Red Tum-E Yummie

This is one of my nieces.  She's something special, and at 5 she has not yet learned how to pace herself.  She is intense, competitive, and a born leader.  When she was still riding a bike with training wheels I remember this time we went to ride at a near by park.  We were blissfully riding side by side, and then I couldn't help myself.  I peddled just barley harder so I would pull out in front of her.  The look of fury and determination that crossed her face amuses me still to this day.  I have NEVER seen someone peddle so fast.  Up and down, over and over like a steam engine, until she finaly found the lead.  She peered back at me with such satisfaction!

As I mentioned in my last post, we recently traveled to the Caribbean on a cruise.  On St. Thomas we rented a car and drove to a beach so we could do some snorkeling.  (Again, Melissa, so sorry we missed seeing you!)  We spent several hours in the sun, and as the heat caused the joy of the beach to dissipate into something else, we decided to explore this island a little more.  We stopped to get some snacks and drinks.

The girls all picked out these Kool-Aid type drinks called Tum-E Yummie.  Allie selected red.  The combination of exhaustion, dehydration, and the permission to drink something painfully sweet caused her to drink the 12 ounces in just a few minutes.

You may know where I'm going.  A tummy full of liquid mixed with heat and winding roads can quickly lead to an unpleasant experience.  I think my British friends call it "getting sick," which is much more pleasant than some of the things we Americans call it.  We pulled over and attempted to appease her bruised soul while frantically sanitizing the rented van.

There is something in our sinful nature that finds perverted refuge in the snow-ball effect of indulgence.  An inclination toward self gratification; so what we see in Allie's drink, the very thing, the good thing that could have brought blissful satisfaction becomes harmful and sickening.  We enjoy good things that can become harmful if taken in too quickly and without proper temperment.

This is not to say that extravagance is absent from the Kingdom.  Just look at Mary's anointing of Jesus' feet.  No, there is room for extravagance.  In fact, it's a part of God's nature.  But, godly extravagance and indulgence are two very different things.  I pray you never misconstrue the two.  One is about selfish ambition and shallow satiation; the other is about generosity and mindful submission to others.

Matthew 10:8(b) Freely you have received, freely give.

Be reminded that God wants to give you good things.  He also wants you to want to relish in freely giving of yourself.

Soundtrack:  Royals, Lorde; Be Still My Soul, Trinity Anglican Mission Worship Team.

Surprised by Something

I love C.S. Lewis' Surprised by Joy more than any other book in all the world, and I am presently reading Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright.  (Side Bar, maybe I should start signing my name as J.E. Sims.) I like that somehow pressing in to understand God more deeply often leads to surprise.  Our God is certainly inclined to behave differently than we expect.  Superficially, I also consider it serendipitous that one of my favorite contemporary thinkers paid homage to one of my favorite thinkers of all time.

Surprise is something God does well.  It makes logical sense - he does have a few things up on us, being infinite, all knowing and what not.  I also think that surprise is something that we need in our lives... not just for birthdays and significant life events, but definitely in the mundane and even maybe in a shifting world view.  Unexpectedness can catch us off guard and occasionally provide more valuable or substantive experiences than the ones we plan for ourselves.  For instance, Mom was called on stage recently to participate in a skit while we were on a cruise.  She was not expecting this, and I think you see in her face genuine shock.  But I hope what you can also see is a sense of thrill and exhilaration.

Not long ago a drawer of mine was cleaned out for me, and I found papers from years past.  It's always interesting to look at the things for which you once found great value, but somehow lost track of them.  In that drawer I discovered this little piece of paper that I had typed out:

I am like you.  I have seen plenty done in the name of God that I'm sure God doesn't want anything to do with.  I have lots of reasons for bailing on the whole thing.  I am also like you because I have a choice.  To become bitter, cynical, jaded and hard.  Anybody can do that.  A lot have.  Hatred is a powerful, unifying force.  And there is a lot to be repulsed by.  Or, like you, I can choose to reclaim my innocence.  We can choose to reclaim our innocence together.  We can insist that hope is real and that  a group of people who love God and others really can change the world.  We can reclaim our idealism and our beliefs and our confidence in the big ideas that stir us deep in our bones.  We can commit all the more to being the kinds of people who are learning how to do what Jesus teaches us.  ~ Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis.  

I feel compelled to acknowledge two arenas of surprise that this quote brings to mind.  The first is the potential bitterness causing "stuff" that Rob addresses.  I have been shocked by the dark and disappointing things that people do, think, say, believe, and create in the name of God.  The type of greed, pride, hatred, and selfishness I've met in people preparing to serve the Lord and/or declaring their faith simply astonishes me.  I have heard several people who formerly worked in churches say (in varying capacity and denomination) that the meanest people they ever met were people in that church.  I believe that the Lord used the level of disbelief I experienced to emphasize how significant and devastating this truly is.  God uses our emotions to help us better understand greater Truth.  Here, surprise led to somber lament. 

This persistent grief first struck me years ago and I am surprisingly, but only partially, glad to say that it remains. It is much easier to be jaded because in choosing to do so you quite literally build up a barrier around yourself to insulate yourself from the quite difficult feelings of pain and loss.

And yet, the steady peace that God shares in this grief gives me warrant to both acknowledge the injustice and endure past it.  Because God is bigger.  I believe he works tirelessly to restore those victimized by the church, her agents, the church herself, and the perpetrators that harm people in her name.

One of my favorite movie moments is in Robin Hood - the Kevin Costner one. (Prince of Thieves)  Christian Slater as Will Scarlett cries out to his newly revealed brother Robin of Locksley, "It's not a lie! You ruined my life! I have more reason to hate you than anyone. Yet I found myself daring to believe in you. And what I want to know, brother, is will you stay with us and finish what you started?"

There is something analogous about that scene with my feelings about the church.  Somehow, despite my understanding of what happens (sometimes and in some places) behind the scenes, I can't help but remain "all in."  That is how powerful the love of Christ can be.

And here it is.  The real surprise.  The divine surprise.  I am... surprised by resolve.  Tenacity.  Love.  Authentic Freedom.  And not my own, but instead that which is constant in the Spirit that stirs within me.  Something more.  I don't know what the word is, and I am ok leaving it nameless.  In a world where men and women change their feelings at a whim.  Our Heavenly Father remains constantly eager to heal our brokenness. 

The Holy Spirit forces me to confront, acknowledge and even embrace Hope.  When something is true in an way that deserves a capital "T," there is no mistaking the source.

May you be reminded that the good God who governs the Church in grace and justice is in the business of surprise and restoration.  Do not let the sinfulness of man keep you from the joy of salvation! 

Soundtrack:  Today, Enter the Worship Circle.

TrainTracks and Slavery

Last week I visited my brother and his family in Germany by myself.  I find it particularly rewarding to find your way around an unfamiliar place, not knowing a language, and doing all of that on your own.  It forces you to pay extra close attention to details that you might not have noticed if you were sharing the work load.  In the midst of traveling you are forced to be more available to your surroundings because you do not have someone distracting you.  Once I arrived in Dusseldorf, I took a train to Hamburg, which is where they live.  As the newness of traveling by train faded and I tired of my book; I started to pay close attention to the world whizzing by me outside.  I noticed the obvious things first: the farms were eerily similar to those in the States; the cities were not.  All of the buildings looked old.  I don’t know if that says more about the American unhealthy extreme value of the new or about the rural German lifestyle.  

Then I began to look at the specific things in the landscape: a llama, a cool red truck, windmills and yellow flowers.  (Side tangent – I later discovered that these flowers are named Rape… #worstflowernameever.)  As the hours ticked by, I felt my eyes wander down to the tracks. An instant overwhelmed me with a sense of awareness of my locality.  It was the rocks beneath the railroad ties.  They were worn.  They had been there a while; a long while.  Probably nearly a hundred years.   As the thought began to cross my mind; my breath was knocked out of me.  People were led to death here.  Probably right here.   And I felt changed.  But, I began to really process what I was thinking because, let’s be honest, I had the time.  I realized that no one around me seemed affected by the reality that we were blissfully traveling a track that once saw unthinkable pain. I felt myself judging these Germans for being so blasé about the Holocaust… even though I had not engaged anyone in my thought pattern, and I would have no way of knowing the struggle to absorb and process the state sponsored genocide that occurred less than a century ago.  I don't mean to say they actually are blasé so much as I struggled with projecting that on to them in the midst of my reflective moment.  And then the thoughts turned toward my own birthplace and lifestyle.  I realized that there MUST be tourists that travel to the South - to Georgia who feel a similar heaviness about the sins of the land on which I live my own life. 

This Oscar season brought a rare occurrence for this movie-snob.  12 Years a Slave marked the first time in a long time that the movie that won best picture was both my pick and my prediction.  Most years my prediction wins, but my pick is much less frequent.  I have high expectations for the movie I consider the best film of the year.  I want entertainment, of course; but in addition to that, I expect the movie to exhibit masterful acting, directing, and cinematography.  I want the whole of the movie production to be excellent: costumes, score, set direction, casting; everything.  But, even more than that, I need the content to matter.  I want the audience to be driven toward processing something significant, not necessarily something difficult or unfortunate.  For instance, Invictus was once my pick for best picture.  I think the movie that wins the Best Picture Oscar marks the year and should reflect the people, culture, priorities and values of the time.  Well, at least the culture, priorities and values the people of the time should have. 

12 Years a Slave pushed all of those buttons in the best way possible.  So powerful.  As a white woman from the South who comes from a family that has been in Georgia for hundreds of years, I am forced to wrestle with the blood soaked land I travel every day.  I am compelled to navigate a terrain on which my ancestors owned people.  I sit here struggling with whether or not it is appropriate to discuss the knowledge I have on the degree to which this was true of my family.  It just feels like justifying the unthinkable.  One is too many.  Thinking about oppressing another person in that way is too much. 

This experience of pondering the rocks beneath the tracks that once led men, women and children to unthinkable pain, loss, and death forced me to remember the visceral experience I had in the theater watching 12 Years.  At the same time JD Walt’s words about remembering and re-membering and the cross, the table, and the empty tomb flood my mind.  There is something in our createdness that craves marking powerful events, especially the destructively painful things that dishonored God’s design, His Beloved, and the imago dei.  We can’t let ourselves forget the things that break us.  I can’t help but wonder if it is the part of us that hungers for reconciliation, for wholeness, to be made new. 

May you find renewed hope that God is working to make all things new each time a broken world forces you to grieve and ponder the pain of the past. 

Soundtrack – Brand New Day, Tim Myers; Whatever Thing, Enter the Worship Circle. 

Notably New York

Yesterday Jackie and I ate lunch at Gray’s Papya.  They sell these buttons – “Polite New Yorker.”  Obviously, I bought one, duh.   As we walked around the city killing time until we went to the taping of The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, it will come as no surprise to anyone that we engaged in conversations with people everywhere we went.    Almost immediately when we would talk to people they would turn to me and say something like, “So, where are you from?”  I am proud of the fact that I have little to no accent.  And none of them mentioned anything about an accent when they asked me.  No, it was evident that actively engaging with strangers is not typical New Yorker behavior. 

 

God wants us to live alongside people from every age, color, race, ethnicity, language, and worldview in a space where creative expression bursts from the seams of the concrete… where the desire to create is nurtured and valued.  The opportunity to love people, to understand them, to see them, to be loved by them and to move in a rhythm of shared experience

is simply spectacular.  That is realized nowhere else on earthy more acutely than right here in New York City, the city that never sleeps.

It grieves me that most New Yorkers don’t appreciate the valuable resource at hand.  But this dissonance is familiar.  Every day I meet people that don’t recognize the climate of the Kingdom around them.  As my hair blows back in the wind, and my cheeks flush from the radiant heat, they stand still and cold. 

The spirit stirs inside of me; as though I can feel the focused attention of our Creator’s love for the 8 million + presently in my proximity humming within.  It washes over me, and I celebrate.   This city is sacred, and I am thankful I have the opportunity to take my shoes off on this holy ground. 

Revelation 21:23
The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its light.  The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.  On no day will the gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there.  The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. 

It all belongs to God.  It’s all sacred.  Be reminded it can all be yours too.    May you have eyes to see.  Go on; take the red pill.  You might have to fight an agent or two, but you also just might meet the Savior.

Soundtrack - New York, New York – Frank Sinatra, King of New York – Newsies; God of this City – Bluetree/Chris Tomlin.  

I'm closer to God

The summer between my third and fourth years of college I was on a traveling youth ministry team:   Crossfire from the Wesley Foundation at the University of Georgia.  This experienced shaped me in ways that I am still discovering.  There were 3 boys and 3 girls, and we spent the summer traveling between UMC youth groups in all parts of Georgia.  We would drive hundreds of miles cooped up in the Wesley van which smelled like a college ministry van should.  We know things about each other that none of us would like to admit. Even though I don't talk to them very often these days, I love those 5 people as much as I love my own family.  There is just something special about joining someone in ministry that engraves them into your soul.  And, if that ministry occurs through sweat (Effingham County in July), tears, flat tires, late nights and enduring the chaos of hormonal teenagers; then, you find a bond that can never be broken.  These are some of the finest human beings I have ever known, and I would do anything for them. 

That being said, these people are also some of the craziest and funniest people I have ever known.  One night after an evening service with a teeny tiny youth group in rural Georgia; it may have been during a lock-in, we were discussing how things went and what we needed to pray over for the remaining time there.  This was close to the end of the summer, so we were sleep deprived, and serious prayerful moments turned into silly joyful moments without much warning.  Two of the boys began to debate who was "closer to God," jokingly.  And then, they started taking turns standing up, stating that they were closer.  Even as I type this now, I realize it is ridiculous.  But, in the moment, it was the funniest thing I had ever seen.  We were rolling. 

I often replay that moment in my head because it epitomizes the fellowship that we shared and the tone of the group.  We were zealous in our faith, committed to sharing the love of Christ with teenagers, but we didn't take ourselves too seriously.  More abstractly, I think this humorously brings to light something less than beautiful in church culture.  We compete with one another for depth of holiness.   Have you ever observed a difference in reverence given to the peer that served in the middle east rather than going on a domestic mission trip.  Or, have you ever looked at someone's tattered Bible and felt ashamed that you weren't reading the word as often as they must?  Or, have you ever explained (or expected an explanation) from someone because of a church absence.  How odd is that?  As though we somehow can take credit for our righteousness.  Even though we say we don't believe in a works based faith, how often do we live as though we do?

Be reminded that God is so close he is breathing on you.  You can't get any closer, so you can stop competing for his attention.

Soundtrack - Breath of Heaven, Amy Grant; Closer, Charlie Hall.