Jean Vanier on growth and the capacity of the heart to be broken.

http://www.altervideomagazine.com/2011/10/28/enlarge-life/

Joy is in the acquiescing

I used to wonder why C.S. Lewis found himself so “surprised” by joy. There is so much joy in life –and hardship too, of course –but ultimately joy knowing God has already purchased our joy-everlasting.

But finding joy in this life is not a choice but a command and it must be fought for daily. We are called to partake in perpetual communion –daily eucharisteo –thanking God for everything all the time….this is where the deep joy we all want to experience is found. As I read her book, One Thousand Gifts, I was encouraged by Ann Voskamp to verbalize and journal all the little gifts/graces I notice God bestowing on me everyday. Obviously, all of life is grace but how does one become exceedingly grateful for the exceeding blessings in life if they aren’t each carefully spoken of, reflected on, treasured? Can the heart fully register what the mind doesn’t first fully process?

Is there any true way to discover joy but as surprise? We all must fight for joy daily…fight to be continuously surprised by joy that is experienced again and again day after day by the same objects and people and tasks we must encounter no matter how mundane or tiresome or lackluster they become or seem to us overtime.

For a while, I thought if only I could run though the open fields and dance all crazy and run in circles until I fall down dizzy then I can experience some of this child-like joy to the fullest…but how to find the same kind of joy when folding laundry, grocery shopping, or writing a paper? This is why being surprised by joy is such a terribly hard and serious fight….we don’t always see joy in every moment, yet God is in every moment.

We are called to complete the Communion service in service. I love this quote by Tagore: “I slept and dreamt life was joy, I awoke and saw life was service, I acted and behold, service was joy.”

Henri Nouwen once said: “The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift to be celebrated with joy.”

Gratitude is certainly a discipline –it definitely takes grace to acknowledge grace. Going through the daily grind doesn’t look so daily or so grinding when we really acknowledge that every moment is sacred and every hour is Holy Communion.  But will we accept the gifts He has given us? 

a million drops of gratitude

What does it really mean to more fully understand God's love? I grew up being told that the purpose in life is "to live for the glory of God." But if someone were to ask me today what the purpose is, I would probably add "to learn to realize more and more everyday just how much God loves us." As a young child (both literally as I refer back to the day when I still carried around an American Girl doll and metaphorically speaking as I still am a young child of faith as we are all this side of heaven), I understood I was made in God's glory by Him and for Him but the implications of this didn't easily translate into other ways of knowing and understanding of and reflecting on what it really means besides the obvious -obedience.

Learning to love other people more and more selflessly is how we become more fully aware of just how much God loves us. Learning to love while forgetting yourself in the process is the essence of sanctification. Thankfulness lies at the heart of it. The Garden legacy, that Eden bite of fruit, the catalyst for all our sins was really the sin of ingratitude. Adam and Eve would not have sinned if they were completely satisfied with everything God had already given them in the Garden of Eden. We constantly fail to see the material world for what it is meant to be: as the means to communion with God.

For forty years the Israelites ate the mysterious substance of manna -a name which literally means "What is it?" They ate mystery. Their daily nourishment came from that which they did not understand. I held a four week old baby dying of AIDS this summer. Cancer and mental illness have unapologetically made themselves a part of my family. Two days after my visit to the central garbage dump in Guatemala City several hundred people die as it collapses into a major sinkhole -this was their home, their livelihood, and now their grave. We eat mysteries everyday. But how do we eat these mysteries in closer communion with God...giving up guilt and resentment and allowing bereavement and righteous anger to pave a way for greater gratitude and exceeding joy?

I have both seen and experienced great pain and I now I am beginning to realize more and more how I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks. "Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn't rescue the suffering" (One Thousand Gifts, Voskamp, p. 58).

I like this quote by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin a lot -"Nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see."

The next quote is a bit provocative but I believe its beauty and truth overpowers its provocativeness so I take the risk:  "The unit of wine is the cup. Of love, the unit is the kiss. That's here. In Hell, the units are the gallon and the fuck. In Paradise, the drop and the glance."

I can't wait to be filled completely with God's glory again but for now I must learn to more fully understand how all of life is grace. Every breath's a battle between grudgery and gratitude....and the more we embrace a heart of gratitude, the more we embrace God's love. 

a gracious gift

A dear friend from Uganda, whom I frequently keep in touch with, sent me a very disheartening, unfortunate message:

"today has been really sad for me, yesterday I spent a night at my friend's place and it really rained heavily at night, in the morning I went to check my room and I felt so sad that bags, clothes were really wet..."

I never had to worry about my tin roof, over my tiny, one-room house, leaking and getting my stuff all wet. Many of my worries, concerns, and problems look very different from the average Ugandan's worries. I have always struggled with romanticizing poverty. I must constantly remind myself that living in poverty doesn't equate to a more ready heart of thanksgiving. 

I have been thinking a lot lately about how to cultivate a more grateful heart...how to live in sync with soul and body and God....how to slow down and wake up and fully live. After all we are God's breath, God's life, God's glory. How paradoxical and offensive it is to think how ungrateful we can be at times when every single fiber of our being is made in His glory...we exude His glory.

I like being around people, there is so much in life, in my life, that I love, I have so many curiosities, interests, hobbies, hobbies I hope to pick up sometime, so many ambitions, dreams, hopes, plans, so many places I still want to travel to, several post-docs I dream about pursuing, countless lists of books I want to read........and all these things are great but they can be so distracting sometimes. We are relational beings who have many interests and we live in a world of many interesting things...some of which can help us draw closer to God but if we don't take the time to slow down then it is almost impossible to truly cultivate a heart of thanksgiving. Although God can be found in all these things, it can be terribly hard for us to find God in them when we are in a hurried rush. We are commanded to enter His courts with thanksgiving. When we are thankful we see God more clearly but thankfulness cannot be deeply planted in our hearts if we don't first slow down enough to reflect on what we are thankful for.

Help us, Lord, to learn to give thanks incessantly, to make every sigh and every breath one of thanksgiving, help us to give thanks for the breeze through the open window, help us to give thanks for the elderly man picking out flowers at the florist, help us to live in a posture of gratitude.

We have been offered grace upon grace upon grace upon grace upon more grace....the amount of grace we give depends on how grateful we are for the grace we have been given. 

Though we grieve, though we wonder, we must slow down and wake up and perceive each moment for what it is: holy, ordinary, amazing grace...a gift. 

stillness

       In the busyness of this day

grant me a stillness of seeing, O God.

In the conflicting voices of my heart

grant me a calmness of hearing.

Let my seeing and hearing 

my words and my actions

be rooted in a silent certainty of your presence. 

Let my passions for life

and the longings of justice that stir within me

be grounded in the experience of your stillness.

Let my life be rooted in the ground of your peace, O God,

let me be rooted in the depths of your peace.

--from Celtic Benedictions, J Philip Newell

holy, holy, holy

Lately I have been reflecting on just how little I know of holiness.

R.C. Sproul makes an insightful observation from Isaiah 6:

“The Bible says that God is holy, holy, holy. Not that He is merely holy, or even holy, holy. He is holy, holy, holy. The Bible never says that God is love, love, love, or mercy, mercy, mercy, or wrath, wrath, wrath, or justice, justice, justice. It does say that He is holy, holy, holy, the whole earth is full of His glory.”

To be holy is to be set apart, distinct, in a class by oneself….meaning God is transcendentally separate. Sproul goes on to say that “He is so far above and beyond us that He seems almost totally foreign to us.” To be holy is to be “other.” 

A.W. Tozer beautifully writes:

 “We cannot  grasp the true meaning of the divine holiness by thinking of someone or  something very pure and then raising the concept to the highest degree we are  capable of.  God’s holiness is not simply  the best we know infinitely bettered.  We  know nothing like the divine holiness.   It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible and  unattainable.  The natural man is blind  to it.  He may fear God’s power and admire God’s wisdom, but His holiness he cannot even  imagine.”

We can’t even use the word holy as an attribute to describe God. Purity is contained within the idea of holiness but even the purest form of purity is still not pure enough to even capture the smallest part of what it means to be holy.

Earlier this year when I was doing some heavy reading through the Old Testament, I was quite literally (and ironically) struck with awe when I read 2 Samuel 6:1-11. David and his chosen thirty thousand men were bringing the Ark of God to Jerusalem. As the Law specified, they set the Ark on a new cart –not just any cart –which was carried by men of Kohath –not just any men.  

As the oxen pulled the cart over the threshing floor, the Ark suddenly became unsteady. Then Uzzah stuck out his hand to help steady the Ark. Uzzah unintentionally violated the “do not touch any holy thing, lest you die” principle; therefore, God struck him for his tragic error.

I am pretty sure I shared in some of David’s anger over the Lord’s outbreak against Uzzah when I first read this. I mean I am pretty sure most of us would have done exactly as Uzzah did. If you saw that the Ark of God was about to come crashing to the floor wouldn’t you have unconsciously reached out your hand to help steady it to avoid a catastrophe? I know I would have.

The instant anger I initially shared with David upon first reading this passage just goes to show that we can’t even begin to comprehend God’s holiness. God’s ways are so much higher than our ways and His thoughts are so much higher than our thoughts.

I think this passage also reminds us to be constantly mindful of the holiness of God in our everyday lives. So often I find myself rushing to God in prayer or sometimes rushing through prayers….it is in these instances that I have to pause and remind myself that I am speaking to the Most Holy of Holies.

It is so hard for us to understand God’s holiness because where God is holy is where we are most unlike God….His very name means the “wholly other.” Where He is most holy, we are most unholy; yet, in all His incomprehensible holiness, He has somehow allowed us to share in His holiness by paying for our sins without tainting any part of His own holiness with our un-holiness. Reflecting on this helps me to feel like I understand less of God’s holiness which in turn helps me to genuflect in greater awe of just how infinitely holy He is and how infinitely un-holy I am.  

heavenly made for heaven

Just rediscovered some C.S. Lewis excerpts I read over the summer that are so comforting to read from time to time again and again. Thank you, Jesus, for C.S. Lewis' life: 

"There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else. You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them, though you cannot put it into words. …You have stood before some landscape, which seems to embody what you have been looking for all your life. …Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction… something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat’s side? …Some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which … night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it—tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. …[If you ever truly found it], beyond all possibility of doubt you would say ‘Here at last is the thing I was made for.’”

I love the gorgeous guardrail and incredibly attractive utility poles in this picture.  No matter how many photos I snapped of the Swiss Alps while in Interlaken, no picture ever did a justice to the beauty that was all around me (of course snapping photos while on a train doesn't usually yield very desirable results either). This picture reminds me of our desperate desire to be united with Beauty. The striking guardrail and poles serve as excellent, visible reminders of why we still feel lingering discontentment when viewing such breath-taking beauty -we aren't a part of it yet.

"We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses and nymphs and elves — that, though we cannot, yet these projections can, enjoy in themselves that beauty, grace, and power of which Nature is the image. That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can't. They tell us that "beauty born of murmuring sound" will pass into human face; but it won't. Or not yet."

"For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in." 

"Christ, defeat me with your goodness."

Is there really a "need" for me to pray against myself?

For example, sometimes I will pray "Lord, humble me" but then I will quickly revoke it and change it to "please keep me humble" or "help me to be more humble" because as much as I want to exhibit true humility in all areas of my life (or whatever it is that I am praying for), I certainly don't really want to pray for God to teach me true humility by taking everything away from me like He did to Job (okay maybe that was a little too extreme of an example).

So earlier this week I read Donald Miller's blog post (http://donmilleris.com/2011/10/11/intimacy-with-god-comes-when-we-accept-his-kindness/) where he writes about praying for Christ to defeat him with His goodness. It is a really cool phrase because it recognizes that 1) God is good 2) we are not good 3) He won't defeat us with His wrath or anger but with His kindness, His goodness, and His grace.

Prayer is a powerful thing and I think how you pray matters. Obviously God doesn't care so much for the choice of words we use but our desire to please Him. God doesn't want us to suffer or endure hardship but He wants us to grow and mature in our faith which often comes through hardship. I don't think God expects us to pray for this kind of maturing hardship per se; however, while we may not explicitly pray in this way, essentially we must admit that the intention is at least there otherwise we can't really be praying honest prayers, can we?

In the Lord's prayer, we are taught to pray "lead us not into temptation." Praying "against" ourselves doesn't mean we are praying for God to allow us to fall into the temptations or dangers of sin, but we pray for God's will to be done.....we pray for blessings and we pray for curses....whatever is in His will that will bring us closer to Him....but, ultimately, we pray for sufficient grace to resist any evil that may come our way. Even Jesus prayed "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

So what does an honest prayer look like? I think when we pray for greater spiritual intimacy, we can't fully mean what we say unless we are willing to accept, with arms wide open, any good and bad that may come our way.

I do love the terminology Miller uses: "defeat me with your goodness." God's goodness will continuously rage war against our inherently sinful beings but oh what a glorious battle that is!

Perhaps the real issue isn't about the need to pray "against" ourselves but rather the need to pray honest prayers. I think at the heart of honest prayers lies the need to reflect conscious acknowledgement of the noetic effects of sin on our mind's capability of understanding the disparage in alignment between what we desire both for ourselves and in relation to God and what God wants for us.

sacred encoding

my beloved Celtic journal

Towards the end of his second month at Genesee, after spending much time in solitude, Nouwen realizes that solitude leads him to think often about his past. He remembers some significant memories but he is greatly mystified by the long stretches of time that seem void of memorable events. Nouwen admits: "I do not want to live it all again, but I would like to remember more, so that my own little history could be a book to reflect on and learn from." 

Like Nouwen, I often wonder if I am really listening carefully enough to the God of history, the God of my history, the God who whispers my name. Have I really been living in the here and now?

The other day I decided to walk down to the river nearby to do some reading on the dock. By the time I got halfway there it started to drizzle a little despite the sun being out. As the rain began to slowly dampen my hair to my forehead, I wanted to turn back but no matter what direction I turned I was still going to get wet so I decided to see this as one of those occasional, inspirational "God moments" (I use quotations because I believe as soon as we identify God with any specific event or situation, we play God and distort the truth....our human minds are simply too finite for this kind of understanding). I felt like this moment was the perfect metaphor that reflected my life right now -I tend to stay so focused on my destination that I forget to enjoy the journey -no matter what the weather brings -I need to take one day at a time, to thoroughly enjoy each day instead of continuously looking ahead to when I am further along in this five year grad program. As hard as it is to not naturally look ahead to where I am not in such a transitional phase of life, I don't want to just fly through or waste these five precious years of my life. 

Nouwen later talks about his time in Ireland how he remembers Donegal better than Kerry and Killarney -he also wrote a lot while in Donegal. 

I think writing is a very powerful tool, an inexhaustible resource....and perhaps one of the greatest gifts God has given us to help preserve our memories, to learn from the past, to reflect upon it, to live more in the here and now. 

As I think about the four months when I lived in Ireland, I remember most vividly Derry, Belfast and Galway more than Sligo, Cork and Armagh....and I think this has a lot to do with how much more I wrote while in those places.

Most of us cannot retrieve events that happened to us before age three (infantile amnesia)....one theory to explain this is the inability to verbally encode information.

I am beginning to see writing as a more sacred spiritual discipline than ever before. 

you are the glory of God

I can't believe I haven't read Henri Nouwen's The Diary of Genesee: Report from a Trappist Monastery until now....I never thought I could love Nouwen anymore than I already do until I read these reflections on his temporary monastic life.

"How to live for the glory of God and not my own glory?" is the pivotal question Nouwen continuously asks himself during his time at Genesee.

Abbot John Eudes tells Nouwen that he must first realize that we are all the glory of God. That is such a strange-sounding yet incredibly refreshing statement. We are the glory of God.

We live because we share God's breath, God's life, God's glory. The question isn't so much, "How to live for the glory of God?"  but, "How to live who we are, how to make true our deepest self?"

"You are the place where God chose to dwell, you are the topos tou theou (God's place) and the spiritual life is nothing more or less than to allow that space to exist where God can dwell, to create the space where his glory can manifest itself."

a tainted imitation

my adopted children in heart (or any excuse to throw in a favorite Africa pic)

Because you aren’t fully aware of what you are thinking until you write it down….perhaps it is time for another blog post. From time to time, I feel this need to ask God for forgiveness for the thick cultural lens in which I view my faith.

As I look over some of my old blog posts and journal entries from the last few years, I have noticed an overarching theme of frustration –frustration over trying to effectively express and articulate myself in my writing, frustration over spiritual longings, frustration in deciphering God’s will, frustration over discerning my spiritual gifts, frustration over feeling like I am not serving God to the best of ability with what He has given me, frustration over feeling weighty amounts of frustration, and so on and so on as the cycle of frustration further perpetuates itself.

Last winter I found some solace in putting my frustration into words, I wrote:  Perhaps a major part of the frustration we experience as a result of failing to adequately or sufficiently express ourselves is because we may not be able to more loudly express ourselves than the thing that serves as the impetus for the expression. Frustration is a part of our nature.

I have never really asked God to forgive the culture that surrounds me because that is basically almost equivalent to complaining or expressing dissatisfaction for being born a twenty-first century American which I am thankful to be. I also realize the word I am looking for isn’t “culture” –I intend that word to encompass other things such as personality, social economic status, education, etc. (and ultimately I mean to say “sin” or rather “tainted by sin” not “culture” per se because every discontentment or frustration roots back to our sin nature but go with it for now). 

Admittedly, I sometimes wish I lived during the early church era.

Today's church looks radically different from the early church. We certainly don’t live in the age of reformation, revival, or progress anymore; we live more in the age of ideologies, orders, and denominations. Councils, creeds, and controversies will always be with us.

At times, convents have been appealing to me; living in Africa as a missionary seemed like a pretty noble calling; and practicing extreme asceticism while living with and working alongside the poorest of poor in the inner-city seemed almost too saintly but incredibly attractive at the same time. Throughout my life, I have always struggled with this idea that I was made for more….that I wasn’t doing enough to further God’s kingdom….that I can never fully serve the ones Jesus came to serve until I lived among them. I didn’t just want to share a birthday with Mother Theresa, I wanted to become her.

I desire simple Christianity but our culture or “we” rather have somehow made it complex.    

Sometimes I like transposing my own words over other words in quotes. Thomas a Kempis wrote “Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be” (Imitation of Christ). Instead of “others,” I think practically any word or idea or anything human that provokes frustration can be substituted here.

Special thanks to my beloved Mumford and Sons who are playing these resonating words right now as I type: “Cause I need freedom now, And I need to know how, To live my life as it’s meant to be.” 


And thank you, Tozer, for your simple view of Christianity: 

The modern scientist has lost God amid the wonders of His world; we Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His Word. We have almost forgotten that God is a person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can. It is inherent in personality to be able to know other personalities, but full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter. It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of both can be explored.

To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too easily satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart.


Now to use the same sentence structure (but not the same structural meaning) in the words of Bethany: to have found frustration and to still pursue it is quite the paradox of the soul, scorned indeed by the too easily satisfied culture, but justified in the pursuit of knowing Christ.

I have no idea where I am going

I really love this poem by Thomas Merton read out loud by one of my professors in my Spiritual Formation class today:

“My Lord God I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that my desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

transitory transitions

I have moved across the country. I have begun graduate school classes. I have been slowly making new friends. I have been trying to find a church that I feel I can engage in. I have been getting used to a new roommate, a new apartment, a new life.

I have never experienced so many new major life transitions all at once. Adjustment takes adjustment. It doesn't happen overnight. Falling quickly into a schedule or a routine after classes begin doesn't always happen. Losing drive, focus, motivation, and energy may happen. Feeling guilty over feeling legalistic over forcing yourself to get into God's Word is only further compounded by more feelings of guilt as you continue to force yourself to read Scripture daily because to you that's the most logical way of getting back into a regular Scripture reading routine. Spending time alone or in prayer isn't as rejuvenating as it once was.

I wasn't expecting this kind of an adjustment. The first couple of weeks were pleasant and enjoyable, but now that classes have begun I have been second-guessing myself like crazy about committing to a five year program. Going through this long program is no guarantee that I will be successful when I get through, or that I will even have a good job placement, or that I will even enjoy what I will do. Is my becoming a clinical psychologist really in God's will for my life? Why has "God's will" become more of an obsession than a feeling of trust?

In this mess of feelings, confusion over unknown, heavy frustration, lost focus and motivation, I have to come to appreciate close friendships that will hopefully continue to deepen despite the long distance and I have come to realize more the importance and need for fellowship with other believers. God sometimes uses other people to speak to you so let Him....sometimes that's easier than trying to hear Him speaking directly to you while you're alone I am finding. I am thankful for friends who will sit and pray with you no matter how little sense you seem to make to yourself as you are barely able to articulate even the least remote feeling of something you can't even put a name to. 

I am also thankful that transitions are transitory. Even the hardest transitions don't last forever. Our lives are really just transitions. Some transitions are good, some are hard, and some are a little of both at times. Our transitional lives are preparing us for something far greater than just a series of seemingly endless transitions. Transitions such as the one I am in is greatly helping me to focus more on the life where transitions cease and only permanence reigns. 

Lord, you are our home

While in Bolivia last week my new roommate made a really neat connection as she was reading Psalm 90 in her Spanish translation Bible. The Spanish Bible translates verse 1 as "nuestra casa" -literally "our house." God is our house, our home, our forever dwelling place. 

In just a couple of days I am moving to the other side of the country. Moving to a new place is always exciting but always hard. Making new friends but leaving behind old ones. Engaging in a new church while disengaging from the old one. Missing family. Missing home. But remembering that God is my home wherever my new home may be. 

In these words from her poem "Awakening," Gunilla Norris offers us a day- break prayer:

          First thought -- as in "first light" -- let me be aware that I waken in You.

          Before I even think that I am in my bed

          let me think that I am in You.

          Each hour wake me further to find You.

          Let me relish in You, exult in You, play in You, be faithful in You.

          Let me be wholly present to living the gift of time.

Oregon, my new home

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: 

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: 

Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, 

But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, 

who is our home

-William Wordsworth

Kilby and coffee

Have you ever come across a super artsy blog where one single blog entry may be all about a wonderful cup of coffee the blogger had in the morning and they post several super up-close, artsy pictures of the brewed beverage where you can see the reflection of the camera's light on the little air bubbles that accumulate around the rim of the mug and the camera is angled just right to provide the perfect shadow striking a perfect contrast of light and darkness? 

Sometimes I think it is the more artistic, creative people who have an easier time of appreciating the small things in life -of course, there is a difference between appreciating the trivial, seemingly insignificant pleasures in life and appreciating art for the sake of what is considered art.

                      

Life is so full of wonder and excitement and pure joy yet we somehow easily forget this and we let -sometimes rightfully -this world's darkness drown out that joy. A former professor of English Literature at Wheaton College, Dr. Clyde Kilby, pleaded with his class at the end of one of his lectures that they might stop being unamazed by the strange glory of ordinary things and to start seeing things with the new eyes Christ has purchased for them. 

Here are some of Professor Kilby's resolutions that I hope I can adopt as my own someday:

I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique event, filled, if I so wish, with worthy potentialities. I shall not be fool enough to suppose that trouble and pain are wholly evil parentheses in my existence, but just as likely ladders to be climbed toward moral and spiritual manhood.

I shall not turn my life into a thin, straight line which prefers abstractions to reality. I shall know what I am doing when I abstract, which of course I shall often have to do.

I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what Lewis calls their "divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic" existence.

At least once every day I shall look steadily up at the sky and remember that I, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in space with wonderfully mysterious things above and about me.                                                                    

I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of vision I had in childhood and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of Lewis Carroll, the "child of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder."

I shall follow Darwin's advice and turn frequently to imaginative things such as good literature and good music, preferably, as Lewis suggests, an old book and timeless music.

                 

I shall not allow the devilish onrush of this century to usurp all my energies but will instead, as Charles Williams suggested, "fulfill the moment as the moment." I shall try to live well just now because the only time that exists is now.

just laser tag, not bowling

The other night I witnessed the most magnificent lightening storm -no, really, I have never lost myself to any such celestial, awe-provoking beauty for more than a few minutes. I laid down and must have stared at the sky in complete amazement for a good half hour. Some people feel and sense God's power in rainstorms -I often don't. Growing up my mom used to tell me that God was bowling in heaven whenever I heard thunder, now thunder just gets on my nerves and makes me a little tense for some reason. I also have never had a penchant for rain -I guess mostly because that means there is not a lot you can do outside and I love being outdoors. But the older get, the more I am starting to appreciate and love all types of weather even rain which is good since I am moving to Oregon soon. But this storm was only a far away lightening storm so you couldn't hear the thunder AND there was NO rain. And, because it was cloudy, you could not see the lightening bolts, only select clusters of clouds brilliantly lit up every couple of seconds -seriously, I can't remember the last time I really lost myself in such fascination with any natural wonder.

In that moment of fascination, I also felt a little frustration. Like many people, I feel closest to God in nature -in the natural world He created. As I stared at the sky, I felt frustrated. At first I felt frustrated because I couldn't figure out why I was feeling frustrated. I have never seen the sky so beautiful before but yet I wanted MORE. I felt very satisfied that I was able to witness such artwork before my eyes, but I also felt very unsatisfied. Then I realized that it wasn't the sky I was wanting more of, it was God that I wanted more of.

I kind of think lightening is like a little teaser or small glimpse of God's shekinah glory. I have seen some pretty incredible sunsets, waterfalls, and mountains -they're beautiful, they're great, they're breathtaking, but they're never completely satisfying. For me it's like I want to be a part of that sunset, waterfall, or mountain -I want to be a part of that kind of pure, faultless, untouched beauty but I can't because of my inherently sinful nature.

Connemara, Ireland -the most beautiful sunset I have ever witnessed

As I stared at the lightening show, all I was able to do was lie there in utter amazement and frustration. I wanted to fully thank God and praise Him for all the beauty He has created but I couldn't find words adequate enough to give Him the praise He deserves. I desperately tried to wrap my mind around the fact that the God I was talking to was the God who was creating all those brilliant flashes of lightening before my eyes and deep down inside I knew this to be true...but it was one of those moments where you are just so flabbergasted that God would choose to love and care for people like us who can never create any sense of beauty that can compare to the beauty He has created that things aren't making logical sense and you are at a loss for words. In moments like these I am realizing more and more that it is OKAY to just stare in speechless amazement at God's creation than try to manufacture some words of praise simply because you feel the need for words.

when helping hurts

We are all called to minister to the poor.  In order to really effectively fulfill this calling it is extremely imperative that we understand who the “poor” are. I just finished reading an excellent book entitled When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor and Yourself by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. A Taylor professor of sociology who co-led my trip to Rwanda/Uganda recommended it to our team. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to follow Jesus with a genuine, mutually transforming love of neighbor.

Why I love this book….it emphasizes the relational aspect of our calling to serve the poor. We so often overlook how the poor are suffering a great deal on a psychological and social level while we overemphasize our need to provide for them materially. Fikkert points out how often we don’t recognize the feelings of helplessness, anxiety, suffocation, and desperation low-income people face on a daily basis.

Another main premise in the book is that we are all poverty-stricken. We are all poor, the fall is wreaking havoc in all our lives –we are all broken, just in different ways. The problem of poverty is relationally rooted and until we fully realize this, we will continually be blinded by materialism. Until we embrace out mutual brokenness, our work with low-income people is likely to do far more harm than good.

A major issue when it comes to poverty alleviation is this god-complex we often get. We always tend to have this sense of superiority whether we recognize it or not –we tend to think we have the best method of doing something, we think we know how to fix everything, and we think we are the only ones who can fix things.  We also have American idols of speed, quantification, compartmentalization, money, achievement, and success which is a reason why short-term missions trips can sometimes cause more harm than good.

We need to recover from our sense of pride as much as they need help recovering their sense of dignity.

We also need to get it out of our heads that we are bringing Christ to poor communities –He has been active in these communities sense the creation of the world (Hebrews 1:3).  We do not have the power to alleviate poverty –no matter how much we improve methods or better technology, reconciliation is ultimately an act of God.

Our poverty-alleviation efforts need to become more holistic in their design and execution. The problem of poverty alleviation is pretty simple….we must go well beyond the material dimension. The poor in low-income countries describe their condition in far more psychological and social terms than the North American population.

“The most basic issue now facing black America is: the nihilistic threat to its very existence. This threat is not simply a matter of relative economic deprivation and political powerlessness –though economic well-being and political clout are requisites for meaningful progress. It is primarily a question of speaking to the profound sense of psychological depression, personal worthlessness, and social despair so widespread in black America.”

“….God who is a worker, ordained work so that humans could worship Him through their work.” We have to wisely steward our resources in order to better help other people become more responsible stewards of what they have.

As I think over some of the organized mission efforts I have engaged in over the years, I am sickened over one particular trip I took with a college team to Texas. Our mission was to help rebuild and restore houses that were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Ike. I remember working with our team on a few of the houses while the homeowners just stood by and watched us. One homeowner was bold enough to ask us to perform some edification work on his house –NOT immediate relief work (and it gets worse…this wasn’t even the house he lived in, this was a house he rented out to others). Instead of spending hours futilely chiseling away with a tiny hammer (we were limited on tools) at massive stones cemented to the side of the house, we should of stopped what we were doing and went back to the local mission organization to give a more accurate report of this house. Throughout the trip we did have some pretty good conversations with people BUT we probably also caused way more harm than good by not engaging the homeowners in the work we were doing.

The more I read this book the more I started to realize the depth of complexity that surrounds poverty alleviation efforts. It is so easy to impose our own cultural assumptions into contexts that we do not understand very well. Part of me wants to just give up trying to figure out how I can more actively engage in trying to reach out to the poor in my own neighborhood. Instead I kind of just want to give into that idea of post-modernism where “what is true for me might not be true for you” and my interpretation of Scripture might be so culturally bound that what I am really doing is imposing more culture on someone than Scripture. Of course this is a lie that is making many North American Christians fearful of engaging in evangelism and discipleship activities. While the Truth of Scripture is transcendent over cultures, postmodernism has helped to rectify some of modernism’s overconfidence.

Regardless of whether someone is actually helping or unintentionally hurting the poor, I think God will still reward their efforts and motive but one needs to constantly evaluate the situation to see what kind of help is needed. There is a time when immediate relief is necessary but more often there are times when rehabilitation and development are more necessary and understanding this is crucial.

In Matthew Jesus calls those on His right “blessed” for they fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, invited the stranger in, clothed the naked, and visited those in prison. I think this passage could very well also read “you are blessed for you loved the unlovable, you took the time to sit down and to listen to the burdens of the poor, you didn’t just share your material possessions but you shared your time and energy.”

It’s easier to drop food out of planes than to take time to befriend the poor. “…long-term relationships are needed to bring out the best of “what is” and of “what could be.”

There is no recipe for success in poverty alleviation but Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD), Asset Mapping, and Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) are just a few approaches that have worked well in addressing the issue from a holistic perspective.

Poverty alleviation must first start from within.

 “….an attitude of humility and brokenness is everything.”

Reconciling relationships -moving people closer to glorifying God by living in right relationship with God, with self, with others, and with the rest of creation -is the essence of poverty alleviation.  

a few African moments

I became more of a person on my flight to Africa:

On the long trans-Atlantic flight over to Addis Ababa I started reading Carl Roger’s On Becoming a Person. As I was reading I totally resonated with this line: “The more I am open to the realities in me and in the other person, the less do I find myself wishing to rush in to “fix things.” It’s funny and kind of ironic how, as counselors especially, we want to know and explore all the complexities of both ourselves and others and, yet, this further makes things complicated. Life is so full of complex processes and understanding this should make one less inclined to hurry up and try to “fix things” and to try to “manipulate” people to go in the way we want them to go. I think similar things can be said about missions. As humanist Carl Rogers says, we need to accept and warmly regard every human being with a high degree of unconditional self-worth “of value no matter what his condition, his behavior, or his feelings.” Before we fling the gospel at anyone, we need to first understand what it means to have “respect and liking for them as separate people, a willingness for them to possess their own feelings in their way.”

Deciphering and understanding cultural differences is a very tricky and risky business yet a very crucial one and perhaps a little dangerous –dangerous in the sense that further understanding often naturally weakens the initial drive to achieve that understanding. The older I get the more I realize how much I don’t know….and maybe don’t want to know? People are complicated, cultures are complicated and the more we know about either one, the more complicated they actually become. However, we are called to dive deeper and deeper into these bottomless mysteries and what a tremendous spirit of humility is required in order for us to do so.  

Learning to literally see Jesus everywhere in everyone:

One weekend we left the capital of Kigali for the smaller town of Gisenyi. We spent the night at a church/theology school compound. During the night, almost half our team experienced what we thought was the rapture taking place. I typically sleep soundly through most thunderstorms but in the middle of the night I was startled awake as my whole bed with mosquito net covering shook. Above my bed my window lit up a very bright shade of orange for what seemed like a half of a minute and I simultaneously heard the loudest booming sound I think I have ever heard before. My first thought upon waking up was that the world was ending. I felt a sense of panic as I wondered how I was going to escape the apparent fire that was quickly closing in all around the compound as the bright shade of orange still lingered across my entire window. I quickly ran down the hall to where a few of my other teammates were but they were of little comfort for they were soundly asleep. 

The next morning I was planning on keeping my little rapture experience to myself in fear of being laughed at until another team member said they thought they saw Jesus last night. They too woke up to the explosion in the sky and within seconds their bedroom door flew opened and there was Jesus standing in the doorway.  This “Jesus” figure was actually another team member coming in the room, but only the outline of this figure was seen and so this girl thought: “Jesus is coming to get me to take me home!” Who knows for sure if it was just the thunderstorm that woke us up...or even a bomb for we were only a few miles from the Congo (although much of the political unrest more often occurs in the country’s interior).

Some powerful quotes placarded on the wall in the genocide memorial center in Kigali:

“When they said “never again” after the Holocaust, was it meant for some people and not for others?”

“There will be no humanity without forgiveness, there will be no forgiveness without justice. But justice will be impossible without humanity.”

“If you knew me and you really knew your self, you would not have killed me.”

“But the genocidaires did not kill a million people. They killed one, then another….day after day, hour after hour, minute by minute. Every minute of the day, someone, somewhere, was being murdered, screaming for mercy. And receiving none.” 

 “God must love America more”                       

While spending a few days teaching at a girls’ school in Rwanda, some of my team members and I were asked some pretty tough questions. Initially, we were always asked: “Do you have a mother and a father?” (many lost their parents in the genocide or due to AIDS) and “How old are you?” and “Why aren’t you married yet?” but later as conversation continued I was posed a question that I was not expecting, a question I did not know the answer to, a question that made every part of me twinge in guilt, disgust, anger, confusion, and embarrassment. One of the girls asked me: “How come America is so much more blessed than Africa?” As I stumbled for words, I said something to the effect that just because people are rich in America doesn’t mean everyone has a relationship with God and often riches get in the way of people loving God. As I dialogued with an American Peace Corps volunteer later that day, she explained how she constantly needs to remind her students how we are all the same people with the same desires –how we are never satisfied with what we have, we always want more. However, I felt if I simply told them that God loves them as much as He loves Americans it would probably just make me feel better.

"All that has perplexed us in the providences of God will in the world to come be made plain. The things hard to understand will then find explanation. The mysteries of grace will unfold before us. Where our finite minds discovered only confusion and broken promises, we shall see the most perfect and beautiful harmony. We shall know that infinite love ordered the experiences that seemed most trying. As we realize the tender care of Him who makes all things work together for our good, we shall rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”