to be free

to be free means...

...to be free from ourselves,

from our untruth,

in which it seems as if I alone were the center of the world

...to be free from myself

in order

to be free for others

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer

July 24, 1932

"Through Gates of Splendor" Ch 1

Studying at Books-A-Million last night. I'm a bookstore studier - the smelling and sipping of coffee, a study break to peruse the books, the sound of blurred conversations and mellow music in the background - these little pleasures make studying a treat. During last night's study break perusal, I stumbled upon 'The Gates of Splendor' by Elisabeth Elliot. I read the first chapter and decided to buy it. Here's one of the sentences that helped make the purchase...

"Were it not that I believed that Jesus was seen of men and proved Himself to be supernatural in outwitting death, I would throw the whole system back to the troubled skies and take a raft down the Mississippi today. But the fact is founding, settling, establishing. It holds as nothing else, and gives the sense that there are answers, not yet discovered, for which I must wait."

"But the fact is founding" - how that resonates. I too have felt doubt and thought it would be so much easier to "take a raft down the Mississippi". (actually, since reading Huck Finn, I have always wanted to take a raft down the Mississippi, however I don't think Elliot is talking about an actual rafting trip). But I've felt the same grounding - not from family, or friends, or habbit, or any other persuasion. It is the fact of Jesus that I cannot deny - it is settling. it is establishing. it holds as NOTHING else.

Live a Lover's Life

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless...

-the apostle Paul writing to the Philippians ch. 1, vs. 9-10

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So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much, but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary...

-Phil 1:9-10 paraphrased by Eugene Peterson

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"Live a lover's life" - haha - I like that - sounds a little edgy:) and I think it is... the love Paul prays for is certainly not the norm - most people's notion of love is probably more of the "sentimental gush". A love that is "sincere and intelligent" - seems quite radical, and crazy, and rich, and ...hard!!!

'Faith My Eyes'

So keep'em coming these lines on the road

And keep me responsible be it a light or heavy load

And keep me guessing with these blessings in disguise

And I'll walk with grace my feet and faith my eyes

traveling wisdom

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Matthew 7:13-14

Thy Kingdom Come

Psalm 65:9

You visit the earth and cause it to overflow.
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A friend recently told me that in the Catholic church they practice novena. I'm not Catholic and didn't know what that was so I looked it up and found that it is nine days of prayer and devotion to obtain special graces. It has a long and diverse history that I didn't fully read about, but in the past it has been practiced at different times and for various reasons. The nine days leading up to Christmas is one of those. During these nine days, symbolic of the 9 months Christ was in Mary's womb, the people pray for Christ's coming. So much of Christmas is tradition and just what people do without thinking about it. I like hearing about how other cultures celebrate and worship - it gives fresh persepective as I look on from the outside, and allows me to see the reality underneath all the hoop-la. I like the idea of novena - though I think its more real than just a religious idea. The reality novena speaks of is God on earth. Did God really come to earth? That is the claim...and it is an extraordinary and rather ridiculous claim if you think about it. I've thought about it a lot, and I decide to pray the novena. I don't know what special graces are exactly, but God's kingdom on earth strikes me as something extremely special and more full of grace than anything else I could think to pray for. And so I pray for Christ's coming...."Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

Mansfield Park

"I see more distinctly through the rain."

___________

"Beware of fainting fits. Beware of swoons."
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"I do not trust him... his sole interest is in being loved, not in loving."
___________

“Are you certain?”
“I have no talent for certainty.”
__________

"Run mad as long as you choose, but do not faint."
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"Its just that the temptation was too strong for a mind unused to making any sort of sacrifice."
__________

“Is there anything to be done?”
“Wait.”
“Wait?”
“Time can do almost anything.”
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At the time when it was natural, and not a moment sooner..."
__________

"I was so anxious to do what is right that I forgot to do what is right."

but I'm just asking You tonight...

I just got a new computer (well, >2 mos. ago), but still, I haven't gotten any music on it yet, so I put a cd in at the beginning of the week, and have just been listening to that same cd ("Can You Hear Us?") over and over. Currently my favorite song is track 5: "Elizabeth". I can't decided whether I find it encouraging or discouraging.

__________________
and You can save a whole nation at a time,
but I'm just asking You tonight... please save Elizabeth.
I'll keep on listing those I love,
or ask for all the nations to come,
or plead for those who have never heard,
and those who've been hurt by the church,
or beg for those who have nothing to eat,
or little girls being sold for pennies,
or ask for freedom for the slaves in chains,
or for peace to come where wars rage.
And I know that You can save a whole nation at a time,
but I'm just asking You tonight... please save Elizabeth.

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There are things I want... by things I don't mean material stuff... I can't help but think that surely God wants the things I ask Him for too b/c they are good things. So I pray for them...and I'm convinced God must consent ...they are good things!

Was visiting with a dear person recently... had a hard life. And I can't imagine living that life, can't imagine I'd be able to endure it. I assume myself exempt from such hardship...that I, for some warped reason, think I should have a rosy life, blessed beyond measure...is this a health and wealth gospel I've adopted for myself? Why do I think I should have everything I want when my friend has suffered so much...do I think myself better???

And then I listen to this song...oh, man am I self centered!!! so consumed with praying for these things I want, they are good things of course, but they certainly benefit me too. I pray for these things while others pray for food, pray for war to leave their country, pray for protection from violence and sexual abuse...and many of these people have been praying far longer than I have.

So that's a little discouraging...to be reminded, "Hey, there's people out there with far greater needs than you, and they're still waiting for help...so get in line." I hate waiting in line...

but I'm also encouraged. hmmm, not sure why, but I am. The world is undone from all sides, and all the gazillions of people covering its surface - they've all got their hands in the air - all wanting something. I'm one of them. Just one in the crowd. But I'm encouraged because crowds never seemed to be a problem in the past...

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feeding of the 5,000
Mark 6:34 & 42 "When Jesus went ashore, He saw a large crowd...They all ate and were satisfied."

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healing the paralytic
Mark 1:4 & 5 "Being unable to get to Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him...and Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, 'Son, your sins are forgiven.'"

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Mark 1:33 & 34 "And the whole city had gathered at the door.... and He healed many who were ill with various diseases."

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Mark 5:24, 27, &34 "and a large crowd was following Him and pressing in on Him...she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak...And He said to her, 'Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your affliction.'"

Sex Sells

So, supposedly there's a clothes store in NYC where the window display consists of live models dressing and undressing. They were talking about it on the news, and two commentators were brought in to discuss whether this was morally ok. The commentator in favor of the window display argued the following: "Sex Sells!" Indeed it does. ..."What in the world kind of arguement is that!?!"

I like to argue

Though He slay me, I will hope in Him.
Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him
Job 13:15
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"Jacob wrestled the angel and the angel was overcome."
U2
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Oh, it's gonna take some blood to see the nations come
come now, let us go
track 12 from the album "Can you Hear Us"
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He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.
Luke 22:44
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My dad's initial answer to most requests was usually "no".
"Can I get a coke?"
"No"
"Can I rent a movie?"
"No"
I soon discovered, however, that if I really really wanted something I could most often get it...but I had to work hard to get it. Movies and cokes weren't usually worth the effort to me, but a trip or adventure... now that was something I was willing to fight for...and I did. In 7th grade, I wanted to go to France. Dad's initial answer of course was "no"...but I went. He didn't pay for it, or make it easy to go, but he let me work for it. In college, I wanted to go to Guatemala. Dad's initial answer was "no"...but I went. Sometimes the initial answer was the final answer. There were those times when I'd ask, and push, and push, and the answer would remain "no" because he really didn't think it was a good idea. After college, I wanted to go to Africa. Dad's answer remained "no"... I was old enough to make my own decision and I could have gone, but I wanted his blessing, so I decided not to go. Sometimes in the middle of the fight I'd realize, "maybe this isn't worth fighting for - maybe its not what I really want", and that's fine too. But most of the time I think he was just resisting at the start to see how badly I wanted what I was asking for...and if I really wanted it and fought him for it...then he'd usually consent and let me have my way.

In general I think its a bad idea to project experiences with our dad onto God. We pray "Our Father, who art in heaven..." For many, who've experienced absent or abusive fathers, this prayer is not very comforting. But God is "our Father in heaven" - the perfect dad. My dad is not perfect, but he's a pretty good dad, and in this case I think his parenting of me helps me to understand how God wants to be my father. I think He too wants me to ask Him for what I want, and to fight hard for it. Often when I want something from God, though, I give a half hearted plea. Why don't I insist the way I've always done? Is God wanting me to insist more than I do...to wrestle with Him a bit...to fight with Him a little - maybe even a lot? Is He testing me to find out what I really want, and how hard I'm willing to fight for it? Certainly there are things that are just not a good idea, and no matter how hard I fight, God's answer will remain "no". But I wonder ...are there some things I just haven't bothered Him enough about?

_________________
But I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue with God.

Job 13:3
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...ask, and it will be given to you;
seek, and you will find;
knock, and it will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives;
and he who seeks, finds;
and to him who knocks, it will be opened.
Luke 11:9-10

a living being

Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Genesis 2:7

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Dust and breath. Not one or the other, but both. There is an animal nature in us...to protect ourselves, to feed ourselves, to reproduce ourselves...and all the chemical, physiological STUFF of our material bodies that make us that way. It is good, but it is not all. We are dust and...breath. Not just the breath that delivers oxygen to our lungs and keeps all those chemicals functioning, but the breath that is life and freedom. Freedom from the STUFF. Freedom to be vulnerable, to fast, to deny oneself...and to love.

So often though we treat people like dirt - just dust from the ground...dust without breath.

Was recently talking with a friend about whorehouses, prostitution, pornography... nice conversation right? but such things pervade our society - people being sold as a consumer product, people being used and abused. The whorehouse is the extreme example, but we buy and sell our friends and "loved ones" in a similar manner everyday. It is so hard to not treat people as something to entertain me, to distract me, to help me, to prosper me...so hard for me, me, me. I take a deep breath, and greet my friend again, hoping this time I will deny myself and love another. Hoping this time I will not be a slave to this animal instinct in me - to serve only me. Hoping this time to be free from me and love another...I think I'm gonna have to "hurt for it, work for it", but I'm convinced its worth it..how else can I be "a living being" (Gen 2:7)

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Well we hurt each other, than we do it again
You say love is a temple, love a higher law.
Love is a temple, love the higher law.
You ask me to enter...and then you make me crawl!
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Yeah, you hurt for it, work for it...LOVE.
You don't always show it.
You wanna be the song, be the song that you hear in your head... LOVE."

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Love rescue Me!

U2:)

The Art of Loving and Running

It is week 12 of my training for the Gainesville marathon set for Valentine's Day 2010. I'm hoping not only to finish the race, but also to run fast enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon. It is a lofty goal for me... and one that I'm not so sure I am capable of attaining...

I'm considering another goal for Valentine's Day as well. It is even loftier... and one that I'm quite positive I'll not attain, especially not byFeb. 14 ...if ever. The speaker at my seminary graduation ceremony challenged the graduates: "get good at loving well". I didn't know what he meant really, but a few years later I've decided its a challenge worth pursuing. Maybe the only thing in life that is whole heartedly worth pursuing. I realize this will be a life long pursuit, and not something I'll achieve over the next 3 months, but its helpful to set milestones on a long run, and for thematic purposes Valentines Day will be the first mile marker in my training to get good at loving well:)

I recently finished reading "The Art of Loving" by Eric Fromm. "Is love an art?" he begins, "then it requires knowledge and effort." Fromm says that love is the one thing that everyone wants, but very few ever truly attain. If I look around, I'd have to say "yeah, that strikes me as a true statement". And if I look at myself I have to say the same thing...where's the love??? And I don't just mean romantic love, but love between friends, family, self, God, and yes, romantic love too:) Love is rarely attained, Fromm says, due to a lack of knowledge and effort. Not luck? Not meeting the right person to love? No. Knowledge and Effort - understanding what real love is and putting effort into attaining it. We have adopted distorted notions of what love is from our culture. One of those distortions is the idea that love is something one "falls into" (based on emotions), or just a matter of meeting the right person - someone that is easy to love. We assume that real love should be easy and not require any work or effort on our part. But Fromm says that love is not something for the lucky few, but for those few willing to train and work for it.

Today's long run was 18 miles - and I questioned myself: "why am I doing this? ...it is so hard!!!" I'm doing it because it is good for me (it makes me a stronger and better person), and because all the effort will be worth it when I cross the finish line come February. Ok, actually it has nothing to do with Feb 14 - race day - valentine's day. It has everything to do with the training and who I am all the days leading up to race day. Am I a runner? Am I a person who loves?

"The practice of any art," Fromm argues "requires discipline, concentration, patience, and a supreme concern with the mastery of that art" - the same is true for learning the art of loving. I do not like any of those words: discipline, concentration, and patience - but there are things of supreme concern to me that I am willing to practice discipline, concentration, and patience for. The marathon requires this of me...am I willing to practice these things to also get good at loving well? Training for a marathon is so concrete and easy to measure and observe your progress in. Love is much harder to measure - and as such, perhaps it is more worth the striving for.

just being with it

"not everything can be fixed or solved...feel the difference between trying to fix it and just being with it."
-Ruth Haley Barton

a Sunday morning

1. A reminder: God can salvage our mistakes: even the big mistakes. Didn't he raise the dead?, heal the paralytic?

2. A challenge: God is powerful - do we only ask God for things that we can already take care of, or do we dare ask for the things that can only come about if He steps in - do we believe that He'll step in?

3. A blessing at the altar: "thank you for the calling You have put in her heart, help her to carry it through, and give her the strength and courage to do so."

4. a song:

Everyone needs compassion
Love that’s never failing
Let mercy fall on me
Everyone needs forgiveness
The kindness of a Saviour
The hope of nations

CHORUS
Saviour He can move the mountains
My God is mighty to save
He is mighty to save
Forever
Author of salvation
He rose and conquered the grave
Jesus conquered the grave

So take me as You find me
All my fears and failures
Fill my life again
I give my life to follow
Everything I believe in
Now I surrender

graceful posture

I know I write the same things over and over, but I keep forgetting what I write, then the truth hits me again - hits me as if for the first time, and I can't help writing about it again. So here goes another song lyric and running narrative...

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In this posture let me live
and "hosannas" daily give
in this temper let me die
and "hosannas" ever cry

this is a favorite - it's the last verse from the Indelible Grace worship song "Jesus Cast A Look on Me". For some reason I really like the Christian life described here as a "posture" in which we daily live. I can't help but picture a confident, skinny, tall woman with fair skin, red lipstick and excellent posture. She's not a snob, but she's quiet, confident, disciplined... she's beautiful.

I've always been a bit of a sloucher. Sometimes I'll become cognizant of my hunched over state, and sit up straight for a moment, but gradually my shoulders fall forward again and my back begins to curve. I've heard that slouching is as much a cause as it is an effect - it is the result of having low self-confidence, and it also causes you to feel less confident - I think I read that in one of those teen magazines many years ago - so "shoulders back and chin up" Seventeen told its readers.

I started thinking of all this on my run last night. I started out very conscious of my running posture - trying to piece together all the tidbits of advice I've heard over the years - shoulders back, slight lean forward, lift your feet straight up to your knee, arms relaxed and parallel to your body, chin up - look ahead, not at your feet....then I started thinking about this whole posture thing - the Indelible Grace song above, Seventeen magazine... my mind started to wander and I realized that I was no longer thinking about my running posture. So I straightened up again, arms relaxed shoulders back... but shortly thereafter my mind began to wander, and again I forgot about my posture. In the course of that 30 minute run, my mind probably wandered off about 5 times - that's a pretty short attention span:)

Posture - good posture. I'm not just speaking of a straight spine. It is how one carries herself, her own weight and the weights placed on her, how one walks through life. Good posture is a mark of refinement and discipline - acquired with practice. I will occasionally forget, and my mind will frequently wander, in which case I will just sit up straight and straighten up again 'til it's all my body knows to do. Good posture is a mark of confidence. It says: "I am Beautiful" - not Seventeen beautiful... indelible grace beautiful. Good posture is the result of a life well lived and also the very thing that helps you to live well.

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Grace, she carries a world on her hips.

Grace makes beauty...

...out of ugly things.

U2

Ridiculous

"The right to be ridiculous is something I hold dear"
U2
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Everyone wants to be cool. I try to be cool, but its just so hard:) Its neither hot nor cold, just somewhere in the middle - apathetic. Its "cool" to be cool, "cool" to be apathetic, to not care, to be unaffected and without emotion - don't let any body or any situation rattle you. But its so hard because our little human heart is always wanting to go crazy - to believe in something, to be on fire about something. We care.

A dear friend and her husband stopped through Gainesville last week to visit - they are super cool people - what I mean is that they are really "wonderful" people, but "apathetic" by no means. They've packed up their house and are off to Ethiopia in a few months to minister to young women brutalized by sex trafficking and looking to start life afresh. They left me a cd they'd recently picked up called "Can you hear us?" (not by the David Crowder Band). Its not an uplifting-easy-listening sort of cd - all the songs are about social injustice. As I listen on my way to work this morning, I find myself wanting to cry - I feel a little ridiculous at the stop light, and hope no one will look over and see me. I especially like the first song on the album - the chorus is catchy, and I find myself still singing it long after the car engine is turned off and the cd stops.

"Wouldn't this be ridiculous!"

The verses are a series of hypotheticals: "What if we...(did something for the oppressed), Instead of...(doing something for ourselves)". In our cool culture that really is ridiculous and extreme...and a little edgy. What if we cared, and lived as if we cared about something bigger than ourselves? I feel suffocated and get claustrophobic just chillin' in the middle of cool - let me outside, let me be a little crazy. I want to be ridiculous.

just keep going

Today I got to read the first lesson and psalm in church. I love to read aloud - so this task fits me well:) Today's reading was quite long though, and contained a list of OT names that weren't so easy to pronounce, so I wasn't totally feeling it and hurried my way through. Feelings are so unreliable I've discovered (again and again and again...). They were unreliable again today. This "long and boring passage" contained more than I initially thought - the message I needed to hear. It was the story of Hannah, who was barren, but prayed to God fervently for a son. I'm sure she must have felt weary of saying that same prayer over and over. But in time, God blessed her with a child, and she bore a son whom she named Samuel. Today's gospel lesson from Luke 18 made the same case for persisting in prayer - "And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart..." The sermon naturally followed: don't give up! keep praying!

I feel like giving up far too often. I went for a run before church this morning. I'd been feeling tired and heavy all week. I attempted to do a longer run yesterday and didn't make it as far as I would have liked, so I tried again today - hoping that today would break the cycle. I started strong and felt good for most of the way, but then I started feeling tired again, and felt like giving up. My mantra for the remainder of the run: "It's ok to feel tired, JUST KEEP GOING!"

travelling in Gainesville

I've got this energy beneath my feet
like something underground's gonna come up and carry me.

I love to travel. For the past two weeks I've been house and dog sitting for a family on the other side of town. They will return this afternoon, so this morning I packed up my stuff and drove back to my house in NW Gainesville. As soon as my body is put in motion, my mind takes off as well. I don't have to move far, just be in motion - I think it keeps me fresh, alive, new - it does something. I am in between here and there, and there's a freedom of thought and independence in that place. Reminds me I'm not stuck in a moment and not stuck in a place. I'm living, moving, breathing - I'm free and I like it.

another day

Through another day, another trial,
another chance to reconcile to one who sees past all I can see

Again my perspective unravels, again my mind needs renewed. Always coming back, cause I'm always wandering off. Prone to wander...

Lord, my will has deceived me
please come and free me
come rescue this child
for I long to be reconciled to you
refine me

all I can do is give my heart and soul to you
and pray...
and pray...
oh, I will pray

Walk with me empty, walk with me strong
The hush of our voices, when the day seems so long
It is like a balm, it is like a jewel
It unravels all I thought I knew

swing low!

I'm waiting on the light to change...
Oh, love won't let you go
it bends and reaches low

and love alone is not enough to hold us up
we've got to touch your robe
so swing your robe down low

Swing Low!
Sweet Chariot!