayed to accept Christ into my life. From there on out, I thought the Christian me stayed the same creation until heaven. But the 15-year old me was certainly different that the 19-year old me, just as the 24-year old me was different from the brand new, post loss of faith, 25-year old me. All of these me’s from years past that are so much alike and so much different add up to make the me of now. This me will press forward and learn more and change a little bit and stay the same a little bit.
Tomorrow morning when I wake up I will be a new creation. Tomorrow night when I fall asleep, I will be a new creation. There is no end to this newness. Thus my faith must daily, sometimes even hourly evolve. I cannot remain the same person and pursue God.
I still don’t understand why God allowed me to live in that deluded state, believing and clinging to something that most certainly was not in my future. I do know though that God used me in that time. I know that He changed me and molded me to become more like Him, to gain some of the wisdom that I so desperately desire. My faith at that time was based on an outcome, a promise I believed God had given me, rather than in the actual person of God. It is He who is described as both unchanging and as an all-consuming fire. Upon encountering God, I cannot expect to stay the same. Of course He will change me.
But He doesn’t change me into a different form of the me that already exists. He makes me new, new like the morning sun, new like the whitest snow.