Marta's Musings

Amazing Grace

2007-02-22T22:04:00.000-08:00

An amazing movie is opening tomorrow night, Friday, February 23. We're going to see it with fifty-two students (and their families) who are going to Thailand this summer with Andy.

Go see the movie tailer here.

Oh Gravity!

2007-01-10T14:25:00.000-08:00

Well friends, my recommendation of Switchfoot's new album Oh Gravity! is two weeks overdue. It came out Dec. 26th and it is AWESOME! Andy and I are totally diggin' it, as are the kids who asked grandma to sing "Oh Cavity" to them for their bedtime song.

Last week Oh Gravity! was the second most purchased album on iTunes! Switchfoot will be in concert in Eugene on Feb. 16. We're planning to go with a van full of students from Westside Christian High School.

Click here to see the Oh Gravity! video.

A blessing for the New Year

2007-01-07T00:32:00.000-08:00

This blessing was read as the closing prayer at the recent George Fox Evangelical Seminary graduation that we attended. We were there in honor and support of Andy's mom who graduated with a master or arts in Spiritual Formation. I think it makes a great New Year's prayer.

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

Amen

- Fourfold Franciscan Blessing

For the record

2006-12-26T01:23:00.000-08:00

Several years ago I started a list on my computer of the funny things our kids said. When my hard drive died I was very upset about losing it and about not being smart enough to back up my hard drive.

This seems a good place to start collecting their quotes again.

Funny things from December 2006
"My want a magel." (I want a bagel.) - son, 2 yrs.
"My want some hog nog." (I want some egg nog.) - son, 2 yrs.

Bedtime Conversation
daughter: "I know what I'm going to ask Santa for for Christmas next year."
me: "You're already thinking about that?"
daughter: (nod)
me: "OK. What?"
daughter: "Money."
me: "Money?" (pause)
daughter: (smiling)
me: "Oh, so you can buy something for someone else?"
daughter: "Yep!"

This Christmas she earned money to buy a goat for a poor family in the developing world. She chose a goat because it makes milk, cheese, and yogurt. Her brother chose to earn money to buy a sheep. I think he chose a sheep because they're cute. These were the presents they gave to Jesus today, December 25, 2006.

"Whatever you did to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me" - Jesus, Matthew 25:40

The Word and Light

2006-12-22T23:00:00.000-08:00

I read an article last night that caused me to reread the words from John 1. Listen anew to these, perhaps familiar, words.

"In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all people might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.

The Word became human and made his home among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1:1-15

Here are some thought provoking words about these verses from an English bishop named N. T. Wright.

"We're always in danger of domesticating Christmas and think[ing] it's only about comfort and joy. In truth, it's also about incomprehension, rejection, darkness, denial, stopped ears, and judgment. Christmas is not about the living God coming to tell us everything's all right. John's Gospel isn't about Jesus speaking the truth and everyone saying "Of course! Why didn't we realize it before?" It is about God shining his clear, bright torch into the darkness of our world, our lives, our hearts, our imaginations—and the darkness not comprehending it. It's about God, God as a little child, speaking words of truth, and nobody knowing what he's talking about.

You may be aware of that puzzlement, that incomprehension, that sense of a word being spoken which seems like it ought to mean something but which remains opaque to you. If that's the point you are at, the Good News is that along with this theme of incomprehension and rejection is a parallel theme of people hearing and receiving Jesus' words, believing them and discovering, as he says, that they are spirit and life (John 6:63). "As many as received him, to them he gave the right to become God's children, who were born not of human will or flesh, but of God" (John ?:?). "If you abide in my words, you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free" (John 8:?). "If anyone keeps my words, that person will never see death" (John 8:51). "You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you" (John 15:3).

Don't imagine that the world divides naturally into those who can understand what Jesus is saying and those who can't. By ourselves, none of us can. Jesus was born into a world where everyone was deaf and blind to him. But some, in fear and trembling, have allowed his words to challenge, rescue, heal, and transform them. That is what's offered at Christmas, not a better-focused religion for those who already like that sort of thing, but a Word which is incomprehensible in our language but which, when we learn to hear, understand, and believe it, will transform our whole selves with its judgment and mercy."
If you'd like to read the full article (it's a long one) you can read it here.

Advent Audio Reflections

2006-12-21T23:18:00.000-08:00

I just discovered a great resource and want to pass it on. It is a webpage of five audio Advent meditations. When the kids are in bed and you can be alone, turn on the Christmas tree lights, turn off the room lights, sit comfortably with your eyes closed, then click here.

My favorite one is "Have I missed Advent?" because it gives words to many of my feelings.

It's not too late to "get" Christmas this year; to be present to the Baby.

I've got categories (aka "labels")!

2006-12-18T11:17:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited to finally have categories, also knows as "labels" in Blogger. Blogger just came out with a new format called Blogger Beta and the categories are the most exciting feature. What this means is that I can label each post, they'll be saved in categories, and it will be easy to find other posts on the same subject. If you look to your right, just under the "About Me" paragraph, you'll find the Labels list.

"A Magnificat Christmas"

2006-12-01T21:56:00.000-08:00

I don't think I've mentioned how much I love the Relevant website and their magazine. I just read a great thought provoking review of the movie The Nativity Story.

Check out this excerpt from Scot McKnight's review.

"I have a claim I ask you to consider. Here it is: I claim the first Christmas, the one experienced by Mary and Joseph, was a Magnificat Christmas. The Magnificat, Mary’s famous song that begins, “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46-47, TNIV), expresses the yearning of the pious poor for God’s redemptive justice and for the day when the world will be put to rights. The themes of the Magnificat, which express what Mary thinks God is doing in her son, are ending injustice and establishing justice, bringing peace and ending poverty. Those are the themes of a Magnificat Christmas."

Another voice calling us to see the clear themes of the first Christmas. How have we drifted so far from these themes in our celebration of Christmas? I'm reminded of something Rick Warren said when describing his aha moment: "How did I miss the one thousand verses about the poor?!"

Read the entire review here.

The Advent Experiment

2006-11-30T23:21:00.000-08:00

So the Advent experiment that Imago Dei and four other churches are engaging in is this: What if we took what we normally spend on Christmas gifts and instead give it away to those who need it most? What if we gave oursleves relationally to our loved ones, as Jesus gave himself relationally to us, rather than give each other material gifts that we don't even remember the following the year?

You can already hear the "devil's advocates" (more on that term later) saying, "But the wise men gave gifts!"

Yes. To JESUS! Not to each other. In his sermon Rick McKinley illustrates the re-imagined magi scene like this:
(First wise man) "Oh look at the baby." (Pause. Turn to Bill.) "Bill, here's some frankincense for you."
(Second wise man, aka Bill) "Oh thank you, my wife will love this. And here's some mirh for you."

People make things.
Other people convince us we need them.
We buy them.
"That's how the empire works," says McKinley.

McKinely goes on to say, "We can almost hear the economists responding to this crazy idea with, 'Well that won’t be very good for the empire.'

And if we actually take our faith seriously and start redistributing our wealth instead of buying junk for each other, we might hear the economists say, 'We should probably get rid of the baby and keep Santa, that would be better for the empire.'”

Giving and receiving IS part of the advent story. God is giving himself and we are receiving. We don’t serve a God who just gives us stuff. He's not like one of those busy, detached dads who doesn't have a relationship with his kids so he gives them a big check at Christmas to try to make up for it.

This experiment isn't about not giving gifts. It's about trying to immitate Christ by giving ourselves as gifts to others. It's about learning how to do this. It's about trying to point to the Christmas story in the way that we give.

The average American spends $300 – $1100 on Christmas presents each year. Imago Dei and the four other churches that are partnering together have figured out that if two-thirds of their congregations take on this experiment (based on the low end of the average mentioned above) they would collect 1 million dollars! 1 million dollars of our wealth to redistribute to those who need it most. (Click here to see where the $1 million will go.)

And this is only 5 churches! What if every church participated in this experiment? What if we all decided that this just might be a gift that would bless and honor the Baby more than giving stuff to each other?

(Most of this post was taken from notes from Rick McKinley's Advent sermon.)

More on the "Vision of Advent"

2006-11-30T22:45:00.000-08:00

I took notes on the sermon I mentioned in my previous post and wanted to share some of them.

An underlying theme of the sermon is that a defining characteristic and call to Christ-followers (ie. "the Church") is to live prophetically in a culture, which sometimes means critiquing it.

When Jesus entered the culture as a poor baby, it caused an upheaval in the society. So much so that the king had all the baby boys two-years-old and under murdered out of fear of this newborn king.

As American followers of Christ we have somehow married our capitalist consumerism culture with Jesus in an attempt to smooth out the tension that exists between the story of Christmas and the values of our culture. But by doing this, we’re missing/changing the Christmas story.

Paul sums up the story of the incarnation in 2 Corinthians 8:9 when he says, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor so that you through his poverty might become rich.”

The Christmas story is a story of the redistribution of wealth – that Christ who had everything in heaven become impoverished and entered into a world of poverty so that we might enter the blessing and wealth of His life.

Jesus didn't cling to his status or his wealth. He layed it down and gave it away so that the world could be blessed. Does our celebration of Christmas reflect this? Do we who are rich lay down our wealth and give it away so that others can be blessed?

Check out these statistics:
The U.S. spends $7 billion on Halloween
The U.S. spends $450 billion on Christmas

Then we read about the $20 billion that needs to be raised to solve Aids problems and the $100 billion that the UN is trying to come up with to solve the water crisis (lack of clean water is the cause of a huge amount of disease in developing countries) and we think, "How can we ever come up with the money to solve these problems?"

Hmm...any ideas?

"Vision of Advent"

2006-11-30T22:37:00.000-08:00

I recently listened to a sermon from a church in Portland called Imago Dei. (You may have heard of this church through Don Miller's books.) I am so challenged by this sermon and their vision of advent that I can't stop thinking about it or talking about it with people. I've copied and pasted the sermon summary from Imago Dei's website below. (I don't think they'll mind.) You can also listen to the sermon here, which I highly recommend. I'll share some more thoughts on this vision in another post.

"The gospel is not bound to any given culture. It is a-cultural. It can enter any specific culture and engage with different redemptive windows of that culture. This is our philosophy of ministry at Imago Dei in a nutshell. However, when the gospel enters a culture, in addition to redeeming aspects of it the gospel also critiques pieces of the culture that are opposed to the values of God’s Kingdom. This is what it means to live a prophetic life. We see this type of critique in the incarnation itself. Herod’s Kingdom (the culture in which Christ literally showed up) was one driven by the values of mass wealth, power of military force, greed, and personal gain. Christ enters this culture through poverty, weakness, dependency, and sacrifice. This is the biblical picture of advent.

How does our current celebration of Christmas reflect this incarnation? That is, does our experience of the advent season match the biblical values of the gospel? What can our advent season look like this year if we intentionally choose to be a prophetic voice in our culture? The last thing we want to do is be obnoxious about it. But if we choose to reflect the Kingdom values in this season, we probably will be looked at funny. Are you willing to be looked at funny this season for the sake of the gospel? Here are three themes we see in the advent of Christ that we would like to pursue as a congregation:

God became poor so that we could be rich.
What are the social implications of this for us? How can we choose not to waste what we have but give it away in ways that meet significant needs of those around us? Can our gift giving feed hunger instead of greed?

God gave himself relationally.
First and foremost we desire to give gifts to each other this season that are relationally driven. We desire to learn what it means to give of ourselves and not just give stuff. We will be resourcing you with many ideas on how to approach this.

When Jesus showed up, people worshipped him.
What would it look like if Jesus was actually the focus of Advent? Can we respond like the shepherds and Magi, who celebrated the first Advent by praising God and worshipping the Son?

When we receive, we receive Jesus, not stuff.
If Jesus became poor that we may be rich, are we truly receiving the riches that he has given us? Are we receiving Him? How do we as a community ultimately embrace Jesus this Advent season and not be distracted by all the hype around us?"

"Women Of Vision"

2006-11-02T21:47:00.000-08:00

Andy and I just heard Renee Stearns, wife of World Vision President Richard Stearns, speak in Lake Grove. It was a "speaker event" for Women of Vision, a volunteer ministry of World Vision that is a "partnership of Christian women who are called to invest their time, intellect, compassion, creativity, and finances to meet the needs of impoverished and oppressed women and children throughout the world."

As of now there are only 13 Women of Vision chapters in the world and one of them is in our backyard, the Columbia-Willamette Chapter. I am excited about this group and wonder if anyone else might get excited too. Check out the links. If you only have time for one, go to the local chapter's website. I'm particularly interested in their Advocacy page and the Contact Your Representatives page.

Seven Ways to Pray in 2007 (from an insert in World Vision Magazine, Winter 2006)

When You
1 Take a shower - pray for clean water
2 Go to work - pray for child laborers
3 Eat lunch - pray for hungry and malnourished children
4 Watch the news - pray for education
5 Arrive home - pray for displaced children
6 Take a vitamin - pray for medical access
7 Go to bed - pray for orphans

"And prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. ... The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results." - James 5:15-16

One other great resource that I want to check out is a bible study they've put together called "The Heart of the Matter: Touching the Lives of Women in Poverty."

I think I'll save their "Five Ways You Can Be an Advocate for Children" for another post. If anything in this post tugged at your heart, pray, and then let me know. Let's open ourselves to whatever God has for us.

Switchfoot Concert Report

2006-10-30T18:41:00.000-08:00

It's been over a week since the Switchfoot concert and a report is overdue.

Some people train for a marathon. I've been running 3-4 days a week for the past two months and it certainly payed off the night of the concert. We got in line at 6:30 pm and stood (or jumped) for the next five hours.

They were amazing! The only downer was that we weren't in the front row. We were probably a third of the way back. There were some concert etiquette issues too. Several groups pushed their way through to get closer to the stage. The mom in me (armed with my Love and Logic tools) wanted to say, "This is sad. These people have been standing in line longer than you. It looks you're going to have to accept the consequences of your late arrival."

Andy would say a small downer was the volume. The volume did seem to distort the sound once or twice so that they sounded out of tune with each other, but we had earplugs (yes, we're over thirty) and could adjust the volume for ourselves to a certain degree. But I didn't use my earplugs that much and I loved how having the bass that loud made your heart thump in your chest. The high school girl next to me thought this was cool too.

We were definitely engulfed in a sea of high school students, but there were some very nice Linfield college students next to us as well as several adults, some who were older than us even. This must have completely befuddled the Westside students who were truly perplexed by seeing their principal there.

There was also a couple, probably a little older than us who brought their three kids, the youngest who was probably three years old. Jon Foreman made his way through the audience to these kids at one point in the show. Next time we'll be sure to bring Jonah. I'm certainly not above using our baby to meet my favorite songwriter.

We happened to get in line directly behind the one person we knew who was going to the concert, an amazing young woman named Paige who was on the team that went to Thailand this summer. Our unofficial Thailand team song was Switchfoot's "24" so it was awesome to be standing next to Paige for a live perfomace of "24." (Our team had 24 members, it took us 24 hours to get to Thailand from Portland, there were 24 girls at the orphanage home we stayed at, and a major theme that came up on the trip was "clean hands and pure hearts" which is from Psalm 24.)

It was awesome to hear "We are One Tonight," "Lonely Nation," "On Fire," and "Stars" live. It was also great to hear some of the songs that will be on their new album "Oh!Gravity" come December 26. (You can buy two of these songs on itunes already!) A song I'm really excited about is called "American Dream." I couldn't hear all the lyrics, of course, but the ones I could make out were great.

Jon held the mic out over the crowd a lot. It was awesome to hear hundreds of voices singing together. What a humble group of guys. The kind of people you'd love to be in a small group with. I've enjoyed reading some interviews online and a journal Jon wrote while on a trip to India with his wife Emily. What's that like, being married to one of these guys? Probably a lot like being married to a principal - don't see each other as much as you'd like, lots of high school girls with crushes on your husband, tons of fan mail - pretty much the only difference is the hair.

Ouch!

2006-10-13T23:16:00.000-07:00

This explains why I haven't been posting much lately. :-)

We're going to see Switchfoot!!!

2006-10-10T22:18:00.000-07:00

October 20
8 pm
Crystal Ballroom

I can't wait!!! The big question for me is, "What shoes should I wear?" I assume we'll be standing the whole time. Do I go with comfy heels so I can see better? I am only 5 foot 3 and 3/4 inches afterall. Or should I be in the most comfortable shoes possible so I can handle standing for two hours and have the freedom to jump up and down without injuring myself?

I decided to pass on a self-inflicked rocker chick makeover. Actually I thought this outloud and Andy yelled "No!" before I had the chance to talk myself out of it. Maybe I can at least put on some dark eye makeup and locate a magnetic nose ring. Ah, the late night ponderings of a thirty-something mom who doesn't get out much.

Meal Time Prayer

2006-08-28T22:13:00.000-07:00

I just wrote out this prayer and put it on our table. I found it in Sojourners magazine. My daughter has enjoyed trying to recite it at meal times.

"Lord, to those who hunger, give bread.
And to those who have bread, give the hunger for justice."
- Latin American prayer

I'm still trying to find time to blog again. I'm hoping that after MOPS gets up and running in the next couple of weeks, I'll have more free time to do so.

Our Family's Expanding

2006-07-24T22:48:00.000-07:00

I'm not pregnant, nor desiring to be. I'm trying to discipline myself to do some of the many other important things in life besides blogging, so if you'd like to hear how our family is expanding, read this post by Andy. Comparing his recent number of posts to mine, it appears that I'm the more disciplined one. :-)

A Beautiful Mother

2006-07-23T23:53:00.000-07:00

I haven't had time to post more stories and pictures from our Thailand trip, but go read this moving story on Andy's blog.

Mercy

2006-07-11T15:00:00.000-07:00

On one of the days of our trip our team visited a hill tribe village in Northern Thailand. We were quite close to the Burma border and this village was made up of Burmese refugees who have been living in Thailand for nearly 30 years. Like the vast majority of the hill tribes people in Thailand, these villagers do not have Thai citizenship which means they have little access to health care, quality education, or a means to move beyond their current level of poverty.

Many people were sick in this village and Charles, the missionary who was with us and our spur-of-the-moment divinely appointed prayer coach, felt a strong sense that that we needed to pray for everyone who was sick. So we gathered around the people, put our hands on them and prayed.

Of all the people in the village, one little boy captured our hearts the most. His name was Garrun, which we were told meant "mercy." He was about two years old, the age of my son, and his eyes were crossed. His father had abandoned him and his mother when she was 6 months pregnant with him. His face was so sweet and so serious.

A couple of the dads in our group spent time holding him and playing with him. We pulled out some bubbles and began blowing them to the kids. We held the wand in front of Garrun's mouth and he blew out a strong breath that puffed his cheeks out (the same way my son does). He blew bubbles over and over again, sometimes pinching the wand with his thumb and index finger. On three occasions when he blew a particularly large batch of bubbles, we cheered for him and he cracked the tiniest of smiles. I think one person caught his tiny smile on film. He was precious.

Later that night when our team met to debrief the day and pray, God spoke to our friend Steve and he said, "You guys, it just hit me...our team verse (that we all memorized before leaving)... Micah 6:8, 'What does the Lord require of you? To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.' We loved Mercy today."

It was a total God-moment.

A day or two later, God spoke to one of the teachers on our team whose own son had been born cross-eyed. She said God told her that she couldn't help everyone she met in Thailand, but she could help this little boy. So she and her family will be praying for and paying for a doctor to help this precious child.

God could heal this child instantly, but instead he chose to use this teacher and her family to heal and bless Garrun. I'm guessing there's going to be healing and blessing for her family too. What a God!

Back Home Safe and Ruined, I Hope

2006-07-08T00:27:00.000-07:00

We returned safely from Thailand on July 4th. Adjusting to being back home has been hard. I haven't felt rested enough to write and in that small window of time when the kids are asleep and I'm also coherent, I've felt the need to pray and read scripture. It's amazing how much more challenging these two things are once you return home.

I'm excited to share the stories from our trip and to let God bring some things into focus for me as I ponder all the people, places, thoughts, and feelings of the trip.

Some of the themes of the trip that I plan to write about are:
clean hands and a pure heart
justice, mercy, humility
no worship without sacrifice
we're rich and we're poor
God blesses the last ones
revolution

A coworker told Andy that when he asked a friend of his how his mission trip was, the friend answered, "It ruined me." I think that's a great word choice. I hope that I was ruined by this trip. I hope that any chance of me going on with life as usual is ruined; I pray that any chance of me living with one eye closed to the pain and suffering of this world is ruined.

Much more to come.

Safe and Sound in Bangkok

2006-06-22T02:59:00.000-07:00

Our team of 24 arrived safely in Bangkok around midnight last night, after 24 hours of traveling. We had breakfast at the hotel, spent some individual time reading and praying, spent some time together centering our hearts on Jesus, and then walked to a nearby mall for lunch. I just had the best Phad Thai to date! And it was only about 60 cents. We are all sending emails from two internet cafes now.

It is humid and overcast, hot, but not nearly as hot as it could be if the sun were out. It just rained too. An old Thai man in the mall approached Andy and asked him where he was from. He had been in Portland in 1962 and the 'American name'he had chosen for himself while he was a college student in the U.S. was Andy. He was very talkative and really fun to talk to.

We will be getting on a train around 9 pm tonight and will arrive in Krasang around 5 am. We will spend three days with the youth at Grace Ministries, the home and ministry of Charles and Yokie Harvey.

If you would be so kind as to pray for some of our high school team members who are very fearful of getting sick from the food, and are therefore not eating very much. Pray that they would give their fear over to God. Praise God with me that our kids did very well the morning we left. We had said goodbye the night before when we tucked them in since we left at 5 am the next morning. When I called at 10 am from our San Francisco lay over they were jumping on their grandparents bed and had been all smiles all morning. I cried as I went to sleep the night before we left and again as we walked out the door in the morning. But I've felt peaceful since then. Of course I would ask for continued prayer for our kids, that they would do well and have fun with their grandparents and cousins and not miss us too much.

Thank you friends. I am deeply grateful for friends who sacrifice their time and energy to pray for me and my family. May God bless you for your faithfulness.

A Glimpse of Jesus

2006-06-02T00:31:00.000-07:00

On Memorial Day I had the blessing of meeting a man in whom Jesus is vividly visible. His name is Charles Harvey and he is an Irish missionary in Thailand who Andy met in January. We had the privilege of having him in town a few weeks before our team heads to his place in Thailand. He met and spoke with our Thailand team on Monday night and God's Spirit was palatable in his words, in his prayers, and in the way he interacted with us.

He stayed overnight in our home so I was able to spend a little one on one time with him as well as some time with just he and Andy (no kids, ie. Uninterrupted conversation!). I am not exaggerating when I say this: I feel like I have been with Jesus. He was so gracious, so generous in the things he said and the way he said them, so affirming, encouraging, and life-giving. I am more in love with Jesus after being with him. I feel compelled to spend more time with my Lord because of this glimpse I got of Him through this self-proclaimed ordinary Irish man.

I long to be like Charles - to be that intimate with Jesus, to bring that much glory to the Father, to have the constant Spirit-giving discernment and energy to minister to so many people. To say "yes" to something always requires that we say "no" to something else. So the question that naturally follows is: What am I willing to sacrifice, to say "no" to, in order to say "yes" to more of Jesus?

I'm Going to Thailand - and by the way, here's my support letter

2006-05-23T00:23:00.000-07:00

“And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8b

While Andy and I were on vacation last summer, we stumbled upon an episode of Oprah; Ricky Martin was her guest and child trafficking was the subject. Andy and I were stunned and horrified to hear that over a million children around the world are being forced into prostitution. UNICEF reports that worldwide, an estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked each year. As these statistics sank in, our hearts broke for these children and we felt compelled to do something to help them.

This year, Andy and others at his school have felt compelled to help their students develop hearts of compassion. Westside Outside is their vision to persuade every student during his or her four years of high school to travel somewhere “outside” for a heart opening, empathy building, and hopefully life changing experience.

After much prayer and research, Westside is partnering with Remember Nhu, an organization dedicated to eliminating the use of children in the sex trade. WCHS has committed to raise the funds necessary to build and maintain an orphanage home in northern Thailand for children who are at high risk of being sold or tricked into forced prostitution. WCHS desires to have an ongoing relationship with the children and staff of this orphanage home and plans to take a group of students there annually.

Andy and I will be part of a group of staff, students, and friends of Westside who will be going to Thailand for a 14-day trip this summer, beginning June 20th. Our team is going to develop relationships, capture vision, and begin making plans to implement the orphanage home. We are especially excited about getting to meet some of the children who will live in the orphanage home. We expect to be stretched, challenged, and changed by God during this trip, and we are committed to passing on the vision to the Westside community (and probably everyone we meet) when we get back.

Andy and I would like to invite you to consider helping in any of the following ways:

• Pray for our team and our trip to Thailand.

• Support our team financially to help cover the cost of the trip. The total cost for Andy and me is $4,900.

• Help build the orphanage. In the near future, construction of the facility to house the children will be underway. The expected cost for a permanent structure that can house 60 kids is about $75,000.

• Commit to support the ongoing operating costs of the orphanage home by sponsoring a child. It costs $50 per month to cover the costs of room, board, and school supplies for a child. This will be an ongoing monthly commitment. Each sponsor will receive personal information about their child and will be able to communicate with their sponsor child through letters (and perhaps email).

Thank you for considering how you might help lay the foundation for a ministry that will save children’s lives in Thailand, and change the hearts and lives of high school students here in the U.S.. Feel free to check out www.wchsonline.org and www.remembernhu.org for more information. All contributions to this project are tax deductible. If you are interested in helping, please leave a comment and I'll follow up with you.

Very Gratefully,

Marta

A Perfect Moment

2006-05-22T21:32:00.000-07:00

This afternoon my two-year-old son woke up early from his nap and walked down the stairs crying. I picked him up and carried him back to his bed. I decided to lay down beside him; he snuggled up to me, resting his face an inch away from mine. His long lashes lowered and he fell back to sleep. The gentle exhales from his nose blew against my cheek and lulled me into perfect contentment with their peaceful rhythm. I was awe struck by the beauty of my son. Everything was right with the world. I was fully present.

Soon after, I was fully asleep.

"So Long Self"

2006-05-22T21:21:00.000-07:00

I heard this song on the radio recently. It's by Mercy Me and it's funny and serious at the same time; fits with the "dying to self" theme.

Well if I come across a little bit distant
It's just because I am
Things just seem to feel a little bit different
You understand
Believe it or not but life is not apparently
About me anyways
But I have met the One who really is worthy
So let me say

So long, self
Well, it's been fun, but I have found somebody else
So long, self
There's just no room for two
So you are gonna have to move
So long, self
Don't take this wrong but you are wrong for me, farewell
Oh well, goodbye, don't cry
So long, self

Stop right there because I know what you're thinking
But no we can't be friends
And even though I know your heart is breaking
This has to end
And come to think of it the blame for all of this
Simply falls on me
For wanting something more in life than all of this
Can't you see

Don't feel so bad (don't feel so bad)
There'll be better days (there'll be better days)
Don't go away mad (but by all means)
Just go away, go away

Belated Mother's Day Thoughts

2006-05-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

I heard (read) someone say in a mom's magazine that "motherhood is the highest calling." I can agree that it is one of the highest callings (as is fatherhood), but come on, let's not be completely narcissistic.

This Mother's Day (or the week after) the thing I appreciate most about being a mom is captured in the song Nicole Nordeman wrote for her little boy.

The gate is wide
The road is paved in moderation
The crowd is kind and quick to pull you in
Welcome to the middle ground
You’re safe and sound and
Until now, it’s where I’ve been

‘Cause it’s been fear that ties me down to everything
But it’s been love, your love, that cuts the strings
So long status quo
I think I just let go
You make me want to be brave
The way it always was
Is no longer good enough
You make me want to be brave

The reality that I am the role model in my kids' lives with the most air time compels me to take my commitment to follow the way of Jesus more seriously. I am grateful for that. I am grateful to be a mother.

Way To Go Kay!

2006-05-18T10:50:00.000-07:00

I just read another great interview, this time with Kay Warren (married to Rick Warren) who has recently found her passion, and compassion, to fight the global aids crisis. She confesses her former apathy and judgementalism, and challenges us to "lead the way in loving."

Aside from the title, "Purpose-Driven Wife" (enough already!), it's a very good read. Here it is.

Brian McLaren on The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

I just read an interview with Brian McLaren on his thoughts on the Da Vinci Code. I love what he said. It's a quick read - a five question interview. Go here to read it.

A Prayer for the Children

2006-05-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

This prayer was read aloud by our church congregation two Sundays ago. The service focused on children around the world. Andy had the privilege of speaking about the children of Thailand and about God's passion to bring justice and rescue to the oppressed. I was out of town at a scrapbooking retreat, but was able to get a copy of this powerful prayer.

A PRAYER FOR THE CHILDREN (best when spoken aloud)

We pray for the children
who put chocolate fingers everywhere,
who like to be tickled,
who stomp in puddles and ruin their new pants,
who sneak Popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workbooks,
who can never find their shoes.

And we pray for those
who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
who’ve never squeaked across the floor in new sneakers,
who never had crayons to count,
who are born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead,
who never go to the circus,
who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
who sleep with the dog and bury goldfish,
who give hugs in a hurry and forget their lunch money,
who cover themselves with Band-Aids and sing off-key,
who squeeze toothpaste all over the sink,
who slurp their soup.

And we pray for those
who never get dessert,
who watch their parents watch them die,
who have no safe blanket to drag behind,
who can’t find any bread to steal,
who don’t have any rooms to clean up,
whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser,
whose monsters are real.

We pray for children
who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
who like ghost stories, who shove dirty clothes under the bed,
who never rinse out the tub,
who get visits from the tooth fairy,
who don't like to be kissed in front of the school,
who squirm in church and scream in the phone,
whose tears we sometimes laugh at and
whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those
whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything,
who aren't spoiled by anybody,
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children who want to be carried,
and for those who must.
For those we never give up on,
and for those who never get a chance.
For those we smother with our love,
and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to
offer.

~Ina J. Hughes, Mission Newsletter of Foundation for His Ministry, August, 2002

D.C. Was Amazing!

2006-05-10T22:47:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh, finally time to take a deep breath and write a post. The kids and I are in Phoenix right now with my parents. This is the third of four trips for me this month. May feels like a whirlwind – crazy, but fun.

Our trip to D.C. was amazing. International Justice Mission’s (IJM) Global Prayer Gathering was awesome! We were so blessed and encouraged to be amongst people who pray with courage and boldness - people who know to whom it is they pray and therefore ask big. After hearing stories and first-hand testimonies of slaves being freed and perpetrators of all kinds of abuse being brought to justice, I experienced a whole new level of worship as we sang songs like “How Great Is Our God.”

Saturday night we prayed by candlelight at the Lincoln Memorial (pictured on previous post), a symbol of freedom for those who were oppressed and enslaved in our own country. Monday, we spent a few hours in the Holocaust Memorial Museum. It was so moving, gut wrenching, and powerful, particularly coming off of the IJM prayer gathering and particularly because in D.C. that weekend there were demonstrations bringing attention to the holocaust that is taking place in Sudan right now. As I read the stories in the museum I was challenged to consider who I would have been if I had been there, and who I am as a player in this chapter of history – Am I a rescuer? Or am I a self-centered, apathetic person who avoids the truth (reality) of what is happening all around me?

There is a poem in the museum that keeps ringing in my heart and mind.

The theme verse for IJM’s Global Prayer Gathering was Psalm 12:5:

“The LORD replies, I have seen violence done to the helpless, and I have heard the groans of the poor. Now I will rise up to rescue them, as they have longed for me to do.”

IJM’s message is, “As the Lord our God rises up to rescue the oppressed, our God calls upon us to be His instruments.”

God is rising up. Am I? Are you?

We're off to Washington D.C.!

2006-04-27T10:08:00.000-07:00

We're heading off to Washington D.C. (without the kids) to attend the Global Prayer Gathering of International Justice Mission. It should be an amazing time of hearing what God is doing around the world to rescue vicitims of injustice.

All of IJM's field offices will be at the gathering to report on their area and to ask for prayer. We will get to pray with many IJM staff and we will get to worship God among them to the tune of approximately 500 voices. I am humbled to get to be among these people who have joined God in his passionate pursuit of justice for the most vulnerable people around the world.

We are flying standby and the flights are really full; some are completely full or overbooked. Would you please pray that we will get to D.C. by Friday, preferably by the afternoon. My friend Nicole said that she has no doubt we'll get there because God wants us there. She also said that if the flights were wide open it wouldn't take any faith. I think she's right. I can't see why God wouldn't want us to be there, so I'm trying to believe that he'll open the way. I'm just hoping he's not more interested in teaching me about patience, releasing control, and relinquishing expectations.

While you're at it, would you pray that we could get home on Sunday or Monday? The flights are just as bad for the return leg. Thanks friends!

Good Friday Songs

2006-04-14T23:11:00.000-07:00

What are your favorite Good Friday songs or songs about the cross? I want to create an itunes playlist and need some help.

Happy Birthday To Me

2006-04-13T23:30:00.000-07:00

I turned 33 today. Birthdays are strange, aren't they? They can be one of your worst days when you view them as a day when you shouldn't have to do anything you don't want to do and when everyone around you should wait on you. It's kind of a small-scale experiment of what a completely self-centered, self-serving life would be like. Not pretty.

I think the best birthday presents are rarely given on the actual birthday. The best birthday present my husband Andy gave me this year wasn't something he gave me today. It came in one sentence he said a couple of months ago, while we were lying in bed about to fall asleep: "It's so easy to be faithful to you."

Ahh...I could live on that for months, maybe years.

My mom told me that she remembers someone telling her that on her birthday, every year, she sends flowers to her mother. Isn't that cool? Instead of going through the day feeling entitled to be waited on as the birthday-queen-for-a-day, she gives a gift to the woman who gave her the gift of life. Of course, I would just be a copycat if I started doing the same thing, especially since my mom is the one who told me about the idea.

But I would like to thank my mom for choosing to give me life, because for her, it would have been much more convenient to have done the opposite. It's impossible to wrap my mind around the possibility that I never could have existed outside of the womb. Yeah...I just don't know how to even try to imagine it.

It's not flowers, but perhaps another sentence will do: Thanks Mom and Dad for choosing life, for choosing me. I love you.

Top Ten Reasons Why Men Should Not Be Ordained

2006-04-06T21:52:00.000-07:00

So at first I just emailed this list to several friends, thinking it was perhaps more controversial than I wanted to be on my blog. But I changed my mind. There are a few versions of this out there but I couldn't figure out who I was supposed to attribute it to. Google it yourself if you're that interested, Gosh! (That was rendered in my best Napoleon Dynamite voice.)

Top Ten Reasons Why Men Should Not Be Ordained

10. A man's place is in the army.

9. For men who have children, their duties might distract them from the responsibilities of being a parent.

8. Their physical build indicates that men are more suited to tasks such as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be "unnatural" for them to do other forms of work.

7. Man was created before woman. It is therefore obvious that man was a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment, rather than the crowning achievement of creation.

6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. This is easily demonstrated by their conduct at football games and watching basketball tournaments.

5. Some men are handsome; they will distract women worshipers.

4. To be ordained pastor is to nurture the congregation. But this is not a traditional male role. Rather, throughout history, women have been considered to be not only more skilled than men at nurturing, but also more frequently attracted to it. This makes them the obvious choice for ordination.

3. Men are overly prone to violence. No really manly man wants to settle disputes by any means other than by fighting about it. Thus, they would be poor role models, as well as being dangerously unstable in positions of leadership.

2. Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep paths, repair the church roof, and maybe even lead the singing on Father's Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important in the life of the Church.

1. In the New Testament account, the person who betrayed Jesus was a man. Thus, his lack of faith and ensuing punishment stands as a symbol of the subordinated position that all men should take.

In case it isn't obvious, this is a parody. It is meant to show the absurdity of the reasons that have been given to try to keep women out of pastoral ministry. I hope it caused you to laugh (and think).

If you've never heard of Christians for Biblical Equality(CBE), check them out. And if there's anyone reading this who has been disillusioned by the church because of the way it views and treats women, I feel the need to say that they're not all like that.

If you live in the Portland area, check out my church. You will be valued and affirmed by both our female and male pastors. If you live elsewhere, CBE offers lists of churches by area, or leave a comment and I'll see what I can find out about female-friendly-churches (for lack of a better term) in your area.

Give Your Lunch

2006-04-05T23:44:00.000-07:00

Life has been getting in the way of blogging lately, but here's the follow up to my last post. Let me just start by saying that I have a new hero. Gary Haugen, President of International Justice Mission (IJM) is an incredible human being with great hope in our great God. It was an honor to meet him and to hear from his mouth what I believe was a message straight from God’s heart. Here are my “take aways” from the message he delivered entitled The Unfamiliar Passions of God:

• Are Jesus and I passionate about the same things?
• God hates injustice with a fierce passion.
• God desires to bring justice and rescue to the oppressed.
• He has a plan to accomplish this.
• We are the plan.
• (There is no Plan B.)

Gary told the story from John 6 about the loaves and fishes. You know the story. Jesus says to His disciples, “Feed them.” The disciples come back with, “We don’t have enough.” (They are presented with an overwhelming need and they have inadequate resources.)
Disciples: “Back to you Jesus.”
Jesus: “What do you have?”
Disciples present the boy with 5 loaves and 2 fishes.
Andrew: “What are these among so many?”
Jesus: “Give it to me.”*

Most of us believe that there is nothing we can possibly do to bring justice to the millions of victims of oppression around the world. And we are right. That would take a miracle, or many miracles. But that’s not what Jesus is asking us to do. He didn’t ask his disciples or the boy to work a miracle. Jesus took responsibility for the miracle. The disciples and the boy were responsible to simply offer what they had so that Jesus could do the miracle.

Final takeaways:

• Offer what you have (Give Jesus your lunch)
• Jesus will do the miracle.

God is blessing the efforts of International Justice Mission in miraculous ways. This, of course, should not come as a surprise! They are offering their lunches for one of God’s deepest passions. Realizing that God did not have a Plan B, they decided to show up for Plan A.

What can you and I offer to Jesus so that he can fulfill his passion and plan to rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow?

*Quoted from the message transcript.

President of International Justice Mission is Speaking in Portland This Sunday

2006-03-24T22:14:00.000-08:00

Gary Haugen, President of International Justice Mission, will be speaking at Sunset Presbyterian Church this Sunday, March 26th, at 9 am, 11 am, and 5 pm. Childcare is provided during all three services for infants through preschool.

Andy and I are pumped about hearing him. We're loving reading his book Good News About Injustice. We're going to the 5 pm service. Come! We'll save you a seat. We can all go out to a kid-friendly restaurant afterwards. :-)

Here is an excerpt from Good News About Injustice:

The battle against oppression stands or falls on the battlefield of hope. No one knows this better than the oppressors. They know that they never have enough power, lies or loyalty to withstand the onslaught of even a fraction of the power, truth and courage that humanity could at any minute amass against them. Therefore they rely on, utterly depend on, the inaction of despair. They know full well that their preeminence depends on most people in their community, their nation and their world doing nothing. This is the essence of Edmund Burke's conviction about human history: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

The oppressor knows that the primary reason we do nothing is because we have lost any hope of making a difference. It is not that we lack power, compassion, courage or knowledge. Rather, we lack a sense of hope that allows us to take what we have into the fray. By sheer inertia, therefore, we lend our own weight to the downward cycle of despair. Our lack of hope keeps us from the frontlines of engagement. And our absence only makes the oppressor look stronger, compounding our own despair and that of those who might otherwise be prepared to fight.

But as faithful Christians through the ages have demonstrated, we don't have to be this way. We have access to a hope that changes everything. Great people of faith - William Wilberforce and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - and lesser known giants like Dr. Bushnell and Rev. Murphy changed their communities, their nation and their world because they found the hope to seek justice.

Our friend Steve is being challenged by this book too. Check out his latest post - God Hates Injustice: Do We?

Is a Christian Worldview Enough?

2006-03-21T23:14:00.000-08:00

For awhile now I've been finding myself cringing when I read or hear people talk about the importance of having a "Christian worldview." I didn't always have this reaction, but in the past year or so it seems that whenever I hear someone talk about Christian worldview I sense that their ultimate passion is to be right. There's also an unattractive and not-so-subtle "us" versus "them" mentality.

I heard someone say that most Christians today have made "right thinking" their highest goal. I find this very disturbing. It's not that I think truth isn't important. I just think something fundamental is missing from the attitudes, conversations, and actions of many Christians today.

I remember Donald Miller saying in his book Blue Like Jazz that whenever two people are talking there are always two conversations going on - the one that's happening out loud and the one that is happening beneath the surface where we sense what the other person thinks and feels toward us. He says that if a person senses that the other person doesn't like them, they are highly unlikely to accept anything that person says. But if the person senses that the other person genuinely likes them, they are likely to be open to just about anything that comes out of that person's mouth.

Here's my attempt to summarize this concept: Unless your world view develops into a world do no one is going to listen to you. (OK, I admit the rhyming element is a little cheesy.)

I can see why Christians have become better known in this country for their love of their views than for their love of people. I once heard Leonard Sweet say something along the lines of, "We hear a lot about worldview; but how's your worldlive?" (That's "live" as in "give," not "live" as in "jive".)

Truth and love - I think we're missing the kingdom if we have one without the other. In her book Parenting the Heart of Your Child Diane Moore says,

Pure truth cannot be separated from love. Truth without love is a "resounding gong or a clanging symbol" (1 Cor. 13:1), while love without truth is dysfunction.

What would happen if all of us worldviewers became worlddoers, worldlivers, or better yet, worldlovers?

Hmm, I'm Seeing a Theme Here

2006-03-18T23:25:00.000-08:00

I’ve said before that I notice God speaking to me when I see a theme to the things I’m hearing, reading, etc. Recently I’ve heard several voices speaking to the same theme.

During the brief sermon that preceded the candle lighting at our Christmas Eve service, our pastor asked, “In what situations and events are we likely to light a candle?” People in the congregation shouted out several answers. Our pastor then went on to describe the different meanings and emotions that these examples convey:

• On a birthday cake a candle represents celebration and joy.
• A candle lit dinner signifies intimacy and warmth.
• Protestors light candles in a gesture of quiet defiance against injustice.

The last example is the one that has been resurfacing in my mind.

A friend of Sara Groves went to Rwanda to assist coffee farmers in the wake of the genocide. His experience influenced her song “Why It Matters”:

Like the statue in the park
Of this war-torn town
And it's protest of the darkness
And the chaos all around

...Protesting the darkness

Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life author and pastor, said this in a recent Christianity Today article:

I found those 2,000 verses on the poor. How did I miss that? I went to Bible college, two seminaries, and I got a doctorate. How did I miss God's compassion for the poor?

The church is the body of Christ. The hands and feet have been amputated and we're just a big mouth, known more for what we're against.

...Protesting blindness and complacency

This week I’ve heard three different songs based on this Bible verse:

And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)

...Protesting injustice, cruelty, and arrogance

On a promotional DVD for the non-profit organization Remember Nhu, the last line the narrator speaks is this:

In the face of tragedy we are inclined to ask, "Where is God?" God may be asking, "Where are you?"

...Protesting the wrong question

Many of you know that my husband Andy went to Thailand recently to see how he and his school could join God's work of seeking justice for the children of Thailand who are faced with the horror of forced prostitution. We are trying to determine whether or not God would have me go with Andy to Thailand on a two-week trip in June. Would you be willing to say a prayer for Andy, me, our kids, and my parents (who would watch our kids) - that we would each discern the Lord saying the same thing and be willing to say "yes" to Him? Thank you in advance.

Laying Down and Dying

2006-03-13T16:05:00.000-08:00

"In the mundane tasks of living
In the pouring out and giving
In the waking up and trying
In the laying down and dying
This kingdom's coming"

As a mother, I can relate to the first three lines of these Sara Groves lyrics. When I first heard this song ("Kingdom Comes") I thought the "laying down and dying" line was kind of odd and depressing because I thought she was literally talking about dying. (I can be kinda slow when it comes to poetry.) I later realized Sara was referring to the concept of dying to self .

I've come to believe that the perfect laboratory to experiment with the concept of dying to self is parenthood. Nothing else brings out our worst, most selfish selves like parenthood does. Of course it also calls out our best selves at times, but most often it confronts me with this ugly person I'd never met before I had kids.

"The greatest advantage of not having children must be that you can go on believing that you are a nice person. Once you have children, you realize how wars start."
Fay Weldon

I recently had the realization that I am a spoiled child. It came to me one day as I was dealing with my daughter's newly acquired habit of arguing. My frustration was escalating and the thing I usually go to in order to cope with my frustration was the thing I'd committed to abstain from for that day. That made me even more frustrated. In that moment of suddenly coming to the end of myself, I buried my face in my hands and prayed a prayer of desperation. Tears came as I felt God reveal something difficult and important to me - My daughter's struggle with me about not getting her way is also my struggle with God about not getting my way.

I was reminded of something I’d read by Dan Allender who said that every child in a thousand different ways asks two core questions: "Am I loved?" and "Can I get my own way?" He said that our task as parents is to say "yes" to the first question and "no" to the second. Of course we and our children do sometimes get what we desire, but in general we are to teach our children, and learn for ourselves, that life is not about getting our own way. To realize that we are liked, loved, and adored by God, and to let him have his way in our lives because we know it is imeasurably better than our own way - this is the stuff of abundant life.

By divine “coincidence”, the sermon at church yesterday focused on these words of Jesus.

“I tell you the truth, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The one who loves her life will lose it, while the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. All those who want to be my disciples must come and follow me, because my servants must be where I am. And if they follow me, the Father will honor them. ” (John 12:24-26)

"Dying to self," "surrender," "sacrifice" – these are the words and themes that I have been pondering and wrestling with for over a month (and that came out of my pastor’s mouth verbatim yesterday). There have been so many divine “coincidences” like that lately. I feel God moving, speaking, stretching, and teaching me in ways I haven’t for a very long time. It’s hard and good and exciting all at the same time! I'd wish this kind of death on anyone! ;-)

True Confessions

2006-03-01T20:33:00.000-08:00

I went to the mall on Sunday. (You can probably already guess where this is going.) I had deja vu as I saw my reflection in front of the three-way dressing room mirror. (See previous post If I Ever Go Postal It Will Be In A Dressing Room.)

Earlier in the day I saw a seven-foot-tall real life Barbie-woman in her bra and underwear who appeared in my mailbox along with a coupon for a free pair of underwear at Victoria's Secret. Later that night I saw another Barbie-woman and two incredibly fit, svelte women on Dancing with the Stars.

I guess I'm not used to experiencing that many female body images in one day, at least not on the same day that I see my own body image in a dressing room. I cried in my husband's arms before falling asleep that night. I felt like a teenager. I feared for the years that lie ahead when my daughter will go through this on perhaps a daily basis.

I also wondered why in the midst of the school shootings there hasn't been an incident of female violence by a marginalized, overweight girl on a group of popular, pretty, skinny girls. I even had a terrible fleeting fantasy about shattering the Victoria's Secret storefront window, with all of its ten foot Barbie-women images, with an automatic weapon of some sort. Do blogs get monitored for violent content? If so, please know this is not a threat of any kind. This is simply the rant of a regular thirty-something mom. I've never owned a gun nor ever plan to (notice I couldn't even name an automatic weapon) and I faithfully attend a Quaker church.

I spoke with a friend today who also struggles with food as her idol of choice and is also trying desperately to lose the weight gained during pregnancy. What strikes me is how self-hatred can creep into the lives of women like us who don't have fashion magazines in our homes, who never watch music videos, who hardly watch TV, and who believe that God truly does love us.

On a positive note, my friend and I see the spirituality of our struggles with food and hence our bodies, and are finding success in giving up on will power and giving ourselves over to worshipping the One who has the power to break our love affair with food. I'm finding a Beth Moore book called Praying God's Word helpful.

"You see, if a man could truly subdue all his fleshly appetites by the pure power of his own determination, he would simply worship his own will. If the Word of God is about anything at all, it is about God's will rather than ours. Our liberty is paradoxically discovered through the will of God rather than our own. God will never allow us continued success through our pure fleshly determination to "touch not, taste not, handle not." (Col. 2:20-23) He knows we would end up worshiping our own wills and methods. Through the might of His Holy Spirit released through the authority of His Word, we are empowered to say no to the things we should - to our excesses, withholdings, compulsions, and harmful consumptions - and say yes to freedom, moderation, and better health. When we bow to God's authority, we invite Him to take control, and He is the One who does it, as 1 Thessalonians 5:24 tells us."

We all have something that competes with God for our attention and worship. Drugs and alcohol are the obvious ones, but pretty much anything (or anyone) can become an idol. If you think you don't have one, perhaps pride or self-righteousness is yours. :-) (The word denial is also coming to mind.) May you and I increasingly experience the freedom God so desires us to have as we fix our eyes on the Lover of Our Souls.

Bono speaks at National Prayer Breakfast

2006-02-08T23:13:00.000-08:00

I don't think I've mentioned this before. I'm a Bono fan.
Click here to see and hear what Bono had to say at the recent National Prayer Breakfast.

Update: I don't think you can view that video any longer for free, so here's
a link where you can read what Bono said.

Fed the hungry, clothed the naked, cared for the sick, all in a day's work

2006-02-06T23:01:00.000-08:00

I had a breakthrough today. I was able to see my day for what it truly was. Previously I would have seen today like this:
Stayed in pajamas ‘till 2 pm, made and cleaned up three meals (if you can call them that), swept a crunchy floor which got crunchy again within an hour, didn’t take down Christmas decorations, didn’t open pile of junk mail on counter, exercised, never made it to Target to buy sheets, didn’t go anywhere.

Today, this is how I saw the day:
Started off a bit slowly and without a plan for the day, fed three hungry people three times, clothed three naked people, stopped to take time to read to the kids on three separate occasions, literally ran circles around the kids (I exercised by running around the cul-de-sac while the kids rode their bikes and pulled each other in the wagon), took time to sit and soak in the sun on a park bench with the kids, took care of a sick husband all day without grumbling or resentment, hugged and kissed the kids a lot, don’t remember feeling particularly irritated or impatient with anyone, enjoyed the kids, gained perspective and worshipped God along with Sara Groves (via cd) while doing the dishes at the end of the day, realized that today I did four of the six things Jesus mentioned in Matthew 25, and even had time left over at the end of the day to write in my blog.

Matthew 25:37-40
“`Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?' And the King will tell them, `I assure you, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!'”

I believe what made the difference for me today was nothing other than the grace of God. I’ve been praying for the ability to live joyously in the present moment and for the ability to see the magical moments that reside right in the midst of the mundane. I’ve also been asking God to infuse my heart with his patience and to grant me the wisdom of Jesus who took time to enjoy and play with children. I believe God answered my prayers today. May I continue to ask, and may God in his grace continue to answer.

Kitchen Sink Spirituality

2006-02-04T22:45:00.000-08:00

"LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you guard all that is mine." - Psalm 16:5

I discovered this little spiritual exercise in My Monastery is a Minivan (the book I keep mentioning by Denise Roy). It's something you can do first thing in the morning at the kitchen sink. All you need is a small empty bowl which you will slowly fill to the brim with running water. You turn the water on so that just a tiny steady stream comes out and then proceed to let the water slowly fill up your bowl.

"As the bowl fills, you reflect on the particulars of your life, whatever they are. The people with whom you share your time, your state of health, whatever problems you face, what skills and strengths you have, your disappointments and successes, your worries, your personal gifts, your personal limitations, your home, all your possessions, your losses, your history as a human being. As the bowl fills, you receive your life openheartedly and unconditionally as your portion."

When the bowl is full, you can simply set it next to the sink or on the windowsill over the sink as a reminder throughout the day. At the end of the day, pour out the water and set the bowl upside down on the counter as "a process of letting go, of waiting until the morning light to once again receive all that life holds."

"The kitchen sink is as good a place as any to begin a daily practice. Given that we spend more time there than we do many other places in our home, it can be a powerful space to practice mindfulness and receptivity. There, we can begin to embrace the whole - all that is clean as well as all that is dirty; all the joys as well as all the sufferings - experiencing the wisdom of the kitchen sink and the development of a grateful heart."

Psalm 73:26
"My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."

A Small Quote from a Great Woman (or A Great Quote from a Small Woman)

2006-01-23T23:04:00.000-08:00

“We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”
- Mother Teresa

I first heard this quote about nine years ago. It’s one of those quotes that have stuck with me, popping up on my radar again and again to offer me truth and perspective. It first impacted me when I started working at George Fox University and felt completely inadequate in my position. I was comforted by the realization that I didn’t have to be spectacular in my work; I just needed to focus on loving students. Later a group of 20 college students and I pondered these words during our eye-opening, heart-opening visit to India. Now, in a completely different season of life, these words showed up on the new Sara Groves cd, once again grounding me in reality.

A year ago, the Census Bureau reported there were 5.4 million stay-at-home-moms in the U.S. It’s hard for me to feel like I’m doing something great when I’m doing the same thing as 5.4 million other people. Somewhere in my thinking, the idea of greatness got tied to the idea of uniqueness. And somewhere in my priorities the idea of being great got tied to the idea of what’s really important in this life.

Jesus, in his typical fashion, went and turned the concept of greatness upside down.
The apostles got into an argument about which one of them was the greatest. So Jesus told them:
“Foreign kings order their people around, and powerful rulers call themselves everyone's friends. But don't be like them. The most important one of you should be like the least important, and your leader should be like a servant. Who do people think is the greatest, a person who is served or one who serves? Isn't it the one who is served? But I have been with you as a servant.”
- Luke 22:24-27 (CEV)

Hmm… so according to Jesus, greatness equals service. Blast!

In that case, I guess I would add an extra little tag to Mother Teresa’s quote. “We can do no great things, only small things with great love. (This is true greatness).” We may have to relinquish power and position, but Jesus never said service had to be boring or that it had to look the same for everyone. I may have the same job title as 5.4 million other American women, but at least I can go about my small things with not only great love, but also great individuality!

Ah, Resolutions!

2006-01-02T17:28:00.000-08:00

Those who refuse to make New Year's resolutions because they always break them anyway miss the point. Making resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self-assessment and repentance that demands personal honesty and reinforces humility. Breaking them is part of the cycle.
- Eric Zorn

I love this quote. In my humble opinion, it is true. There is something very humbling about the moment when you do the very thing you'd resolved not to do, and it's January 2nd. On landmark days such as New Year's I believe God does ask us to reflect on ourselves and our lives with honesty and humility.

Psalm 90:12 has popped up on my radar two years in a row on New Year's. "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." Another version says it this way: “Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should.”

As I've been reflecting these first few days of 2006, I've been asking God what he wants to teach me this year. I'm sure there will be an ongoing answer, but for now I know that he wants me to be more present to my children on a daily basis; to live in the moment with them and soak in this all-to-short season of their lives.

I'm happy to have a new song that speaks to this theme. It's by one of my favorite artists, Sara Groves, from her new album Add To The Beauty. It's called Just Showed Up For My Own Life.

Spending my time sleep walking
Moving my mouth but not saying a thing
Hoping the changes would take
By working their way from the outside in
I was in love with an idea
Preoccupied with how a life should appear
Spending my time at the surface
Repairing the holes in the shiny veneer

There are so many ways to hide
There are so many ways not to feel
There are so many ways to deny what is real
And I just showed up for my own life
And I'm standing here taking it in
And it sure looks bright

I'm going to live my life inspired
Look for the holy in the commonplace
Open the windows and feel all that's honest and real
Until I'm truly amazed
I'm going to feel all my emotions
I'm going to look you in the eyes
I'm going to listen and hear until it's finally clear
And it changes our lives

Oh the glory of God is man fully alive

Whatever circumstances the year may bring, may I be fully alive and present to the Holy in the commonplace.

The Struggle to Play

2005-12-18T22:24:00.000-08:00

We parents can fail and will fail at almost everything we do. Our most serious failure, however, is not that we fall short of fulfilling certain expectations. Our most serious failure is something that seldom crosses our mind: the refusal to play.

Play is ridiculously inefficient. It splurges and spends, often without any apparent return on investment. That's why we must remind ourselves of the blessing of the process and not look for any measurable outcome of the effort.

To live against the grain of our culture, as we must, the serious parent will spend the majority of his or her time in play - whether we're on the job, running errands, doing household repairs, or playing catch in the backyard. The mature person will see all of life, work, worship, and parenting as a form of play.

These are excerpts from a book I read this summer called How Children Raise Parents by Dan Allender. I just reread the chapter called The Freedom to Play because I've been feeling the familiar struggle lately of not wanting to play with my kids.

My struggle with playing with my kids is connected to my struggle with being a "stay at home mom" which is connected to my faulty belief that "I am what I do." I came across two excellent questions recently (through my church's women's bible fellowship) that are challenging me:

Am I really worth anything if I'm not out there constantly proving myself?

Who am I when I'm not busy doing things that tell the world who I am?

Aren't these telling questions? They pretty much nail me and my identiy issues. I loved the affirmation and sense of value I received from my job. I currently love the affirmation and sense of value I receive through my involvement at church, in MOPS, and even through this blog. It's much harder for me to feel a sense of value and affirmation during a day where I simply feed, clean up after, read to, and perhaps play with my kids. Like the second quote says, I think it's because some of these things are ridiculously inefficient (others are perpetual and monotonous) with little measurable outcome or apparent return on investment (in the near future anyway).

I'm clearly a child of our "self-absorbed, age of work, busyness, and productivity" (Allender). How I long to be free of this warped view of life! I want to want to play with my kids more often. I want to feel greater enjoyment as I play with them. I want to spend more time marveling at the wisdom, purity, and wonder of my children.

I love the brief story in Matthew 19 where the disciples think Jesus is too busy and important to be bothered with children, but Jesus intervenes and says, "Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! God's kingdom is made up of people like these."

I long to be more like Jesus!

My Favorite Christmas Song This Year

2005-12-18T21:53:00.000-08:00

Each year one particular Christmas song reaches out and grabs hold of me. This year it is Welcome to Our World. Chris Rice, Amy Grant, and Michael W. Smith all sing this song but I'm not sure who wrote it. I only have it on our ipod, rather than a CD, so I can't look inside to see who wrote the song. If you know, please leave a comment.

Take these lyrics in and linger in the awe of this familiar, yet wonder-full story.

Tears are falling, hearts are breaking
How we need to hear from God
You've been promised, we've been waiting
Welcome Holy Child
Welcome Holy Child

Hope that you don't mind our manger
How I wish we would have known
But long-awaited Holy Stranger
Make Yourself at home
Please make Yourself at home

Bring Your peace into our violence
Bid our hungry souls be filled
Word now breaking Heaven's silence
Welcome to our world
Welcome to our world

Fragile finger sent to heal us
Tender brow prepared for thorn
Tiny heart whose blood will save us
Unto us is born
Unto us is born

So wrap our injured flesh around You
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sin and make us holy
Perfect Son of God
Welcome to our world

Planning, Preparing, Surfing and Jazz

2005-12-14T23:57:00.000-08:00

Recently I've come across two analogies for life.

1. Jazz (As summarized by my friend AJ)
Jazz is very go-with-the-flow. The performer knows the basic elements/structure of the song but doesn’t know specifically what special distinctives it will take. Jazz requires that the player learn to move with the direction that the piece takes in the moment, interact with both the music and the other players, and improvise.

2. Surfing (As described in The Present Future)
"In the weeks I observed surfers I never saw one surfer plan a single wave, but I did see them prepare to ride the waves when they came." God is making waves all around us. The people busy making their own plans won't get to ride them. It will be the people that are prepared to get in on what God is up to that will get to ride them.

Basically the message that I think God is trying to get through to me with these analogies is firstly, "Control is an illusion so quit grasping for it." Secondly, "If you must make your little plans, hold them VERY loosely and be prepared to see all obstacles to your plans as waves that I'm inviting you to ride."

If obstacles are waves then waves are my kids. In my daily life it's my kids who most often thwart my best laid plans. Seeing their ill-timed accidents, neediness, and tantrums as fun waves to ride would be a stretch. But not all waves are fun rides, I suppose. Quite a few of them kick your butt and leave you wondering which way is up while ingesting salt water through your nose. Since we can't know which waves will be exhilerating and which will be humiliating, we have to keep getting on which ever ones come our way lest we miss the ride of a lifetime.

I long to hold my plans loosely; to give my days to God and say, "Not mine, but your plans be done." The best days are rarely the ones where everything goes according to my plan. The best days are more often the ones where by God's grace I go with the flow, move in the direction that the piece takes, and experience the beauty and blessedness of improvisation.

Which word best describes you: surfer, jazz musician, or control freak? I'd love to hear how you are working this out in your life.

"This Peace"

2005-12-10T00:25:00.000-08:00

I listened to this great song by Sara Groves recently and then had one of those "linger" moments with the kids the next day.

So many words to say, but I'm opting for silence
So many days to live
I thinking I'm sitting this one out
Cause something I've been chasing
Finally stopped to let me catch it
Something I've been longing for and dreaming about

It's a whisper in my ear
It's a shiver up my spine
It's the gratitude I feel for all that's right
It's a mystery appeal that's been granted me tonight
This peace

It's something so elusive
Something close but far away
It's the home that I can't live in yet somewhere in outer space
And sometimes I barely miss it when I walk into the room
The curtains are still swaying and I feel the air move

No time to grab a camera
No time to write it down
Just time enough to breathe it in
And linger

Feminizing Some Switchfoot Lyrics

2005-12-06T00:06:00.000-08:00

Can you figure out which of the following lyrics aren't the actual Switchfoot lyrics to their song "The Blues"?

Is this the new year or just another night
Is this the new fear or just another fright
Is this the new tear or just another menstruation

Is this the finger or just another fist
Is this the kingdom or just a hit and miss
I miss perspective most in all this menstruation

Is this what they call female
Is this what you call pain
Is this what we call mass hormonal shame

It'll be a day like this one when the world caves in

That was probably not funny to you if you don't know the song. Or even if you do, I could very well be the only one laughing. Jonathan Foreman wrote this song on a New Year's Eve that was, apparently, a bit depressing. This song resonated with me recently because I just came out of that 2-3 day funk where nothing's right with the world and nothing's right with me and my life. Some women I know experience this funk for 7 days of each month. That's 25% of their lives!

I heard somewhere a long time ago that men have hormonal cycles too. Is any man out there brave enough to weigh in on this subject? Do you have a couple of days approximately every month or so where you question and second guess everything about your life and the world? I bet Jonathan Foreman would weigh in if he were reading. (Yes, I'm stooping to the stereotypically male competative nature.)

Google "Switchfoot lyrics The Blues" if you want to see the actual lyrics to the song, or better yet, ask Santa to bring you the cd for Christmas!

Choosing Peace This Month

2005-12-01T23:09:00.000-08:00

I was asked to share an Advent reflection on the theme of "Peace" in our worship gathering this Sunday. This is what I plan to share:

Isaiah 9:6, “For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. And the government will rest on his shoulders. These will be his royal titles: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Prince of Peace.

I am the least qualified person to be talking about Peace during the Advent season. This is certainly why God is having me do it. Every year since I’ve been married, I’ve been a stressed out basket case from Thanksgiving to New Years. I fret about shopping for 20 family members. I agonize over how to divvy up Christmas Eve and Christmas Day between our three sets of parents. I worry about not being fair or making the wrong choice, and having my parents or in-laws angry with me. I lose sleep thinking about packing and traveling on airplanes with two kids. Finding cute Christmas outfits for the kids and myself is another silly pressure I put on myself. (Andy always has an abundance of cute Christmas outfits!) Weighing whether or not to attempt a Christmas letter and a visit to the photographer is yet another seasonal anxiety. My heart has been everything BUT peaceful at Christmastime.

I looked up the Hebrew and Greek words for peace and learned that they denote a state of “untroubled, undisturbed well-being, both internally and externally.” Untroubled, undisturbed, well-being. It goes on to say, “Such a state of peace is brought about by God granting us deliverance from all the distresses we experience as a result of sin. Hence the message of salvation is called the gospel of peace.” Deliverance from all the distresses I experience. Yes, this is the kind of peace I need.

I’ve made some changes this year to create room for peace. For example, as of December 1st, we finished all of our Christmas shopping! This is a first, and will certainly help. But I have a hunch that peace is about more than good planning. I think peace is something I’m going to have to choose to ask for on a daily, or perhaps even hourly, basis this month.

Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you.” Do I believe Jesus can give me his peace in my most frantic, out-of-perspective moments? Do I even want his peace? Or do I prefer the annual tradition of my holiday pity party?

Peace is ultimately a person. Who will I choose this month? The Princess of Perfectionism and Pity Parties? Or the Prince of Peace?

If I ever go postal, it'll be in a dressing room!

2005-11-29T23:23:00.000-08:00

Today I had the traumatic experience of seeing my body in a dressing room mirror. Actually, I saw my body cubed, to the third power, you know, like in algebra. Those three-way mirrors are so useful, aren't they? It's helpful to get three different views of cellulite. Why don't they just go all out and make them 3D?! Then we could reach out and put our finger in the dimples!

It's a catch 22, isn't it? The more we avoid shopping, the crappier our wardrobe gets. But in order to look less crappy on a daily basis, we have to feel like crap in a dressing room. "You've got to feel like crap to avoid resembling it."

As I drove away from the mall choking back tears I tried to remember what my body looked liked before kids. This led me to wonder if Jesus could have been overweight. I figured he wouldn't overeat or make an idol of food, but was he the type of personality that went running at 5 am everyday? Was he blessed with a fast metabolism or was food and weight gain a constant temptation and struggle?

I'm interested in the answeres to these questions, but the one I really want answered is "How can Jesus help me lose twenty pounds?" I saw the final episode of the show The Biggest Loser tonight. These people are amazing. Several of them lost forty-some percent of their body weight! I should be inspired by them. If they can lose 120 lbs, surely I can lose 20. But in spite of their success I still don't feel hopeful. If I could get a personal trainer to meet me at my house everyday with a babysitter and a personal chef who'd prepare delicious healthy meals, then I would be hopeful.

Thanksgiving for Dummies

2005-11-24T22:07:00.000-08:00

I set out to be thankful all day today, being that it's Thanksgiving Day. I wondered what it would be like to spend an entire day in a state of thankfulness. Could I do it? How would I know if I was succeeding?

Grumbling or complaining, whether out loud or in my head, would definitely constitute a lack of gratitude. Being irritated with someone, likewise, wouldn't cut it on a day of pure thankfulness. Those were the two biggies in my mind, and I wondered whether I could go a whole day without either of them.

Turns out I couldn't. I may have spent the first three hours of the day in a state of thankfulness, but the first internal grumbling came when I couldn't find anything suitable to wear for me or my 18 month old son. Later I became irritated with son for making so many whining sounds that I could't decipher. The biggest trouble, however, came when my parents stated that my brother and his family were thinking they'd like to come to Oregon for Christmas.

I love and like my brother and his family, that wasn't the issue. The trouble is that Andy and I had the holidays all figured out until this little turn of events. Last year we spent Thanksgiving at the two homes of Andy's family and we spent Christmas with my family in Arizona. This year, we were spending Thanksgiving with my parents (who were planning to go to Arizona or Florida for Christmas) and spending Christmas Eve with Andy's dad's family and Christmas Day with Andy's mom's family. It was perfect. Squeezing two Christmas family celebrations into one day wasn't even a remote possibility since my parents would be out of town. Everyone would be happy, including us.

I emailed my brother tonight to ask what the percentage of certaintity was that they would be coming to Oregon for Christmas. I was diplomatic, of course; hiding the fact that I was feeling exactly like Charlie Brown in the Thanksgiving special I was watching who said, "Holidays are depressing." But I was keenly aware that inside my little heart I was not feeling thankful about divvying up Christmas between three loving groups of relatives whom I might not be able to please.

These are the kinds of things they don't teach you in school. Where was the "Handling the Holidays Without Ticking Off Extended Family" course? And those authors of the Boundaries books - Boundaries, Boundaries in Marriage, Boundaries With Kids, Boundaries With Pets (not really)- why haven't they written Boundaries With Holidays? (Probably because they're setting boundaries with Boundary books!)

The day at least ended with a tone of thanksgiving. While I was irritated with my son for pouring salt all over the floor, two minutes later I was overwhelmed with gratitude as I saw the huge smile on his face as he bounced through the kitchen in Andy's arms. My daughter and I ended the day by making a "thanksgiving chain" where we wrote something, or someone, we were thankful for on strips of construction paper and then looped and stapled them together to form a long chain. She said "Jesus" before I thought of him and she decided that "whipped cream" was worthy of it's own chain link (not merely to be lumped in with "food").

If any of you have any advice or words of wisdom for me on how to make the whole fam damily happy at Christmas, including our immediate family, please comment. And no, "fam damily" is not a typo, it's a term of endearment one of my mothers-in-law taught me. :-)

The Church Club

2005-11-13T00:29:00.000-08:00

Andy and I are reading a book called The Present Future with a group of 40+ others at our church who are exploring new ways of showing and sharing God’s love with others. We’ve only read the first two chapters but, WOW!

The author says that churches have been asking the wrong question: How do we do church better? (How do we get people to join our church?) The right question, he says, is: How do we deconvert from Churchianity to Christianity? (How do we connect people to Jesus?) Check out these two excerpts.

The church culture in North America is a vestige of the original movement, an institutional expression of religion that is in part a civil religion and in part a club where religious people can hang out with other people whose politics, worldview, and lifestyle match theirs. As he hung on the cross Jesus probably never thought the impact of his sacrifice would be reduced to an invitation for people to join and to support an institution.

People may be turned off to the church, but they are not turned off to Jesus. Jesus is popular. He still makes the cover of Time and Newsweek every year (generally around Easter). Church people sometimes get excited by this but fail to understand that people in the nonchurch culture don’t associate Jesus with the church. In their mind, the church is a club for religious people where club members can celebrate their traditions and hang out with others who share common thinking and lifestyles. They do not automatically think of the church as championing the cause of poor people or healing the sick or serving people. These are things they associate with Jesus. They believe the church is out for itself, looking out more for the institution than for people.

For any of my friends outside the church culture who are reading this, I want to offer a personal apology for the church’s gross misrepresentation of the person we claim to follow. I have been part of this institutional blindness and negligence and am guilty of putting my focus and energy on things that Jesus did not center his attention on. Please forgive me and the church.

May God also forgive us. May God give us the humility to admit that we’ve been more of a self-serving club than the hands and feet of Jesus. May God help us make the radical, downwardly mobile shift from lives of preoccupation with the institution into lives of service to people.

Gregg Lamm's new blog

2005-11-12T22:59:00.000-08:00

I'd like to recommend my friend Gregg Lamm's new blog "Staying the Course" at stayingthecourse.blogspot.com. Gregg was the campus pastor at George Fox University for 14 years and for five of those years I was priviledged to work with him. He's a great writer. Enjoy!

Desperation

2005-11-05T23:58:00.000-08:00

I haven’t seen the show Desperate Housewives but I think might after reading a couple of the show’s reviews on the Hollywood Jesus website. If you watch the show, I’d love to hear why you like it. Check out this excerpt from one of the reviews.

"We all have moments of desperation," Mary Alice Young narrates. Desperation points to a hole within us, a hole we want to fill by any means necessary. Stephen King once wrote a book titled Desperation whose main theme was that if you weren't in a state of faith, you were in a state of desperation. It all boils down to the conversation that Gabrielle has with her gardener-turned-lover. When asked why she married her husband, she answers "Because he promised to give me everything I ever wanted." Since the husband, in fact, gave her all of those things, yet this gardner still finds himself in bed with her, he logically asks "Then why aren't you happy?" She tells him that it "turns out that I wanted all the wrong things."

I can relate to that statement. I couldn’t have said this two years ago, but today I can admit that there is a darkness and sickness in my soul that actually desires the things that would eventually destroy me. Frederick Buechner said, "Lust is the craving for salt of a man who is dying of thirst!" Can you imagine being collapsed on the ground in the middle of a desert, literally dying of thirst, and craving salt?! Instead of craving that which would help, heal and give us life, we often crave what would hurt, humiliate, and ultimately destroy us.

Desperation is also a theme in Switchfoot’s music. (Yes I’m still entrenched in their new cd “Nothing is Sound”).

Desperate we are young. Separate we are one.
I want more than my desperation. I want more than my lonely nation.
(“Lonely Nation”)

Is this the new year or just another night
Is this the new fear or just another fright
Is this a new tear or just another desperation
Is this the finger or just another fist
Is this the kingdom or just a hit and miss
I miss direction most in all this desperation
(“The Blues” written on New Year’s Eve)

Lately I’ve been asking God to transform my desires so that my desires match up with his desires. “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Proverbs 37: 4) I’ve come to realize that this proverb doesn’t mean that if I obey God he will grant me whatever my little heart desires. It means that as I delight in who God is and in my relationship with him, he will actually give me new desires to replace the messed up ones that formerly occupied my heart; desires that when fulfilled will bring me wholeness, freedom, and joy.

Getting in Touch with my Inner Rocker Chick

2005-11-01T23:20:00.000-08:00

Andy was home with the kids this weekend and I got to go to the coast to scrapbook with nine incredible women. It’s always great to interact with these women while looking at pictures of my favorite people. For one thing, it’s a captive audience to show off my latest pics of the cute kids and hottie husband.

One of my favorite parts of this annual its-all-about-me weekend, however, is having the hour and a half in the car all to myself. I got to have two great uninterrupted cell phone conversations, and for the second year in a row I got to use this time to get to know a new CD. Last year it was Bebo Norman's new cd "Try" but this year I got to know Switchfoot's new cd "Nothing is Sound."

It totally rocks!!! As did I, all the way to Lincoln City. I felt like one of the contestants on this summer’s reality show Rock Star INXS. Did anyone else get in touch with their inner rocker chick (or inner rock star, to be inclusive) through this show? Come on now, I know I’m not the only one.

Anyway…Switchfoot…their lyrics…their melodies…I can hardly put words to it. Music can be so powerful! At first glance the songs can seem basically, depressing. That’s what I thought when I just read through the lyrics one day at home because Andy had the cd in his car. But when I listened to the lyrics with the music, it was totally different. I heard the ache in the music. The ache for something more. That totally resonated with me. Perhaps all "Stay at Home Moms" (see previous post) ache for something more. No, I believe everyone at some point realizes the emptiness and loneliness of this life and longs for something more. And this is what Jonathan Foreman, Switchfoot's song writer, captures beautifully. He also captures the reality that there is something more, something bigger than us, or rather someone bigger than us, that we get to be a part of.

“Daisy,” a word picture of surrender, is a great song to listen to on a rainy day like the ones we’ve had recently. I could probably blog about every song. Maybe I will.

Daisy, give yourself away
Look up at the rain
The beautiful display of power and surrender
Giving us today
When she gives herself away
Rain, another rainy day
Comes up from the ocean, to give herself away
She comes down easy on rich and debt the same when
She gives herself away

Let it go, daisy let it go
Open up your fist
This fallen world doesn't hold your interest, it doesn't hold your soul
Daisy let it go

Pain, give yourself a name
Call yourself contrition, avarice, or shame
Giving isn't easy, neither is the rain and she gives herself away
Daisy, why another day, why another sunrise, who will take the blame
For all redemptive motion and every rainy day
He gives himself away

Let it go,daisy let it go
Let it go...

"Stay At Home Mom"

2005-10-30T20:58:00.000-08:00

I’ve never liked the term 'Stay at Home Mom.' The idea of staying somewhere sounds completely uninspiring. Have you ever heard anyone answer the question “What do you do?” with “I stay at the office” or “I stay at my cubicle?” I wonder why? Hmm, could it be because it sounds just a tad bit boring! I just don’t get defining yourself by the place in which you, supposedly, stay.

I assume that the term 'Stay at Home Mom' is a reactive one that came about to differentiate itself from the 'Working Mom.' I must say that if I had to choose between these two jobs based solely on the titles, I’d have to go with the 'working' one over the 'staying' one. It’s just hard to get excited about the passive call to stay.

I’ve always preferred to be the one going away rather than the one staying behind. I would rather move to another state than have a close friend move away. I would rather head off to a conference or go on a trip than have my husband do either while I stay behind. The person going somewhere gets to have an adventure of some sort while the one staying behind is left to experience the same old routine.

Another reason the term Stay At Home Mom irritates me is that Stay At Home Moms don’t really stay at home. They go to schools, playgroups, libraries, bible studies, other mom’s homes, parks, grocery stores, malls, and doctor’s offices, to name a few. So what would be a better term, I’ve asked myself? When someone asks me what I do, what should I say? Recently I tried out this response: “I’m currently working with a small number of clients (two to be exact) in a variety of areas, but focusing primarily on personality assessment and character development.”

I also struggle with the question, “Do you work outside the home?” I don’t want to say “no” to this question, because I know that what I do and who I am isn’t confined to four walls. “Do you work outside the home?” “Yes, my work with clients involves both private and public settings.”

Sometimes I wonder what’s really behind my dislike of the 'Stay at Home Mom' title. Am I embarrassed to be a Stay At Home Mom? Do I think it’s not enough for me, that I'm better than a Stay At Home Mom? I will continue to grapple with these and similar questions, but here’s the bottom line. I’m disillusioned and embarrassed that a vocation of such magnitude and consequence has such a lame job title.

If you have an idea for an alternative job title to 'Stay At Home Mom,' please comment.

Desiring to Desire

2005-10-26T21:25:00.000-07:00

Last night I had an amazing experience of God through hitting the keys of my laptop. I was writing without editing myself, just letting the words flow out however they came, using Psalm 119:33-40 as my launching pad. It was an "assignment" from the bible study I'm in at my church.

Psalm 119 is about loving God's word, which I'm embarrassed to say, I haven't been able to relate to. I know I should love God's word, it's just that I know I don't. In my head I know that scripture is important, but that is obviously not the same thing as loving it. In some ways I resist the idea of loving scripture because I've known people who appear to love "God's word" more than they love God. I want to love God more than the bible.

I realize that if I love God I will also love listening to him, through the use of his words both written in scripture and sensed in my heart. The people I love most in this life, my husband Andy for example, are the ones I love to converse with. I love talking and listening to Andy and I love that he loves talking and listening to me. I think this is how it is with God - we converse by both doing our share of listening and talking.

That's what's so cool about this weekly writing exercise. It's like we're conversing with God using a passage of scripture. I read/listen to God's words (type one verse). Then I take a turn at talking by responding to what God just said (I type my emotional response to and questions about what God said). Then God speaks again while I listen (I type another verse). Etc.

What was so amazing about last night's experience was that I started out feeling so numb and apathetic. I was typing verses that said things like "I long to obey your commandments" and "Give me eagerness for your decrees" and I felt that I couldn't honestly say those words for myself. I longed for a chocolate chip cookie early in the day and for a piece of the Halloween stash that Andy had hidden,but I couldn't honestly say that I had longed to obey God's commandments at any point in the day (or week).

I could honestly say "Give me an eagerness for your word" because I know I'm eager to have an eagerness. And this is where the transformation came. As I began to rant about how closely I resemble one of those idiotic sheep in the bible and how I wanted to quit wandering away from my Shepherd and instead draw near to him, God actually starting changing my longings and desires. I was typing away and crying as I felt God changing my heart through our conversation. He was with me, answering my plea to wake me up to his reality and to stir in my heart a desire for the things he desires. It was incredible!