today I had this overwhelming sense of contentment, peace, "okayness." Even after getting up at 4:30 and driving to work for no actual reason, the day has slipped by in its own sort of sleepiness. I am not sure the meaning or the reason, but suddenly, quietly, today I simply was at home in my own skin, wherever the physical location.
There is a guy who comes into work often-- he fills a 12-once to-go cup with French Roast drip and sits at the bar with someone's leftover paper or chuckling with other customers or giving me and the other girls a hard time. But there has always been this peace, this kindness about him that was unlike many of the other lonely, often creepily lonely, old men that sit at the bar. Today my suspicions about him were proved true-- my answer to his question of how I've been spending my summer led to a mutual understanding of the resurrection the Father can bring from some time alone. I was reassured that the peace that surrounded this "regular" was the same peace that I know is breaking through me as well.
The funny thing-- he asked me where I attend church and my first impulse was to answer, "Here, at work." Strange. But I realize that my experience at the coffeehouse, the long awaited gift of employment that it is, has taught me a great deal about the reconciliation the Father wants to bring into the world and has grown me in so many ways into being honest about His Image in me. I have learned how to look people in the eye, to serve with a smile, to be kind and sincere. Maybe the biggest Sunday School Lesson has simply been on how to interact, how to connect with people. It seems rare these days to find a church that does that.
All church critique aside, there was something very comforting and home-like finding a fellow Kingdom-lifer today, being able to share a tiny piece of my own story of resurrection with him as I stocked cups. And the most intriguing part is that I have known all along that he was my brother, long before he said a word. Not a word.
Monday, July 23
Saturday, July 21
Thursday, July 19
I don't want anything to be left over. I don't want anything held back. I want to be emptied, but I don't know how. I am very tired tonight. I spent nearly ten hours at work today-- ten good hours. But now I am tired but don't want to sleep. Don't know what to do with myself. Not sure what to put my mind to, my energy to. I feel restless, although my eyes burn with ache, my lips with sunburn. My mind wanders and all I want is rest. All I want is rest. Maybe a bit of refreshment, outside influence for my introverted spirit.
Tuesday, July 17
the moon sat low and orange tonight-- a warm sliver breaking through the blue. Luminous white against darkness. Seven and half hours of orange-red, burnt umber and a creamy beige-- making a place that has become like home new again. Behold I make all things new. Friends and family, all a part. Walking barefoot on counters, stainless steel sinks, masking tape in straight blue lines. Straight blue lines. Why did I do it. I didn't have to. could have stayed at home and slept. Investments in belonging. Opportunities for belonging. It seems like hearts connect just as well over a paintbrush as a cup of coffee. Working together. Serving. Making things work. A symbol of newness. Taking that which was once so old, so dingy, so dark and making all things new. Same place, new face. why did I do it. I didn't have to. Something about missional. Something someone said once about incarnation. In carnation. In the flesh. Fleshing it out. Living it out. Showing the world a picture of a God who sacrifices. a God who works long, hard hours into the night to make all things new. To be a part of a family. Tonight the moon was a burning crescent, reflecting something very fierce-- the blaze making viewers wonder what could be making such an intensity. What makes it so orange? why did I do it. something about desire. Something about love that goes beyond a paycheck. What makes it so orange?
Monday, July 16
jump?
seek first. seek first. seek first.
"So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear' [or 'Where shall we live?'] For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
At the end of my senior year, I took a trip up to the mountains with some other students who had just graduated and we were challenged to ask God for a word that would guide us on the road ahead. At the time, this passage from Matthew six seemed appropriate, and funny how time after time it seems to bear its little head, calling me deeper.
Seek first the kingdom and everything else will come together. Don't get distracted by all the little material moments, but tune into the eternal reality that is so pointedly at hand. Don't let these things take your focus away.
While I was at the TEAM conference this past week, I joined some students in playing a psychological game called "the Path" in which someone narrates a scene while you imagine it in your head. The type of pictures that emerge from the narration are supposed to say certain things about you: a path as your childhood, a body of water as your sexuality, and a house at the top of a hill as your future. Although it was just a bit of a game, I am haunted by the fact that my house was dark and empty-- the closet I was supposed to imagine was full of clothing impossible to make out; the images kept shifting, changing, fading in and out of reality. My future is a very dark empty house.
Having just come off the intensity of the week, I find it difficult to begin unsorting all that was said and all that was stirred in me here. The truth is I'm not sure how well I am doing at stopping and letting it sink in. But this I do know-- I am jumping again. This week gave me the opportunity to realize at least three things: One: I am scared of the darkness in this strange house I find myself entering again. Two: The thing I want is the Kingdom, not a shallow existence. Three: I am going to have to jump. {risk}
Each year, as I face my time away at TEAM, I try to be specific about the things I am seeking God on for the coming year. The funny thing is that God never seems to speak in the ways we want him to. I was hoping for some specific direction on what was ahead, but instead seemed to hear a voice booming quietly above all the details. Throughout the week, I heard voices whispering things like, "give me everything," and "we are yours," and "seek first the kingdom, and everything else..." and "I am making all things new."
I don't know what is ahead of me. I feel like I am reentering a location and an environment and a family that I had at one time, but I do not sense that anything is the same. No longer is it a place that I am stuck, no longer a place where I am confined and controlled, but a place that I choose. In so many ways, the canvas seems blank to my choosing, but it is primed and ready, thick with the years of preparation and depth of experience. And just as an artist approaches any new piece of work, the prospect is frightening. What if I mess up? What if I fail? What if I waste it? What if I get stuck again in the same old patterns? The fears mount. What if it is all an illusion?
But I get this sense that things are new somehow. Things have been changed and a whole new world is ahead. A second chance-- an new opportunity to love, to choose. During one of the sessions, we seemed to talk each day about the fact that God is making all things new. this is the salvation that Abba offers for today. Behold, I make all things new.
As I drove to work earlier this morning, I couldn't help but think about what sort of ritual this yearly thing has become for me-- how each year I seem to go and kick off whatever path God has me entering for the coming months. And how beautiful that he is so faithful to meet me there each year, growing me and showing me little markers of the way he is indeed growing these things in me.
And so sure enough, as unexpected as the father is, he did seem to answer in a tangible direction. It seems that he has begun to open doors for me to begin selling some of my work and through that, He seems to keep saying, "I want you to take risks in intimacy." I realize to those of you who do not reside inside of me, it may seem unclear on how this will begin to open doors and windows of opportunities for this growth in me, but the truth is that I have never intended to share my work with others because it is a lot safer to keep it to myself. I can enjoy it myself without having to rely on connections, without having to make business calls, put myself out there. So here I have this opportunity for this amazing thing, this unbelievable thing at the young age of twenty, and the question lies before me whether or not I will take the risk to pursue it.
I went into the week feeling very closed off, very aware of a spirit of timidity and came out with a number of calls to come out. To jump.
This week has afforded more physical wounds than most conferences in the past: a deep cut in the knuckle of my right index finger, three nickel-sized bruises on the shin, a skinned elbow and sore arm to go with it, a bruise the shape of the corner of a wall along my right wrist, nine tiny pebble marks divided between both palms. And although these are small wounds, they are reminding me of the cost of getting out of my shell to live life. I keep thinking about how Jesus said we must give up our lives to find them. I don't feel like it is an easy thing for me to do to let go, but each of my little cuts, each little bruise reminds me it is worth it.
I have this strange fear of pain. I don't like hearing gory details of other peoples' accidents and I don't like the thought of my own pain. I do my best to suppress my own pain. Piercings and needles and trips to the doctor's office frighten me. I don't like the idea of being touched. But this week has taught me a great deal about allowing myself to be touched, putting myself out there, moving away from circles of conservation into circles where life is lived out of freedom rather than fear.
And so I have received a great deal of encouragement and a few offers concerning the sale of my artwork and I am faced with the serious prospect of actually making a go of it. And the thing that scares me is having to build relationships to get ahead. I don't even like taking my car to the same place twice for fear of being known. It is a challenge for me to keep going back to the same coffeehouse instead of just hitting the drivethru at Starbucks. But I want to take this challenge. I want to find the courage to see the strength that comes beyond the muck, the fog that binds.
The truth is that I don't know where all of this will lead, but I do know, somewhere deep in there, that if it is true and if it is a touch from the Father of All Truth, than it will continue in me. He will not leave me nor forsake me. He doesn't ask me to master it all-- he only asks that I give everything, seek first the kingdom and follow in the small steps he is showing me. Little places to risk that someday may add up to the woman he has made me to be. The one he has chosen to be a part of all that he is making new.
So I still do not have a place to live in three weeks and the honest truth is that it scares me. It adds insecurity to the already mirky waters ahead. I have this sense that things are going to be very hard. I am seeing more and more the amount of attention on the Source of Strength it takes to live in the Kingdom that is greater than the surface of the culture we live in now. This is what it comes down to-- I want to live the full life that Jesus came to show us how to live and I fear I will not have the strength for it. But I hear His call-- this call to give up anything I am still holding back; the little trinkets I hold behind my back despite his outstretched hand.
Do not be distracted, he says,by the surface of this world. Let all that fade as you seek me out.
Abba, I am not sure where you are leading and I fear it will all fade, it will all end as I get busy and forget about these little sentences. I fear that even as this is the very thing I have longed for you to enter, that you will not, that it will all be an illusion, a pipe dream and is too good to be true. But the truth is that I want you to give me the courage to let a little more of myself come out of hiding. I long for you to open my heart a little wider so that I would see your image in me, that I would know the depth of your kingdom and the joy it brings. So Abba, I beg, if this is you, if this is really true, I ask that you would penetrate all of the holes that are in me and complete it. You know this desire for the full life, the new life. So Lord, I ask that it would be real. I WANT IT TO BE REAL. (and yet I fear that it is not). Please do not leave me, do not forsake me as it feels like you are, as it feels like you are leaving it all up to me to hold like Midas holding the weight of the world. Abba, I can do nothing on my own. You know me, how afraid I am to follow through. So Lord God, I ask that you would continue to knock, keep knocking, keep knocking. Please keep calling me forth. I need your call. I need your call.
"So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear' [or 'Where shall we live?'] For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
At the end of my senior year, I took a trip up to the mountains with some other students who had just graduated and we were challenged to ask God for a word that would guide us on the road ahead. At the time, this passage from Matthew six seemed appropriate, and funny how time after time it seems to bear its little head, calling me deeper.
Seek first the kingdom and everything else will come together. Don't get distracted by all the little material moments, but tune into the eternal reality that is so pointedly at hand. Don't let these things take your focus away.
While I was at the TEAM conference this past week, I joined some students in playing a psychological game called "the Path" in which someone narrates a scene while you imagine it in your head. The type of pictures that emerge from the narration are supposed to say certain things about you: a path as your childhood, a body of water as your sexuality, and a house at the top of a hill as your future. Although it was just a bit of a game, I am haunted by the fact that my house was dark and empty-- the closet I was supposed to imagine was full of clothing impossible to make out; the images kept shifting, changing, fading in and out of reality. My future is a very dark empty house.
Having just come off the intensity of the week, I find it difficult to begin unsorting all that was said and all that was stirred in me here. The truth is I'm not sure how well I am doing at stopping and letting it sink in. But this I do know-- I am jumping again. This week gave me the opportunity to realize at least three things: One: I am scared of the darkness in this strange house I find myself entering again. Two: The thing I want is the Kingdom, not a shallow existence. Three: I am going to have to jump. {risk}
Each year, as I face my time away at TEAM, I try to be specific about the things I am seeking God on for the coming year. The funny thing is that God never seems to speak in the ways we want him to. I was hoping for some specific direction on what was ahead, but instead seemed to hear a voice booming quietly above all the details. Throughout the week, I heard voices whispering things like, "give me everything," and "we are yours," and "seek first the kingdom, and everything else..." and "I am making all things new."
I don't know what is ahead of me. I feel like I am reentering a location and an environment and a family that I had at one time, but I do not sense that anything is the same. No longer is it a place that I am stuck, no longer a place where I am confined and controlled, but a place that I choose. In so many ways, the canvas seems blank to my choosing, but it is primed and ready, thick with the years of preparation and depth of experience. And just as an artist approaches any new piece of work, the prospect is frightening. What if I mess up? What if I fail? What if I waste it? What if I get stuck again in the same old patterns? The fears mount. What if it is all an illusion?
But I get this sense that things are new somehow. Things have been changed and a whole new world is ahead. A second chance-- an new opportunity to love, to choose. During one of the sessions, we seemed to talk each day about the fact that God is making all things new. this is the salvation that Abba offers for today. Behold, I make all things new.
As I drove to work earlier this morning, I couldn't help but think about what sort of ritual this yearly thing has become for me-- how each year I seem to go and kick off whatever path God has me entering for the coming months. And how beautiful that he is so faithful to meet me there each year, growing me and showing me little markers of the way he is indeed growing these things in me.
And so sure enough, as unexpected as the father is, he did seem to answer in a tangible direction. It seems that he has begun to open doors for me to begin selling some of my work and through that, He seems to keep saying, "I want you to take risks in intimacy." I realize to those of you who do not reside inside of me, it may seem unclear on how this will begin to open doors and windows of opportunities for this growth in me, but the truth is that I have never intended to share my work with others because it is a lot safer to keep it to myself. I can enjoy it myself without having to rely on connections, without having to make business calls, put myself out there. So here I have this opportunity for this amazing thing, this unbelievable thing at the young age of twenty, and the question lies before me whether or not I will take the risk to pursue it.
I went into the week feeling very closed off, very aware of a spirit of timidity and came out with a number of calls to come out. To jump.
This week has afforded more physical wounds than most conferences in the past: a deep cut in the knuckle of my right index finger, three nickel-sized bruises on the shin, a skinned elbow and sore arm to go with it, a bruise the shape of the corner of a wall along my right wrist, nine tiny pebble marks divided between both palms. And although these are small wounds, they are reminding me of the cost of getting out of my shell to live life. I keep thinking about how Jesus said we must give up our lives to find them. I don't feel like it is an easy thing for me to do to let go, but each of my little cuts, each little bruise reminds me it is worth it.
I have this strange fear of pain. I don't like hearing gory details of other peoples' accidents and I don't like the thought of my own pain. I do my best to suppress my own pain. Piercings and needles and trips to the doctor's office frighten me. I don't like the idea of being touched. But this week has taught me a great deal about allowing myself to be touched, putting myself out there, moving away from circles of conservation into circles where life is lived out of freedom rather than fear.
And so I have received a great deal of encouragement and a few offers concerning the sale of my artwork and I am faced with the serious prospect of actually making a go of it. And the thing that scares me is having to build relationships to get ahead. I don't even like taking my car to the same place twice for fear of being known. It is a challenge for me to keep going back to the same coffeehouse instead of just hitting the drivethru at Starbucks. But I want to take this challenge. I want to find the courage to see the strength that comes beyond the muck, the fog that binds.
The truth is that I don't know where all of this will lead, but I do know, somewhere deep in there, that if it is true and if it is a touch from the Father of All Truth, than it will continue in me. He will not leave me nor forsake me. He doesn't ask me to master it all-- he only asks that I give everything, seek first the kingdom and follow in the small steps he is showing me. Little places to risk that someday may add up to the woman he has made me to be. The one he has chosen to be a part of all that he is making new.
So I still do not have a place to live in three weeks and the honest truth is that it scares me. It adds insecurity to the already mirky waters ahead. I have this sense that things are going to be very hard. I am seeing more and more the amount of attention on the Source of Strength it takes to live in the Kingdom that is greater than the surface of the culture we live in now. This is what it comes down to-- I want to live the full life that Jesus came to show us how to live and I fear I will not have the strength for it. But I hear His call-- this call to give up anything I am still holding back; the little trinkets I hold behind my back despite his outstretched hand.
Do not be distracted, he says,by the surface of this world. Let all that fade as you seek me out.
Abba, I am not sure where you are leading and I fear it will all fade, it will all end as I get busy and forget about these little sentences. I fear that even as this is the very thing I have longed for you to enter, that you will not, that it will all be an illusion, a pipe dream and is too good to be true. But the truth is that I want you to give me the courage to let a little more of myself come out of hiding. I long for you to open my heart a little wider so that I would see your image in me, that I would know the depth of your kingdom and the joy it brings. So Abba, I beg, if this is you, if this is really true, I ask that you would penetrate all of the holes that are in me and complete it. You know this desire for the full life, the new life. So Lord, I ask that it would be real. I WANT IT TO BE REAL. (and yet I fear that it is not). Please do not leave me, do not forsake me as it feels like you are, as it feels like you are leaving it all up to me to hold like Midas holding the weight of the world. Abba, I can do nothing on my own. You know me, how afraid I am to follow through. So Lord God, I ask that you would continue to knock, keep knocking, keep knocking. Please keep calling me forth. I need your call. I need your call.
Wednesday, July 4
Some independent thoughts
It is the Fourth of July and I am 800 miles away from home, away from my family. It is two short days before the conference and I am here, near to another sort of family. This day has always carried a great deal of sentimentality as it happens to be one of the few holidays that everyone in my family seems to love equally-- and today I am not there.
This morning, walking out of Wal-Mart as I thought I would do the fourth of July the American way by giving the big-box giant some early-morning patronage, I found myself grieving a bit that I am here and they are there, celebrating without me. I am thinking through my decision to take a fast from the life I have already known and although it makes days like today hurt a little, I look forward to the day when it makes the return all the sweeter. It is funny-- I've talked to a few people at work about why I am here, about wanting to be away from home and the pain of family for a bit and more than once I have heard responses like this: "Yeah, I took a 23 year break from my family." My heart breaks to the sound of that. I am realizing, rejoicing, that my seven month break has done a world of good. I don't want to get to that point, when I am twenty years older and have let so many years of hurt and brokenness go by.
I have no plans today. My goal is to do my laundry and do some cleaning. The first Fourth of July in at least ten years that I have no plans-- July 4, 2007 is not the long-anticipated day that 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999 have been.
I am reminded of a Christmas Eve a few years ago that I decided not to eat a thing for the whole day in anticipation for our traditional family meal of Chile con queso and gifts from our friends that we have after the Christmas Eve service. That Christmas Eve was one of the most memorable for me because it impressed upon me the weight of anticipation the Israelites felt the coming of their Messiah. And I can't help but think that today is the same sort of fast for me. A fast of remembrance, of thankfulness for my family, for home, for all that my life has held.
I often wonder how I was that I was born here-- why me? I want to say why was I given the privilege to be born into this abundant culture, this America when so many others were not, but I can't really decide if it is a privilege or a curse. I feel like it carries so much responsibility, so much challenge to break from the societal river of consumerism and blinding greed. But today I think it is appropriate to really spend some time being thankful. A time to look around and look at all I have been given, all that my life is in this culture and just be grateful-- an opportunity to exercise contentment.
I don't have much to fill my time today and I am away from the chaos that inevitably comes with the masses that are my family. I am strangely filled with thanks for my old car, the convenience of my phone, the coolness of my house, the clothes in my closet, the love of my family full of their quirks and traditions that I have come to appreciate and miss so very deeply.
So thanks, Mom and Dad for all that you have done for me. Thanks just for being my parents. Thank you for doing your best and putting up with me when I didn't appreciate you, when I blamed you and took you for granted. I hope that your Fourth of July is wonderful, full of celebration-- as it always has been!
This morning, walking out of Wal-Mart as I thought I would do the fourth of July the American way by giving the big-box giant some early-morning patronage, I found myself grieving a bit that I am here and they are there, celebrating without me. I am thinking through my decision to take a fast from the life I have already known and although it makes days like today hurt a little, I look forward to the day when it makes the return all the sweeter. It is funny-- I've talked to a few people at work about why I am here, about wanting to be away from home and the pain of family for a bit and more than once I have heard responses like this: "Yeah, I took a 23 year break from my family." My heart breaks to the sound of that. I am realizing, rejoicing, that my seven month break has done a world of good. I don't want to get to that point, when I am twenty years older and have let so many years of hurt and brokenness go by.
I have no plans today. My goal is to do my laundry and do some cleaning. The first Fourth of July in at least ten years that I have no plans-- July 4, 2007 is not the long-anticipated day that 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999 have been.
I am reminded of a Christmas Eve a few years ago that I decided not to eat a thing for the whole day in anticipation for our traditional family meal of Chile con queso and gifts from our friends that we have after the Christmas Eve service. That Christmas Eve was one of the most memorable for me because it impressed upon me the weight of anticipation the Israelites felt the coming of their Messiah. And I can't help but think that today is the same sort of fast for me. A fast of remembrance, of thankfulness for my family, for home, for all that my life has held.
I often wonder how I was that I was born here-- why me? I want to say why was I given the privilege to be born into this abundant culture, this America when so many others were not, but I can't really decide if it is a privilege or a curse. I feel like it carries so much responsibility, so much challenge to break from the societal river of consumerism and blinding greed. But today I think it is appropriate to really spend some time being thankful. A time to look around and look at all I have been given, all that my life is in this culture and just be grateful-- an opportunity to exercise contentment.
I don't have much to fill my time today and I am away from the chaos that inevitably comes with the masses that are my family. I am strangely filled with thanks for my old car, the convenience of my phone, the coolness of my house, the clothes in my closet, the love of my family full of their quirks and traditions that I have come to appreciate and miss so very deeply.
So thanks, Mom and Dad for all that you have done for me. Thanks just for being my parents. Thank you for doing your best and putting up with me when I didn't appreciate you, when I blamed you and took you for granted. I hope that your Fourth of July is wonderful, full of celebration-- as it always has been!
Sunday, July 1
"Nobody likes someone who is a saint all the time."
-- Hugh Grant to Sandra Bullock in "Two Weeks Notice"
"If you would stop trying to be a saint, it would make it a lot easier on everyone."
--Brennan Manning
As we are quickly approaching yet another conference, and I do preparation for an experience that invites students to lay themselves out on the table, I have been forced to think about my own life and my own ability to come clean in my own life. I was watching the movie "Two Weeks Notice" last night and this line caught me. I can't help but wonder if this is me-- the one trying so hard to be a saint. I realize humility as something very important in finding peace, but humility before others isn't my strongest suit.
My contemplation of this idea led me to the conclusion that confrontation seems to be very hard because it requires a great deal of humility and vulnerability. Vulnerability by its very nature requires a great deal of humility because it means we must be already close to the ground so the inevitable fall is not nearly as far. I am reminded one of my favorite quotes on the importance of humility from Parker Palmer:
"I started to understand that I had been living at an altitude that was inherently unsafe. The problem was living at high altitude is simple: when we slip, as we always do, we have a long, long way to fall, and the landing may well kill us. The grade of being pressed down to the ground is also simple; when we slip and fall, it is usually not fatal, and we can get back up."
Confrontation requires us to admit we have had some part in the breaking-- it opens us up to the possibility that it is really we who are at fault. We often say we avoid confrontation because we don't like to tell people they are wrong or what to do, but I think the reality is the backlash is what we really fear. Since when do we hate telling others they are wrong? Humility gives the strenght to own up to the place where it is our responsiblyt to make things right.
It is a lot easier, feels a lot safer to hide behind the saintly appearance rather than own up to eht reality that we too are the broken. It doesn't seem quite as fun as blame, and yet we wonder why things are never resolved. To humbly admit that we swing axes at those around us, that there are limitations to our understand and that we do have the ability to offend takes a lot of strength-- we must put away the ego that gets in the way of honestly doing the fixing that is needed.
I am really good at stuffing my hurts, my faults, my failures and I do a great deal of hiding things so they never get laid open to the public eye to be healed. It has been so long that I've been at this game that I hardly recognize the toxic lies and deciet lurking in the darkness of my soul. But somehow I still know it is all down there becuase it manifests itself as faint, fumy feeling of guilt and shame. Fumes that never really materialze and yet they are heavy as boulders, thick as suffocating smoke. Humility is the only thing that gives the strength to lay the truth of it all out in order to let it be dealt with.
It often seems that the things that remain unnamed become the heaviest of all to bear.
So this week as I prepare to serve students who need to see a God of love and forgiveness, a God who welcomes them back from the far off country covered in pig slop, I realize I must prepare my heart in the same way. This week I am seeking that the Father would be cleansing me, that he would strip me from any lurking distractions that keep me from hearing his voice. It is only right that I be open to the same cleansing that I am preparing to lead students into. So please pray with me this week, pray that I would be laid open, cleansed, ready to get out of the way to see the Father speak.
-- Hugh Grant to Sandra Bullock in "Two Weeks Notice"
"If you would stop trying to be a saint, it would make it a lot easier on everyone."
--Brennan Manning
As we are quickly approaching yet another conference, and I do preparation for an experience that invites students to lay themselves out on the table, I have been forced to think about my own life and my own ability to come clean in my own life. I was watching the movie "Two Weeks Notice" last night and this line caught me. I can't help but wonder if this is me-- the one trying so hard to be a saint. I realize humility as something very important in finding peace, but humility before others isn't my strongest suit.
My contemplation of this idea led me to the conclusion that confrontation seems to be very hard because it requires a great deal of humility and vulnerability. Vulnerability by its very nature requires a great deal of humility because it means we must be already close to the ground so the inevitable fall is not nearly as far. I am reminded one of my favorite quotes on the importance of humility from Parker Palmer:
"I started to understand that I had been living at an altitude that was inherently unsafe. The problem was living at high altitude is simple: when we slip, as we always do, we have a long, long way to fall, and the landing may well kill us. The grade of being pressed down to the ground is also simple; when we slip and fall, it is usually not fatal, and we can get back up."
Confrontation requires us to admit we have had some part in the breaking-- it opens us up to the possibility that it is really we who are at fault. We often say we avoid confrontation because we don't like to tell people they are wrong or what to do, but I think the reality is the backlash is what we really fear. Since when do we hate telling others they are wrong? Humility gives the strenght to own up to the place where it is our responsiblyt to make things right.
It is a lot easier, feels a lot safer to hide behind the saintly appearance rather than own up to eht reality that we too are the broken. It doesn't seem quite as fun as blame, and yet we wonder why things are never resolved. To humbly admit that we swing axes at those around us, that there are limitations to our understand and that we do have the ability to offend takes a lot of strength-- we must put away the ego that gets in the way of honestly doing the fixing that is needed.
I am really good at stuffing my hurts, my faults, my failures and I do a great deal of hiding things so they never get laid open to the public eye to be healed. It has been so long that I've been at this game that I hardly recognize the toxic lies and deciet lurking in the darkness of my soul. But somehow I still know it is all down there becuase it manifests itself as faint, fumy feeling of guilt and shame. Fumes that never really materialze and yet they are heavy as boulders, thick as suffocating smoke. Humility is the only thing that gives the strength to lay the truth of it all out in order to let it be dealt with.
It often seems that the things that remain unnamed become the heaviest of all to bear.
So this week as I prepare to serve students who need to see a God of love and forgiveness, a God who welcomes them back from the far off country covered in pig slop, I realize I must prepare my heart in the same way. This week I am seeking that the Father would be cleansing me, that he would strip me from any lurking distractions that keep me from hearing his voice. It is only right that I be open to the same cleansing that I am preparing to lead students into. So please pray with me this week, pray that I would be laid open, cleansed, ready to get out of the way to see the Father speak.
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