almosta

more sunny pics

"fun" facts about my personal faith journey! (the evangelical version)

"fun" fact #1
i fear that i will not be able to talk about my faith without sounding like a conservative evangelical, which, considering my deeply evangelical roots, isn't such a crazy fear!

"fun" fact #2
deep down i believe if i am not careful and/or paying very close attention, i will somehow accidentally get sucked against my will into "the ministry" something that has claimed many lives around me. many of my old friends ended up in various ministries, the range being from missionaries to ministers to what seems like perpetual grad students in theology. how closely i work with churches and church people and just large numbers of people in general-- and the insane irony of all that is not exactly lost on me either. as the old hymn goes, sometimes, it causes me to tremble, tremble

"fun" fact #3
i dont like the old testament. how can someone who doesnt like to read the bible be called to do anything.? see!

"fun" fact #4
Honestly I don't know what God wants me to do. I feel like God wants me to do something and I am hoping it is something really normal, like being a good low maintenance church member and not annoying too many people. I deeply hope that I have the gift of "helping people" because I do so deeply enjoy helping people and then I can just help other people do whatever they are supposed to do

"fun" fact #5
people don't really respect me very much. maybe this is because i haven't tried hard enough to edit my speech so people will think i am worth listening to. i don't really have anything interesting to say. i think ultimately i need to submit to whatever God wants (not my perception of what God wants) and then have faith i will find out what that is. I don't think it is so much whatever God wants to me do right now as it is trying to be less strong willed and more in line with the spirit of Christ if that makes sense.


too much weird jargon? quick, go look at kittens

my likely agist rant that has been building up

(This depicts how the greatest generation views people in their 20s and 30s. Enjoy!)

So the other day I saw Jim Wallis on the Daily Show. Anyway, I was watching it with Evan and suddenly became pretty nervous about what Wallis would say and how he would act. By no means am I criticizing this guy. However, while he was talking about "the younger generation" I couldn't help but wonder why they hell Jim Wallis has to be the one talking about it. I mean good job Jim, but couldn't you get the spotlight and then pass it off to one of your interns or someone who might actually be-- I don't know-- PART OF THE GENERATION YOU ARE SO HAPPY TO TALK ABOUT.

I know he just wrote a book and has established himself as this giant figurehead in the movement, but why are most the new Christian and many of the emerging folk spokespeople 50 + years old and let me play that broken record of whiteness and maleness just once?! Don't get me wrong, older people are great and 50 isn't that old anyway. In fact, I am trying very hard to follow Carol Merritt's advice about the need for intergenerational relationships in the church.

However, I am getting really tired of seeing "older people" tell "young people" what their generation is doing, feeling, etcetera, making comments about how "young people" dont get whatever they think they don't get, how young people don't appreciate whatever they think they don't appreciate. Man. My entire life is filled up with busyness, struggle, joys, grief and all complexity, I have a good job and spend my days actually passing as a professional, but get me in a committee meeting with a bunch of "older folks" and suddenly I am still a girl, inexperienced, unable to speak with any kind of voice.

And the sad truth is, I don't want to speak. It's a convenient relationship for all parties!

box of clarity

When i was 17 and homeless in Portland there was (and actually still is) an organization called yellow brick road that would come around to where the kids were and give out supplies. They would hand out items such as socks, toothpaste, band aids, etcetera.

I never really needed anything that they were handing out, but one night when they asked me what I really needed, I told them I needed clarity. So I forgot about this and went about my life. A few days later they came back and this guy had taken a small sized box and wrote "clarity" all over it with different kind sayings.

It really made a difference to me.

miscellaneous

The last week or so I have been having dreams about church. Luckily though I personally have yet to actually fall asleep and snore and dream in church while the service is still going on--though not laughing when others around me do is fairly challenging, to say the least.

Anyway in the first dream I was sitting in my church and realized that the main part of the sanctuary was empty. Then I heard noise, looked up and saw that the balcony was completely full with people, all of them doing their own thing (ie seeming to have their own worship service happening).

I thought I was alone in the main part of the sanctuary, but when I surveyed the scene more carefully, I saw that in fact there were other people there that I knew. When I woke up I thought this dream was probably about my own self-imposed alienation and how I have been such a loner at my church until these last few months.

The second dream was that I was at a church with Evan, but it was an even bigger crowd. I still thought it was my church though because one of the ministers was the same. We were sitting in the very back and it was completely filled with people. I could barely see the platform because the space was so large and crowded.

The third dream was that I wanted to meet my friend Lisa in Portland. Lisa and I were college roommates at Warner. She ended up going into the ministry and then the Lutheran church snagged her up. She is the person that introduced me to the emerging church movement, almost 4 years ago now. Anyway in the dream we were trying to coordinate our schedules (something we have also been doing in the non-dream world). I told her I was going to the beach and I wanted to meet her on the way there or back. Then the conversation suddenly turned into how to organize a compline service on the beach.

The end.

Unbelievable generosity

Yesterday a funeral home called me in the late afternoon. The family of a man who had died wanted to donate their leftover food from the funeral service to the homeless group I work with.

It was a little overwhelming to go to the funeral home.

I am fairly uncomfortable with death.

When we walked in it was just the immediate family and the caterers standing around. I felt very rude intruding on this group of people even though it wasn't really intruding since we had been invited.

I was deeply impressed by the kindness of this family and their generosity even in the midst of their grief.

To me it really felt like a reaffirmation or acknowledgement of life itself.

While I was there the funeral director told me that people usually throw away the leftover food. She asked if she could suggest the homeless group I work with as a place to donate food again.

I am constantly in awe of the kindness of people and the incredible love of God.

imagine you are bathed in warm sunlight

Talking to Grief by Denise Levertov

Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.

I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.

You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.

mount rainier

..a lot has been happening in my life lately and i have been feeling pretty overwhelmed and unsure about what i am doing. To remedy this desperate feeling that has been accumulating within me, I took off on a little overnight adventure to Mt. Rainier.

I have always loved this mountain in particular. When I worked a very difficult job in eastern WA that i had to stick with for a year (in order to get Washington residency so i could finish my degree here) I used to look at it and remind myself that very soon I'd be on the other side! in that way the mountain was sort of a symbol of the future, and good things to come.

anyway i spent the whole day yesterday taking pictures in the park and finishing a book I have been trying to read for the last three months. i even learned how to put chains on the tires by myself-- a definite first-- and it felt good to finally get it right.

Overall it was a very spiritual and healing trip for me.

i feel renewed with love for others and am in constant awe of the gift of life

here is one picture just to lure you.... click here to see the blizzardy rest

here is the church, here is the steeple, blah blah blah

Bob Hyatt has an interesting review of Pagan Christianity by George Barna and FrankViola:

Moving on, Viola describes much of the pagan origins of "church" architecture, the whole big giant pastor chair up front, the platform, the spacial "division" between "clergy" and "laity"...
"The Christian building demonstrates that the church, whether she wanted it or not, had entered into a close alliance with pagan culture... This was a tragic shift from the primitive simplicity that the church of Jesus Christ first knew.....

I think more and more people within the Church get this. They know that the building is not the church, is not special, is not "holy." Not everyone- I understand. But more and more understand that the church is the people and can meet and worship anywhere. Yeah- anywhere- School Auditoriums (though that one personally makes me me shudder for aesthetic reasons), homes, pubs (yeah Pub Church!) and even... dare I say it?... "church" buildings.

This is the first time I heard of this book, so I am not really sure which theo/ideological camp it is coming from though i have a couple of initial guesses. It was just something from my RSS subscriptions that seemed interesting. I guess I could wiki it, but I am too sleepy.

In any event I have mixed feelings about the whole church is only a building thing. I really love churches. And I tend to heavily favor older churches, Catholic churches too, but just older churches. I love the stained glass, the art, the large and empty feeling of churches like that. At the same time the whole TBN wanna be thing is way too much in some churches. I don't like the feeling of being at a concert when at church. Eh.

Note to self: write post on how Jesus is not some where's waldo character. Purpose of that post? Who knows. Purpose of this blog: even more elusive!

Jesus vs God (aka Spirit in the sky)

I thought this picture was appropriately weird. It's Norman Greenbaum looking kind of like some people's apparent interpretation of Christ (if Christ had a mustache, was alabaster white and also fond of numerous green plants that look similar to, but really are not, weed).

Anyway i believe in God. I choose to (personally) believe that Jesus is his son and also God. But when I pray I mostly pray to God, as in, um, GOD. When I look for peace, I look to God. There isn't a lot of Jesus involvement there. I haven't like, talked to Jesus or something, at least not literally. When I pray (not often enough) I am praying to the unspeakable divine, the creator of all, and yeah, I include Jesus too, Jesus is a part of my belief.

Please understand. I'm not saying I don't have faith.

I guess my impression of Jesus is still kind up in the air, even after all this time. He is such a polarizing figure. I always wondered why he didn't heal everyone, or seem to be more loving to everyone. The fact that he wasn't used to bother me.

People do all kinds of evil in the name of Jesus (and the name of God too really). Maybe its the American context I find myself within. I guess it seems kind of counterintuitive to have less faith in Jesus than God, since at least Jesus was way nicer than the God of the Old Testament. And what is faith anyway? A kind of liquid where God gets a full cup but Jesus is left standing with half a jar? But there is something unconfusing (to me) about having faith in God.

Evan thinks I sound like an alien if I mention anything having to do with Jesus (hi honey).

When I take communion I am always a little weirded out. Even when I drink red wine I am always a little weirded out because it reminds me of communion. I have a hard time taking communion. It forces me to think seriously, "this is real, not just some tale i grew up on". I think about how someone actually was actually killed. And then I see evil in myself, the evil in myself that is in the biblical story, in the betrayal, in the arrogance. I see myself as the person in the stories, who doesn't make it, every single time.

And yet, my experience is that God is infinite love. I don't really tell people that, but I try to live it out as much as I can. I think about the psalms that talk about God's love enduring. And I see God in the snowy hills and in the green mountains--though I saw God in the empty desert too. I see God in people every day. I have been saved by people who were operating in the name of God. And I have faith that Jesus is God, but it's a personal faith.

So maybe I am a "bad witness " so to speak, or rather, I don't act on the supposed faith that I do have. I don't lean on any of the faith communities or even on my own faith (when depressed over the holidays, I leaned on pretty much everything except my faith ). I rarely try to let God heal me, and am constantly dishonest with myself about what I am doing.

I am not successful at living out the love I believe is in God and that could be in me and that I often very deeply am thrilled by.

reaching "the young people"

Maybe I'll write my thoughts on this soon, but in the meantime here is a very neat site to check out:

"Early Methodist success was about the power of many small missional groups multiplying direct personal ministry and social witness in the name of Jesus. Later institutional success for the denomination came by creating larger attractional congregations and other institutions as the primary focus of ministry. These could have a bigger initial impact, but ultimately only in an additive, rather than multiplicative, way.

The core change needed is a change in hearts and behavior by each of us-- to shift our PRIMARY focus from what someone else needs to do to what I and we here, where we are, CAN do to reach out directly, not primarily through some mediated process (whether worship, hospitality, or institutional reform)...

This isn't about building the perfect "young-diverse-people snatching-machine." It's about us actually living missionally, about we ourselves reaching out to the people already around us, getting to know them, building community with them and each other, watching over each other in love..."

Read the rest (second post down)

A Cloud of Dusk by Michael Burkard

i can’t see anymore
i missed every Memphis angel
because of the because clauses—
one night sleeping with two cats
Big and Little
and i am serious about these names
i had a vision reading a John Irving book
i did not want to read never presumed i would read
more than a few pages
there were hallway lights and people’s voices
shivering through a downstairs window
i could not put the book down either
even though i literally wanted to put it down
sometimes—i hate that word—i went to a meeting
nearby and i was accidentally or coincidentally on this street
so much i began to think maybe i belong here
i kissed the back of someone’s hand
i kissed the hand when it turned back to me
i made sure no page was facing me when i read
and that no one would see what i saw or feel what i felt
i am on a drive where a mirror has collapsed
i want to ask someone else without sight

There will be blood

Evan and I drove to Seattle this afternoon to see an early showing of There Will Be Blood.

We had been wanting to see this film since we heard about it. Knowing that the score was created by Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood certainly didn't curb my interest, nor actually did the idea of an epic dealing with both capitalism and early 20th century charismatic Christianity (seriously).

I do recommend seeing it in a theater whenever they finally have the wide release. I really don't think it would have the same effect viewed at home. I also found myself wondering what people like my mom back in the Midwest would think of this film. I think it would be much different to watch it back in rural Michigan at a theater as opposed to here in the northwest.

the mystery of faith

every sunday night i attend a compline service. it is exactly 30 minutes long each week and always includes an our father, the confession, the nicene creed, and different moving hymns sung a cappella. The entire service is about asking for and receiving the peace of God through forgiveness. It is always very comforting to me. It is my favorite part of the week.

the service takes place in a large and mostly empty church. the wall in the church is sky blue and the service always takes place in candlelight. the choir walks into the back of the church and stays there for the service. i really appreciate this because it makes it actually possible for me to meditate and pray unselfconsciously, something i almost never experience in other churches. not that there is anything wrong with other churches, the compline service is simply a different kind of service, a purposefully contemplative one. what is absent is the feeling of being seen, except by God (for me personally). i can interact and reconnect with the very personal mystery of faith.

i love praying along silently with the choir. i am not catholic, but i love praying and expressing belief while praying the creed, which (the version they use) goes something like:

i believe in God the father,
maker of heaven and earth,
and in his only son Jesus Christ our Lord

who was conceived by the Holy Ghost

and i love believing that, having faith in that, even though i know logically it is ridiculous, i love the act of letting go and having faith in it. the creed continues along

who was born of the Virgin Mary
suffered under pontius pilate
was crucified dead and buried,
He descended into hell

and i believe that too, even though i think i worried about what believing in some idea of hell may mean, i also believe there are many interpretations and that God is so loving and so far beyond my comprehension it doesn't have to make sense to me, God is the moral center. When i say, he descended into hell, i let go of my outrage about all philosophical questions and trust God and it is incredible

and on the third day he rose from the grave
and sitteth on the right hand of God the father almighty
from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead
I believe in the Holy Ghost
the Holy Catholic Church
the communion of saints
the forgiveness of sins
and the resurrection of the body
and the life everlasting, Amen

In the moments during that service, I can freely express my faith, pray, I am always humbled, and so thankful. Ephesians 3:16-19 has always been one of my favorite passage from the Bible. The prayer is for us to know the love (of God) that surpasses knowledge. God's love and grace is "wide, high, long and deep" -- it surpasses all understanding.