I'm not giften in many areas. But the places of gifting, I know and own. It has taken me so very long to not chase after what I've seen others do before me, to go with 'known' areas of ministry, of service, of worship. I was a children's pastor all through college. Todd and I ran the Littlest Hearts program for 2-5 year olds in South Africa through two pregnancies and three babies. I have been on leadership for children's camps, youth ministry, VBS, mission trips and more. I'm more than capable of putting together a seriously great program, Biblically based and with grit for the kids to remember for years to come. I can do those things, but it's not my gifting, it's not the thing that I do because I find a worship melody within the work. Someone once said they do the work they do because it "makes my heart sing."
My heart sings, worships, when I'm calling people into sanctuary. Ever since I came across the concept in the Jewish faith that each individual home is a temple, a sacred space set apart (after the fall of the actual sanctuary in the Temple), I fell in love. That's what I want do. I want to make my home, my space, my sphere of influence into a holy space, a vulnerable and sanctified space where sins are sacrificed to make room for the beauty of the Creator.
I have a friend, and for the life of me, I cannot remember a time in our friendship that wasn't messy. We were among the few in a small, private Christian college in the heart of the midwest who came from "less than perfect" backgrounds. There was a bond before a friendship, an understanding that we, we know how to muck through it. When I look back on our tenure as friends, I see how we have come from hardship to hardship over the years, and one of the reasons why she is such a dear friend is because she has very quietly let me be in my muck. Not fix it, not start throwing things at me in order to "help" get me out, she's let me be right where I am. As she put it last week, "this is a holy friendship."
I often wonder why so few other relationships are that connected, that special, that holy. There are certainly people I see more often, connect with far more frequently. And then I realize the sheer amount of vulnerability and exposed fears we've shared. Being real is always beautiful work, but it's never easy work. I was listening to a sermon by my favorite pastor. My absolute favorite preacher. (Side note: When I die, Todd knows to have a bonfire, good food, bagpipe music and at least snippets if not full sermons of Pastor Scott.) In the sermon, Pastor Scott called out the times when we use the term "we" but really the meaning is for someone else to be the "we". The example he used was the moment when his wife would say, "we should put away the fall decorations" when really she meant for Pastor Scott and their son to pack the boxes up to the attic.
I feel the "we" in my marrow, the real WE, not the one that calls on others. I yearn for there to be a call from my life to the world that says, COME BE PART OF THIS WE! Because community is ingrained on my soul, etched into my very bones. I want to remind people that WE are a people called to love, WE are called to remember that Christ came as a baby not as a weapon of mass destruction (both actual options by the way... think about it). I have lost countless hours of sleep because of the state of this world, but more specifically, the state of so many who sit in pews in churches all over this country and mull over gun control and presidential candidates and how glad they'll be when our borders will finally be "closed". Every fiber of my being cries and weeps because WE are called to be a people who are vulnerable, willing to give not just our coat but our shirt as well to those in need. WE are called to be a people who fully know and recognize that it is within each and every one of us to turn from the Truth WE know. That WE all need to daily, if not hourly, remember to "Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee." Because fear is powerful, and the more fearful we are, the more individually we forget who WE really are. And I want so deeply to remind people who WE are...
Because it's been years since I have felt real and honest community.
Because it's been so very long since my heart could gather around and say, "You are my people. This is my WE."
And I was made to be in a WE. I was built, as a living stone (James), to participate in the loving action of building the holy temple into this world, not just storing up and protecting here on Earth where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal (Matthew).
The Greek word for wander, as in stray or walk away, is the same word that gave the planets their name, because when the heavenly bodies were being named, they seemed to wander, with no real connect to each other, totally detached. I want to propose to the forces big and small from this little hidden dark alley of the world wide web that no matter how much we each think we are our own people, our own unique individuals, that none of us are not detached, independent, unconnected. Each action we individually have has a reaction on what WE ARE.
My bones call out for community. My blood demands to be reconnected to the bloodlines from which I came. I am an adopted daughter, heir to the Kingdom, seeking where I come from. Would someone, please for the love of God, come and tell me about my people? Would someone, please for the love of Mercy, share with and in me about our family? Would someone, please for the love of Peace, come and listen to the stories of the One who called each and every single person, who bears the image of Yahweh, Beloved???
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Thursday, December 3, 2015
The Day Between That Life and This
It wasn't yet five in the morning, but it was sweltering hot on the tarmac. Even as the plane was taxing to our parking space, I could see the heat waves rising from the unnaturally black hue of the pavement and for the tenth time in 48 hours, I wanted to vomit, but that action would require more energy than I had to spare. So I sat, and bundled all the emotions in my soul up, shoving them in some spiritual closet. I couldn't deal with them, not then, not there. There was work to do.
The intercom had politely informed me that the plane was more than an hour late because of the miserable storms we'd passed over central Africa. The storms that had kept my four babies awake, the storms that had tested my nerves, the storms that seemed to go completely unnoticed by my zombie husband. Mentally calculating the amount of time we had and the obstacles we needed to traverse to make our connection was sapping precious energy.
Original layover was exactly 107 minutes. 107 minus 62 left us with 45 minutes. Curses and bad words. Focus, Britt, you gotta do this or this hell will just last even longer. 45 minutes to wait our turn patiently and deplane, get four babies plus all our carry-ons down the stairs, run through the building, passports stamped, personal screenings, security check, down the stairs, out to the bus, back up the stairs and onto the plane sitting two spaces over, the plane I can SEE from my window. Two. Spaces. Over! If you stress or panic, they stress and panic. Pull. It. Together.
Terribly politely, belying the few snatches of unrestful sleep I'd gotten, while waiting in line to deplane, I spoke to a very understanding Muslim flight attendant who recruited two more attendants and like a mass of crows haphazardly circling a blue sky, we stumbled and tumbled like a gelatinous blob trying to stay quick but in keeping with the steps of a grouchy two year old, the sleepy three year old, and the wide-eyed four year old. I tried to ignore the loud whimperings for comfort and attention coming from the bundle on my back. We simply had to make this connection.
Standing in the endless sea of people waiting for all the appropriate stamps, scans, and questions, just like us, I thought again of how this punishment, this forced Exodus, this damned flight path didn't fit. I could not believe then (and I still cannot believe now) that anyone, any sane person with love and compassion in their heart would send a family of six, after packing up their lives in 4 weeks time, would willfully choose the flight path we were given. We were given it and then told to be grateful. It felt like being violated, and then told to be grateful for not being beaten to a bloody mess. Only, I felt very bruised, very bloody. None of it made sense.
I cannot believe its been two-year since I was on that tarmac, in that plane, trying to make the connection in Qatar, in the blistering morning heat of that December morning. I strained so hard because I knew not making the connection would just add time to our already 42 hour journey. Miriam Webster defines epic this way: extending beyond the usual or ordinary, especially in size or scope.
Epic.
I used to think that was always a good thing, always in regards to an adventure, a voyage, something spectacular that you tell your kids and grandkids about. Right here, on this blog that no one reads, this is the first time I've told even part of the story of that journey. It is still so very painful, so very, very raw. Because it was decided to be "best" for me. "Best" for my family. "Best" for the church. And we just had to take it.
Johannesburg to Qatar. Southern to Northern Hemisphere
*Epic layover marathon. No food, no water, no toilets. Too many check points. Too many babes still in pajamas.
Qatar to Chicago. Eastern to Western.
*Epic layover in the middle of the night in miserable and drafty O'Hare airport. No food. No place to lay down. Night two of no bed, no shower. Too many check points.
Chicago to Philadelphia. Three and a half hours. We'd flown three and a half hours too far west, so we had to backtrack three and a half hours more back East. It would have seemed more cruel had I had any ability to care.
I know who made those plane reservations. I know him personally. I know the rational he gave. I know because I heard it all from his lips... over dinner... that I cooked... at my old house... in my old life... the life where he was a near, and dearly loved friend.
I miss my old life, I miss my old house and my gardens and my dog and the crazy way that ANYONE on the street could see directly into the lives of my family. I miss my fire-pit and my clothesline. But more than that, I miss the naiveté I had back then about friendships, about right and wrong, about love and compassion. I know things now, valuable, helpful, wise things. Things that make me a better person, give a finer age to my fermentation. But today, on the day that marks the Day Between That Life and This, in the space where I was living into the reality that sometimes, just because you call it compassion, doesn't mean it is... just because you call it Christian charity, doesn't mean it is... just because you call it love, doesn't mean it is; in THAT space, I sit.
I sit and I mourn.
I sit and I mourn what was, what might have been... who I was, who I might have been.
I mourn for the person who is living her Day Between That Life and This right now.
I mourn for the person who cannot see that words and actions must match up, because if they don't you're living a lie.
"Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?" James 2:15-16
I mourn because the world we are living in, the world most of us are settling for, isn't right. I mourn because there are words for these wrongs: lies. Lies of mediocrity, lies of substandard living, lies of complacence and lies of bureaucracy. And some days, when I see very clearly how wrong certain 'compassions', certain 'charities', certain 'loves' are, on those days, like today, I'm sad. Because it wasn't meant to be like this. It was never meant to be like this. But God's promises remain, His love is never a lie, and there is always, always promise yet for a new dawn, a new life, a new world.
The intercom had politely informed me that the plane was more than an hour late because of the miserable storms we'd passed over central Africa. The storms that had kept my four babies awake, the storms that had tested my nerves, the storms that seemed to go completely unnoticed by my zombie husband. Mentally calculating the amount of time we had and the obstacles we needed to traverse to make our connection was sapping precious energy.
Original layover was exactly 107 minutes. 107 minus 62 left us with 45 minutes. Curses and bad words. Focus, Britt, you gotta do this or this hell will just last even longer. 45 minutes to wait our turn patiently and deplane, get four babies plus all our carry-ons down the stairs, run through the building, passports stamped, personal screenings, security check, down the stairs, out to the bus, back up the stairs and onto the plane sitting two spaces over, the plane I can SEE from my window. Two. Spaces. Over! If you stress or panic, they stress and panic. Pull. It. Together.
Terribly politely, belying the few snatches of unrestful sleep I'd gotten, while waiting in line to deplane, I spoke to a very understanding Muslim flight attendant who recruited two more attendants and like a mass of crows haphazardly circling a blue sky, we stumbled and tumbled like a gelatinous blob trying to stay quick but in keeping with the steps of a grouchy two year old, the sleepy three year old, and the wide-eyed four year old. I tried to ignore the loud whimperings for comfort and attention coming from the bundle on my back. We simply had to make this connection.
Standing in the endless sea of people waiting for all the appropriate stamps, scans, and questions, just like us, I thought again of how this punishment, this forced Exodus, this damned flight path didn't fit. I could not believe then (and I still cannot believe now) that anyone, any sane person with love and compassion in their heart would send a family of six, after packing up their lives in 4 weeks time, would willfully choose the flight path we were given. We were given it and then told to be grateful. It felt like being violated, and then told to be grateful for not being beaten to a bloody mess. Only, I felt very bruised, very bloody. None of it made sense.
I cannot believe its been two-year since I was on that tarmac, in that plane, trying to make the connection in Qatar, in the blistering morning heat of that December morning. I strained so hard because I knew not making the connection would just add time to our already 42 hour journey. Miriam Webster defines epic this way: extending beyond the usual or ordinary, especially in size or scope.
Epic.
I used to think that was always a good thing, always in regards to an adventure, a voyage, something spectacular that you tell your kids and grandkids about. Right here, on this blog that no one reads, this is the first time I've told even part of the story of that journey. It is still so very painful, so very, very raw. Because it was decided to be "best" for me. "Best" for my family. "Best" for the church. And we just had to take it.
Johannesburg to Qatar. Southern to Northern Hemisphere
*Epic layover marathon. No food, no water, no toilets. Too many check points. Too many babes still in pajamas.
Qatar to Chicago. Eastern to Western.
*Epic layover in the middle of the night in miserable and drafty O'Hare airport. No food. No place to lay down. Night two of no bed, no shower. Too many check points.
Chicago to Philadelphia. Three and a half hours. We'd flown three and a half hours too far west, so we had to backtrack three and a half hours more back East. It would have seemed more cruel had I had any ability to care.
I know who made those plane reservations. I know him personally. I know the rational he gave. I know because I heard it all from his lips... over dinner... that I cooked... at my old house... in my old life... the life where he was a near, and dearly loved friend.
I miss my old life, I miss my old house and my gardens and my dog and the crazy way that ANYONE on the street could see directly into the lives of my family. I miss my fire-pit and my clothesline. But more than that, I miss the naiveté I had back then about friendships, about right and wrong, about love and compassion. I know things now, valuable, helpful, wise things. Things that make me a better person, give a finer age to my fermentation. But today, on the day that marks the Day Between That Life and This, in the space where I was living into the reality that sometimes, just because you call it compassion, doesn't mean it is... just because you call it Christian charity, doesn't mean it is... just because you call it love, doesn't mean it is; in THAT space, I sit.
I sit and I mourn.
I sit and I mourn what was, what might have been... who I was, who I might have been.
I mourn for the person who is living her Day Between That Life and This right now.
I mourn for the person who cannot see that words and actions must match up, because if they don't you're living a lie.
"Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?" James 2:15-16
I mourn because the world we are living in, the world most of us are settling for, isn't right. I mourn because there are words for these wrongs: lies. Lies of mediocrity, lies of substandard living, lies of complacence and lies of bureaucracy. And some days, when I see very clearly how wrong certain 'compassions', certain 'charities', certain 'loves' are, on those days, like today, I'm sad. Because it wasn't meant to be like this. It was never meant to be like this. But God's promises remain, His love is never a lie, and there is always, always promise yet for a new dawn, a new life, a new world.
"I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness."
Jeremiah 31:3b (NIV)
"I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength"
Philippians 4:12-13 (NIV)
"We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God"
Hebrews 6:19 (EST and The Message)
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
A Declaration of Affirmation
amen:
a declaration of affirmation
I was up early this morning. There were a hundred and one things to do and I was awake, snuggled down deep under my blankets, trying to calculate the seven things I had time to accomplish and which were the most pressing; my own personal Top Things To Do. One of the things I went about tackling was moving a car seat from one car to the other. I love my car seats. I spent innumerable hours researching them, picking just the right brand, color, all of it. I'm emotionally attached as much to the metal-and-plastic as I am to the crazed and driven person I was in the choosing. That said, I loathe moving them. Every parent does. It's a chore that is just beastly, you end up smelly and sweaty, and when it's o'dark thirty, it's not nice to worry about losing a toe or finger should you allow your mind to wander for even a split second and drop said safety device. My seats are particularly heavy, my sole complaint. As I stepped into the predawn repeating my mantra, "focus Britt, focus and don't drop this" I was engulfed by tiny pink particles that seems to be spun, or rather, spinning sugar. It was as if the sky was trying on bubble gum pink cotton candy, but was fickle and teasing deeper color out of the mixture, settling finally on a stunning coral. I could see it. I kept expecting to be able to stick my tongue out and actually taste the cotton candy, the spun sticky sweetness of my own childhood in the very air around me.
And that's when it slipped from from my subconscious to my lips.
Amen.
I've historically been an early riser and being an athlete helped cement that tendency. There's something mythic about watching the world wake up, the people, the land. all of it. Here I was, perched as our rental is, almost atop what my mother refuses to call 'a hill' because it's simple too steep for that inadequate definition. I stood, breath taken away, imagination completely captured, and I was again reminded that I was, in fact, in full agreement, in firm affirmation with the world around me.
Amen.
Ha Shem, LORD, I agree with everything I see and call it good, just as You did.
Amen.
It was a fleeting moment, the sheer weight of that car seat jerked me back to cruel reality all too quickly. Reality that I am in agreement with very little these days. My body and soul are still groaning, but I, as yet, cannot understand the words behind the sounds, nor can I identify all the bruised and broken places in my soul.
Eugene Peterson, in The Message phrased Romans 8:26-28 so poignantly for me.
Maybe it's because I've been pregnant for the better part of the last decade. Maybe it's because I feel something in my bones which I know is so incredibly common and yet so incredibly unique as well, my own quiet, ordinary miracle. Maybe, I just need to believe in impossible things.
I'm battling today, as so very very many other days. I'm battling homesickness and frustration, depression and defeat. I'm battling lessor demons that seem to be much scrappier than their bigger, more ominous counterparts. Loosing faith, belief, God Himself all seem common place. Loosing purpose, community, sanctuary... not so much. I feel today, as I often feel, left without words in a storm, no blanket, no lighted window, no direction. I know I must trek on. A few years ago I was really struck that whatever the reason for embarking on the current trajectory that is my life, I had to be in each step, owning where I stood. I know the journey is a beautiful, holy sojourn. But that doesn't change the loneliness, the cold, the sadness.
After the atomic bombs were dropped on Japanese soil, the Emperor Hirohito, over a crackling radio, called all of Japan to allow the war to end. "The hardships and suffering to which our nation is to be subjected hereafter will be certainly great," he warned. "However, it is according to the dictates of time and fate that we have resolved to pave the way for a grand peace for all the generations to come by enduring the unedurable and suffering what is not sufferable."
This journey of hurt, of wounding, of gut-wrenching sorrow, of "enduring the unedurable" is not unique to me. Having a baby is not unique to me. But each of my babies was their own miracle. And each step of this journey is my own unique, beautiful disaster... pock-marked by spun sugar sunrises and sweet friends at my dinner table.
"... making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans ... and keeps us present before God..."
Amen.
a declaration of affirmation
I was up early this morning. There were a hundred and one things to do and I was awake, snuggled down deep under my blankets, trying to calculate the seven things I had time to accomplish and which were the most pressing; my own personal Top Things To Do. One of the things I went about tackling was moving a car seat from one car to the other. I love my car seats. I spent innumerable hours researching them, picking just the right brand, color, all of it. I'm emotionally attached as much to the metal-and-plastic as I am to the crazed and driven person I was in the choosing. That said, I loathe moving them. Every parent does. It's a chore that is just beastly, you end up smelly and sweaty, and when it's o'dark thirty, it's not nice to worry about losing a toe or finger should you allow your mind to wander for even a split second and drop said safety device. My seats are particularly heavy, my sole complaint. As I stepped into the predawn repeating my mantra, "focus Britt, focus and don't drop this" I was engulfed by tiny pink particles that seems to be spun, or rather, spinning sugar. It was as if the sky was trying on bubble gum pink cotton candy, but was fickle and teasing deeper color out of the mixture, settling finally on a stunning coral. I could see it. I kept expecting to be able to stick my tongue out and actually taste the cotton candy, the spun sticky sweetness of my own childhood in the very air around me.
And that's when it slipped from from my subconscious to my lips.
Amen.
I've historically been an early riser and being an athlete helped cement that tendency. There's something mythic about watching the world wake up, the people, the land. all of it. Here I was, perched as our rental is, almost atop what my mother refuses to call 'a hill' because it's simple too steep for that inadequate definition. I stood, breath taken away, imagination completely captured, and I was again reminded that I was, in fact, in full agreement, in firm affirmation with the world around me.
Amen.
Ha Shem, LORD, I agree with everything I see and call it good, just as You did.
Amen.
It was a fleeting moment, the sheer weight of that car seat jerked me back to cruel reality all too quickly. Reality that I am in agreement with very little these days. My body and soul are still groaning, but I, as yet, cannot understand the words behind the sounds, nor can I identify all the bruised and broken places in my soul.
Eugene Peterson, in The Message phrased Romans 8:26-28 so poignantly for me.
"...God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray,
it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us,
making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.
He knows us far better than we
know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition,
and keeps us present before God.
That's why we can be so sure that every
detail in our lives of
love for God is worked into something good."
Maybe it's because I've been pregnant for the better part of the last decade. Maybe it's because I feel something in my bones which I know is so incredibly common and yet so incredibly unique as well, my own quiet, ordinary miracle. Maybe, I just need to believe in impossible things.
I'm battling today, as so very very many other days. I'm battling homesickness and frustration, depression and defeat. I'm battling lessor demons that seem to be much scrappier than their bigger, more ominous counterparts. Loosing faith, belief, God Himself all seem common place. Loosing purpose, community, sanctuary... not so much. I feel today, as I often feel, left without words in a storm, no blanket, no lighted window, no direction. I know I must trek on. A few years ago I was really struck that whatever the reason for embarking on the current trajectory that is my life, I had to be in each step, owning where I stood. I know the journey is a beautiful, holy sojourn. But that doesn't change the loneliness, the cold, the sadness.
After the atomic bombs were dropped on Japanese soil, the Emperor Hirohito, over a crackling radio, called all of Japan to allow the war to end. "The hardships and suffering to which our nation is to be subjected hereafter will be certainly great," he warned. "However, it is according to the dictates of time and fate that we have resolved to pave the way for a grand peace for all the generations to come by enduring the unedurable and suffering what is not sufferable."
This journey of hurt, of wounding, of gut-wrenching sorrow, of "enduring the unedurable" is not unique to me. Having a baby is not unique to me. But each of my babies was their own miracle. And each step of this journey is my own unique, beautiful disaster... pock-marked by spun sugar sunrises and sweet friends at my dinner table.
"... making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans ... and keeps us present before God..."
Amen.
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