It's a party. You're not invited.

Streak was inspired by his wife to write a post about who he'd host for his fantasy dinner party. What a great idea. However, all of Streak's guests seem to be living, and I couldn't decide whether to make my party in this life or the next, and it just didn't seem right to mix. So, I would have two parties--one of this world, and one of the next.

My living dinner party:

1.) Carol Gilligan-feminist, ethicist, and psychologist who has been influential in my own thinking. In my imagination she'd keep us all honest, vulnerable, and engaged. I hope she also has spectacular taste in wine, but that's my fantasy.

2.) Keith Olbermann-He's crazy intelligent, has a catalog memory only rivaled by my husband, and would give hubs someone to talk to when he got bored of all the psychology talk. Oh, and if there were a freak accident and my husband spontaneously combusted during dinner, leaving me suddenly widowed, I wouldn't object to a little romance with Keith. (Just ignore those pesky rumors that he's gay.)

3.) Like Streak, I would also invite Anne Lamott. Her writings have been influential to my own bridging of the gap between my faith and art and themes of freedom. Plus, I think that she'd be a spectacular dinner guest, and just a lot of good fun.

4.) Tony Campolo, yet another whole person who would be authentic and genuine, but not afraid to engage, argue, and commiserate. I so admire his work that integrates Evangelical faith with sociology (my first academic love affair).

5.)Karin and Linford from Over the Rhine. These soulful artists who live on a farm named Nowhere, drink wine, and sing songs about "sexy cocktail hour stubble" and "soothsayers," and making a song the president would be spectacular dinner guests. I don't think I could fully enjoy the dinner company of these two without also inviting the McCarty's and their daughter Harper. Every dinner party needs at least one child, and if you're going to have a kid around, she might as well come with some of my favorite people from the blogosphere whom I hope to one day meet. Heck, we gotta invite Streak and his wife, too. Just to make it all complete. I also would like to invite Derek Webb. His music's intersection of faith, social justice, and the political indicate a deep, complicated, faith, but he seems a bit of an introvert so we may have to ply him with a bit of wine before he opens up and performs with Karin and Linford for us.

6.) Frank Schaeffer, son of the late Francis. His recent memoirs, his works of fiction, and his non fiction books on art and faith have been instrumental in my own faith development. Plus, I'd like to meet anyone who will admit to deserving a nickname like "the little shit from Switzerland," helping found the religious right and regretting it, and who can write in what seems such an honest and healthy way about his family and his history.

I envision a tipsy Derek, angry Olbermann and impassioned Campolo arguing while Anne Lamott grills Franky over the sins of his family while praising Jesus between fbombs. In the meantime, Karin and Linford have broken out the guitar, Harper has drawn us all pictures of the Yellow Brick Road, Kristen is attending to Tony's somewhat elevated blood pressure that is making him dizzy while giving her opinions to Gilligan about how Christianity isn't inherently patriarchal, while Micah calls Wendell Berry on the phone to tell him he's gotta get over here, and Streak and the husband keep reminding us all of that annoying thing called historical context. ;)

As for my other worldly dinner party:

1.) Pope Gregory the Great, one of the first brilliant minds of pastoral care. I think he'd have a lot to talk about if I asked the right questions.

2.) My maternal Great Grandfather. He made millions in the textile business and lost by caring for and trusting others too much. He's the only man my mother ever mentions being formative to her life, and everyone who ever met him seems to remember him fondly. I never got that privilege. I'd throw my hard living, train hoboing, hitchiking Great Uncle Dub in here, too.

3.)Madeline L' Engle. I could spend the entire evening just talking about her character Meg Murray and what I can learn about being a woman of faith from that one fictional character alone.

4.)Chaim Potok, great Jewish writer. His writings are some of the best fiction I've ever read, and he seems to understand faith in a way that eludes me.

5.)Jesus. Isn't this one obvious? Why the heck not, if given the opportunity.

6.) A round robin of women from the Bible. Esther, Jael, Rahab, Mary, Elizabeth, etc. etc. I want to hear their story and their experience as told by them, outside of the patriarchal context of the Scriptures.

If you bring some good wine and some good food, I just might invite you, too.

Motivation

I never considered just what a huge motivating factor extra credit can be. Because two professors offerred extra credit to students who participate in my research, I now have nearly 70 additional participants for my dissertation study. Bonus!

I also am dissappointed in a conversation that I had today. Someone belly laughed, I mean...literally belly laughed, at the idea that someone who crticizes American foreign policy and supports the legalization of marijuana could be a true Christian. Made me so upset, that this person didn't stop to get to know me enough that he was questioning the veracity of my belief. I just really didn't think anyone could be so limited and closed off.

I ordered shoes to go with my suit that I will wear on internship interviews (still wishful thinking, I haven't heardy ANYTHING from any sites, good or bad). Here they are...all purple and fun! Yay!

Gratitude

Thanksgiving always turns me toward the concept of gratitude, and this year is no different. Hubs and I cooked an entire dinner, complete with turkey, dressing, various casseroles, cranberry sauce, rolls, and pumpkin pie. For 2 people! We're gluttons today, folks.

But lately, I have felt an overwhelming gratitude for many things in my life. I am thankful for being in a profession where I feel I can daily live out my calling and use my gifts. Most times, I leave sessions saying, "THIS is why I do this." I am thankful for a husband who respects me, adores my independence and my ideas, and thinks that this overweight body is delightfully appealing. Our marriage has felt especially rewarding these days.

However, my thoughts also inevitably turn to our next steps. For the longest time, my academic background in sociology, training in community psychology, and idealistic nature has combined swimmingly with our shared Christian faith and Hub's love for social justice and a Tony Campolo type of Jesus faith. The result is that we have long felt a call to live in a neighborhood many young professionals would shun. One where the houses are less than pristine, where crime is not an anomaly, where people work hard and many never get caught up, much less ahead.

If we head back to our home in Tennessee for my internship, we plan to buy a home in such a neighborhood. In my head, we'll be these urban Christian hippies who grow our organic garden in the backyard and invite our multi-colored neighbors over for happy hour with everything from Pabst Blue Ribbon to pomegranate martinis.

I joined the neighborhood yahoo group for one such area where we might live, and the reality busted my bubble a bit. Yes, there are regularly scheduled social events in this diverse neighborhood, but there are also neighborhood meetings on how to respond to prostitution, public relations initiatives to explain those two murders, and other evidence that our children would likely NOT be riding their bicycles down an idyllic tree-lined street, as I did in my youth.

I am not doubting what I feel is God's call to stretch myself beyond the comfort of my white-bred (and white-bread) rural upbringing to grasp what is good about living in the reality of a grittier, less insulated life. People breathe, and people breed, and people live, and people die. I don't want to miss that, but I do seriously doubt my own faithfulness to do this. Can I go from one of the most affluent, predominantly Christian suburbs of Chicago to the reality of an impoverished small city in the American South?

My brother points out that I could minister to "those people" without living with them. My father points out that the resell value of our home will likely not be good. My mother worries about the schools our children will attend. I am not naive, these are worries that I have, as well. But, I can't get past that all of these are selfish concerns. All about if me and mine are getting the best, if we can insulate ourselves from the reality that many have no choice to live in and with everyday. Realities of poverty, discrimination, disadvantage, disappointment, and suffering.

I don't have hopes of swooping in and saving anyone, that is not why the desire to live in this way came about when I was 19, and has not waned one iota. It's because as much as I feel I have something to offer, I also have something to gain. But what I have to gain is more intangible, less measurable, and more elusive. Thus, I listen to the doubters who doubt for good reason. They love me and they want to forestall their own losses by keeping Hubs and I safe.

Gratitude. Can I be grateful for what God is calling me to? That, I'm not sure. Not yet, anyway.

How My Faith Impacts My Clinical Work

I am grateful for God’s provision in my life in the form of Christian parents, a Church that provided for spiritual parenting, and a rural small-town upbringing that protected me from experiencing many of the more painful realities of this world. Yet, like all parents, although the Church was “good enough,” I came away with my own set of wounds. Along with the messages of justice, faithfulness, and holiness, I took away from my religious upbringing the quality of being judgmental, an emphasis on impression management, and more fear than freedom.

All of this was transformed over the past five years that I have spent in graduate school. During this time, I came to a new faith experience through mourning the losses of my life and entering into my disillusionment. God has painfully yet lovingly stripped from me my false self, and invited me to enter into a relationship with Him that is based on honesty and genuineness. My journey to accepting that I am God’s beloved has been a difficult and ongoing struggle to know my self so that I might be able to better know God. Because of my unbelief, I had my very name, “beloved” permanently tattooed on my physical body, so that the identity I struggle to daily accept cannot be denied.

This experience of God, as a lover of my true self, has been instrumental in how I view the context of therapy. Based on this understanding of God, therapy becomes a journey toward self-knowledge, health, and restored relationships for patients. Regardless of our respective belief systems, when I enter into a relationship with a patient, I bring my true and authentic self. I reflect who a patient is so that she can see and discover her true self. By understanding and knowing the self, a patient learns about the Creator through studying the creation. Balancing grace with truth, therapy is a place to ‘bind up the broken hearted and to set captives free.’ Because of my beliefs, therapy becomes a journey of faith where change is assumed, innovation is expected, and rebirth is welcomed. Rather than reacting out of fear, I rest in my identity in Christ, able to come alongside patients as they wrestle with and through the questions of life and God.

God also calls us to mirror His creativity. Beauty, art, and imagination are instrumental in this process of knowing and being known. These mediums are understood as coming from the Creator and as a means to better experience, express, and understand the various aspect of ourselves, others, and God. Thus, therapy also becomes a space where I encourage patients to explore creative means of knowing and engaging the self through art therapy, mindfulness, contemplative practices, or role play.

I appreciate that God equally values the individual self and the community of multiple selves in relationship. God, whose nature is relational, calls us to live in a community of people where individuals can bring their full selves in order to both know others and be known in such fullness. I strive to provide such an experience in the therapy room so that patients may go out and engage in healthier relationships, participating in the narrative that God is telling through scripture, history, and experience by fully engaging in their communities.

The Story of My Discontent

When I was 18, my body went on strike. I became lethargic. Somehow, making it to my 11:15 A.M. Calculus class became impossible. I was just too tired. I got up around noon, made it to a course or two, took an afternoon nap, had some dinner and then played basketball in the evenings with my guy friends, outside in the Tennessee heat. Then I’d go to bed, and sleep 10 or 12 hours, waking up again exhausted.

I was constantly hungry. The bigger the meal, the sooner afterward I was starving. My middle grew mushy with extra weight that my athletic (but never petite) frame had not seen before. My acne grew worse than I had ever seen in my years in high school.

Suddenly, my periods became unpredictable. The punctuality my body had displayed since I was 11 years old (!) disappeared. My less than ample breasts stopped growing, defying my genetic heritage. I went to doctors, gynecologists, and others who told me I was likely just “stressed.” I protested. I was having the time of my life. I was pulling down A’s even if I did skip Calculus. I was just too tired to feel present.

The symptoms continued, and I noticed extra hairiness on my arms and face. And my luxurious curly hair seemed to be thinning and changing on me. Doctors dismissed me and my concerns. I failed to assert myself, being young and trusting in their care. Finally, my mother saw a special on the health channel on something called PCOS, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. A new doctor and some medical tests later, and the diagnosis was confirmed.

Since that time, my struggle with PCOS has been a struggle to hold onto my femininity, as this world has defined it. I am no hourglass, I’m an apple. Extra pounds gravitate to my body. My luxurious curly hair is no longer thick and often unattractive these days. I sweep piles of dark curly hair from my drain and the bathroom floor. Despite high quality treatment, my periods remain sporadic, and I spend many anxious moments worrying that miscarriages and infertility will delay my strong desire to carry a child, or many children. My friends have lithe bodies that they can still abuse, but my attempts to lose weight must be deliberate, slow, and frustrating.

On occasion, I am overwhelmed at the grief of the loss of my physically feminine self. I don’t get to appreciate the gentle curves of my body, the soft ringlets of my once thick hair wrapping around my face. I take two pills everyday and pay two hundred dollars a month that both remind me that I am deficient, inadequate, and possess few of the attributes of a woman as society tells me I should.

Yet, amidst all suffering, there is hope and a deepness of faith that develops. I am unbelievably grateful that medications manage my appetite, insulin, and fatigue. I have learned to slow down and to breathe. There is meaning in a disease that can make me feel a false hunger. Its metaphorical applications to my spiritual journey of discerning real spiritual needs and hungers from my own yearnings has been meaningful.

I have grown to place my identity in Christ. I have begrudgingly accepted that my worth, and value as a woman specifically, does not come from my curves, my body, or my physical appearance. Rather, I am God’s beloved, and God delights in me and in my being fully alive. My vanity has been wrenched from hands unwillingly. Yet, I have began to define my womanhood in having a voice and speaking my mind. Somehow my womanhood is tied to my gift of feeling deeply, being passionate and courageous. Being a woman is part of me because of the way in which I can love and nurture that is distinctly powerful and different from a man. I am thankful for this gift of learning about myself, but it has come painfully in grief.

When I am crying about my receding hairline, I must admit that I do not think of my newfound strength, courage, and love. Nor does it mean that I don’t repeatedly yell at God and ask him to take away this strange “syndrome” that makes me question my sanity and blame myself for being too fat, too ugly, too hairy, too bald. I shed tears, I yell, I curse, and I get unbearably angry about it all. Tomorrow I have blood work to be done. I don’t know what I hope it finds. An elevation somewhere so I can take another medication but find relief from some of my symptoms? That everything be within normal limits and I find I must accept my symptoms as they are now? I don’t really know.

I do hope desperately that my body maintains its fertility, so that this burning desire to have a child that has been so long deferred can be realized in a couple of years. I hope that I am not so desperate for it that it too must be stripped from me. These are the fears we all hold and never fully understand.

Resources on PCOS:
Celebrities with PCOS
Web MD
Support Groups Online

*Sigh*

In response to the VT shootings, I would hope that we would all be contemplating how to grieve and make meaning together. I would hope that we would be evaluating what it must be like to live in one of the many places in the world where the deaths of hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of people a day is a part of life. I would hope that we would examine how our disconnected society may have contributed to a young man who was possibly mentally ill feeling so rejected and bitter that he believed he had to exact revenge in such a traumatic way. I would hope we, as the Church, would be comforters to the suffering, proclaimers of the only hope that we have in the face of such a tragedy, the hope that there is something eternal for which we long in the aftermath of something so senseless. I would hope that we would learn lessons from the past, lessons of forgiveness in the midst of unimaginable grief and loss.

But, I am dissapointed that we seem to be discussing instead, how to react in fear and arm ourselves against an insidious and invisible enemy that cannot be controlled. To embrace fear and control instead of hope, love, and faith is a travesty that lets evil triumph.


TN moves to allow guns in public buildings

By News Sentinel staff
April 18, 2007

NASHVILLE — In a surprise move, a House panel voted today to repeal a state law that forbids the carrying of handguns on property and buildings owned by state, county and city governments — including parks and playgrounds.

"I think the recent Virginia disaster — or catastrophe or nightmare or whatever you want to call it — has woken up a lot of people to the need for having guns available to law-abiding citizens," said Rep. Frank Niceley, R-Strawberry Plains. "I hope that is what this vote reflects."

Read the full story in Thursday’s News Sentinel.

It's busy up in here.

End of the semester means lots of things to do and little time for the Internets. ;) So, I thought you might enjoy some of my pastoral care paper on my vision of soul care.

The soul care giver is to enter into relationship with others in a deliberate way so as to nurture and love them while providing gentle correction for the broken ways of relating evident in their lives. The soul care giver, as explained by St. Gregory the Great (1978), engages in relationships where “discourse…should be adapted to the character of the hearers, so as to be suited to the individual in his respective needs, and yet never deviate from the art of general edification (p. 89).”

...

The role of the soul care giver is also to be the voice within the Church that speaks for the spiritual disciplines, prayer, silence, and simplicity. In today’s raucous society of efficiency and production, the soul care giver works to make space within the institution of the Church for instruction on spiritual practices, and is the constant reminder of the true purpose of humanity in creation. Richard Foster (2005) uses the term “passion to possess (p.3)” to describe contemporary society’s need to own and produce and its inevitable outcome of producing a fractured and fragmented way of life. As Lisa McMinn states in her book, The Contented Soul,

To see our selves as a soul that belongs is to accept an invitation to hold life, relationships, and possessions loosely, hands open, recognizing that nothing is really ours but that we belong to God and to all that is around us—our family, neighborhood, communities of work and worship, our country, our neighbors in the world, and the earth that sustains us all. A soul that belongs is a contented soul living in a place of quiet joy, and it invites, welcomes, and calms those who draw near (p.22).

The soul care giver strives to be a person that lives a life of simplicity and authenticity that draws people to the calming contemplative way.

The soul care giver carefully holds all of these important goals, and is only able to do so with even tenuous success if she is a person who practices and strives for holiness through spiritual disciplines. The soul care giver ultimately is one who seeks out intimacy with God, and who conducts a ministry that supports, loves, and cares for others in ways that encourage them to engage more intimately with God. The soul care giver makes no promises that the spiritual way is easy, but only that she will walk with and care for parishioners no matter where their journey leads, even through such horrible afflictions as the Dark Night of the Soul. As Evelyn Underhill states in her book The Spiritual Life:

The spiritual life then is not a peculiar or extreme form of piety. It is, on the contrary, that full and real life for which man is made; a life that is organic and social, essentially free, yet with its own necessities and laws. Just as physical life means, and depends on, constant correspondence with our physical environment, the atmosphere that surrounds and penetrates us, the energies of heat and light, whether we happen to notice it or not; so does spiritual life mean constant correspondence with our spiritual environment, whether we notice it or not (p. 41-42).

The soul care giver practices the spiritual life and draws attention to and makes intentional for others the spiritual environment so that we might benefit more from it, and so that awareness of God and his whisperings will be more acute.


...

Soul care ministry focuses on ways to deepen believers’ knowledge and openness to God and His work. Soul care is also the part of the Church that deepens an understanding of one’s self and others in order to grow toward conformity of character and inner life in the image of Christ. Doing so, besides being a command of Christ, ultimately benefits the global Church and the local congregation.

The benefit comes in that a body of believers who are listening to God and seeking God’s direction become less concerned with programs, logistics, and the “doing” of church. A congregation that has a pervasive and appropriately integrated soul care ministry supports and develops Christ followers who long after God and God’s work in their lives. They serve joyfully where God has instructed. They express love to the community around them. For it is only through soul care and its call to the contemplative traditions that can produce a faith community where God dispenses his grace through us, and changes the world through us. Soul care has to offer the church the dream of a body who loves so well, people are drawn closer to God through Jesus Christ.

...

In his book, Letters to a Young Evangelical, Tony Campolo (2006) calls for a reclaiming of the contemplative (predominantly Catholic) traditions that were removed from Evangelicalism at the reformation.

After the Reformation, we Protestants left behind much that was troubling about the Roman Catholicism of the fifteenth century. I am convinced that we left too much behind. The methods of praying employed by the likes of Ignatius have become precious to me. With the help of some Catholic saints, my prayer life has deepened. Ignatius and other Catholic mystics such as Teresa of Avila have been of incredible help to me in developing a kind of praying in which God becomes a real and felt presence (p. 31).

Although I have now become a member of a very nontypical Christian church, it remains the same Evangelical tradition. Although there exists a growing appreciation for the spiritual and contemplative, there remains little structure, instruction, or support for pastoral care. The church incorporates more psychological ministries, including support and recovery. However, there remains a vast emptiness concerning pastoral care.
I hope to follow the example set by the atypical Evangelical leader Tony Campolo in his personal ministry and writings, for a pastoral care ministry that incorporates an acute sense of social justice and the Church Universal in addition to having an intimate relationship with Christ. Campolo (2006) suggests the practices of centering prayer, contemplative Bible study, and an accountability group that helps you maintain spiritual disciplines for consistent Christian living.

Dunked....

Last weekend, our church did an impromptu baptismal service. Without all the usual baptism classes and standard education, they offered to baptize whomever felt led to do so that night, New Testament style. Communion was being served and whoever felt led was to go to the back of the auditorioum.

As I sat there in the service, I felt an anxiety that I know could only be the Holy Spirit. God was telling me to be baptized. Immediately, I started to resist. I told myself all sorts of things... "But I'll look so foolish, I've been a Christian for over a decade." "Theologically, this just is not what is right." With every excuse came that feeling of being sick. I actually told myself, "Just hang on through the next fifteen minutes, this will all be over, and you can pursue baptism some other time."

But, I got up some courage and whispered to my husband, "I think I'm supposed to be baptized."

Thank God for him, because he responded, "Then go. Do you want me to come and support you?"

I said, "Of course!"

So, the theologically savvy among you are wondering how this Baptist girl was getting baptized when she's been a Christ follower some 13 odd years. Well....

I grew up in a church that was generally pretty supportive, though not without flaws. I never felt pressure to make a committment to Christ, and that wasn't quite on my radar yet at the age of 11. I loved Jesus, but the idea of becoming a Christian wasn't one that I fully comprehended, or even partially comprehended.

Enter old school interim pastor (OSIP).OSIP decided he needed to have a Sunday to teach Sunday School for the children, and that all the classes should be taught together. Being a small church, I was the youngest among that late childhood and adolescent crowd. He gave a very evangelistic message in Sunday School and then asked whoever wasn't a Christian to raise their hand. That was....um, me. OSIP came over, put his arm around me, got in my face and asked, "Do you love Jesus? Will you do that today?" Being 11, with an old man asking me to do something, I wasn't going to say, "No."

I said yes. And I made my parents take me home halfway through the church service, crying. I didn't understand what I was doing, but whatever it was, it felt confusing and so wrong. My parents convinced me to go out for lunch, even though I didn't want to because I knew that OSIP would probably be there. My parents assured me OSIP wouldn't bother me.

But he did. I got ambushed in the salad bar line. Confronted by a 70+ year old man about why didn't I come forward. There he went with the hugging and being in my face again. There I went with the crying and feeling violated again. After several other poorly executed attempts by OSIP, my father told him if he ever bothered me again...well, I don't know what he said, but it worked. OSIP left me alone and we got a new pastor.

Six months later, our new pastor told a rousing sermon, and our church experienced a huge revival. This was miraculous for the unemotional straight laced church that raised me. Nearly the whole church went forward to be recommitted, to join the church, or make professions of faith. I saw my opportunity, I could go forward, get baptized and everyone would leave me alone for good. So I did. And it meant nothing to me.

Two years later, at the age of 13, I truly did become a Christian. I didn't tell anyone. Why? Because they all thought I already was one. Talk about embarrassing. So, for 13 years I've wondered about whether to get baptized again or not. I've been counseled by people of all different Christian belief systems about whether to get baptized or not, and been told a a myriad of answers. But, for the past 3 years, I know that it's been something God has wanted me to do, regardless of what I thought I knew about theology.

Every time that I started to get baptized, or mention it, or seek someone out, I would feel too ashamed, too judged, too prideful. But I did it, finally! Making the experience all the more meaningful, my husband was the one who was able to baptize me. When I imagined my true baptism, I never imagined it'd be a loaned pair of men's swim trunks from the church and a tshirt that everyone who is baptized at our church receives. But, I can't imagine a better time or place in my life for making my baptism more meaningful or symbolic of my new life in Christ, for only in these last 4 years have I felt truly remade, refined, and grown by God.

So..now I'm telling everybody.

The weekend that we were in Knoxville for the launch of Crossings, our church here in Chicagoland did this video. I miss the one Sunday where they take one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite artists on one of the most important topics. Geez, good thing I feel so great about having been at crossings. Check it out.

Vocare: To Call

Yesterday, I had the blessing of working together with one of my closest friends at Panera Bread. It is blessing enough in itself to have a friend with whom you can be fully yourself, and she can do the same. Everyone needs one or two of the type of friends who will sit with you in a coffee shop, lap top in tow, and work alongside you just because they like your company.

I felt especially blessed because we discussed our callings. I disclosed to my friend that in the past year, God has had several people whom I trust deeply each affirm a specific calling in my life, independently without knowledge of the others. It's one of those things as Christians you would think that we would shout from the rooftops. But I haven't, the number of people I've told include my husband, my mother, and one other friend.

"Why?" you may ask. Well, as my mom jokingly said, you can understand how it makes me feel a little like Pat Robertson claiming that the world is going to end on Wednesday. So, I whisper what I have been told only to those who I know will not doubt it. I hedge it with "Well, we'll see if that happens..." and "Oh, I don't know.." I worry that my whispering offends God. It's actually unusual for me to be secretive about anything. I've always marvelled at mysterious people who live their life internally, such as my brother or my husband. Those mysterious, internal people attract me like a bug to a light on a summer night.

And when I undertook this sort of confession, my friend confessed to me her own calling, its development, and the sources of her own doubt. To me, the calling she speaks of seems so clearly fitted to her. It's so much easier to see in others their gifts and God's work in their lives than it is to do so about ourselves, in our own foggy minds and sense of self.

I always have had difficulty hearing the small still voice of God. I most often learn about God through other people. That's why I so strongly believe in the value of the priesthood of believers as a community. Aside from the fact that it's scriptural and historical, I know it and I've experienced it.

It saddens me that my friend and I, two passionate, strong, loving women of faith, whisper our callings in small conversations with each other. While such interactions are important and powerful, why do we hesitate to announce this powerful work of God in our lives? In our cases, I think some of it has to do with gender. In our conservative evangelical tradition, we have each experienced the invalidation of our gifts and callings purely because of our gender at times, in ways that wound and hurt. But, I think we're struggling with more than that.

There come all the doubts, the fears, the Moses-like feelings of, "Who? me? God, I think I'm going to horribly disappoint you." There's also the sacrifices that I must make, having had parents who were involved prominently in our community, I know the struggles that come with parents that are watched. Some of my hesitation stems from the fact that it's hard to reclaim a dream that you have let go. When a dream is deferred, you mourn its loss, feel the grief, and have to let it go. Similar to how the followers of Jesus had to reconfigure and evaluate their entire existence when he rose from the dead, when a dream rises from the dead you have to tear down all the new ones that you've built in order to embrace the old one. The overwhelming joy is mixed with a sense confusion and disbelief. It's a gift for your birthday, 5 months and 14 days after the date...it makes no sense, but you're unbelievably grateful.


A Dream Deferred
~Langston Hughes~

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Beloved

This weekend, my husband and I were back in Tennessee for the launch service of Crossings, a faith community. I have talked before about how we came to be involved in this church.

Worshipping was an amazing experience, mainly because I had a keen awareness of being a part of something God is doing. The absurdity that in the entire Chicagoland area we would find our current church, and then that that church would deviate from their typical church planting philosophy to entertain the idea of a church in Knoxville, and that we would be here during that time. Well, I said it, it's ABSURD! However, if I have learned anything, it's that God delights in the absurdly creative. His ways are not my own.

I have spent a fair amount of time these last 5 years feeling angry and disaffected from the Church, confused and disturbingly grieved about many failures of Christianity, Christians, the Church, and several local congregations. Not to mention the wrestling that I was doing with God. He and I had quite a few tussles. There is not enough space on the Internets or paper and ink in the world to record the lessons that God has taught me about God and about myself in the past few years. I have tried God in every way that I know how, and God has proven faithful and real. I have experienced God, tasted God, and known God through Jesus Christ...Just like Mark spoke about in his sermon on Sunday.

I make no apologies for the squall of grief, anger, and despair that I long denied, eventually experienced and finally embraced. In an equally confounding manner, I have watched the clouds of anger dissipate. Only by leading me through such a cloud of despair, allowing my wounds to occur and then binding and healing them, could I come to this moment where my story has become restored to one of wholeness and authenticity that seeks to know God and his creativity through my calling to the care of souls.

When I see the community of faith that is blossoming in Knoxville, I get all excited about the impact God is going to have on the lives of those who live there. I also get excited about the undeniably personal manner in which God is letting me be a part of it. Instead of feeling stuck, or torn between two places (Chicago and Knoxville), I experience the absurdity of God's perfect timing, His calculated writing of my story as a part of His story, and a true knowing that I belong to God, and all that I have belongs to God.

Not too long ago, on his blog, Mark asked people to share their "reel to reel" moments of faith. And I think I just remembered my most important one. Reading the The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen for a class, I recognized myself in both the prodigal and in the resentful older brother. I desperately needed to be keenly aware of God's grace, to know and to believe that I am God's beloved. I also recognized my own scowl, similar to the older brother's, as a sign of my resentment of those who experience God's grace, but who haven't been doing the "hard work" that I have for most of my life. My lack of acceptance of grace stunted my ability to extend grace to others.

For the first time, I sensed a growing awareness and acceptance of God's grace. God kept placing in my life people who reflected to me just how much I am God's beloved. Beloved. Beloved. Over time, I began to believe it. In pieces, in parts, not fully. And being assured of being God's beloved provided to me an expansive and expanding grace toward others. I felt a freedom to love, to shephard, to hold those who dish out daily doses of vitirol, disease, and toxicity. However, my assurance doubts, it wavers, I act as if I am not God's beloved. I forget the loving way in which He created me, the exorbiant price He paid for soul. As evidence of my lack of faith, and my need for continual remembrance, I had that very word..."beloved" tattooed on my body. Not as proof to anyone, not as art, not as anything but a constant reminder that God has declared me His. Even in my darkest moments of doubt, the reality of that ink on my lower back declares to me that in the face of my unbelief, I am God's beloved.

I'm beloved. You're beloved. He is here. He is real.

Why I think I'm probably the worst Christian ever, except maybe for Judas...

Today I had some of the art that we've collected over the course of our trips to Europe framed at Hobby Lobby. (Boy, that sounded pretentious.) I thought the framing guy smelled a little, uh, like a person smells when they don't wear deodorant, or when he's shown a lady like me 5 bazillion different options on matting and all she keeps saying is "I don't know. I don't think that's it. What do you think?"

But, when I got home and started on my little painting project, I discovered it was me who smelled. I had somehow forgotten to wear deodorant. Take away my schedule and all of a sudden personal hygiene eludes me. Now Ben at Hobby Lobby thinks I'm the somewhat ripe smelling and very picky lady of his day. Sigh.

Then, there was this lady. She bought our dining room table, which I had posted on Craigslist. Although my ad clearly states, and the norms of craigslisting clearly imply, that one is responsible for moving and hauling any merchandise, this lady either didn't read it, is used to people doing things for her, or she blatantly disregarded that information. Anyway, she showed up to move her new table, which I had taken apart for her, with a Ford Focus and 3 herniated disks. No friends to be found. And my husband is sick. Oh, and she showed up just as I was washing my brushes from putting the gray primer on the walls from above painting project.

After an acrobatic act proving that the table top (3 feet by 5 feet) will not, in fact, fit in a Ford Focus, and carrying all the stuff myself for her, the lady seems a bit put out and states how her truck is in Joliet, she can't get the table top until Saturday, yada yada yada. Okay, fine, I'll carry the table top back up, you pay me and come get your stinking table top on Saturday.

But, then, she asks, "Can I pay you extra to drive the table top over in your station wagon you said it fit in (30 minute drive one way)?" I said, "No..I'm in the middle of painting and No." We start discussing her coming to pick it up, and I stated that I could leave it in the apartment lobby for her to pick up even if we're not home. She replies, "Well, I'll need your help to load it, I can't put it in the car by myself."

So, now I feel guilty, and unsure where Christian duty ends and good boundaries begin. This lady had no hesitation to ask over and over again for more than was expected, and seemed miffed that a little extra dough wasn't what I wanted to leave my home when I was dressed in my painting clothes with primer drying on my brushes upstairs.

By the way, the primer dried on my brushes, and now our tub is a grayish hue of dried primer. Then I ran the hot water to rinse away what I had scrubbed off, and the shower curtain wasn't closed all the way and my floor and rug got completely soaked.

Now, 1.5 hours after the table lady arrived, I'm finally back to painting. What do ya'll think? Did table lady finding my selfish vein and I should have driven her table top away? Or are my brushes in the tub like my ox in the mire?

What's right with your church?

I have an entire post planned to complement my previous "What's wrong with your church?" post. But, I've been busy. I was probably wanting to rescue people from thinking bad thoughts a little earlier than I should, anyway. But, I had to share this. This video is part of what is right with the church I attend (but didn't this weekend..see previous post).

The greatest compliment anyone has ever given you...

Today, on Eric and Kathy in the morning, on 101.9 The Mix, they were naming questions you should ask every first date. One of those questions was "What's the greatest compliment someone has ever given you?"

I could think of a few meaningful moments to share, but then this afternoon my mom gave me a gift. She gave me the greatest compliment that I have ever had.

"You've broadened my picture of what a Christian is. Your horizon looks much different than mine, and I think that I like the way yours looks more than mine. You see much farther. I look at my horizon, and I see people like Jerry Falwell, and I'm fed up."

Thanks, Mama.

What's wrong with your church?

Since coming to graduate school, I find myself asking this question more often. I've been more than just a little disillusioned with the fact that some very basic theological concepts, the corpus of church history, and other important aspects of the Christian faith were never introduced to me, though I grew up in the Church, with dedicated and faithful Christian parents. I wonder what exactly the goal of our churches, congregations, and church based ministry is if it's not to teach about theology, church history, and how to encounter God in ways that challenge people toward growth.

I sometimes wonder if I'll ever again sit in a church service without a somewhat critical eye. I'm that annoying person behind you who won't sing the lines of the song that have poor theological implications. I'm one of those who leaves angry when we have an entire service on the dark night of the soul, silence, and despair without a single time of silence in the actual service. I am the one that is just a little bit suspicious when the pastor is ALWAYS happy EVERY Sunday. It's the same suspicion I have in life or in the therapy room when someone always has it all together. That's just not reality. How authentic is that?

However, I don't feel cynical. I love the church that we attend these days. I am hopeful for the Church, and I don't want to be estranged from the body in that way ever again. I've encountered a preponderance of Christians who are uncomfortable with questioning, doubt, and turning a critical eye to our human manifestations of church, religion, and faith here on Earth. It's as if questioning who we are and contemplating the flaws of our attempts at being the Church are questioning God, questioning God's perfection or holiness. That's just not the case. In fact, failing to acknowledge and embrace our weaknesses and shortcomings leads to an unhealthy neurotic and narcissistic idealism that leaves us leaning on our own understanding and strength rather that our imperfection leading us to seek God more.

I'm convinced that we all do need to ask "What's wrong with my church?" It's not about criticism. It's not about tearing others down. It's about discernment. It's about an open forum so that disappointments do not turn into seething anger and contempt for the Church or a church. And the response we need to give when we're on the receiving end of suggestion, is not defensiveness. Nor is constructive criticism to turn into merely criticism or our only way of relating to others. There are always naysayers. If you're always the nay sayer, well, then it's a problem.

So, I am asking, what's wrong with your church? Not, "What do you not like?" But what is wrong theologially? What have you or another been hurt by? What's the institutional sin of your church?

Lately, what's been on my mind about the church we attend (and other worship gatherings I've been to lately) is the music. The music which we sing lately has taken on an unbalanced slant toward almost gnostic understandings of spirituality. Gnosticism devalues the physical and earthly world in favor of honoring the spiritual world as better than the physical one. The specific things that seemed especially problematic today were "Cause nothing on this earth is as beautiful as you" and, this one I can't remember exactly, but it was along the lines of "Jesus is like no one else on earth." I thought that the entire point is that Jesus was 100% "like" us, while also being 100% God. But, it's clear that both of these songs have a bit of bad theology going on. Hey, and it's just not contemporary praise songs, but classic hymns as well. Away In a Manger is one of the worst, with its devaluing of the human nature of Jesus.

So, is this a phase? Will my apophatic nature wane when graduate school is over? How do we deal with such frustrations and disappointments and still maintain relationship and love? I'd love to hear your thoughts.