Policies and People: How to be a Good White Person?

Once, for a job, I had to tell a transgender person that the policy of the place where I worked was to live by their birth gender. 

I said this after talking to this person for an hour. 

I said this after a year of knowing about this person but never having spoken to this person before. 

I said this even though this person did not disclose being transgender to me. 

I said this because I was told to say it. 

I still feel ashamed. That's not what love looks like. 

You see, there are people and there are policies. You can have a policy, but you can't treat people like policies. I did not know them. By speaking out against them, I betrayed their trust, I made them feel afraid and defensive, and I demonstrated judgment. And I just don't think that's what Jesus would have done. 

Jesus led through relationships. He created change through relationships. He opened doors for difficult or awkward conversation through, you guessed it, relationships. 

By having that conversation, I did not communicate love or understanding. What I communicated was that a group of people had been talking about them behind their backs and had sent me as a spokesperson. I, a stranger, knew one of the most personal qualities about them. And, by speaking out against that quality without a relationship first, I nearly guaranteed myself that I would never have a relationship with them. I saw the pain in their eyes. 

I feel that same shame now. Navigating people and policies is so difficult, especially when you have close relationships on all sides of the spectrum. 

I have not been in any way hidden about my sentiments toward our current leader. Those sentiments have not shifted toward the positive in the past four years. In fact, his behavior, his tweets, and his constant fire-poking toward increased hatred and violence have only pushed me further into the political sphere when I once was not in any way interested. I have seen the impact on all ages, as his language use and behaviors validated voices of hate and made them socially acceptable. 

Hear me, these sentiments were already alive and well, but they had not previously been given an allowance to be communicated aloud without condemnation. The impact was immediate--I saw it wash over my small town, and I see it here in my larger city. I see the influence of those behaviors on the day to day of his people. 

Voting for him on a one or two policy ballot is irresponsible and dangerous, as the effects of his humanity are widening the gap of our country. It actually does matter who a person is in their real lives, especially when they broadcast a constant spew of hate and violence speak in such a non-stop, public way. Yeah, guys, his twitter really does matter. You may believe in God using unholy people for holy purposes. He is not creating holy outcomes. Not at all. 

This weekend, he has chosen to come to visit Tulsa, Oklahoma for the largest indoor even since the beginning of the pandemic. It is the 99th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, and tomorrow is Juneteenth (Freedom Day). Many Republicans (and family members) have claimed that this date selection was done in ignorance. His tweets suggest otherwise. 

This decision caused another tense internal debate between policies and people. This rally is in the midst of a second wave of virus reports, this rally is on an extremely important African American holiday, this rally is in the midst of race/police brutality protests all over the nation. My policy, as an introvert and someone who wants to be socially responsible, is to avoid large public gatherings. However, my humanity calls for action. I cannot be another Millenial to claim I care and allow that only go so far as to post online about it. But how do I prevent him from using a peaceful protest somehow in his favor? How do I avoid the violence which may be incited by his trigger-happy behaviors and the equally trigger-happy behaviors of his aggressive followers and white supremacists? How do I show up without somehow making the equally heinous Millenial mistake of acting only long enough to get the photo op or make something very much not about me, about me? How can I speak out without drawing attention to me and not the issue? How do I be an ally? How do I be a good white person? 

After a week of massive backlash, he moved his rally date to the day after Juneteenth. 

I told myself that it was only that which made me worked up enough to entertain the idea of attending a protest. But I don't think I could live with myself if I stand on the wrong side of humanity on this one. Remaining silent is to be complicit. It's to communicate that his behaviors, his lies, his location choice, his calculated language use as it relates to race and riots, and his presence in my city during a pandemic, national crisis, and grim anniversary, is acceptable. It is not acceptable. 

The policy is free speech. But that policy is being abused and manipulated to allow a stampede of the people. It flies in the face of our African American groups here, to the families of victims of Greenwood, and even of the health and safety of his followers. 

My sentiments have marked me as an extremist to many members of my family. In conversations, I immediately alienate myself. But Jesus threw tables in the temple. He cracked a whip, in fact. There are times when righteous anger is appropriate. I would rather alienate myself on behalf of humanity than disgrace myself with defending the degeneration occurring now with ideals of single-ballot issues. How is it less pro-life to defend the full lifecycle than it is merely to defend birth rates? I cannot reconcile it. 

We are still navigating the safest road to take, but safe is also not Jesus. Justice is Jesus. Truth is Jesus. Standing beside the oppressed is Jesus. Resisting evil is Jesus. So we will shut our mouths and put on masks and stand alongside our brothers and sisters in solidarity and, with hope, peace. We will listen to the stories of both joy and pain. And we will be there as a physical demonstration that balance and justice are necessary for trust. We are going because we don't know what else to do and it is no longer an option for us to sit back and watch from our place of privilege. 

Pretense and Prayers

This week, I have found myself caught in a difficult place I have found myself so many times before.

To families I work with, I have often called myself a "nontraditional Christian". Perhaps that's prideful, perhaps it's a cop-out so that I avoid judgment, but I'm really not 100% sure of my motivation. A professor in college once called my personality "slippery". I didn't like that, but he's not wrong. I avoid, as much as possible, any and all definition, even though there's nothing more satisfying than feeling known.

I am a question asker. I am a person who needs to know "why". I am a fighter and a seeker, and that can come off wrong. Many times, people have judged that as not being a faithful Christian because they see it as a sign of doubt or disbelief. In my mind, I see it as a sign of faithfulness, of belief. Why fight for something you don't believe in? No, you fight for that you do believe in.

Throughout my life as well, I have been in puddles of "perfect" people while at the same time having a knack for collecting broken people. Maybe I love the broken because I know that we are all broken. Everyone is broken. Everybody has their fissures and canyons in their life. That's why we need Jesus. But there's something beautiful about broken people's inability to hide theirs. You can see Jesus better when you can't hide where he's working, or wants to be working.

Perfect people, people with rock solid testimonies and veneers, bother me. They bother me at some level because I distrust them and their stories. God is good; yes, all the time. But he is also working all the time. In true community, you share. If we are supposed to be in true community spiritually, then why are we not sharing? Why are we judging instead? I posit that we judge out of our own insecurity, out of our fear that we ourselves are seen as being imperfect. Because maybe we won't be respected anymore or get that job at that Christian foundation or be thought of as a "struggler."

Because we have seen how those labels have power and have seen their impact on lives, as people start to believe what they are called. We're responsible for our own development, but it is hard not to feel the sear of the rejections and the names.

My broken collective has all gone different directions. Some have become their labels, some have overcome their labels. All grow, just in different ways.

Have you ever sat down to "judge" someone's faith walk for one reason or another? Walk that line with prayer and petition. Just because one person has chosen to be vulnerable and share where they honestly stand does not mean that they are necessarily more or less "solid" than the person who stands in front of you and says that they're rock solid in Jesus. No man knows another's soul. No one has "arrived" in their spirituality or their walk with Christ. One man's plateau or peak period may be during another's valley. Give them six months. The man you thought couldn't be shaken might have proven himself weak and the "weak" man may still be standing strong.

We are called to love, to lead back to Christ, to be diligent and prayerful and gracious. We correct when we need to correct, but we should always start with love and with God.

I am a person with the propensity for very strongly worded opinions, This is something I am challenged about daily and something I try daily to be more wise about. However, with regards to this topic, I know that I speak truly when I say that above all other subjects, this one should be treated with more gentleness, wisdom, diligence, and prayer than any others before words come out of our mouths.

Paul writes, "may your love abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that you maybe able to discern", "approve what is excellent" "and may be sincere and blameless for the day of Christ--filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ".

The first definition that comes up for "sincerity" is "without pretense." Without our masks.
When I read this verse, I hear, "If you are following God with your whole heart, then he will cast aside all human-coated thoughts, leaving behind only what is true and good and holy."

Follow God, listen to his voice while turning yours off, and speak out with a voice that is not your own, one not coated all over with your pride, your position, your particular brand of sinful.

On Prayer and Pens

Lately, I've been feeling the crux between who I am and who I could be. 

The could be isn't necessarily a good one. 

I, like all humans, have the propensity for both good and evil. 

Creativity, excitement, book worm-iness vs. numbness, depression, anxiety

Sometimes, I delude myself into thinking that I do not do the good for me because I don't have the time. Time-filled days call my bluff, though. I do not do good because I can't make myself. 

And what's so funny and terrible is that if I would move, the rest of me would follow. If I would move, I would keep moving. It takes practice. 

One good day doesn't mean that the next will be just as productive. But that also doesn't mean to give up. It means to practice, in the smallest of ways, discipline. Be consistent. Be persistent. 

I got a letter today from my friend and now long time penpal Leslie. 

Together we discussed prayer and pens, how difficult prayer can be and how settling and clearing writing can be. 

Several years ago, an author named Lauren Winner came and spoke in chapel at JBU. She was super zany with her big ole butterfly glasses, electrocuted looking hair, and Miss Frizzle clothes. Her content didn't help build a case for her either. The most dynamic moment in my memory is of her holding up an invisible squash as though it were the skull in Hamlet and asking if that squash were prayer. 

That question has quietly gnawed at me for all the years since. 

Was that squash prayer? She had tilled the soil and planted the seed and remembered to water the sprout and weeded the garden and pruned the dead leaves and protected the small plant from bugs and squirrels and then, squash. Was that squash prayer? Well...yeah. 

Does that mean that prayer may be more fluid a concept than we think it is sometimes? 

I think yes. 

The deep breath I take to center myself before a phone call, the conscious mercy shown to a persnickety coworker or friend or student, the serotonin supplement I remember to take, the dishes I put up even though it isn't my turn, the letter I write to a friend, the moments spent reading a book and using my mind, all of that might just be prayer. All of that is pursuing righteousness and godliness. 

And prayer, connection, propels us forward, even if at a glacial pace. 

Leslie ended her letter in a way I found poetic in the most beautiful way, and it works as a "call to action", I believe, in a way I'd like to share (pieces of which are paraphrased). 

I hope life is moving forward for you in the best ways. Writing these letters reminds me that life has substance, structure, and is in need of redemption, though the process of writing in itself presses me to pursue a better ending. And seeing your thoughts reminds me that I am not alone in my inward struggles, that everyone has them; an ever-needed "of course other people live life too" moment is always found when I open your envelopes. 

May we all pursue better endings and good words.

Mind Your Mind

Today at work, it was my turn to do the devotion.

It is not my habit to sign up, but someone was covering a college fair for me, so I took his devotion day for him.

It is also my intent to choose a day for devotions in which I am feeling particularly holy.
This is not that week.

It has been nearly 7 days of stress and frustration.
Overlapping travel planning with the final details of student move-in is a lot more work than you might think. There are also people everywhere, and my introverted self is just not used to it.

I could give a series of excuses, but the end of the story is that I'm just being short with people because I feel a little overwhelmed.

Yesterday was really bad.

Work was bad, tried to go to yoga and came across an unexpected face so I left before it started, went to a girls' night with some people I didn't know, then ended up just going out with friends.
There didn't seem to be any sources of relief for anxiety.

So I wake up, right, and I have to come up with something inspiring and holy to say.

First, I checked Oswald Chambers, but that just wasn't really apt, so I glanced through my bookshelf and found Jill Briscoe and a section in one of her devotions entitled "Doing Yesterday".

It fit.

My devotion of the morning, using her words, was about the tendency of ours to replay yesterday over and over and over again, how we could have done different and said different and all the bad things. We avoid God and just try to talk with ourselves, knowing full well we do so just to avoid the words we know are coming to us from God.

It's over.
Move on.

As a writer, I recognize the capacity of one chapter to be six different things depending on perspective. I can change the entire story just by giving it a revision of outlook.

In the same way, each day we are given the opportunity to look back on our words and actions and the words and actions imparted to us. We are given the opportunity to filter them, judge them, color them however we do so choose.

I can look back on yesterday and see the aggravations and set-backs or I can look back on the hidden pieces--like the gem of a student who appeared last-minute and, despite his financial setbacks, is going to make college happen. Or like my sweet housemates who have become to me inseparable friends and confidantes. Or like church friends who seek me out. Or my sweet boyfriend who is willing to be gracious and give me the benefit of the doubt when my hurt communicates messages I don't intend them to mean.

In any situation, there is so much good underlying.

Jill's prayer is for the Lord to help her mind her mind and for the Lord to mind her heart.
It is up to us not to forget and move on or push out of our minds but actively choose to see the world just a little differently and revise our yesterdays just a bit more constructively.

Change what you can change, apologize for any misplaced words or actions, learn what you can, then look forward.

Irish Rainbows Unchained: The Marriage Equality Vote

Black and white views and legalism are things which come easily to me.

Maybe it's my education and maybe it's my travels, but I have become what I am sure my family and other conservative Christians would view to be more liberal in my thinking. 

 It's not necessarily that I condone certain thoughts or behaviors but more that I believe a religious order ought not have power to legally regulate behaviors. Following God is a personal choice, followed by all kinds of other (hopefully) spirit-led choices. 

When Jesus came, he abolished the Old Laws. Why, then, do we seem to have fallen deeply back in to law-based Christianity? 

Moreover, why would I believe that it is right to hold any particular country's people to a set of religious bi-laws when religion is both an option as well as an option not held by everyone in the country. It just doesn't sit right with me. There's a difference between legal morality and religious morality. One maintains the health of the nation and one the health of the soul. The latter cannot be regulated from a legal institution. 

When I lived abroad in Northern Ireland, I had to read a ton for my Master's degree. 

Because my coursemates were full-blooded (and hot-blooded) folk from The Republic, they knew the history, political and religious structures, and folklore of the land in which they lived. 

My learning curve was insane. 

I read everything I could get my hands on to make up for my obvious lack of foundation. 

In my studies, I came across layers on layers on religious persecution. Not people persecuted for their religion; people persecuted by their religion. 

My friends could tell me personal stories of the ways in which their practical and spiritual lives were negatively influenced by the Catholic Church. The oppression is excruciating, even in these modern times. 

Now, though, there's this incredible thing happening. 

The Republic of Ireland is undergoing a vote to alter their constitution: "The proposed amendment applies to Article 41 of the Irish Constitution. And it wants to insert the following line: “Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex.”

If it passes, the Republic of Ireland will be the first country ever to democratically alter their constitution in favor of marital freedom. 

The Catholic religious order has, for centuries, controlled their people socially, sexually, politically, and educationally. 

Take a moment to see the forest, despite the trees. 

Rob Bell, in his book Sex God, would tell you "this is really about that". 

Yeah, this is about same-sex marriage. 

But it's more than that. 

If this were to pass, it would be a country-shattering stand of the underdog against the schoolyard bully. 

Maybe that underdog won't win every battle against the bully--the people may not immediately be able to shake off the saturation of the Catholic religions order--but this vote would be a symbol that the system which has suffocated them for centuries no longer holds all the power. 

Some fear that this vote is a vote against family and morality, and honestly I can't see it that way. Imposing faith through fear-tactics is soul-destructive. God can use whatever he wants to bring his people back to him. If they're driven his way like whipped slaves, they may follow but they will not love their master. 

It's time to end the rein of the Catholic Church in Ireland. 

It's time to give the people a choice, it's time to shake the foundations, it's time to vote. 

I Pick You

My front garden turned from drab to fab, with these giant purple irises.

They're beautiful, but it's difficult to compare when I have a history with flowers loved on and planted by David: see here . 

When I pulled open my door, though, I saw this one, and a memory with David sprang back to life. 

 It was a damp, sunny spring morning in Belfast, and I was running late to school about to miss the bus. Running through the kitchen, I saw a beautiful tulip on the counter waiting for me. 

I lived alone, so it wasn't as though someone had picked a tulip for themselves. 

It was a present for me. From a man who knows I love flowers, a man so proud of his flowers (but so British he would never have been able to say it) that he wanted to give one to somebody he knew would appreciate its beauty as much as he did. 

The flower was lovely, but it was the man that made it precious to me. 

David, my man, hardly spoke at all, pleasantries at most, but there were many days where I felt as though David was my very most dear friend. He took care of me in such a practically compassionate way. 

At Christmas, he brought me out of my darkness to decorate. 

In the spring, he wanted to show me the flowers. 

He put up a shelf in my room. 

He teased me when I would make my entrance to the world at noon or past (and always made sure to be extra quiet if he thought I was asleep). 

He took me to uni when the bus didn't come that late day in April. 

He made pleasantries with me. 

He showed me the golden finches. He loves the golden finches, "First time in ten years they come back here, them". Even said "you're welcome" when I thanked him. Yeah, it was a huge deal to him to share the finches. 

David is gentle and kind, without a bad word to say about anyone. The one who gardens in his pleated trousers with button-down shirt, sweater vest, and loafers. 

Tireless. 

Humble. 

A big fan of tea. 

I ran out of the house to catch my bus that day, and David was hard at work edging the garden. When I called out a thanks, he told me he had found the tulip downed in the garden: "Musta been a nail or somethin' break it...Thought you could talk to it."

An american would have been making fun of me, but not David. 

He had entrusted one of his broken baby flowers into my care. And since I know David's love for his flowers, I felt the love of the gesture. 

Write What You Live What You Know

Oswald Chambers talks about the dangers of "morbid introspection."
The way that sometimes the sound of the life of the mind can produce clouds of vaporous acid rain.

I'm a Writer.

Morbid Introspect is the encyclopedic definition.

Speaking on Chambers' behalf, I am not under the impression that he's thinking "morbid" as in fantasies involving the death of loved ones, but rather getting so caught up in one's mind that you forget to participate in anything else.

Don't mind my pronoun-antecedent error in that last line.

To a certain extent, I have to disagree with Chambers.

Without writing and without a regular dose of morbid introspection by which I process the world in me and the world around me, I cease to be able to engage with the world around me. Derek Mahon would call it a case of "cloud thoughts."

My gaze gets hazy, and I say and do things that aren't me. Because I'm not thinking, I'm living. I have a lot of friends who are so thoughtless. They GO and ACT and DO and so many people respect and admire them for this, but all it does is make me a little sad.

Yes, for a while I'm jealous of them (as I am also a little jealous of the GOACTDO Jamie when I'm not her), but then I can't help but to think that they go and act and do without really knowing why. And that makes me sad.

Too much in the head kills you but too little in the head causes a build-up...and kills you.

I call for a balance, for the freedom to pro-con list and journal about your feelings and fears but also with a mighty spill-in of risk and spontaneity and glitter.

The ideal is a mix: outrospection with an understanding of why you do what you do.

In that way, you would be able to keep yourself fun and tender-hearted but not so self-absorbed that you become selfish and forgetful of the needs of those around you.

Along a similar line, as a writer, I also know that we have a tendency to record only that which requires meditation.
But when you go back and read later, you may forget all the periods of great fun in-between the "deep" times.

Any writer can ink a sob story all over a page.
It takes great skill and discipline to write well about joy.

Record all of it.
Remember all of it.

Striving for Stepford

I caught myself yet again in the beginning phases of self-construction recently.

Now, to some that might not at first seem like a bad thing. Construction is moving forward, moving up, building on.

I guess, for me, that's kind of the thing.

When things start going well, it's easy to start sliding God to the middle, then the back burner. "Thanks for handling that rough patch there, big fella. I've got it from here" sort of thing.

That's how they get you.

In Derek Mahon's poem entitled, "Circe and Sirens", Tiresias the blind prophet speaks to Odysseus about dangers to come, how those dangers will be unlike what he's prepared for.

We're so focussed readying ourselves for battles that we don't notice when the danger slips in through the side door dressed as a soldier.

Following God is putting on pants.
That never changes.

Sometimes I just forget.

And then I wake up with thoughts and concerns and anxieties that really ought not to be any of my thought or concern or anxiety to hold.

In that mindset, I begin to strive again, working to make people like me, respect me, and approve of me.

It's easy to do, is it not?

This slow shielding of ourselves to better our chances at convincing people we're just as glossy as we seem.

The more we do it, the more we're numbed to the memory of why being "good" ain't so good as it seems.

Thankfully, I realized what I was doing a lot more quickly than I usually do. Does that mean my screwing up is actually progress? I'd like to think so. And even if it's not, I choose to believe it is. Because either way, it is my chosen perception and God's direction alone that will alter the trajectory of who I will become.

I'm tired of playing games and being amusing to other people. I don't want any part of being in somebody's life just to amuse them or pass their time.

I'm not going to get huffy or shun others, but I also want to surround myself with people who actually like me, who are willing to engage with me in conflict but who are also just as willing to delight in who I am and where I am, no matter where that place is.

For me, that entails admitting when I do wrong, allowing myself to own up to the responsibility of whatever that is, entering in to that horrible, vulnerable state, and seeing who's still standing there at the end of the day.

The best part in doing that is just how daily it forces me to remember that I need Jesus and that, if any construction is going to be done to my person, it's gonna be him that does it. Not me.

Vim: Flipping Christians

Do I believe in the possibility of instantaneous change?

Do I believe in change at all?

Sure, it's possible for me to change, and sure it can happen for people in the Bible, but now? In others? It just isn't rational or sensical to think so.

We make people serve some sort of trial period before we are willing to believe that what they claim as change is true, has really taken hold, not just a phase or passing fancy.

In treating them and speaking to them as the "old self," though, are we not perpetuating old thoughts and behaviors from no-longer-applicable identities and, in so doing, pouring acid rain on the seeds of their new life?

And all this, in the name of wisdom and the "test of time."

What would happen if we acted out in faith and chose to join with them in speaking character revolution into existence and allowing ourselves to foster the steps (both backwards and forwards) of its growth? What would happen if we delighted with them?

Saul, though he tortured countless Christians and lived his ugly life just stuffed full with sin, turned completely around and faced up to it when God dropped the scales from his eyes.

That was his moment.
And it stuck.

3 years ago February, a heartbroken, skinny, mind-tortured anorexic girl looked in the mirror in the English Department hallway bathroom at John Brown University and finally saw a sliver of what Jesus saw in her.

Seven years of eating disorder exoskeleton fell to the floor and she walked out free.

That was my moment.
And it stuck.

When Jesus sparkles through that crack in the door for the first time, everything changes, and it is not one single person's place to doubt the credibility of that experience.

Even if "time tells" that your change isn't for always, it doesn't alter the possibility that it could have been.

I ran into a very sweet older lady from my church community group this morning who saw me at my very worst--the end of last semester: broken, shaking, vampire pale, sleepless, and thin.

Today, she greeted me by taking hold of my arms and shaking my whole body: "You've come back to use alive! Alive! Full of vim!"

It was very Irish.

It's true. I have come back to life. I doubted and struggled all last semester and most days I was back in The States, to the very week of my departure back here, but every day of February I seemed to resurrect more and more, if progressive resurrection is possible.

When she said that, though, even if it hadn't been the case, I think I would have believed her and been given the stamina to keep on fighting for my life and seeking joy.

Oh lovers of pathos, can you not hear God's heart for his people?
Oh lovers of logos, can you not hear the empirical evidence?

The Lord seeks to ransom his people in full.
It has happened and will happen again!

Positive personality flips are part of our Christian history and our Christian present.

Why then can we not widen our minds enough to see Jesus shake up our brothers and sisters in Christ?

Why cannot we call out and CHOOSE to have faith in that glimpse of vim, of electric Jesus energy in their eyes and voices?

We serve a seemingly nonsensical Father.
One for whom I choose to expect nothing and risk everything in order to trust in his unreasonable works simply because he loves us and delights in twist, shocker endings.

The God who moves mountains deals also in hearts.
Close-mindedness is safe; faith is infinite.

The Domino Effect

What's crazy is, if my phone wouldn't have drowned, if rice would have solved the problem, if Apple was helpful, if the water damage man had been there on Saturday to fix it, if the phone repair shop had been open the first time I checked on Monday, if I hadn't gone back to Starbucks after dropping off my phone, and if a couple hadn't stolen my cozy window spot, none of what happened would have happened.

As it was, upon sitting down in space number 2 in Starbucks, a girl asked if she could sit with me before seeing that it was, in fact, me whom she was asking. It was my coursemate. 

Of course I was delighted to have her sit with me, regardless that we had never spoken really before. 

I offered her a cookie (baked lemon lavender cookies at Eli's idea. Note to self: always trust Eli's cooking ideas) and we began to chat. 

We ran from how long I'd be in the country to young marriage (I'm leaving in June to make it for Kira's wedding) to Presbyterians (I guess in this country, Presbies get married very young). Naturally, this led to me asking after her own religious beliefs and her divulging a lot of pain and bitterness about the religious abuse she (and a heck of a whole lot of people in this country) has experienced. 

I asked a couple handfuls of probing questions (as I am known to do) and, after fully answering them, she asked me after my own religious views. 

Now, there's something I've started doing since this past summer waitressing, and that is this: I don't volunteer the fact that I am Christian. If there is nothing in me to set me apart as different, I don't want to be any part of furthering the bad Christian title. However, I will tell you all you want to know if you ask.  

Therefore, I told her straightforwardly that I agreed with her view that organized religion has achieved for itself a pretty priggish name for good reason but that I myself had found Jesus himself in a pretty profound way. 

Next came some questions as to a few specifics in my theology (particularly homosexuality, sex before marriage, and "how far is too far?"), and she was a little surprised (in a good way) by my answers' balance of theology and reason. 

She asked about my depression and counselling, and I briefly shared about my last semester's horrors but necessities and reciprocated the question as to whether she herself had ever experienced a wretched time that she would keep in her history anyway, if given the chance to remove it. 

I was given the great honor of hearing her story, known only to half a handful of people. 

Digging deeper, I asked after what it is that gives her the most satisfaction and joy in her life. 

Horses. They're quiet and they listen. 

The way I see it (and told her so as well), the reason we all love dogs and horses so very well is that no matter how many old ladies I kicked in a day, no matter how many homeless people I passed up on the street, no matter how many times I broke my diet, ignored texts from well-meaning friends, or cursed at wait staff, that little ball of fur is going to come running to the door for snuggles and love, treating me like I'm the greatest thing on two legs. 

And if there were a person like that, well, then there just might be grounds for reevaluating everything. 

That, in a nutshell, is why I love Jesus. 

He loves out the very best parts of me regardless of what I've done. 

Love like that changes a person. 

I am a new creation every day because of the wild love I receive and could not ever be good enough to deserve. 

He makes me a better woman, gives me the equipment to love, in part, others in the same way: seeing all and holding onto and speaking truth into the very best pieces. 

My coursemate didn't open up her life to Jesus right then and there, and she may never. But she didn't shut down the conversation either and has asked that we do it again. 

Maybe nothing will come of it, but I am humbled to have been able to even have that one talk. 

My phone is dead. Really dead. And a lot of dead memories that I'd been holding onto in its archives are now gone forever, along with a few pages of writing notes I'd really like not to have lost, but I've no room to be bitter or even upset. 

Scrubbed-down slate for brand new memories, one of which went down in Starbucks over broken Apple products and cookies. 

God is good. 

JBU Audio Archives Fall 2007 (in part)

Do you ever have recurring theme metaphors in your life? Like the ones that seem to follow you?

I have a few including, but not nearly excluded to, knitting, puzzles, and bubbles.

Bubbles are the ones I've been thinking of today, starting with this sweet Vine of smoke bubbles. 

Then, I decided to start at the back of the JBU audio chapel archives and listen through the last five years of chapels. Not today but in my spare time, like when I'm puzzling or playing geography games or blogging.

I started out with a chapel by Tracy Balzer who also happens to be my mentor, so it was a double bonus of Jesus and Tracy. She spoke about the concept of the JBU bubble. It's a pretty popular topic of complaint among JBU students, that they are trapped in "the bubble."

She had some good thoughts on The Bubble, though. Bubbles are translucent (my brother Chon's answer to "what is your favorite color" all while we were growing up). You can see through them. You can't be trapped in ignorance if you have the total ability to see the world around you. Internet, the news, newspapers. You have the opportunity.

Second, bubbles are permeable. You can go in and out of them.

Quotable Quotes from Dieter Zander (spiritual emphasis speaker for Fall 2007)'s first, second, and third chapel talks.
"Grace is not opposed to effort. Grace is opposed to earning."
(speaking in relation to himself as a non-runner becoming a marathon competitor): "I was able to accomplish something through training which  I would never have been able to accomplish through trying...trying is a spur of the moment effort with no preparation. Training is intentional, strategic preparation for an inevitable outcome." 
"Spiritual disciplines create the space in our lives needed for the Holy Spirit to work."
"You can't be a loving person if you're moving too fast, [are anxious/overwhelmed], or [self-absorbed]." 
To become loving: 1. The spiritual practice of slowing. "If I can start [the day] slow, I can stay slow." 2. Observe the Sabbath. 3. Start saying "no." 4. Take time to really see people. 5. Serve others. Go beyond the stated request.
"Jesus was interruptable." 
That last one there is what caught me. A lot of these quotes did, but this last one especially. I often am glad to help but require a few minutes to finish up something. That's kind of ungracious (though perhaps may feel necessary to me). Slow obedience is no obedience. Slow service is no service. Demonstrate through your actions and attitudes that other people are more important than you are.

and Eamonn wears a blackbird pin

Class today in comparison to class last week could not have been more different. I inadvertently skipped another class (They changed the time. Didn’t know. Should have). However, the class I did attend was really fascinating.

First of all, I did not start spurting tears at random moments throughout the two hours of course discussion. Second, I actually understood the entirety of the discussion. That has never before happened in a class period with Eamonn.

Our discussion today focussed on family structure, construction of identity, genre debate, and mental health. Not only are those my favourite topics to discuss, they also helped me to construct a paper topic, outline it, and jot down the resources I would need to uphold it for my final paper. I’m pretty excited about it. I built a similar argument in a previous class at JBU, so I have a semi-foundation for discussion.

Using the background of Seamus Deane’s “autobiography” Reading in the Dark and the subtexts of Earnest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast and Henry James’ novella “The Turn of the Screw”, I’m going to prove that Deane’s book is, in fact, not an autobiography but a novel. And, more than that, a gothic novel.

I’m pretty excited.

To now turn to a different book, I’d like to discuss the concept of “common grace”, as defined by Rick Ostrander in Why College Matters to God. Since obviously I don’t have my copy on me here in NornIron, I’ll sum up for you. Common grace is the idea that regardless of something’s goal of being Christian or NonChristian, anything can reveal and draw us closer to the character of God.

I am rather certain that neither my classmate Paddy nor my processor Eamonn is a Christian. Just drawn by class discussion, which often focuses on religion due to the structure of this nation.

However, I was struck, both last Monday and today at the way my professor and my classmate were genuinely concerned for my well-being. Not that non-christians are in any way unfeeling or not able to understand things, I guess I’ve just never had a whole lot of interactions with non-christians.

A Christian would have tried to spiritualize my being upset or tell me that they were praying for me. The two of them, instead, expressed…I don’t know. It was like they felt hurt with me, and they didn’t even know what was wrong. I don’t think I even knew fully what was wrong. They made me feel joined. And both afterward expressed so verbally.

It didn’t end there, though. Today, in continuation from last week, they individually followed up with me and reiterated the fact that academia doesn’t stop short of relations, that they really did want to stand beside me in whatever way I needed them to. I don’t know. It sounds kind of dumb saying it now, I was just taken off-guard by it, I suppose.

Eamonn wears a blackbird pin, representative of Seamus Heaney and representative of Ireland. Literature and stories are his life. I caught myself staring at that pin throughout class and thinking of what it meant in the context of the whole.

I’ve spoken before of Ireland’s struggle for identity and struggle for a voice and struggle to live their own story. Who are they? British? Irish? Northern Irish? And yet, they are all at the same time. All our stories and identities are interlinked.

And we all seek to live a good story.

Donald Miller speaks a lot about living good stories with our lives in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. If you don’t like the story your life is telling, change it.

However, our stories are not our own. Like I said, we are all interlinked, Christian and nonChristian alike. Eamonn and Paddy expressing genuine interest into my life was them choosing to play a role in my story past their assigned roles as professor and peer.

That’s why it was meaningful to me.

Anyone can play the assigned role. Requirement says very little. Taking up space out of compulsion is empty of character. It takes boldness and compassion to choose engagement and role-redefinition, going outside the expected to further the greater story at hand. Christian or nonChristian, that speaks volumes of the Lord's grace through them.

Bringing Booty Back

Currently, I am reading for fun.

Please hold your shock or applause. Yes, I will answer the unasked question.

I am reading for fun today not because it is Sabbath (Friday was my Sabbath) but because I am a controlling, legalistic workaholic whose behavioral patterns are relationally and psychologically destructive.

This is something which has recently been presented to me through an uncanny number of sources, resulting in an experience much like Dursleys with a particular letter...

I'm not okay with it. I want to be better. I want to be different. I want so much more than this, not because I'm a selfish brat (which, to be honest, I really have demonstrated myself to be), but because the people who love me deserve better than my half-assed--more like no-assed-attempt at loving them well, and that includes God.

Yeah, it's reading. Small digs, Odom.
But, like Rob Bell would say, as he does in his book Sex God (not the book I'm currently reading but a very insightful look at the connections between sexuality and spirituality), this is really about that. 

It's reading. But it's indicative of the fact that I have, other than this moment, stopped staring at my computer screen and contented myself with the slow process of eating language for breakfast (or brunch or tea time snack or any meal really).

I am doing something "unproductive".
I am delighting in the creation of someone else.
I'm trying--so hard--to change.

Practical Christianity.

The realm of Christianity often remains up there in the cloud of happy ideas. You  hear, "Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young," or "Fear not!" or "Cast all your cares on Jesus," but what does that look like?

Do you stand up for yourself? Go jump in front of bullets?

Let's be honest, I'm really most concerned with that last one. Casting our anxieties on Jesus. Taking our thoughts captive. At what point is it just faking it till we feel it?

Sure, in the morningtime, we pour out our hearts to Jesus, ask for guidance and peace and a big cosmic hug, but then you go out into your day. Things haven't changed. All those things that were filling you with fear and anxiety are still there! But you cast your anxieties on Jesus! So you feel as though if you're not joyful and bubbly, then something is wrong. So you do it anyway until you feel it. Obedience, you tell yourself. Acting out in faith, you tell yourself.

A friend of mine (a very wise owl type) this morning was telling me about a situation in her life and ended her little talk with saying, "Honestly, I think it's a good thing [I don't know what's going on]. It's reminding me to be constantly surrendering this to God. This isn't mine to have and control."

Beautiful. Two thumbs up, really. (No, you cynics. I'm not being sarcastic).

But what does it look like? Does surrendering something to God mean you stop trying to fix things by your own means and if it works out it works out? Pray hard? Does it mean you keep working and keep fighting but rely on his strength and guidance to help you get there?

Or at what point do you realize that it's time to let go? Not "let go and let God," but let go entirely.

The Day Blank in the Planner

Starting early my Junemore year of college, I observe the Sabbath.

It may have begun a little earlier than this, but I really committed to it through a project at JBU's Honor Program. Once a month, they would have Sabbath Sundays, based on the ideas in a book of Dan Allender. 

Allender's goal in his book on Sabbath is to dispel the notion that Sabbath has to be this boring, staunch holier than thou experience. Rather, he explains to Christians that Sabbath is meant to be a time of rejoicing and in celebrating God. It's a mandated time for joy. In theory, that sounds awesome. In practice, not always awesome. 

My two favorite events of the program were the week that several professors brought their children (I'm a little baby crazy and was missing my nieces and nephew terribly) and the event I helped run: finger painting. Actually, that second one is a really funny story involving rain, a wet and brakeless bike, consequent wet jeans, a tornado, and a subsequent date. 

Anyway, I read Allender's book and did some thinking. My personality is very task oriented. I can get a little controlling and workaholic. Okay so maybe a lot of those things. I decided to do it as a spiritual discipline on a one-month trial basis. 

I spent one of the days dead asleep, another lying outside in the grass, another reading a book for fun, and yet another in Tulsa, seeing my niece and nephew. After that month, I was hooked. Only missed one Sabbath in all this time. 

That doesn't mean I get excited for it. Often--especially during finals--I dread it. I dreaded it all this week, actually. 24 hours I can't do homework?! I have important things to get done. I have places to go, people to se, drawers to organise (actually, confession. I once did that for one of my sabbaths. I love it. I know it's weird). 

The thing is, no matter how much homework I had, how many meetings I had to schedule around it, how overwhelmed I was, I have never once missed a deadline or had to fudge a paper because of Sabbath. Not even one time. Every week, it all got done in the end. And, every week, my mind was clearer and calmer than if I had spent the whole day getting things done.  

My thoughts on the subject currently are because this is a Sabbath I didn't want to come. Actually, I remembered it right in the middle of a phone conversation and was filled to the brim with dread. I'd plotted out exactly how much time I would need to accomplish my work by Monday and am now 24hours  short of that initial projection. 

But I slept and I showered, answered some friend emails I'd been unable to, am going to lunch with a friend, am blogging, and a whole lot of time thanking God for making rest in him a rule. Even my "rebellious spirit" (which, I will tell you I've heard my mother pray against for my entire life) finds it hard to build a solid case against that. "No, I will not rejoice in your beauty, creation, and joy! Bah humbug!" doesn't sound all that convincing out loud. 

So, if you'll excuse me, I have a letter to write. 

Storehouse Citings

Storehouse:
A huge part of my church is a ministry or, rather, ministry chain, called Storehouse. Everything from food to clothing to debt management to job hunting strategies to Friday church to New Christian small group. Everything. And I'm sure there's stuff in there I don't know about yet either. Either way, the whole network is incredible and it's picking up steam around the city. Where at one point they used to have to call up churches and businesses to try to find partners, they now receive those phone calls.

Well, last night, Shelby and I went to the "family meeting." All the different branches come together at the City Centre Storehouse building to share stories, drink tea, pray, and worship with one another.
It was also an opportunity to listen to Pastor Alan's heart and perspective on the ministry.

A few quoteables/paraphraseables:
"Our ministry is less about the alleviation of poverty and more about the restoration of dignity. I don't want to lead something that's functional. I want to lead something that celebrates others."-Pastor Alan

The team believes in honoring one another. Honoring under the definition of, "treating someone as specially uncommon. Finding their uniqueness and calling it out."

The ministry, while Christian, isn't out to make new Christians. It's not a "pound for a prayer" kind of deal. Instead, they seek ways to build relationships, hoping that in those interactions, those who come will see Jesus in the ministry workers and want in on the secret.

Pastor Alan: "Jesus didn't call us to pray a prayer. He called us to make disciples."
And, shortly after stating that, Alan continued with a thought I've been munching on. He reminded us that even though he's been a Christian for 25 years, he still screws up. But we forgive him. We give him grace. Because being human and being Christian is hard. However, when we see a new Christian back at the bar or back in their respective sin, we're discouraged; we're disappointed.

Why?! "If after 25 years, I'm still not getting it right, how do we expect new Christians to have broken countless years of sin habitudes overnight?"

We can't, is the answer. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to hold one another accountable, but that does mean, in the words of Tom Harrison--Pastor of Asbury United Methodist--that we should rather "lower our expectations and raise our commitment."

//

Meanwhile, in Research Methods...citations.
No, not the naughty kind that I could get a good story from or have to pay a ticket for. Internal citations and work cited pages.
Today, the English and Languages MAs had a little get together over a heart-warming powerpoint and three hours worth of manual citations. We paired off into groups (have I mentioned lately my sentiments toward the words "break off into groups"?), were given sheets of paper with information, and set free to cite, cite, cite! On foreign keyboards that type "/e" every time you want to have "E" and where the heck are the quotation marks?!
My partner? Could smell my American-ness from a mile off and claimed to be from "Michigan." I honestly thought she was joking and told her so by way of accent evidence (I'm actually getting pretty good at accent naming). I could focus on nothing else until she said the words "Russian boyfriend" about an hour in. Zingo.
They did, however, give us coffee and biscuits. It's hard to hold a grudge against someone handing you a cookie. Or three.

Sometimes lowering my expectations has to extend to my academic life.
I raised my commitment (to WB Yeats and Flann O'Brien) here today:

The McClay Library. Second floor. Shelf PR 8899.O and I are becoming quite close. 

Manna Munchies and Jericho Crunchies

I'm a big Jill Briscoe fan.

She's a Christian evangelist who happened to visit my alma mater while I attended. 

She's jam-packed with sass and a love for Jesus without being obnoxious. She's what I would call an advocate for practical Christianity. 

By that, I mean to say that the things she speaks of have direct application in everyday life.

While she was at JBU, she spoke of daily walking around Jericho. 

The Israelites were instructed by God to walk around the Walls of Jericho once each morning. Once. 

Now, Jericho was a big 'ole city, and Israel was a pretty shabby looking bunch by the time they'd reached the outer boundaries of this formidable, infuriating obstacle. 

I can just imagine the Israelites finally crawling out of their endlessness in the desert, high-fiving each other, seeing Jericho, stopping, and saying, "You're shitting me, right?" 

Do we not do the same thing? 

I finally crawl out of what seems like an endless struggle or semester or conflict, give myself a pat on the back, then look forward and see what? WHAT?! Another. Right there stretched out in the middle of my life road, just smirking at me like my brother when he's denying he stole my cell phone. 

In those instances, we have a tendency to curse, cry, and crack. That's right: give up. 

Instead, God told the Israelites (and us) to proceed onward with courage and faith! He who brought you to this place will be faithful to take care of you! 

The Israelites could have a. not listened, b. attacked at will, or c. walked around that dang wall once each day. 

Jill calls us to do the same thing. Rather than giving up or letting our anxiety mentally pace around our minds all day, we must walk around our wall once each morning, present our worry to God, then live and leave the stress of our problem there until the next morning. 

Yesterday, I read her book Here I am Lord...Send Somebody Else! and she discussed the idea of--we're staying with the Israelites for this post--picking up our daily manna, our daily provision from the Lord. 

Practical application: spend time with the Lord first thing each morning, collecting enough soul food to sustain you for the day. Not the week. The day. Tomorrow has enough worries of its own. 

He is faithful. He will provide for you new nourishment every single day. We just have to leave our tent and pick it up. We could even walk around our Wall of Jericho while we're at it. 

The point is, we are not just laying something down, we're also picking something up. Like how in yoga you breathe out the bad energy and breathe in the good energy, we stamp down our anxiety and pick up our manna. Every day.

And Jericho? Didn't you hear? It fell. Not one stone was left atop another. 

Learning to Love

When I first started my job, I felt this overwhelming realization of just how much darkness and lostness there is in the world. People don't realize it, but we see how you interact with one another, we hear your conversations. We know you're lonely, fighting, joyous, on that  first date, on that 1635th date, hate your kid, hate your husband, can't get over how much you love your husband, are cheating on your wife, are hiding an office relationship. We know.

And my coworkers. Before I started, I decided to find something good about each one of them. And I have. I truly love each one of my coworkers and managers. I think they're wonderful people and good at what they do. But you all just don't see how much your chirpy servers drink and smoke and cry about when they leave or how much yelling and attitude happens back in the kitchen on your behalf. You just don't.

Gentlemen, ladies, your words have power over us. Regardless of how your day is going, we are going to treat you the best that we know how. In return, though, we are often treated a little better than dogs by you. You cut us off, you snap your fingers at us, you poke us with your forks, you are quick to tear into us if we make the slightest mistake.

Which brings me to my point. At every moment in every situation and location, there is someone who could use encouragement. It sounds cliche, but you just never know what's going on in someone's life, so treat each person as though they were Christ. It doesn't matter if we will never see one another again, did I behave toward you as though you were someone worthy of love? Did you treat me as though I had any value in your eyes?

I'm not attempting to change the world through waitressing at a mexican food place. That doesn't mean that I can't pray my way through each interaction and hope I leave in my wake the aroma of Christ, without giving you a card or even telling you that I'm a Christian.

6/29/12-Living Out of Forgiveness

I have felt very convicted about something this summer. And it’s a thing that I was very convicted about during the school year as well, but in a different sense. Then, I was merely convicted to seek out the forgiveness and to forgive those who had wronged me/I had wronged. Now, I am convicted about the way I have lived my life afterward .

You see, when you forgive someone, the responsibility then becomes yours. You no longer have a reason to be angry or resentful. Because you have forgiven them. 

Because of that, the way that you speak about and behave toward that person should be markedly different. 

Mine has not been.

Even though I am no longer angry, I continue to speak in a vile manner with anyone who brings up the subject. Why? Because I am being sanctified; I am no saint. Although I strive toward righteousness, it is very easy to engage  in sick human pleasures such as gossip. Sometimes because it is the only way that certain groups of people can find to relate to one another: through trashing a common enemy. 

To quote Relient K: “I’m part of the problem, I confess. But I gotta get this off my chest. Let’s extinguish the anguish for which we’re to blame, and save the world from going down in flames.” 

Christians, such as myself, ought to be characterized by our love. Not by this.