wonderfullyflawed

Happy Valentine's Day

2012-02-14T14:30:00.001-06:00

Happy Valentine's Day to the one who fills my life with more love than I can hold~

Sermon rebuttals

2012-02-09T20:43:00.002-06:00

Last Sunday, I preached at First Friends Meeting in Greensboro, NC. First Friends is a programmed Quaker meeting, meaning that they hold a pretty normal Protestant worship service with singing and preaching but with a protracted time of silence at the end. During this time of silence, parishioners are invited to "hold the silence" by sitting quietly or to break the silence by saying aloud what they sense the Spirit saying in or through them.**

If you like to preach because you like feeling like an expert or because you believe that you have God's definitive word for the congregation on any given Sunday morning, I suggest that you don't preach for Quakers. After my sermon, as the congregation held the silence, the Spirit actually had a lot to say.

One woman was vibrating, having misunderstood that I said that "anxiety makes us stupid" instead of "anxiety is stupid," which then made me vibrate. As I was wishing I could clarify, another man, the wise and beloved clerk of the Meeting, tactfully pointed out an error I had made in my description of the gospel story. He was right, by the way, and applied his point to a specific need of the congregation in a really adept way. Another woman made an absolutely brilliant point about the story that I had completely missed. And a man then stood up to start connecting the story to other texts, apparently an unusual happening in this Meeting, according to the pastor.

If, on the other hand, you can stay still and breathe through your nose and hope your cheeks aren't burning too brightly, you can be calm enough to be really glad that the Holy Spirit keeps speaking after you sit down. I really was. Anyway, it sure beats the sermon postmortem at Lubys that my tradition practices on a weekly basis.

**By the way, this is in contrast to unprogrammed Quaker meetings in which people sit in silence for roughly an hour and speak aloud only occasionally. Austin Friends Meeting, which Mowgli attends, is an unprogrammed meeting.

I feel your pain

2012-02-06T16:40:00.000-06:00

After only a few years of ministry and counseling, I came to the conclusion that almost nothing is more crucial to relational health and vitality than empathy. When people have the capacity for empathy, they have the capacity for compassion not only for others but for themselves. They can see others as separate from themselves and can use their experience and imagination to understand them and their point of view, even if it differs from their own. People who lack empathy are stunted and immature and incapable of real love.

There are many now (Edwin Friedman in A Failure of Nerve and others) who are saying that empathy is at the core of many or even most of our problems, whether on the level of family or society. As a result, they say, we cater to the least mature among us, spending our energy appeasing or satisfying them rather than acting out of our values and our goals. Through our pity, we allow them to underfunction, not taking responsibility for themselves while we, always well-meaning, take responsibility for them and keep them dependent. Immature people hijack us with their tantrums or with their neediness and we, with all our maturity and compassion and empathy, allow it to happen. I completely agree.

How can that be? How can I say that empathy is both absolutely essential to our wellbeing in relationships and at the same time agree with those who say it is destroying us as a culture?

I think it comes down to our definitions of empathy. When I use the word, I mean empathy as a way of thinking about other people as being separate from me, with their own thoughts and feelings and desires. It is a way of becoming unfused from them and removing myself from the center of the universe. Empathy becomes a way to step back from my own emotional process in order to see the possibilities that exist between us. This post on Brene Brown's blog is an interesting description of the kind of empathy I so passionately believe in.

When Friedman and others use the word empathy, they usually see it as a way of feeling about other people that leads us to compromise our beliefs and values and prioritizes the feelings and comfort of chronically immature people over our own good and the good of the whole. It is a way of feeling for people instead of feeling with them.

In Galatians 6, the apostle Paul tells us to "carry one another's burdens." Just a sentence or two later, he seems to contradict himself, telling us that "each one should carry his own load." Which is it? I believe that a healthy empathy allows us to carry one another's burdens in such a way that makes it possible for each of us to carry his or her own load.

So like most important things, it's both/and. Empathy, defined one way, is mature and life-giving. Defined another way, it masquerades as compassion but is ultimately destructive. It's up to each of us to choose and to choose wisely.

1806 Halbert

2012-01-24T17:01:00.000-06:00

This is a photo of the house I grew up in after it burned last week in a fire. According to the news article, the fire started in the other end of the house, went through the attic and left the house a "total loss." My parents haven't lived there in 20 years but just this Christmas, my siblings and I were talking about it, remembering our phone number and other details about the house.

As recently as three days ago, before I heard about the fire, I was "walking" through it in my imagination, remembering things like the textured wallpaper on the walls of the entry way and my brothers' homemade bunk beds and the spot in my parents' bedroom where I used to sit and talk to my mom while she got ready to go out with my dad at night. My dad was a school superintendent and so chances are good that they were going out to a high school athletics banquet or an elementary PTA fundraiser but I always thought my mom looked so pretty and glamorous as I sat on the bed and talked to her in the little dressing area outside her bathroom.

My room was upstairs--the only room upstairs, actually. I imagined it to be a writer's loft (like Jo's in Little Women, for you male readers) or pretended it was my own apartment as I got older. Eventually, my little sister joined me there. When I was a teenager, she was just a preschooler and we would brush each others' hair at night if she was still awake when I came upstairs. We could sit on the desk and look out the big window and watch the fireworks at Ft. Hood on the Fourth of July -- the same window that my boyfriend threw little pebbles at in the middle of the night until I started yelling for my dad, not really getting the point.

Every boy I dated visited me in that house and we would sit in the game room for privacy if you can call it privacy when your parents and little brothers walk in every ten minutes. Later, I would sit out in the car with boyfriends in the dark until dad would flick the porch lights on and off, signaling me to come inside. When C and I went home for the first time after our wedding, that was the first time I had a boy in my room in that house.

I remember every detail . . . my dad's study with the tall bookshelves and the wooden desk, the chrome and yellow vinyl dinette in the kitchen (guess whose job it was to clean the chrome?), the big nubby sofa in the den sideways to the TV that was only occasionally turned on. I remember sitting on the stairs and reading the Chronicles of Narnia as fast as I could, hoping no one would call me to put my book away and come in and talk to the relatives. I remember doing puzzles and playing games my senior year when we had almost a whole week of unheard-of snow days.

There were happy times in that house and unhappy times too but for me, there were far more of the one than the other. Mostly there were the ordinary times of family life, an imperfect family full of genuine caring and faith, all doing the best they could.

A prayer

2012-01-20T08:33:00.005-06:00

I've been feeling pretty melancholy for about a week now, just pervasively sad about the world (the big world as well as my little corner of it) and increasingly skeptical about my ability to make a difference in it. I'm aware that this is a risk in my profession and I've been remarkably free from it for 23 years but the last week has been hard. So it's in that context that I read this prayer this morning and it made me tear up and it made me feel the stirrings of hope. (Also, this is a prayer written by Franciscans posted on Facebook by a Quaker and then copied by a Baptist . . . that right there makes me just a little happy.) I hope it speaks to you as well.

A Franciscan Prayer

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

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

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

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

What's ice got to do with it?

2012-01-11T16:37:00.001-06:00

Awhile back, I wrote about humor being one of my favorite things about C and about our 26-year marriage . Here's another one: cubed ice.

Every time I put my glass under the ice dispenser on our refrigerator door, I automatically get cubed ice. I like cubed ice. At home, it's my favorite form of ice. C, however, prefers crushed ice. Our refrigerator offers both crushed and cubed ice with just the flick of a lever.

So did you get the point? Every time I put my glass under the ice dispenser, I automatically get cubed ice. That means that every time C gets ice for himself, he puts the lever back on "cubed" because that's the way I like it. He has never pointed this out to me or drawn attention to it. It's just the way things are.

After 26 years of marriage and 21 years of counseling couples, I still don't really understand why some marriages thrive when others don't. I'm pretty sure, though, that being the kind of person who moves the ice selection lever on the refrigerator door has a lot to do with it.

Picking a president

2012-01-08T20:20:00.000-06:00

John von Neumann was a brilliant scientist during the WWII era, contributing significantly to the Manhattan Project as the designer of the nuclear bomb "Fat Man," which destroyed Nagasaki, Japan. After the war, he became a pioneer of the application of game theory to human conflict and a very influential advisor to President Eisenhower as the Cold War became more intense.

Von Neumann estimated that a major nuclear attack on the US would kill about 50 million people and that a similar attack by the US on the Soviet Union would kill about 100 million people. Using that logic and the calculations of his version of game theory, von Neumann argued that the best strategy would be for the US to go ahead and perpetrate an unprovoked nuclear attack on the Soviet Union since the US would lose only half as many people as would the Soviets, constituting a "win" in his mind.

Although many other leading scientists of the day were horrified, President Eisenhower seriously considered von Neumann's ideas and even gave him the Congressional Medal of Honor. Thankfully, he ultimately rejected von Neumann's advice. Von Neumann later became the caricatured "mad scientist" in the movie Dr. Strangelove.

Take a minute and imagine the world we would live in now if the president of the United States had bought into the idea that a preemptive strike against the Soviet Union and a subsequent "win" in the Cold War was worth the deaths of 50 million Americans and 100 million Soviets. Now keep that in mind when you think about the stakes of a presidential election. Now think about the things that most Americans consider when voting for a president. Now let me apologize if you can't sleep tonight. Me either.

Are we having fun yet?

2012-01-07T19:35:00.000-06:00

I used to really enjoy keeping up with politics. In fact, our whole family did. As the kids got older, it became a way to convey our values and stir up some interesting conversation. It gave us ways to talk about the culture and about our country's history and about what we each believe is important.

We had a lot of fun with the last election and have stayed interested in a lot of the issues it raised. Almost every conversation with Mowgli from North Carolina involved some political debate (well, is it a debate if you mostly agree?) and when Boo got back from Guatemala, she asked about the Iowa caucuses.

I have to admit, though: I'm not having fun anymore. I'm so tired of hearing hours and hours of commentary about strategy (how the candidates should spin the different issues to their advantage, what elected officials should say to deflect attention from what they are actually doing) rather than solutions (what we should collectively do to make things better.)

I stopped having fun, I think, when the panel of pundits on my favorite cable news/talk show spent an entire segment describing how the candidates need to spin the issues affecting the economy in order to make the president look bad and I had the thought, "Is anyone anywhere talking about how to actually solve the issues affecting the economy?" I am less and less interested in the partisan rantings on both sides and more and more desperate to hear smart people in power talk about how we can address complex issues in meaningful ways.

Everything seems to be about talking points and gaffes and gotcha questions and gotcha answers and concealing one's own weaknesses while trying to expose the weaknesses of the opponent in the most hypocritical way imaginable . . . it makes me long for something resembling statesmanship or courageous leadership or even policy wonkiness if it would get us talking about solutions.

Once I realized that the politicians are just playing a game and that the political news is no different from the color commentary on ESPN, politics just hasn't been fun anymore.

The First Annual 2011 Wonderfully-Flawed Book Awards

2012-01-01T01:14:00.000-06:00

Well, it was a great year of reading and it's almost impossible to choose between the contenders for best books of the year. If you read the list backward, 2011 started with Radical by David Platt, which was a terrific, attention-grabbing book about everything I care about and yet it didn't even make the list of the top ten. Here are a few that did:

Best fiction: I read fiction for fun and relaxation and so I don't often choose the kind of literary fiction that real readers do. Having said that, this year we have a tie between Room by Emma Donaghue and The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted by Elizabeth Berg. Room is everything a novel should be--suspenseful, creative and engaging, with characters you wish you could meet in person. Elizabeth Berg is one of the best in the world at describing the ordinary experience of mostly ordinary people, so that when you read this collection of short stories, you wonder how she got inside your head as you realize, "That's exactly how I think," even though just one second before, you didn't know that's how you thought. We'll distinguish these two by noting that Room is a novel and The Day is a collection of short stories.

Best Biography or Memoir: This is a tough category this year. You already know how I feel about Real Live Preacher but I've decided not to consider it for an award because this year was about the fifth time I read it. Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas told the story of the man and the Church during the Nazi years. It is surprisingly suspenseful, considering that we all know how it ends, and deeply challenging as the reader can't help wondering, "What would I do if faced with that situation?" Bossypants is hilarious, especially on audiobook, read by the author, Tina Fey. That book helped me get started on the C25K program; back when I thought I was surely going to die, I gasped and sweated through Fey's memories and observations about life. The Liar's Club by Mary Karr is hands-down the best written memoir I've ever read, as interesting as great fiction, with amazing characters and just the right amount of drama. But the award goes to Evolving in Monkeytown by Rachel Held Evans because she perfectly described my own internal struggle with the evangelical faith I was raised in as well as many of the same uneasy conclusions I have come to (although not all). Let me be clear: I don't recommend that anyone else read it and if you are comfortable in your evangelical worldview, I strongly recommend that you don't. But if you want to understand your heretical friends or if you yourself have had an unorthodox thought or two (and if you were raised in the hyper-evangelical world of the 80s and 90s), you might feel like you're reading your own story.

Best Professional Book: I'm going to give the award to The Science of Trust, which is yet another stellar book by John Gottman. This one has lots of actual conversations between couples and illustrations of the basic premise, which is that the key to marital success is the strength of the bond between a couple and how to keep that invisible connection strong. It is really about the science of the art of love. However, the runners up are also very strong: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero and A Door Set Open by Peter Steinke, both excellent books about family systems theory and spirituality.

Best Nonfiction: Clearly, most of the books in the other categories are nonfiction so this category is reserved for nonfiction that is powerful enough that it changed something deep in me. A Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp helped me to look at gratitude in a completely different way and challenged me to take it on as a way of life. Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott provided an amazing follow-up to last year's book Crucial Conversations and laid out a blueprint for the kinds of conversations that allow us to "come out from behind ourselves" and have the kinds of conversations that really say what needs to be said and hear what needs to be heard. I became immediately more courageous and authentic after reading this book. The award, though, (drum roll, please) goes to the book Younger Next Year for Women for one reason: A Thousand Gifts and Fierce Conversations helped me to experience change in areas that I was already at work in. Even though it's not particularly well-written, Younger Next Year got me started on a path that I had never even thought existed for me and helped me sustain it for 7 months in a way that felt almost miraculous.

So what about you? What books did you read this year that you would give an award to? What books do you want to warn us about? What are you going to read in 2012? I just downloaded Terrorists in Love to my Kindle and I can already tell that it's going to be on the list for 2012. I'll keep you posted on what comes after that.

The real deal

2011-12-29T23:54:00.000-06:00

This photo was taken on a night that Boo describes as "one of the best nights of my life." Sandra, the woman on the right, is the founder and director of the Fundacion Salvacion orphanage in Huehuetanango, Guatemala where C and Boo and a team from various churches work for a week every January. At some point during each visit, Sandra opens up her home to the team and creates a climate of hospitality that leads to belly-laughing fun and soul-nourishing warmth between our team members and the Guatemalan staff and translators.

When Mowgli took this trip a few years ago, he was fairly cynical about the church but he returned from Guatemala singing Sandra's praises, saying, "She's the real deal," which is the highest praise he can offer another person. Just today, he commented on her authentically loving relationship with her husband, saying how much they love each other and how good their marriage seemed to be, which in Mowgli's eyes, is pretty rare. For Mowgli, the fact that Sandra, a psychologist married to a doctor, could live a self-centered consumerist life and instead gives her life away to support and care for orphans makes her an example of the best our faith has to offer.

So we were so, so sad to hear today--the day before our team leaves DFW for Guatemala--that Sandra was killed in a car accident, which her husband survived. She leaves behind three young adult daughters, several grandchildren, the husband Mowgli described and about 70 children who live in a home full of love because of Sandra's vision and sacrifice.

It seems like a real blessing that our team will be arriving on Saturday, ready to occupy the children while the staff and volunteers begin their grieving. I'm sure that C and others on the team will be called on to offer pastoral care and comfort to the people that they work with every year and have come to love. He is fighting illness and fatigue and both he and Boo are dealing with sadness and grief. Please remember all of them this week in your prayers.

2011-12-24T08:20:00.002-06:00

And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14

Merry Christmas everyone!

It's my blog so I can brag

2011-12-16T21:53:00.004-06:00

Everyone is home! Tonight, we sat down together at home for the first time since early June, including one child who is a brand-new graduate of Guilford College and the other who just finished her first semester at UMHB with flying colors.

Mowgli took a day and a half to get home from North Carolina with all his worldly goods packed in his back seat (with room to spare) and his trunk completely full of books. Even though he and Boo had already made several trips into the house, I had to take a photo:

So what's next, you ask? Well, Mowgli got his old job at HEB back today and will pile up money before going back to Asia this summer. (By the way, he's open to all kinds of other kinds of work, from manual labor to babysitting to help out.) Sometime during the spring, he'll hear back from the five graduate schools he applied to and he'll also start looking into elementary teacher certification programs. He's very aware that he has his whole life in front of him and he's ready to start making the big decisions and supporting himself.

With her characteristic hard work and good attitude, Boo did a great job in her first semester and has decided to go back and do it again! She did well with 15 hours of classes, joined a theater ministry, taught missions at a small church, got involved in the college ministry of a different, larger church, and made lots of friends.

The best part of having the kids back for the holidays is just realizing how much we really like both of them. If they weren't ours, we'd still be pretty crazy about them and who they've become. Those of you with grown children know what I'm talking about. I loved every developmental stage when they were kids and I'm really loving getting to know them as adults.

There's Still My Joy - Indigo Girls

2011-12-09T08:27:00.000-06:00

This video goes with yesterday's post. "There's still my joy" is one of the more melancholy songs of Christmas and Indigo Girls offer it here in a low-key, understated way. This video is clearly personal and amateur and I'm guessing that it memorializes the people that are missing from the creator's life. Many of the other images are beautiful as well.

Have a very gentle Christmas

2011-12-08T21:06:00.001-06:00

"Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." ~Plato

It's no secret that this is a hard time of year for many people. Some churches have "Blue Christmas" services for people who lost loved ones in the last year or anyone else who is struggling with their grief amidst the hollyjolly and hohoho and mistletoe.

It's not just the bereaved that have a hard time at Christmas. Whatever you don't have and wish you did--love, money, a partner, children, a job--this time of year just makes the empty place emptier. Every TV commercial, every carol on the radio, every happy family at church just intensifies the pain.

I love Christmas and I celebrate with enthusiasm. Maybe you do too. We don't need to apologize for that or dial it back. But we can be sensitive and gracious and avoid assuming that everyone else is having the same experience.

And if you're having a hard time this year, be kind and gentle . . . to yourself. Take care of yourself and let others know how to take care of you. Show yourself some compassion and find someone else to show compassion to as well. And know that the original message of Christmas came to "those living in darkness," people like you.

2011-12-08T20:36:00.001-06:00

Dear Mr. Gingrich,

I'm not going to take your comments about poor children cleaning their schools seriously as potential public policy because we all know that's not what's going to happen and that's not what you intended.

But I just want to ask you: when you said that people in poor neighborhoods don't work hard, where do you think the people who clean your offices live? Where do you think the people who bus your tables live? The people who mow your lawns and trim your shrubs? Where do you think they live? All those people leaving the center of every city every night, collapsed into their subway seats in their soiled uniforms with the dirt under their fingernails . . . where do you think they go home every night?

And the kids . . . the kids who get themselves up and to school because mom isn't home yet from her overnight job at the grocery store (yes, I know those kids) and the child who walks home and locks herself in the house until her mom gets off work at Walmart and takes the bus home to her house in the neighborhood you dismissed so cavalierly, the kids who go without when their day laborer dad can't find work because it's raining and the manual labor he depends on isn't available . . . what about them? That's not to mention what happens to the family of the "unionized custodian" who loses her job because she is being replaced by a fourteen-year-old.

Insulting the poor is a good way to get elected in some circles. It worked for Ronald Reagan and his "welfare queens," even though that particular stereotype doesn't hold up to statistical scrutiny. Herman Cain tried it by telling the unemployed that if they don't have a job, they have only themselves to blame. He got a lot of applause for that.

The truth is that 3/4 of poor adults work, most of them full-time. A sizable portion of the rest are either disabled or elderly or work for cash under the government radar. There are infuriating, frustrating exceptions, I know. But Mr. Gingrich, to use a broad brush to paint the poor as lazy is not only cruel and unfair but incorrect . . . and it will probably get you votes.

Of Gods and Men

2011-12-02T22:03:00.001-06:00

The tears on my face have hardly dried after watching "Of Gods and Men." This beautiful, heartbreaking film won the grand prize at Cannes in 2010, putting to rest the myth that the arts and the gospel are at odds with each other.

I want to say that this is more of a Christian movie than anything that's been shown in American theaters in the last few years but I fear that would diminish what it really is. Also, I want to say that it is a Christmas movie but the themes are of violence and waiting and only distant hope and so it would be truer to say that it is an Advent movie.

The film observes the same rhythms of the Trappist monks it portrays--silence, prayer and conversation in rhythmic repetition, making it a meditative experience to be entered into as much as a movie to be watched. It begins in the days before Christmas and continues to the days before Easter, as the monks look back to their experience of the Christmas mass after their great fear comes upon them and as they look forward to the resurrection hope of Easter.

In between, they face the decision to stay or leave their tiny monastery in an insignificant village in Algeria in the 1990s, knowing that the violent confrontation between Islamist terrorists and corrupt government forces will eventually invade the monastery walls. As the anxiety increases, they struggle to define themselves--to themselves, with each other, with the village outside the monastery walls--with the kind of courage that incarnates the love that brought them to Algeria in the first place and that bears witness to the hope that is within them.

They contemplate what it means to follow Jesus in laying down their lives to find them even as they know they have chosen their own deaths. And as they do all this, they pray the psalms and chant the liturgy as they have every day of their lives as monks.

When the movie was over, I cried some and prayed for those around the world who face the same kinds of choices today. The prayer "Lord, have mercy," which I often pray, had fresh and haunting meaning. I contemplated whether the Lord does have mercy and I recited the beatitudes and then I stood and looked out the window for awhile. And then I came to tell you about it.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

God was my second grade teacher

2011-11-28T15:28:00.001-06:00

More than twenty years ago, when I first got into the therapy business, I would sit with my clipboard and my intake forms and listen as people described their chaotic, painful, poisonous childhood experiences. Detail after detail would pour out about abuse of all kinds and neglect and betrayal and everything that should never happen to a child and I would dutifully write it all down.

I remember one session, though, when I just put down my pen and turned my clipboard over and asked, "So how did you turn out so well?" This young woman was well-functioning, strong in her faith, loving to her own husband and children, hopeful about life and I just had to know how that had happened. Here's what she said to me: "I had a teacher who loved me." I was immediately concerned: "But if you told the teacher what was happening, she should have reported it." "No, no," she said. "I couldn't tell anyone. I didn't know how and I was afraid of what else what happen if I did. But I always believed that if I could tell anyone, I could tell her and I knew she would believe me and I knew she would still care about me, even if she knew."

One reason I can share that story is that I have heard stories exactly like it at least a hundred times since then. I still ask that question on a regular basis and I always get the same answer. The answer isn't always a teacher. Just as often, it's a grandparent with a lot of love or a neighbor who took some extra time or a coach who believed in more than athletic talent. And just as often, I discover that, like the teacher, the other person has no real idea about the impact they had in this child's life. They saw themselves as doing their job, maybe living their faith, doing what came naturally and they have no idea that a child was watching and thinking, "Maybe I'm not so worthless after all. Maybe I can have a different life. Maybe it's not me."

Today, I was having a philosophical conversation with a young mom and asked her, "So where do you think God was when all this was happening?" She answered, "God was my second grade teacher." I believe she was right.

"Whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for Me." ~Jesus

Thanksgiving 4

2011-11-23T21:45:00.001-06:00

In order to understand why I am so grateful for C, you would have to go with us tonight to see the new Muppet movie, where we laughed through the whole thing. See, I remember the old muppet show and I clearly remember wondering why it was funny. It was silly, over-the-top silly, stupid even and I truly didn't get it. We didn't watch much TV in my family growing up and even though I think we had a sense of humor, we didn't really do silly. And so I married someone for whom silly is an art form . . . and I've been laughing ever since.

C's humor isn't always silly--it's often dry or ironic or sarcastic, actually--but he can always make me laugh. Actually, when we were in our early weeks of dating, I worried that he would lose interest in me because I was very serious and trust me, not funny at all. I mentioned this concern to my mom and she laughed and gave me the advice that I've relied on every day for the last 26 years: "He doesn't need you to be funny; he wants you to think he's funny." I did and I still do.

So what I'm grateful for, among other things, is a life full of laughter. We took one of our kids' friends on a vacation once and she said, shaking her head, "Y'all laugh all the time." I'm grateful because home is the happiest place on the planet for me and for my children, thanks to C. I'm grateful because I learned to laugh at myself and I learned to let people who love me laugh at me, both of which saved me from a lifetime of narcissistic intensity. Actually, C will often say, "I'm not laughing at you, sweetie; I'm laughing near you." And that always makes me laugh.

That's not even close to being the only thing I'm grateful for in my life with C but it's a really good start.

Thanksgiving 3

2011-11-22T22:08:00.001-06:00

I was always taught that the "original sin," the big one that got everyone kicked out of the Garden, was rebellion--the First People's refusal to obey God, one big fist-shake at God's authority. In Sunday's Bible study, though, we considered another option: that the first Big Sin was ingratitude.

We looked at it this way: The way the story goes, Adam and Eve were blessed beyond measure. They had everything they could ever need and the tangible presence of God in a Garden that had never known the shudder of sin or the searing pain of death and loss. And so what did they do? They did what all of us do. They focused on the one thing they did not have.

That was the temptation, right? To acknowledge all of God's good gifts and to turn their attention to the one thing that God withheld and then to question His goodness and His love. It was all downhill from there. It was not so much dramatic rebellion but petty ungratefulness that put us all in this fallen world where we continue--daily--to follow in their footsteps.

Thanksgiving must be the language of the Kingdom of God. It's the starting place for shalom and the fertile soil of joy. It's the way we acknowledge that we love God at least as much as His gifts because we continue to give thanks even when we don't get what we want. I resist the idea of giving thanks for everything but I love the idea of giving thanks in everything. As we said on Sunday, I don't get a choice about whether I live my life in a broken world where hard things happen. I do get a choice about whether I live my life with gratitude or without it. I choose with.

Thanksgiving 2

2011-11-21T21:32:00.001-06:00

I have loved this profound and beautiful little book, given to me on my birthday by my dear friend Pam who knows how these kinds of things speak to my heart. It nourishes me this Thanksgiving on a deep, deep level and calls me to a richer awareness of gratitude than I have ever known before.

In case you don't want to read the whole book, you can check out Ann's blog but don't scroll through too fast. Stop and savor. Also, the classic blog on gratitude is secular, creative, occasionally a little rough around the edges, often hilarious and always thought-provoking. I highly recommend both for completely different reasons. Have fun browsing and I'll see you back here tomorrow.

Thanksgiving 1

2011-11-20T20:49:00.001-06:00

A lot of people have been posting their lists of things they are grateful for on their blogs or on Facebook. I'm a big believer in gratitude but also a little behind on everything so I'm just now getting started, at the beginning of Thanksgiving week.

As I was pondering my list, I realized that the number one spot on my list has to be my really unique and remarkable parents. Some of you are really surprised that I didn't list C first (sorry sweetie!) or Mowgli and Boo or something related to God but the truth is that I wouldn't have the relationship I have with C if my parents hadn't loved me so well (plus, I essentially married my mom but that's another story . . .). I wouldn't have known how to parent Boo and Mowgli if my parents hadn't parented me so wisely. And my parents were the ones who first introduced me to God and to the Church I love and represented both so well, so there's that.

My parents really weren't like anyone else's parents, which was something I both appreciated and complained about as a kid. They listened to me talk for as long as I needed to talk. They asked a lot of questions and delivered only a few lectures. They cared what I thought and taught me to care about what they thought. They required respect but were never heavy-handed about it, and left me with a very healthy respect for authority flavored with only a hint of skepticism. They taught me to think and never shamed me for my feelings. More than anything, they loved me so, so well and inoculated me thoroughly against many forms of shame.

So, this Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for my parents, who are also wonderfully flawed and made it okay for me to be.

Cleaning up a mess

2011-11-12T22:08:00.001-06:00

Ugh . . . I hate it when this happens.

I hate it when I'm on the receiving end--when someone says something that makes it clear that if they really knew me, they would pretty much hate me. It happens a lot on Facebook, of course--my friends post their opinions that people who believe differently than they do (in other words, people who believe like I do) are unpatriotic, false Christians, unenlightened, and worse. In fact, just recently I've been told that I don't deserve to live in this country and that I practice the occult. Of course, people don't mean to tell me that. But by saying that about people who believe differently, they're unwittingly saying those things about me.

I hate it even more when I'm the one who does that to others. In a recent post, I flippantly said that bumper stickers asserting that "9/11 was an inside job" are stupid. Someone anonymously posted a comment that he/she holds that opinion. I almost didn't see the comment and in fact, only happened on it last night. I was immediately sad that I had clearly insulted someone I care about (because I can't think of anyone that I talk to regularly that I don't care about) and that I did it flippantly and unthinkingly.

Now don't get me wrong: I can't imagine changing my opinion about 9/11. I know what I believe about that. But that's not what this is about. I know how to express my opinion and defend my thinking without calling other ideas and people "stupid" and I deeply value that ability. I know better.

(By the way, I'm hoping that anonymous will be willing to identify himself/herself and have a conversation about it--not about 9/11 but about any emotional or relational impact of my judgmental statement. I would welcome that.)

Happy days

2011-11-10T18:54:00.001-06:00

"My life is not busy . . . my life is full. There's a difference."*

I am doing great. I'm firmly ensconced in my favorite budget hotel (the Sleep Inn in Stafford--it's fabulous!) after a wonderful supper from Saltgrass. I had a perfect relaxing massage by an intern at the massage school down the road and she told me that my muscles were mostly relaxed with no serious spots of tension--first time I've EVER heard that!

This is even more meaningful because I fully expected to be a twitching, hyperventilating basket case by now. 10 weeks ago, C and I looked at my schedule and girded our loins for a difficult season. I've spent at least one night out of town every single week for nine weeks--for a total of 22 nights. In that time, I've heard some inspiring speakers, visited with dear friends and family, gone to Kansas for the first time, kept up my usual client load, witnessed the process of transformation in individuals, couples and congregations, taught Sunday School, lost a trivia game with Boo, and managed to work out occasionally. It's been a wild and wonderful ride and in 3 days, it will be over.

I've been practicing expanding my capacity for this for a long time now and right now feels like crossing the finish line with energy to spare (which, by the way, I hope to do when I finish a 5K this spring). More good news: C and I have actually managed to stay well-connected during this time, although he did comment once, "I didn't think the empty nest would be me and the cat." The only bad news: no matter how much you can fit in, it's just not possible to fit it all, so there are still big chunks of unfinished business waiting for me at home and at work and in my relationships . . . and I think I'm learning that there will be time for those too . . . in time.

Lest you think I'm getting the big head, know that this feels like a gift--a great big grace gift from a God who (I believe) gave me this full and wonderful life (I think the word He used was "abundant," actually) and is also teaching me how to live it.

*(Read it in a magazine but have no idea who said it. Google didn't really help.)

Day 21

2011-11-06T21:24:00.001-06:00

It's been a really fun experiment. I was reminded of how much I like to write and how fun it is to put it out there for you to read. I remembered how stressful it can be to think of things to say and then to craft the words into experiences for you to share with me. I'm glad I took on this experiment and I'm glad it's over. Thanks for reading. Oh, and I'll be back soon.

The End.

Day 20

2011-11-05T19:46:00.000-05:00

The McDonald's sandwich (and cult favorite) the McRib is apparently quite a phenomenon. Because it is regional and seasonal, there are actually blogs devoted to tracking its availability. It has t-shirts, music, an urban legend, a conspiracy theory and a scandal, not to mention mentions on "The Simpsons" and "The Big Bang Theory." In case you missed it, it's a processed pork patty shaped to look like a rack of ribs, slathered in barbecue sauce on a long bun. In theory, it looks like this:

When C and I were in seminary, in the mid-80s, we lived and worked in Waco and commuted to school in Ft. Worth. We were constantly exhausted and lived for our Saturdays when we could usually sleep late and get caught up. Early one Saturday morning, the phone rang and my grandfather's voice boomed, "We're taking you and C to lunch today!" As I tried to rouse myself from sleep enough to focus, I had two thoughts, "Why are you calling me in the middle of the night to tell me this?" and "Cool! We never get to eat out--that will be fun!"

Then Grandaddy explained that he and Mimi were driving all the way from their home in the Hill Country to go to McDonalds to try the new McRib and they were going to take us along. They were meeting us at the restaurant (no time to come by our house) at 11 a.m. and they were paying. Those were our instructions and it never occurred to me to argue with any of it. By the time we got to McDonalds at 11, they had already been there for 15 minutes and were as excited as children.

We found out pretty quick that ordering something other than the McRib was not an option although my usually frugal grandfather was willing to spring for fries and sodas. I remember holding the first bite in my mouth for just a few seconds longer than usual because I was so grossed out by the texture that I wasn't sure that an effort to swallow would be successful. Thankfully, we finished our sandwiches and had a wonderful time visiting. After that, from time to time, we would receive the early morning phone call, the offer of lunch and the spiritual discipline of eating food you hate with people you love.

My Mimi is gone now and I still miss her. She was a really good sport where my irascible grandfather was concerned. Grandaddy is about to be 91 and is remarried to a wonderful woman. After spending most of his life unable to express his affection (except in the language of processed pork), he will now call and instead of saying hello, booms "I love you!" Of course, I've always known he loved me, even back when I was a little scared of him but a few McRib sandwiches through the years have sealed the deal.

Day 19

2011-11-03T15:26:00.003-05:00

I am deeply grateful that my parents gave me the skills for dialogue. When I was a teenager wanting to whine about my teacher, I wasn't thrilled when my mom and dad would encourage me to see what she was thinking, why she might have done what she did, what her perspective was. Now, though, I wouldn't trade that skill for anything.

When he was in elementary school, Mowgli said to me one afternoon, "You'll never be able to go on Oprah, Mom, because you always see every side of everything." I took that as a compliment.

There's another piece to this, though, that my parents also gave me and that is a commitment to consistency, which is also a commitment to constantly be aware of and make allowances for my biases. When I was in college and was first introduced to the concepts of cognitive dissonance and perception/cognitive bias, I was so fascinated that I spent a whole semester thinking that I might go on to grad school in social psychology just to study those ideas.

This roughly explains why:

When fans of one team are shown a game against a rival team, they perceive more of the officiating errors that favor the other team and fewer of the calls that favor their own team. And it's not just that they make a different meaning of those bad calls; they literally don't see them.
When Palestinians are shown a peace plan that Israelis favor but they are told that Palestinians favor it, they will support it. Israelis do the same thing. It works with Republicans and Democrats and with different religious groups. Show people an unfamiliar plan that has been put forth by the other side but tell them that their group approves of it and they will approve of it too.
When it's the other side's candidate who sticks her foot in her mouth, she's an idiot; when it's your candidate who sticks her foot in her mouth, she needs to be given a chance to explain. When your candidate has a moral failure, it's an uncharacteristic lapse in judgment and doesn't affect his right to govern; when the other side's guy has a moral failure, it's not only characteristic of that person but the whole party and he should be impeached.
When you don't leave a tip, it's because you're stingy; when I don't leave a tip, it's because I'm low on cash.
When investigators and prosecutors zero in on a suspect, they become resistant to other explanations for the crime, even taking such suggestions personally. (There's some really interesting work being done on this; in the meantime, a man will soon be executed in my state without ever having the large amounts of DNA found at the scene tested because prosecutors refuse to allow it to be tested, even at no cost to the state.)
When I begin to work with a new couple or family, I will ask each person to describe the problem to me as if they were their spouse or child. I am trying to assess their ability and willingness to set aside their own perspective and look at things through the eyes of another. It's absolutely stunning to me how many people can't or won't.

And the most fascinating and infuriating example: We are very, very good at seeing and acknowledging the biases of other people, especially those we disagree with . . . and very, very bad at seeing and acknowledging our own or even seeing and acknowledging that we might have some.

So maybe this is part of why it seems to be so impossible for people to engage in real dialogue around deeply held opinions. If we want to grow in our capacity to have productive conversations about the things that really matter to us, we can grow in our capacity to explore and evaluate our own biases and to apply our truths consistently to ourselves and to our opponents. It's a good place to start anyway.

Day 14, catching up

2011-11-02T23:00:00.001-05:00

So today, I'm working on Gmail when I get a popup box asking me if I want to switch to the new format. So what would you have done?

Do you think, "I just figured out the format I have! Why do they always have to be changing everything?" Or, "How could Gmail possibly get better?" Or, "I love it when I get to try new things!" Or, "I'll try it . . . what could it hurt? I can always change back if I don't like it . . . I hope . . . oh, shoot, now I'm paralyzed . . . "

I'm not sure there's a better assessment of a person's openness to change and innovation than that popup box. I was really amused by all the things that went through my head.

I clicked "yes."

Day 18

2011-11-02T22:56:00.003-05:00

Robert Quinn says that in today's rapidly changing world, organizations have a binary choice between deep change and slow death. The Bible says that without vision, the people perish. There are few things sadder than people and organizations that cling to their routines and their mental models and their traditions and their habits right up to the point of self-destruction.

As a therapist, there are few things I do more important than casting vision. Holding up a vision of who a person can become, what kind of relationships a family can have, what love could look like for a couple . . . that's at least half the job right there. Without a compelling vision, people have no courage for the deep change that life requires from time to time.

In my work with congregational and other church leaders--leaders of living systems--the same thing is true. Half the job is helping people to see--to literally see through the powerful eyes of the imagination--in such a way that they will risk the discomfort that comes with change. What Jesus did so compellingly was to hold up a vision of the Kingdom of God--a vision that no one else had ever seen before--and invite people to join him there. Two thousand years later, we're still trying to live in the kingdom he described to us.

So when couples and families and churches lose vision, lose heart and lose their way, it grieves me to the core. But when they can see what is possible--enough that they will reach for it--that's the most lifegiving thing I can even imagine.

Day 17

2011-11-01T22:47:00.003-05:00

Whenever I despair that transformation is even possible, I go to my happy place and think about the Ridder Leadership Initiative. I spent most of last week in Muskegon, Michigan with about 40 or so of the most amazing ordinary people you can even imagine. They look like a fairly normal collection of pastors and denominational workers who take time out of their busy, demanding lives to focus on their own personal transformation and to build the skills and the character necessary to lead transformation in their congregations.

After a couple of days of fun and hard work, their teams come from their churches and gather around tables to talk about their own discipleship and their dreams for their congregations back home. These laypeople are deeply committed to the process and take their learning back home to their families and their Bible study classes and their workplaces with renewed focus and courage.

This is my colleague and dear friend JTH with his arm around one of the many unsung heroes of the Ridder Initiative, Mrs. Lenora Ridder. She and her late husband Bud, a pastor and seminary president, were passionate about caring for pastors and wanted to contribute to their development through a fund they set up and supported. The fund supported bringing in some of the best minds in pastoral leadership development to the pastors of the denomination and ended up also bringing the authors of The Leaders' Journey.

After an event, several of us gathered around a table at the back of the room and began talking about the implications of our observation that although events are fun and helpful, they don't even begin to get at the mental models that keep us from the change we so desperately need. Mrs. Ridder, always open to new ideas, agreed that the money in the fund could be used to create an experiential process without even knowing what that would look like. She attends every gathering and adds her wisdom to the planning process on a regular basis. Her open mindedness and courage and flexibility and encouragement are what make her one of my best loved heroes of the faith. I truly want to be just like her when I grow up.

Day 13, catching up

2011-11-01T21:15:00.000-05:00

This is the stack of books that sits on my desk waiting to be read. Sometimes it puts on the Bambi eyes, trying to make me pay attention to it. More often, it mocks me, reminding me how long it has been since some of these books were bought impulsively and then never even picked up. Since some of the books are gifts from dear friends, it is often guilt-inducing.

A while ago, I made a deal with myself that I would give away ten books from my shelves and read ten books from my stack before I would let myself buy any new books. (As I look at this stack, I realize that ten doesn't even really make a dent, but I'm in denial about that.) Meanwhile, my amazon wish list has 419 items on it, most of them more books. I've read 7 so far, with 3 to go.

Today, as I was feeling overwhelmed by this, I decided to go at it Dave Ramsey-style, reading from smallest to largest. As I look at the stack, though, I notice that The Prophetic Imagination by Brueggeman is the thinnest book in the stack but it's also one of the densest, with really small print. Maybe I'll watch a movie instead.

Day 16

2011-10-31T21:25:00.000-05:00

I know, I know, I know . . . I had such good intentions!

I had the great privilege to be with some of the best people in the world at the Ridder Leadership Initiative in Muskegon, Michigan these last few days. I'll be posting pictures and more detailed descriptions of all the great things that happened there, but suffice it to say that blogging was not on the list of priorities, not to mention that wi-fi was spotty in my room and when I was in common space, I needed to be available to people and not pecking away on my keyboard.

I promise to go back and make up the days I missed, thinking of fascinating things to write about in a life-changing way. Or maybe I'll just keep writing my mundane thoughts and thank you for coming over to visit from time to time. It's important to do the things I say I will, even if I can't do it perfectly.

Day 12

2011-10-27T21:19:00.001-05:00

I used to be pretty deep. Not Ghandi-deep or even C. S. Lewis-deep but able to readily explore theinner depths of my mind and heart. Icould even, if I wanted to, think deep thoughts just for fun.

Unfortunately, years of perfecting the ability to multitaskhas robbed me of that depth. Of course,it all starts with being a mom and learning to talk on the phone and spoon inthe baby food and fold the laundry all at once. Then you add a professional life and a church life and the demands ofany normal life and I got really, really good at juggling all of it all atonce.

It only cost me a few layers of depth.

I think it went away so gradually that I barely noticedit. I started doing more and more of mythinking on the run. I spent less timepondering or reflecting. Reading becamea way to gain information or a way to escape but rarely got my fullattention. I got really good at beingfully present to other people and got tired out by that and so then I learnedto space out when I was with myself. Istarted to cruise in the wake of other people’s learning because it was just somuch easier.

Now I’m in a different season of life and I want my old self back. Doing a lot of things at once because there are a lot of things to dohas its place. Learning to keep it lightafter a heavy day of sharing in other people’s deep work has its place. Deepdoesn’t have to mean constant intensity. But there are some practices that build depth, that can help us plumbthe deep places and I’m ready to re-engage them.

Even in short doses, for example, solitude and silence helpus learn to be with God and ourselves and listen to both. Sitting quietly to solve problems withouttalking about them to everyone who will listen opens us up to our own creativethinking. Asking ourselves what we thinkabout something and then taking the time to really listen to the answer helps alot. Reading books that are hard to readbuilds depth if they’re the right books. Asking good questions in conversation and then asking more questionsbuilds relational depth. It’s afundamental shift from quantity of life to quality. I’m ready to make the shift.

Day 11

2011-10-27T19:54:00.003-05:00

Well, I'm in western Michigan with an amazing group of pastors. We've been journeying together for several years now and the stories of transformation are pouring out. This is one of the great privileges of my life.

And here's the downside: internet is spotty and time is limited so this is actually yesterday's post . . . and it's going to be a rerun. This post is a blast from the past and also reflects some of my current thinking. Enjoy.

Day 10

2011-10-25T16:04:00.001-05:00

I rarely curse. Not never, but rarely. I'm not offended by bad language though. For one thing, a really well-placed curse word can make a point in a way that embeds it in your memory forever--Clark Gable and Tony Campolo both come to mind. And as a therapist, I know that pain comes out of people in raw form and I think that's more than okay.

But like spanking and paprika, profanity is much more powerful when it is used sparingly. Whether it's unnecessarily cluttering the dialogue in a movie or heightening the hostility in a conversation, it's often a lazy way to communicate. For one thing, cursing used to be much more creative--there were a whole range of bad words that you could choose from, depending on the situation. Today, there seems to be only one word and it can be used as a verb, an adjective, a noun or an exclamation. I'm pondering . . . could it be used as an adverb or a gerund? Hmmm . . .

When I was about 10, I was curious about bad words and unsure about how to use them since the family I grew up in was pretty much profanity-free. (My freshman roommate used the f-word 17 times between our dorm and the mall on the first day I met her. I got all kinds of education my freshman year.)

Anyway, I was visiting my grandmother, who was in the shower adjacent to the bedroom where I was making a phone call to my cousin. I got frustrated with the phone, tossed the phone book angrily on the bed, and said "Dammit!" My grandmother poked her head out of the bathroom door and said, "Go to your room and I'll be there in a minute."

I flounced off to my bedroom, setting up my argument that other people used that word and that I was old enough and besides I couldn't find the number and . . . anyway, I was ready to fight for my rights even though I knew I was in trouble. Nana sat down on the edge of my bed, held up her hand to keep me from launching into my defense, and calmly and slightly disdainfully said, "Do you know what that word means? It means that you want someone or something to go to hell. And you just told a phone book to go to hell. How does that make any sense?"

Embarrassed, deflated, I had no answer. I looked down and said, "I don't know. I'm sorry." She hugged me hard and said something about how it wasn't a problem. She never mentioned it again, not even to my parents, as far as I know. Just a few months later, at Thanksgiving at Nana's house, there would be a much more serious incident involving my brother and a curse word I truly did not understand, but that's another story. Nana never told on me.

In his book Real Live Preacher, Gordon Atkinson reflects on the use of words. He writes, "I am constantly found guilty of the sin of words. Vulgarity is not my downfall, although I am vulgar. My sin is having words that are far more beautiful than my life. How graceful are those whose lives outshine their words. Perhaps my life will catch up to my mouth someday." I like that.

Day 9

2011-10-24T22:59:00.002-05:00

It's amazing how much power there is in giving your word to something. We really do create reality with our words--not in a superstitious, "name-it-claim-it" way, but along the lines of the way God created with His word--"Let there be light . . . and there was light." When we really give our word to something and add our intention to it, so that "Never mind" is not an option, it changes what we do, which changes how we live, which changes the future.

We can give our word to evil--"I will get revenge if it's the last thing I do." But it seems we're almost compelled to give our word to the good God calls us to . . . until another voice tells us we can't do that, we can't be that. But nothing significant ever happens without that combination of our word and our intention.

I'm thinking about this right now because 9 days ago, I gave my word to writing every day for 21 days. That is the only reason I would still be up and on my computer at this hour, before a really demanding day tomorrow. In June, I gave my word to running a 5K. On Saturday, I picked the event I'm going to run in. Slowly but surely, I'm making progress toward making both of those a reality, whether I feel like it or not.

I've learned a lot about this from my friend JTH and also from Dallas Willard, in conversations and lectures and writing on how people change. I've experimented with it in my own life and it really is powerful, not as a technique but as a way of lining up my life with God's calling. I help to teach it in Faithwalking and elsewhere and I've seen the power of it in the lives of others. Giving our word, keeping our word, honoring our word . . . in line with God's word . . . really does change things.

Day 8

2011-10-23T22:41:00.001-05:00

It's the middle of the fall and here's the latest for our family:

First of all, C and I are thoroughly enjoying the empty nest! (Sorry, Boo and Mowgli!) We're both doing really good work--energizing and lifegiving--and when we're not working, we're hanging out together and enjoying our quiet house and our freedom to come and go as we please. I've been out of town for six weeks straight and still have four more trips to go, and then a long respite from travel until the new year. C gets a little lonely but he has the cat to keep him company . . . okay, that's not exactly how it works.

Boo is settled in at college and loves it there. Her favorite class is Old Testament, mainly because of the teacher. She's active in the Baptist Student Ministry and is working with children and with a theater troupe and will be a DiscipleNow leader for youth groups in the spring. She is working a lot, playing a lot, and serving a lot. We're so proud of her courage and hard work.

Mowgli is still on schedule to graduate in December. We were planning a big trip out to NC for graduation and to bring his stuff home but we just found out that his school doesn't have a December commencement, so it all feels pretty anticlimactic at this point. What are his plans, you ask? Well, he'll let us know when he knows. Right now, he's waiting to hear back from grad schools and teacher certification programs and then he'll have some decisions to make. I predict some combination of work and travel until then.

Our extended families are doing well and we see them as often as we can. The pace is dizzying right now but it's all good . . . I think all four of us feel incredibly blessed to be where we are. That's an incredible gift.

Day 7

2011-10-23T10:03:00.002-05:00

So I'm sitting here in the lovely living room of my friend P, talking about cognitive dissonance and pinterest and empathy and Jesus and our jobs and parenting . . . and just realized that I completely forgot to blog yesterday! Consistency is hard . . . I could write about that but I'm not going to. I'm just going to keep sitting here chatting with P. I'll be back tonight . . .

Day 6

2011-10-21T22:18:00.003-05:00

I'm upset about something that happened tonight. This experience seems even more important after my recent writing about race and courage.

I was stopped at a light in the far right hand lane on a busy Houston street and had the thought that it would be a good idea to lock my car doors. When I reached for the door lock button, I accidentally rolled down the window so I was looking down at my left hand, fumbling with the buttons. Finally, the doors locked, just as I looked up and just as a young African-American man was passing me on foot, going the other way.

He looked at me pointedly just as I looked at him, our eyes locked, him shaking his head almost imperceptibly, me not yet comprehending what had just happened. Then the moment was over. He passed me, I realized what he had just experienced--a middle-aged white woman locking her car door just as he walked by--and then it was over.

I'm not going to pretend that I know what that feeling is like. A black friend of mine from high school and college told me once, "You have no idea what it feels like to know every time you walk into a room full of white people that someone hates you, someone is afraid of you, someone doesn't think you belong there and you don't know who." He was right--I have no idea.

I think that what happened tonight was an unfortunate coincidence, a painful misunderstanding. Most of all, I regret not having any way to make it right. I prayed for that young man and his heart because it was all I could do. I hope he can turn his brief experience with me into irritation and not anger, frustration but not cynicism. And I pray for the day that the hurts aren't so close to the surface, when it is not so easy to wound each other by accident.

Day 5

2011-10-20T20:26:00.002-05:00

Bumper stickers are funny. Sometimes they're stupid ("9/11 was an inside job") and sometimes they're silly ("Visualize whirled peas") but just the concept is pretty funny. One day, 40 years or so, somebody thought, "Let's think of some pithy statement that defines our whole lives or, barring that, "I love Joe's Crab Shack!" and let's make it so sticky that it will NEVER come off, and let's stick it on the back of the car that represents the second most expensive thing we own.

I wish I could have gotten a picture of the little hatchback that started this line of thinking. It cut in front of me on the way to work yesterday, maybe because the back windshield was artistically covered with bumper stickers, apparently representing a variety of goth bands. The front windshield had 6 bumper stickers on it--also strategically arranged--which I am pretty sure is not legal. (Is it still called a bumper sticker if it's on a window?)

I know that many people express their most deeply held values on these tiny sticky billboards. Austin is definitely a bumper sticker city, mostly announcing blue-state sentiments in the middle of the reddest state in the country. (Some of them would invite vandalism in Odessa or Beaumont or Dime Box.) At Mowgli's school, it seems that every other car has the "Coexist" sticker on it. When we lived in Clear Lake, the back window stickers displaying your child's name and all his/her extracurricular activities were requisite. Here, it's the tie-dyed "Keep Austin Weird."

I understand what motivates the political ("HOPE") or value-driven ("Abortion stops a beating heart") or religious ("Honk if you love Jesus!") or school spirit ("Sic 'Em Bears"). But every now and then, I see a bumper sticker proclaiming something like "I *heart* TCBY" and I wonder, "Really? You love frozen yogurt enough to make it the singular statement of your life and then display it on your car? Really? That's the best you've got?" I can be fairly judgmental.

In the last presidential election, I saw a bumper sticker that I really liked and considered getting it until I remembered that I am aesthetically opposed to sticking things on my car. Antipathy toward bumper stickers trumped civic pride. If I ever DO get a bumper sticker, though--which I never will--my favorite is one that came out about a decade ago. It reads, "God bless the whole world. No exceptions." Amen.

Day 4

2011-10-19T21:57:00.002-05:00

Just when I think it's all useless, that nothing ever changes, that I don't know why I bother, that people are just the way they are . . . I have a day like today, when I have a front row seat for the ordinary change happening in ordinary lives. I get to watch as wives talk when they could withdraw, when scared mothers speak the truth when they could hide, when husbands say, "I was wrong," when they could say "Don't blame me," when people keep showing up for love.

Day 3

2011-10-18T22:10:00.000-05:00

Listening to Rev. Smith Sunday night reminded me of my own story of racial reconciliation in the SBC. When I was in college, I served as the youth minister of a small Baptist church in a small Texas town. It was a town of 400 people, half of whom considered themselves Baptist, with about 80 in the pews of our church every week.

The town itself was built around the intersection of two insignificant farm-to-market roads where dilapidated brick buildings stood mostly abandoned, built when cotton was king. The bank was in one of those buildings--a two-story brick building with swinging screen doors adorned with fading signs advertising Rainbo bread. Next door to the bank was a true general store with overpriced, dusty groceries and a lunch counter in the back that served hearty breakfasts and amazing hamburgers to townspeople and the Hispanic field hands that worked on nearby farms. It felt like going back in time.

Anyway, one of my tasks as youth minister was to invite all the town's high school seniors to baccalaureate at our church on the Sunday before graduation. I got the list from the high school registrar and set about sending out invitations. Most of the townspeople I knew had their mail delivered to P. O. boxes (oh, yeah, the post office was caddy corner from the bank on the town "square.") However, on this list there were several students listed only by name and street--no house number, no phone number--so I set out in my car delivering invitations to kids who lived in unpainted wooden shacks and shabby travel trailers down dusty dirt roads that I didn't even know existed. Often, I had to ask around to find the senior in question and handed over the invitation personally to his or her bewildered relatives who promised to attend the service.

Imagine how shocked my congregation was when they discovered what I had done. I had, for the very first time in memory, invited the African American seniors to baccalaureate at the white Baptist church. Imagine how shocked I was to discover that the policy for decades had been to exclude those kids and their families from the annual service. I sputtered in indignation, the church convened a meeting, had a robust discussion, and then voted unanimously to let the invitations stand.

On the day of the baccalaureate, three black seniors and their parents and grandparents showed up for the service and, while I admired their courage, I was amazed by my church. Members of all ages and social strata flocked to the visitors to welcome them and shake their hands. They were so welcoming, in fact, that a few of the black seniors' parents returned to visit the worship services for the next two weeks and expressed appreciation for the church's hospitality.

All's well that ends well and that story ended pretty well. There was never any question again about who was welcome in our church, much less at senior baccalaureate, and occasionally those students would join in our youth group activities or their families would attend events at our church. I wish I could say that there was a large-scale integration, that deeply held prejudices were healed and that living conditions improved for those kids. None of that happened. But that day, at Central Baptist Church in a small town in Texas, different kinds of people were willing to let go of the way things had always been done and consider new possibilities and I was glad to see it.

Day 2

2011-10-17T21:09:00.002-05:00

Last night, we were in the presence of greatness.

C has been teaching a class on Baptist history (it's actually been really interesting and well-attended) and got to the part where Baptists in the south decided they would rather support slavery than stay connected with their northern brethren and split off and formed the SBC. He asked Rev. Smith, a member of our church and a pastor since the 1950s, to talk about race relations in the SBC since then.

Rev. Smith is a slight, white-haired man with a quiet voice and a radiant smile. He didn't smile much as he described the ordinary racism of the south of his childhood and the way that God balanced those brutal experiences by giving him actual relationships with black people that were caring and lifegiving.

He talked about getting to know African-American pastors back when things were "separate and (not) equal" and hearing about their experiences from their own lips instead of from town gossip or the national news. He showed us the paperback copies of the books that he bought to read what MLK thought in his own words instead of believing what he heard in the press. He held up a tattered copy of the ballot used to guide his small country church to not only welcome their black brothers and sisters but even to join the local association of black churches in solidarity. He described advocating for an African American pastor to take over the pastorate of his church's mission church even though all the remaining members were white. He also told about a deacon who threatened him, saying, "When a n***** walks in the front door [of the church], God walks out the back."

There were a lot of stories that he didn't tell--the good, the bad and the ugly. For one thing, he only got up to 1968. He was very reluctant to portray himself as a hero or a crusader but the truth is that he consistently made the right choices about racial reconciliation at a time when many pastors didn't. He didn't march on Washington or attend a sit-in. At the same time, he didn't just wait for "social issues" to resolve themselves. Instead, he went across town and became friends with people who were different from him. He listened to them, thought about what they thought about, ate with them, worshiped with them, and advocated for them. He loved his neighbor in ordinary, courageous, extraordinary ways--a lot like Jesus.

Day One

2011-10-16T16:10:00.000-05:00

There are a lot of reasons why I blog so much less frequently these days. I'm busy, I wonder what anyone would want to read about, Facebook, I can't get motivated, etc. Whether it's a term paper or a book chapter or a letter or a blog post, the empty page is daunting.

Here's what occurred to me recently, though: Although I'm an author, I'm not really a writer. Know why? Because writers write.

So I've taken a challenge from my friend at www.lisaspence.com to blog for 21 days straight no matter what, to put words to paper every day for 21 days, to write something--anything--long enough to push through the resistance. If she can do it, I can do it, right?

It's actually very consistent with a tool that I've used many times in my life. The idea is that if you have a dream and you do something every day toward your dream, you really might see your dream come true. I can't even tell you how many times I've taken that on and how many times it has made the difference between good intentions and real results.

So . . . the next 21 days on wonderfullyflawed might be really inane. Who knows? That's not the point. I still ask myself a lot, though, "What would someone who shows up on this site want to read about?" So if you want to suggest a topic, I promise I'll take it on, one way or another. Otherwise, you'll probably be at the mercy of whatever I'm thinking about on any given day. Let's see what happens . . .

2011-10-08T09:06:00.000-05:00

If you're an evangelical and you don't sometimes feel a little conflicted about that label, you may not be paying attention. In this article by Lynne Hybels, I found both my ambivalence about evangelical life and my commitment to it beautifully expressed. Of course, what she describes isn't unique to evangelicals but I wish these ideals were more closely associated with them . . . us . . . me.

Speaking up about speaking up

2011-10-05T13:40:00.000-05:00

My heart is beating fast and I can feel the heat in my face. My hands feel a little shaky, although I don't think you would notice if you saw me. My internal conversation is going back and forth between self-righteousness and self-doubt. Here's what just happened: I was on Facebook and saw that a friend of mine--someone I used to know and like but rarely see anymore (although I did see him recently)--posted a comment that I found deeply offensive. Deeply. And personal. So I commented. I didn't want to--I hate conflict and I hate exposing myself like that--but I felt compelled to. I couched my comment in tongue-in-cheek teasing (at least I hope that's how it came across) but I know that what I said was also provocative.

I'm practicing having the courage act authentically even when it means letting go of my habitual need to please. It's a commitment I've taken on but don't always know how to pursue. Obviously, I can't comment on every stupid comment on Facebook. I almost never comment on the political posts that I disagree with, no matter how strongly I disagree. But about a year ago, a political joke was circulating that I thought was so incredibly offensive that I couldn't believe that my friends--people I loved and admired--were perpetuating it. I never said anything and ever since, I've wished I had. I know that I wimped out. I didn't speak up because I knew people were "just kidding" and because I didn't want my own views to be exposed and because I didn't want to be perceived as self-righteous. I was wrong.

Still, I'm not sure what is the right thing to do. It's gotten to a point that, except for a public forum like Facebook, almost no one says really offensive things in front of me--whether it's my gender or my age or the role I play or some kind of personal authority or all of the above, I don't know. But I can remember more occasions than I can count when I didn't say anything or said something weak and ineffective or talked to the person privately later, after I had a chance to collect my thoughts, leaving the public impression that I agreed with what was said. I've learned now that if I can't think of what to say, I can say "I see that differently." No one ever asks me how I see it differently so I'm off the hook, although sometimes I would welcome the conversation. And obviously, just because I think something is inherently offensive doesn't mean that it is.

So what do you do? Do you speak up and say what you think, even when you know it would inject controversy? Do you see that as a good thing--"the marketplace of ideas"--or do you see yourself as an "enlightener of others?" Do you wimp out and wish you hadn't? Do you consider that your own views are just that--your own views--and keep them to yourself? Come on, hit the comment button and speak up about speaking up!

2011-09-24T21:08:00.001-05:00

I spent the weekend at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas for the Aprentis/Renovare conference. Isn't this an amazing building? Highlights include beginning the conference singing "Immortal Invisible" with 800 other people in a gorgeous chapel and ending with singing The Apostle's Creed. In between, some great presentations. Here are a few excerpts:

"Being holy means living from the world of God." ~ Dallas Willard

"We are able to determine the kind of person we turn out to be." ~Dallas Willard

"Repentance is thinking about your thinking." ~Dallas Willard

"Moments in life become catalysts of change when they precipitate a crisis that demands a response." ~Scot McKnight

"Walking away from God is like walking on a treadmill." ~Mindy Caliguire

"An unhappy preacher is one of the most dangerous people on the face of the earth." ~Dallas Willard

"The church is better equipped to speak truth to power than to have power itself." ~James Catford

"The cross is not the best symbol of the Christian life. It is the Table." ~Eduardo Pedreira

"Knowing the transformational promise of the gospel, it is fair to ask whether a person who claims to have a relationship with Jesus exhibits more peace and less stress, handles crisis with more grace, experiences less fear and anxiety, manifests more joy, is overcoming anger and their addictions or compulsions, enjoys more fulfilling relationships, exercises more compassion, lives more consciously or loves more boldly." ~Mark Scandrette

"A church is a place to love and be loved." ~Dallas Willard

"Don't ask, 'What would happen if you died tonight?' Ask, 'If you don't die tonight, what happens tomorrow?'" ~Dallas Willard

"Discipleship is for the world. The church is for discipleship . . . There's not a thing wrong with the church that a little discipleship wouldn't cure." ~Dallas Willard

"How did we get to the point that a minister's job is to get people to do things they don't want to do?" ~James Bryan Smith

"Don't announce the revolution." ~Dallas Willard

Hopeless and disillusioned . . . for now

2011-09-21T22:03:00.002-05:00

I drove home today pretty sure that people just don't change. Maybe they can't, maybe they just don't, whatever, but somewhere between my office and home, I wondered if transformation . . . or heck, even change . . . is even possible. You understand that this is like the pope deciding he doesn't believe in God or like a senator deciding she doesn't believe in government, right? I am in a serious funk.

Fortunately, tomorrow I'm going on a road trip with my super-friend drkatg. We're going to a Renovare conference entitled . . . wait for it . . . The Process of Change. So I guess that by Sunday, I'll know whether my life's work is an exercise in futility or not.

Seriously, we're driving to Wichita, KS tomorrow, attending the two-day conference and then driving home from Wichita on Sunday and then going to work Monday morning. I'm really not sure what we were thinking. At one time, this seemed like a really good idea. Right now, it sounds like a lifesaver . . . except for the driving to Wichita part. Seriously, what were we thinking?

Boo at UMHB

2011-09-16T11:23:00.001-05:00

She's doing great and so are we!

Tell me a story

2011-09-12T15:32:00.003-05:00

I've been thinking all summer about the power of story. I think it started when we went to the FBC Woodway College Ministry reunion in June. You have to remember that the years we were uniting around were a powerful, formative time for everyone in the room. So how to capture that? Well, we spent the evening telling stories. We told stories around tables and one-on-one and in small clusters and as a large group. We told stories that made us laugh and stories that made us cry but the important thing was that we never had to explain it--the story said everything there was to say.

i was reminded of the power of story again when C and Boo and I went to the first midnight showing of the last installment of the Harry Potter series. We stood in an insanely long line with hundreds of kids who had been waiting for this moment for a decade. They ranged from about 16 to 22, so I guess they were technically young adults but trust me, this night they were kids. They ranged from hipster to socially awkward, costumed simply or elaborately, but they had come together for one reason: to share the end of the story together.

The Harry Potter is THE story of my kids' generation. When the first book came out, conservative Christians predictably saw a story about witchcraft and pointed a finger of condemnation. It's sad, I think, because the saga never was about witchcraft. It was about sacrificial love and about the terrible triumph of good over evil and about the kind of friendship that can change the world. Every single one of the kids who filled the theater that night were there because the story of Harry Potter had touched something deeply in them since they were children, had made them think about things as they grew up with Harry, and had changed something about how they saw the world.

All of us who were there--even the middle-aged tagalongs--knew how things were going to end. There was no longer any suspense. And yet, throughout the movie, we were surrounded by heartfelt sobbing and spontaneous cheering as these kids lived the story with the actors on the screen and with each other. And somewhere in the middle of all that, I had a thought: we failed this generation by not giving them a good enough story. There is no better story than the epic story of the gospel. In our commitment to modernity, though, we turned the gospel story into a systematic theology, better shared in outline form than in narrative. In all the world, is there a better story than the American story? And yet, how many of us had history classes that really conveyed the story of liberty in a way that made anyone want to listen?

I was reminded about the power of story again when we went to see Garrison Keillor the other night. I remember more of his Lake Wobegon stories than I do individual sermons, even though I've gone to church all my life. We started talking about Bill Cosby--we know some of his stories by heart--and about Tony Campolo. I said once that I wanted to have stories to tell like Campolo does and someone reminded me that in order to have stories like he has, I would have to live like he lives. That was a good point.

And then, sadly, I thought about the power of story again as I was glued to the TV for the last two or three days watching the remembrances of the events of 9/11. There are few things as powerful as those stories of people facing the unimaginable and responding with love and courage and faithfulness. As all good stories do, they make us think deeply about our own lives and what we value and why we're here.

And then, just this weekend, C and I were talking with a friend about the weekend's football games and she said, "I''m not really a fan of any one team. I root for the story." Don't we all?

If we want a better world, we have to tell a better story. We can start by telling our own stories with all the courage that it takes to tell a true story about ourselves. We can go back to the stories of the gospel and stop worrying so much if we and others have the theology right. We can tell the stories about our country--the good ones and the bad ones--without defensiveness or rancor. We can listen to the stories of others, even those with whom we passionately disagree or with whom we think we have nothing in common. I think it's the only hope we have.

Harder than I thought it would be

2011-08-21T21:34:00.002-05:00

At the end of May, I gave my word to taking a step toward improving my physical health. After a friend recommended the book Younger Next Year, I was convinced of the evidence in favor of exercise and decided to make a big change. Someone I admire--who is also overweight and sedentary like me--had started the C25K program and so I decided to do that too. I liked the structure and I really liked having a concrete goal--working up to running a 5K.

Whew. So the good news is that I have now gone to the gym at least 4 times a week (and almost always 5 times a week) for 9 of the last 11 weeks. More good news: I've increased my capacity for running by at least 8 times what it was before. I've done things that I've never done before and that I didn't know I could do. The bad news: I am nowhere near running a 5K!

Let's do this by the numbers: Times I had run before June 2011--2. One time in college, I went out to run with my gorgeous roommate. I huffed and puffed while the boys running on the same trail hit on her. Never did that again. The second time, a few years ago, I ended up having foot surgery. So.

The C25K plan is designed to increase your running time by a little every day. I actually have to take each day's workout and do it for a week before I can go on the next workout, so this is going to take me 6 months instead of 9 weeks. And I'm okay with that. I feel great, mentally and physically. (Well, except that my muscles are sore and stiff ALL the time, but I can live with that.) I'm really proud of myself. I can see myself becoming a more physical person. It's all good.

So I'm putting this out there just because it's an important happening in my life and this is a way of staying accountable. But this feels like a deal I've made with myself and so I'm not really wanting any replies or comments. Just wanted to say it "out loud." And someday, when I run that 5K, I'll post pictures. I promise.

Working girl

2011-08-14T16:46:00.003-05:00

I heard on the radio this week that the unemployment rate for teenagers has gone up dramatically this summer and far outpaces the national average. I thought about my daughter and son and their various efforts to make money as teenagers (Mowgli has worked at a grocery store for several years, then painted houses and worked on an organic farm; Boo has worked as a nanny and takes all the babysitting jobs she can get.) Then the commentator pointed out that the last time that the teen unemployment rate was this high was . . . the late 70s, when I got my first job.

I was 15, about to turn 16, hanging out at my friend John J.'s house with our other friends, when my dad called to tell me that I had a job interview in just a couple of hours. He told me to go home and put on nicer clothes ("Sunday night clothes," as we called them in those days, referring to Sunday night services at church, which meant nicer than "school clothes" but not as dressy as "church clothes"). I showed up for the interview at the school district print shop and got the job, not surprising since my dad was the school superintendent.

That summer, I operated the district's new copy machine, which was the size of a Volkswagon and could copy at the rate of about 1 sheet per second and could also (miraculously!) make two-sided copies, collate and staple. Operating it meant using a simple computer screen, which I had never used before, and for eight hours a day, five days a week, I copied coloring sheets, syllabuses, student handbooks, and worksheets. I actually spent at least half my time clearing paper jams and starting the copy jobs over and collating by hand when the machine got confused, but I was so excited to have a real job that I don't think I ever minded.

That school year--my junior year--I got a job as a waitress at the Pizza Hut restaurant not far from the East Gate of Fort Hood. We served families and couples from the neighborhood but we also served young soldiers coming off of training maneuvers, filthy and hungry and very focused on finding beer, pizza, and a "date"--in that order. My boyfriend was the cook (and later the assistant manager) and we worked till closing, then played the juke box and flirted while we broke down the salad bar and refilled all the tabletop parmesan cheese containers.

In the summer, I added another job--mostly volunteer, this time--as the intern to my church's youth minister. I created newsletters and handouts, made phone calls, led discipleship classes, and mostly felt important and useful, with a taste of what meaningful work would feel like.

I also got another job out of the blue--this time as a news announcer for a popular country radio station in a nearby town. Every Saturday, I went in from 8 to 4 and pulled long yellow sheets of text off the teletype machines and created a five minute news program for every hour of music and commercials. I worked alone in a soundproof booth next to the DJ booth but the DJs rarely talked to me. For one thing, in those days, nothing was computerized and the DJ was literally spinning records and providing commentary on the music. Also, looking back, I can imagine that these adult family men were not impressed with having a teenaged coworker and possibly even a little uncomfortable about being closed up together in our small studio. Every hour on the hour, the DJ would point to me through the soundproof glass that separated us and I would read my newscast, followed by the weather on the half hour. No one ever trained me or supervised me and when I think of the kinds of things that I--at 17--considered newsworthy, I don't know whether to laugh or cry!

In the summer, I went back to the print shop. This time I used a printer/typesetter the size of a large upright piano and practiced my typing and layout skills creating the district's handbooks and forms. I continued to wait tables and work at the radio station until I left for college in the fall. My first month at Baylor, at age 18, I became the youth/children's minister at a small (and I mean small) church about 45 miles from Waco--a job I held and loved for three years until my teens were over.

So, that's my jaunt down memory lane. What jobs did you do as a teenager? How did you get your first job? Comment and let me know you were here--

Stay Close

2011-08-07T17:20:00.002-05:00

My dear friend pcmfo has been introducing me to the rich blogs and books of Patti Digh. This poem is from "What I Wish For You" and really spoke to me. Some of my deepest regrets in life have come from not heeding its wisdom. Let me suggest that you read it slowly, aloud.

Stay Close

When sorrow comes
to those you love
stay close.

When sadness is
more powerful
than words
more powerful
than deeds
your warm hand
your quiet company
your self in a chair
saying nothing
will be a gift.

You may wonder
"What can I do?"
There may be
nothing
you can do.

You may wish
to run.
Do not run.

Hold hands.
Eat soup.
Listen.
Trace a sunbeam
with your fingers
on the table.

Let yourself smile.
Let yourself cry.

When sorrow comes
to those you love
stay close.

When sorrow comes
to you
let others
stay close too.

---by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater

Praying for Nixon

2011-07-29T21:26:00.004-05:00

I heard the other day about a little boy commenting on the Washington fiasco, saying, "So the NFL can work out their problems but Congress can't?" It made me think about a vivid memory I have from my own childhood.

It was 1973 and I was about 9 years old. The Watergate hearings were on TV every day and I was aware that the men behind the green felt covered tables were in trouble and the men behind the microphones on the big benches were in charge. I wasn't allowed to watch much TV but even PBS children's programs were pre-empted by the hearings and there was nothing to watch after school. I didn't really understand what was going on but I knew it was bad for the president.

So here's my memory: I'm sitting at the kitchen bar on a tall barstool watching the news (or maybe some kind of news special) with my parents when I have a terrific idea. I get up and go to my room and pull out my box of hot pink stationery with my name embossed on the top in gold. I got the stationery for Christmas and I love it and I love the box it came in. I get a sharp pencil and head back to the bar to begin my project.

"Dear Mr. Nixon," I wrote in my best third-grade penmanship. I still remember the satisfaction of seeing those words at the top of the page. I don't remember exactly what else I wrote except that I closed by saying that I knew he was innocent and that I was praying for him. My parents must have helped me find the address and mail the letter because I don't think I would have known how to do that but I know that the letter was mailed because I received a thick manila envelope from the White House with a "personalized form letter" and a book about the Nixon presidency.

Just a few years later, in Mrs. Mauk's sixth grade class, we were introduced to writing research papers and each of us chose a topic. I decided to write about the Watergate scandal, analyzing political cartoons from the era. I loved writing that paper but pretty soon, it became clear to me that my confidence and my prayers had been misplaced and I felt a tiny twinge of cynicism for the first time in my life. I felt so grown-up--because now I understood how the world worked and I determined not to be so foolishly naive again.

I think the world changed dramatically for Americans of all ages in the early seventies. Another memory: I am laying in my bed only a few feet from the den where my parents are watching the news on TV. The reporter describes guerillas killing American soldiers in the jungles of Vietnam and I become upset thinking of these brave men being attacked by wild animals. I feel genuinely sad and confused about how scary the world is.

Anyway, as the world changed, we became more cynical about authority, more determined not to be duped, more negative about Washington and public service. I think we see all of that now as things disintegrate in Washington and the chatter on the internet and on cable news shows is smug and full of cynicism and resignation and conspiracy theories and contempt. It makes me think about sitting at the kitchen bar with my hot pink personalized stationery and a pencil and praying for Mr. Nixon.

Not a rant

2011-07-27T22:01:00.004-05:00

I imagine that almost every American is sick to death of the machinations in Washington these days. I am too, although not for the same reasons as many of my Facebook friends, apparently. But what has me thinking has to do more with the moral questions that we (and our representatives in Congress) are all wrestling with these days.

I keep hearing many people (in person and yes, I admit, on the radio) saying, "It's not the job of government to care for the poor and the needy in our society. That's the Church's job. We need to take that responsibility away from the government and give it back to the Church where it belongs." I can sympathize with that point of view. I think it's very well-meaning and attempts to take seriously the command of the gospel to care for the poor. I also disagree with it, since I personally believe that government is a God-given means for providing for the common good. That's also in the constitution and I believe it's wise. It's been said that government is what we decide to do together and I'm glad to be part of a society that has historically used government to provide for the most vulnerable among us.

Of course, that's beginning to change, partly because of economic realities and partly because of changes in our political philosophy. And I sincerely hope that the Church I love will step up and fill in the gaps. But here is what I want to ask when someone says that caring for the vulnerable is not the job of the government but the job of the church:

What does that look like? As poor children, the disabled and the elderly are experiencing devastating cuts in their benefits, are Christians going to dramatically increase their giving to make up the difference? In my congregation, there are a number of intellectually disabled adults who live partially on public assistance. When that is cut, will we--all 400 of us--provide the hundreds of thousands of dollars that it costs to care for them? What kind of infrastructure will there be to do this? I'm sure that they would prefer to live in their group homes but if that becomes unaffordable, who among us will take them into our homes and care for them? And that's just this particular group of men. We're not even talking about the chronically poor, the physically disabled who can't work, the severely mentally ill, the elderly or the unemployed--all of whom receive some kind of public subsidy. Just in our congregation alone, that would be a significant number of people. There are even more in our community who don't attend our church or any church. Will we be willing to sacrifice deeply to ensure that they are cared for, at least at the level that the government currently does? We will have to completely change the way we do church. I doubt that we will be able to do all of this and maintain our buildings and our programs. Will we be willing to make those sacrifices?

This is not a rant, I promise. I really want to know what others see that I don't. I personally believe that government is a legitimate way to care for the vulnerable but I'm also intrigued by other models, especially as the government model may be losing viability. I don't want to suffer from a failure of imagination and if this is possible, I want to see it. I just have some questions.

Catching up

2011-07-24T21:59:00.002-05:00

Well, yesterday I got the weekly summary from Blogger telling me that 92 people had visited this blog and my first thought, "Well, that's 92 people who are mad at me for not posting!" Then my friend chastised me tonight for neglecting my blog . . . and she was right, I have been neglecting it. I don't know . . . I just haven't known what to write about.

Just to get the juices flowing, I'm going to catch you up on what's been going on . . . and this is just the month of July. We started this month with Ana from Guatemala. Ana is the translator that has gone to the orphanage with C and Boo and Mowgli when they go to the orphanage in Hue Hue Tenango and she is lovely. She's had a very hard year so C made it possible for her to come to Texas for a vacation and we got to host her. We shopped, spent some time down on South Congress, introduced her to Amy's ice cream, went to the Riverwalk in San Antonio on the 4th (no fireworks here because of the drought), picnicked at Zilker Park and had a really nice time. It's funny how sometimes you have to have a guest to get out in your own town and do the fun stuff. Also, during that week, the daughter of our Nigerian friends stayed with us while she attended a wedding and it was wonderful to catch up with her, since we hadn't seen her in about a decade.

Boo and I both celebrated birthdays this month, too. For her birthday, all three of us went to see a terrific production of "Hairspray" at the Zach ( we sat in the middle on about the 8th row--it felt like they were performing just for us!) and then she and I went to San Antonio overnight to spend some good mom/daughter time together and, per her request, think about her childhood. It was a wonderful trip with my lovely daughter who I am looking forward to getting to know better as an adult. We also went to see Harry Potter at midnight (maybe that will be my next post) and then Boo got her wisdom teeth out. Now she's on a mission trip to the border, revisiting children in a colonia there that she has worked with for several years now.

About Mowgli . . . I think he's having the time of his life on an organic farm (think Wendell Berry) in VA. He's described to us the rhythm of waking early, caring for the animals, working hard on the crops, going to market, cooking together with his two fellow-laborers (aka "interns") and then sitting on the porch playing his guitar (while one of the girls plays the fiddle) until the sun goes down. He sleeps in the barn, which must not be too rustic b/c it also doubles as the Quaker meetinghouse on Sunday mornings. C's grandmother passed away this month as well, and Mowgli came back for the funeral (thanks to my wonderful in-laws) and we got to see him for two days. I don't expect we'll see him again until graduation in December.

My work continues to go very well with a break from the traveling this summer. I'm still counseling in private practice and working part-time with MissionHouston on Faithwalking. I'm also trying to focus on a BHAG vision for city-wide marriage transformation with Brett and Kellie over at Home Encouragement as we try to discover what God's vision is and how we can join him. I still love the young adults at MBC and always wish I could spend more time with them--they're a wonderful group of friends and I am so blessed to be able to work with them in Bible Study and ministry. I've also had some wonderful time this month with dear friends--not nearly enough, of course, but it nourishes my soul to spend time with them.

I guess the big thing is that on August 17, we will be empty-nesters. I think I'll cry when we drive away from leaving Boo at college but I really think I'll be just fine. She is so ready and we are so proud of her and so excited for her to move into her future. I've taken the week off from work, though, just in case!

So that's what's going on . . . I'll try to come back here more often in the next few days and let you know what I've been thinking about.

Today's verdict

2011-07-05T22:24:00.003-05:00

I have no idea if Casey Anthony killed her daughter and if she did, what the circumstances were. I know that serving on a jury is really hard work and making those kinds of decisions is much harder than it looks. I also know that everything I learned about group dynamics in grad school applies to juries and then some and so I'm always far more interested in how juries make their decisions than I am in the specific decisions they make. I do have a couple of thoughts about today's verdict, though.

First of all, I'm incredibly ambivalent about crime-as-entertainment. I understand the fascination of the true crime genre, especially in today's 24 hour news cycle. When I come home exhausted at night ready to channel-surf, Dateline or 48 Hours Mystery can seem really appealing, especially since I don't follow many dramas or reality shows and I don't want to think about more complicated issues like debt limits and campaign finance reform.

I feel bad about it, though. I finally stopped watching those shows (mostly) because they were just too sad for me. People's lives are irreparably devastated and the criminal justice system doesn't always work (more often working against the defendant than for him/her) and even though it's interesting, it's just too sad. Sometimes I'm reminded of my uncle's murder and how interesting that story would be as a true-crime mystery (he just disappeared) . . . yet I would be so sad to see his death or his family's pain trivialized that way. Watching Casey Anthony's broken family faced with a Sophie's Choice every time they stepped onto the witness stand just hurt . . . and yet I watched every morning during my workout.

The other thing that struck me when I heard about the verdict was the memory of a conversation I had with Boo just this morning. We were talking about HLN's dramatic "Verdict Watch" and I said to Boo, "I wish they'd just go to the rest of the news instead of obsessing about this. There is no way that the jury will come back today; there's just too much testimony to go through and too many scenarios to consider. If the jury comes back today, it will be an emotional verdict. If they come back today, they didn't do their job." That's the first thing I thought of when I heard the news from a friend's text expressing disbelief and asking my opinion.

Talking to myself

2011-07-05T10:30:00.003-05:00

I'm not really posting this for you, although I hope you enjoy it. I'm really putting it here for myself, to remind myself about what I believe about crucial conversations between people who love God and claim to love each other. This is from an article on the Huffington Post by Dr. Janet Edwards (you can read the whole article here, but this is the heart of it):

Approach the other person as a beloved child of God. See Christ in the eyes of the other person. Set aside every presumption you may have about him or her except that God loves this other, just like God loves you. This is often a mystery for me that our talk with help solve.

Trust deeply that the Holy Spirit has a word for you both. Watch carefully for the gift God has for you in your exchange with this other. It probably will not be the same gift for both of you. It will most likely be a still, small voice so you must listen hard for it.

Try hard to see things from the other's point of view. Ask questions like: "This is what I hear you saying, is that correct?" or: "I want to make sure I get what you mean, is this what you said?" My own convictions have been strengthened many times by testing them against the other's heartfelt words.

Watch for those things upon which you both agree and highlight them. This can often lead to some struggle because being in agreement is foreign to us and we resist it. Still, it can be very healing to get up at the end of your conversation to go your different ways having acknowledged some things upon which you agree. It's also a great way to start an ongoing dialogue. Can we agree that our goal is Loving God, or Loving Neighbor? These are the seeds from which further discussion can blossom.

The goal is to keep the conversation going. Talking shouldn't be seen as a means to an end. Talking is a sole purpose in and of itself. For this reason, I often do not share my position with the other person (It's well known anyway). I simply take in what the other is saying and seek the best way to prompt another response from the other by sharing of my self or asking a question that has occurred to me.
There is one crucial dynamic in all of these tips required to make this work: Nothing that the other says to you is about you personally. The other person speaks only from his or her ideas and so you need not take anything that person says as true about you. I am often disappointed and challenged by what the other says but I am usually not hurt or angered by it.

I got to thinking: what if we took on these principles for conversations with those who disagree with us or those we disagree with or . . . gasp . . . our spouses and in-laws and children? Anyway, this is for me but I'm happy for you to read over my shoulder.

Good Times

2011-07-02T13:36:00.006-05:00

25 years ago this year, C was called to be the Minister to College Students at FBC Woodway in Waco, Texas. At the time, we were first year seminary students and newlyweds living in Ft. Worth where C worked at an art gallery and I worked at a vet clinic. (I'll pause here for you to regain your composure.) I was 21 when we went to Waco, the age of the seniors in the group, and C was 22. We were so excited about the opportunity to go back to our alma mater and serve students during our seminary years. The position paid $500 per month and I made about $400 working as a housekeeper for a Baylor professor so the grand total was $900, which was what we were making in Ft. Worth. C's parents gave us a gas card to help us with the commute and for the next 30 months, we drove to Ft. Worth and back four days a week for school. C eventually got a pay raise to $900 but I had to stop working in order to do my counseling practicum, so it turned out that we had a $900 income for the rest of our seminary years.

(That's me, on the bottom row on the left.)

We threw ourselves into college ministry with passion. C continued the annual ski trip but added at least one mission trip, taking students to Egypt and Korea and Tennessee and McAllen. He added an immensely effective discipleship and spiritual formation process for students and made the Sunday School hour into a weekly highlight for many students. He placed students into key leadership positions, mentored them as he gave them responsibility and created a community of leaders that was able to create an innovative and effective ministry with few resources. One of the crown jewels of the ministry was the annual College Camp, which brought roughly 100 students together for fun, spiritual formation and community. This is true: he started the job in 1986 standing on a chair talking to 40 students with a Mr. Microphone and ended in 1994 with a ministry to hundreds and a real sound system.

We went back to Waco last weekend for a reunion of that last group of kids in the early nineties. As we sat around talking about their college years, they began to reminisce about their church experience, saying things like, "We had community before anyone even called it that," and "We learned to serve others," and "We always felt accepted and loved, like a home away from home," and "It was a place of grace." Those were some of the best years of our lives. Both our kids were born during that time. We learned that a baby shower given by college students was a lot of fun but that you mostly got stuffed animals. We always had babysitters, especially if we would let them do their laundry at our house. We loved every minute of it.

The best part of the reunion was watching our "kids" with each other, reliving their memories and their renewing their friendships. We watched grainy old videos filmed with gigantic video cameras and edited before digital editing equipment even existed for ordinary people. The next best part of the reunion was hearing about their lives today--meeting their spouses (although several of them married each other) and their kids and hearing about their jobs and their churches and their families.

Well, duh

2011-06-22T18:11:00.002-05:00

If you know me very well, you know that I spend a lot of time thinking about managing self--I write about it, teach about it, work on it in my own personal life. Managing self in the midst of anxiety is pretty much all there is, the north star of emotional maturity and the holy grail of relationships. In case you don't know, I think about it a lot.

If you know me at all, you know that I obsess about time, especially time management. I'm always on the quest for something--a new app, a unique calendar, an organizational system, anything that will help me beat time into submission, allowing me to be more productive, more efficient, somehow be able to do it all.

So when I read a friend's email last week, an email in which he casually mentioned that he was learning to "manage self in time," I almost gasped. Well of course! How had I missed that?

The next day, I had a spiritual direction appointment with Joyce, who knows all about my obsession with time and often gently nudges me to think about time differently. So as I described my epiphany ("You don't just manage self! And you can't really manage time! You have to manage your self in time!"), she smiled her knowing smile and asked me how this new revelation changed things for me. Well. "It changes everything, doesn't it? I mean, time can't be managed, right? It's a GIFT, not a commodity, right? So, it has to be received, not battled as an enemy . . . and if time is a gift, then I'm not a victim! So, I just have to keep learning to manage my self . . . in TIME! This changes everything!" And bless her heart if she didn't just sit and smile like I was a well-loved toddler just figuring out how the light switch works.

So sometimes I learn things that I should have already known, things that are so simple and yet so profound . . . and then, by the next day, I've half forgotten it and get to learn it all over again another day.

One of those days

2011-06-22T17:47:00.002-05:00

There's a small place tucked away inside of me that pretty much stays sad about the ways people hurt each other, all the predictable and unnecessary ways they hurt the ones they love. I just kind of know that place is there (I used to didn't know) and I tend to it from time to time with comfort and kindness. Today was one of those days . . . a little melancholy, a mix of sadness and hope for the couples I love, a tiny prayer for the heartbreaking fragility of their marriages.

When I was a teenager, my boyfriend and I found a tiny gray kitten and brought it home to my house. We put towels in a box and laid the kitten in it and the kitten was so tiny in the box so we found a smaller box and laid the kitten in it instead. For a whole afternoon and evening, we took turns holding the kitten. I don't think it was a newborn because it was furry and its eyes were open but it was small enough to lay curled in the palm of my hand, with its chest heaving and its eyes half-closed. We tried to feed it but it didn't even have the strength to lick the milk that beaded on its upper lip. My boyfriend was a good guy and I think he knew what was coming because he took the kitten home with him that night and then came back the next morning to tell me it had died.

Working with couples in crisis makes me feel the same way that I felt that day with the kitten--holding something so fragile, so tiny, so full of hope and yet in so much pain. As we work together, I can feel myself rooting for them, celebrating the wins, reassuring them through the losses . . . and the vast majority of them weather the storm and dig really deep and manage to somehow make it work. But some don't . . . and even the ones who do bear the scars.

When a marriage dies, I'm reminded of my time as a healthcare chaplain, visiting the dying and sitting with their families by the bedside waiting for the inevitable. When a marriage recovers, though, the joy is deep and quiet and often comes with as many tears. I'm genuinely amazed by the resilience and the courage that so many couples have and I'm grateful for the opportunities I have to work with them--whether the marriage survives or not. I talked with C briefly today and mentioned that I was feeling melancholy about this and he said, "I'm so sorry, sweetheart; you didn't ask for this." And then we both laughed as we realized that I absolutely did ask for this and that I wouldn't trade it for anything. But some days I need to tend the place where the sadness is and today was one of those days.

Learning Curve

2011-06-08T15:38:00.003-05:00

Here's something I learned last month: It blesses the world to do something you really love, to do it badly if that's the only way you can do it, to do it in public, and to do it with joy. It's a subversive act against the perfectionistic, shame-based culture we live in. It takes a lot of courage but people who do it open up all kinds of possibilities for the rest of us.

Congratulations, Boo!

2011-06-03T09:14:00.005-05:00

In honor of Boo's graduation yesterday, I want to share an excerpt from a letter that her favorite teacher wrote for her when she needed a recommendation for a scholarship application:

Boo is a gift. She is what all teachers dream for--a child who is incredibly kind and who loves to learn . . . As much as any student i teach, Boo loves to learn. She listens and asks great questions. She is the most voracious reader I teach. She is never without a book and I don't mean a boring textbook. She has probably read half the books in the school library. Her qualities of kindness and compassion surpass her schoolwork. She is without guile or vengeance or prejudice. She is quietly kind to everyone. Her manners are flawless and she has the most beautiful smile. I feel certain she will work for humanity throughout her life and I am honored to be asked to write for her."

Yesterday was a big day for all of us as Boo walked across the stage and received her high school diploma. Many of the readers of this blog know what an accomplishment that was for all of us as you have loved and supported her (and us) for years--we are so grateful for all of you as well. Most of all, we are so proud of you, Boo and we love you so much.

From Demetri Martin

2011-05-27T08:02:00.002-05:00

Every cloud has a silver lining.
Right. Okay.
And, tell me again how a silver lining helps me?

Summer has begun!

2011-05-27T07:54:00.002-05:00

It's summer! Not really, I guess, but for all practical purposes. Remember how the end of the last day of school used to feel when you were a kid? That's how I feel, starting yesterday about 6:00. The challenges of the spring have been met and completed and I have three months stretching ahead of me with a manageable work schedule, little travel, family and friends and the opportunity to have some fun.

As I look at my calendar, I see that Mowgli comes home tonight for a week, Boo graduates in just a few days. There's a party on the calendar along with some down time. Weekends are mostly free and the weeks aren't crazy-busy. There are opportunities to spend time with friends and to go see family and to stay home and piddle. I can even see how exercise and prayer could be part of the routine.

I love summer!

A prayer for an epic life

2011-05-16T10:59:00.002-05:00

This prayer was shared with me by my colleague Barry Click. It was first prayed by Steve Shoemaker.

May God give us grace
not to sell ourselves short,
Grace to risk something big
for something good,
Grace
to remember that the world
is now too dangerous
for anything but truth
and too small
for anything but love.

So may God take our minds
and think through them.
May God take our lips
and speak through them.
May God take our hearts
and set them on FIRE.

Memories

2011-05-16T10:52:00.002-05:00

I had breakfast last week with a colleague from my days as a beginner therapist at the Samaritan Center in Waco. The full-time counselors at that Center nurtured my early professional development, helped me navigate the credentialing process with AAPC, gave me excellent supervision and emotional support and deeply shaped my professional and ministerial identity. My memories of that time are not perfect but they are good and satisfying and I'm full of gratitude as I reflect on them.

Besides gratitude, I'm also full of the awareness that it's my turn now. It's my turn to reach back and nurture those who are coming up behind me professionally and in "real life." It's my turn to pour into a younger generation, to make sure they have what they need to flourish, to share with them my connections with other wonderful people who can also support and nourish them. I'm not sure at what age you become the "elder" but I'm pretty sure I'm past it!

It's only fair

2011-05-09T07:06:00.002-05:00

In my opinion, it's only fair to deny a president (any president, any party) credit for a decision when things go well if you are absolutely sure that you wouldn't have blamed the president for the decision if things had not gone well.

It's complicated

2011-05-07T10:37:00.003-05:00

It happened again this week but, honestly, I see it almost every week in one form or another. Here's the pattern:

Husband has a habitual "way of being" in marriage that is deeply painful to Wife. It's almost always some variation of selfishness or passiveness and it is firmly entrenched. Wife spends years trying to change Husband--begging, pleading, raging, distancing, praying, threatening, withholding, blaming--to no avail. Husband typically sees Wife as the problem and focuses on her reactions to his selfishness or passiveness.

Finally, Wife has had enough. She visits a lawyer and starts divorce proceedings or she moves Husband's stuff into a guest bedroom or she has a nervous breakdown or she and the kids move in with her parents. She is d-o-n-e. Husband is devastated. He reaches out to people who can help him and begins a genuine and thorough process of transformation. He stops the selfish behavior. He overcomes his passiveness and reaches out to her in new and touching ways, even if she doesn't respond. He becomes everything Wife ever wanted him to be.

Now she is stuck. Everyone says to her, "Wow! It worked! He's changed! And it's so genuine!" HIs friends and family will come to her and beg her to take him back. Their pastor will probably come and plead Husband's case. Even her friends and family will question why she's not happier than she is.

If she continues to move away from him, she becomes the bad guy. Before, no one blamed her; now, everyone will. But if she reconciles with him, she will always be profoundly aware of one thing: He didn't change for her. He didn't care, all of those years, about her loneliness, her sadness, her pleading that she couldn't live this way. It wasn't her pain that changed him. It was his.

If she stays--unless she also digs deep and finds some transformation of her own--that awareness will be the background music of their lives together and she will be the only one who can hear it.

My hero

2011-04-18T20:33:00.002-05:00

So what is it about Holy Week and snakes?!! C killed a three-foot garden snake in the garage today. My hero!

"Is it . . . Saaatann?" ~the Church Lady

Happy Tax Day

2011-04-18T15:49:00.003-05:00

I'm celebrating Tax Day today (Friday was a holiday in DC, in case you weren't paying attention.) I'm celebrating roads and hospitals and law enforcement and libraries. I'm celebrating being part of a nation that builds safety nets for the elderly and the disabled and the poor. I'm celebrating clean air and clean water and safe food. I'm celebrating that we value educating all our children and not just those whose parents can and will pay. Even though I'm sometimes uneasy, today I'm celebrating our national defense and the security we have at home and abroad. I'm also celebrating earthquake relief in Haiti and mosquito netting in Africa. I'm celebrating space flight and energy programs and national parks.

You've heard that government is the word we use for the things we decide to do together. I think it's worth celebrating one day a year.

Are we having fun yet?

2011-04-16T21:59:00.004-05:00

Well, nobody's taking the T-bird away around here anytime soon.

At lunch on Thursday, I mentioned to C what I had been thinking lately: "We're not having fun." I thought he would tell me about how much fun we have together as a family and I was going to say that what we have is a joyful way of being and what I'm talking about is something different. But what he said was, "I know."

He went on to say that as two ordained ministers with demanding jobs, we aren't always very good at having fun ourselves or with each other. So we've been talking about that for three days now, culminating in long conversation at dinner and then later on a walk.

So what would be fun? Festivals are fun. Creativity is fun (that's Boo's contribution.) Dancing and hammocks and learning new things at a leisurely pace are all fun. Sampling all the food trailers in south Austin would be fun. Having a party would be super-fun (my contribution) but getting ready for it might not be. Going to someone else's party--with food, dancing and all our favorite people--would probably be more fun. Going for walks in interesting places--that was C's idea of fun--along with going to movies and listening to live music. He has tickets for Cage the Elephant in May so that will be fun for him and Mowgli. We're going to San Antonio for two nights later this month, which will also be very fun. Reading an interesting book together with all my friends and then talking about it--fun. Cooking something new for fun would be fun. (Cooking for my family at the end of a long day at work--not so fun.) Playing in the backyard with the kids in the kiddie pool and the sprinkler used to be lots of fun. Having all of us back together this summer will be fun, even just for a little while.

I've decided that we are really blessed that we all have such meaningful lives. I'm truly grateful. But what I'm really craving these days is fun . . . and committing to step outside the productivity routine a little bit to find it.

Happy birthday, Mowgli!

2011-04-03T21:08:00.003-05:00

21 years ago, I became a mother. It was a long, hard day and also one of the very best. I could not have imagined then what my life would be--what it would be like to "have my heart go walking around outside my body," as Evelyn Underhill has said. I couldn't have imagined what the sacrifices would be or what the joys would be or how much one would compensate for the other. I didn't really understand that I would become a different person, that I wouldn't be my old self, only with a baby, but that I would become a new person, one that would completely contain the old person but would also never be the same.

The best work I've ever done is being a mom. I wasn't a natural mommy but I worked so hard at it, I got really good at it. I'll be forever grateful for that day 21 years ago when Mowgli made me a mom.

More musings about hell but not really

2011-03-21T22:07:00.004-05:00

I listened to a podcast today in which a well-known pastor offered a really articulate sermon about hell, in response to Rob Bell's new book on the same subject. His thinking was nicely expressed, nuanced, and thoroughly orthodox, built mostly around the parable about the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16.

Please understand, I enjoyed the sermon and I think it was well done. However, about 2/3 of the way into it, I could just imagine Jesus smacking his forehead with the palm of his hand and saying, "Um, guys? That wasn't a theological treatise about hell. It was a really poignant story about who God loves and what really matters. I think you missed the whole point." Maybe he even muttered under his breath, "I don't know why I even bother . . . "

As scary as it is to contemplate the doctrine of hell, it is even scarier to take this parable at face value--it's a story about a man who is in hell because . . . well, because he is rich and lived a comfortable life. Jesus doesn't say that he is wicked or that he failed to "pray the prayer" when given a chance. Jesus' point is that he got his good life on earth, oblivious to the needs of others, and that Lazarus the beggar is given his chance at the good life in heaven after he dies.

Don't get me wrong--because I believe that this is a poignant story and not a soteriological treatise, I believe that God's grace extends to all, even the rich and clueless. But as a person who is clearly rich and comfortable and lives a pretty luxurious life, I'm very unsettled by the parable and its challenge to me and my lifestyle. I'm also deeply grateful that God is the kind of God who values the life of a sore-covered beggar as much or even more than he values mine. (The preacher points out that Lazarus is ironically named--that Jesus and his sense of humor!--and is the only character in any of Jesus' stories who is given a name.)

To complicate things even further, an hour after I listened to the podcast, I was dashing into Walgreens to get Advil and a young man approached me with a tentative story about needing money because of something having to do with his girlfriend . . . I didn't give him any money, but I did drive away feeling even more unsettled than I was before.

I love this!

2011-03-21T09:49:00.002-05:00

The latest controversy

2011-03-17T20:40:00.003-05:00

My friend and I were talking the other day and he said, "All I know is, if I get to heaven and Ghandi's not there, I'm going to be confused. And if Hitler is there, I'm going to be confused." A conversation ensued that has been rattling around in my head since then.

If you have your ear to the ground at all, you know that evangelical Christians are worked up about Rob Bell's new book "Love Wins." Some famous evangelicals have been flippant and rude. Others have launched complex theological treatises. It even came up in my Sunday School class this week (during the prayer request time, actually), so I'm going to say a few things about it. I may come back and say a few more things about it later. Or not.

1. I haven't read the book. Until yesterday, neither had most of the people who were commenting on it. Whether they loved it or hated it, they hadn't actually seen it.

2. Several people have suggested reading it along with another orthodox book on the same subject. I've decided to read N. T. Wright's book, Surprised By Hope. Being pretty firmly non-Calvinist, it makes sense that I would read Wright. Besides, I've been really wanting to pick it up and this bumps it to the top of the list. (As an aside, the "list" is literal--there are about 350 books on my amazon.com wish list.)

3. I love the title. Whatever the book is about, the title is absolutely, 100 percent true. That's the heart of the gospel: Love Wins.

4. Whatever this particular book has to say about heaven and hell, we all need to acknowledge that our thinking about eternal bliss and damnation is far more influenced by medieval art and Roman Catholic theology from the middle ages than any of us realize. If this helps us begin a conversation about biblical thought--in the biblical context--it will be a blessing.

5. Lots of people have had lots to say about this. Quite a few people have had some really thought-provoking, interesting, meaningful things to say. Here are a few: this one from a non-evangelical source and this one from a top emerging church thinker and this one from CT, which is a pretty mainstream ecumenical/evangelical source.

6. Whatever you think about what this book has to say about heaven and hell, don't forget how to act, okay? As my mother liked to say, "We can disagree agreeably." As the apostle Paul liked to say, "Speaking the truth in love . . . " Just because we disagree--and we will--doesn't mean we have to lose our minds and our salvation, you know?

Working out

2011-03-05T22:13:00.003-06:00

There is nothing in this world that can bring my insecurity to the surface like going to the gym. Not public speaking (which would be second), not parenting, not church, nothing. Well, actually, going to an art class probably would. Or dating, which thankfully, I don't have to do. But I digress.

I am not an athletic person. I'm not a person who likes to sweat. Or move much, actually. I'm too addicted to productivity to be a couch potato but I am definitely sedentary. I was that kid that walked around running into walls because I had my nose in a book (and because, frankly, I just wasn't very coordinated.)

There was a brief time when I was a little girl when I could earn extra allowance from my parents just for playing outside. I liked playing outside, though. I liked playing "Little House on the Prairie" because it was a book. Our gym set was the house, with the girls' loft on top of the monkey bars. Our bikes were horses and we pretended we had a covered wagon. As I recall, it wasn't a terribly active game, consisting mainly of standing around acting out scenes from the book. I think my friends must have been as dorky as I was.

So going to the gym is as far out of my comfort zone as I can go. I don't like the clothes you wear to the gym--t-shirt and athletic pants--because in the rest of my life, clothes like that are called "pajamas." I don't like the feeling of confusion I get looking at all the equipment or the looks of confusion I get from other people when I'm doing it wrong. Don't even think for a minute that I'm going to tell that story. I don't like the huge mirrors they put all over everything. If I liked what I saw in the mirror, I wouldn't be going to the stupid gym, okay?

Today, I did the 30-minute circuit, partly because the only other person doing it was middle-aged and overweight like me. Then "Brunette Barbie" joined us--20 years younger, with her long ponytail, size 4 on a "fat day," doing her kickboxing and her deep lunges and that move where you jump up on the step with both feet, then jump back down and repeat for one minute. Without falling. Or dying. The other woman looked at me with a sad little look of defeat. I tried to smile encouragingly.

I think it's great that Brunette Barbie looks so great and is so strong and so healthy. I not only envy her, I admire her. I just wish she'd take her fabulous self over to the part of the gym where the fabulous people go and leave us in peace. But seriously, I didn't give up. And I didn't change the amount of weight I was using on the machines after I finished, to make her think I was using more weight than I was. I was pretty proud of myself. Maybe I'll go back someday.

We are family

2011-02-18T21:19:00.003-06:00

Through the years, I've noticed how families will sacrifice deeply for their most vulnerable members. Parents will forego every luxury to care for a disabled child into adulthood. Children will put their lives on hold to care for ill, elderly parents. Grandparents regularly give up their golden years to take in young grandchildren whose parents can't or won't care for them.

That's what we do in families. But as a state, as a nation, as a society, we apparently don't share that same commitment. Instead, when it's time to sacrifice, we ask the most vulnerable among us to sacrifice first. The wealthy among us refuse to contribute at the rate they did during the Reagan administration, demanding ongoing and increasing tax cuts. The powerful among us continue to spout partisan sound bites to protect their special interests while demanding that others bear the burden of sacrifice. And the rest of us let it happen .

And so, as we are facing the necessity of budget cuts--and no one disputes the necessity of budget cuts-what do we propose to cut first? On the state level, it's the mentally disabled adult in a group home or the uninsured handicapped child who is asked to sacrifice first. On the national level, it's families without health insurance and women and children who lack the basic necessities of life.

Meanwhile, the rights of the unborn are receiving a great deal of attention (as they should), while the needs of the already born are minimized. The battle cry is "personal responsibility!" Yet, how is an elderly man whose savings have run out due to the unforeseen cost of a nursing home supposed to take personal responsibility? How about a mentally retarded middle aged woman whose group home is the only home she has known since she left her parents' home? How about a preschooler with cystic fibrosis with loving parents who could never cover the cost of lifesaving drugs?

I long for us to remember that we are a family. I pray for the growing realization that if we don't take care of the most vulnerable among us, we have failed our values and our God. I hope that we will decide to share the burden--all of us together, contributing what we can--to create safety nets (yes, even government safety nets) for those who otherwise have none.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T20:15:00.002-06:00

21 years ago, we cancelled Valentine's Day. We were young and newly married and had what we could euphemistically call "differences" about what Valentine's Day was supposed to be about, culminating in the year I asked for a teddy bear and got a stuffed Tasmanian Devil instead. I decided then that instead of being pissed off every February 14th, I would acknowledge that C is pretty darn romantic most of the year and let him off the hook on Valentine's Day. It was a great decision.

This year, though, we've been missing each other a lot and C decided to reinstate Valentine's Day. Nothing fancy, but pretty perfect--lots of sweet words, an early steak dinner (to beat the crowds), a card, candy, a gift. It's been a really lovely night.

As always, though, our lives are punctuated by humor and silliness. Here's a conversation we had when I walked in from work tonight:

C: What's that? (pointing to a small bag of candy in my briefcase)

Me: A client gave me these . . . they're just like Reese's but waay better.

C: They can't be better than Reese's!

Me: Seriously, they're sooo much better. The chocolate is creamier and the peanut butter just melts in your mouth.

C: long pause But if someone got you some Reese's candy for Valentine's Day, you wouldn't think these were better, would you?

How was I supposed to know that Reese's now makes a heart-shaped box of candy? So here's my official opinion: the Reese's are better because they taste like love. (But the others are creamier . . . just sayin')

Mary and Martha

2011-02-02T13:32:00.003-06:00

Two of my favorite Bible characters are Mary and Martha and the glimpse they give us into Jesus' domestic life and his friendships. I've always loved the way Jesus gives Mary--a woman!--a place at the table, or more exactly, a place of learning at his feet. I've always wondered, though, why Jesus didn't affirm Martha as well. On the Sojourners blog, I just read in one of the comments to an article about the two sisters: "If Mary had been the one to complain, Jesus would have said, "Well, Mary, someone has to fry the chicken.'" That made me laugh! Probably we shouldn't speculate, but it makes sense to me!

Hangin' out with the Quakers

2011-01-26T08:51:00.002-06:00

Here are just a few more photos from the last few days. This is The Hut--the small building used for campus ministry at Guilford College. I think I remember hearing that it's the oldest building on campus (mid-nineteenth century) and it's essentially a large room with sofas and old chairs and a rag rug and a big, woodburning fireplace. Students gather there and drink coffee and think deep thoughts and then discuss them. I was there for 25 minutes of silent Quaker worship, led a discussion on dating and marriage with about a dozen students, and attended a class on Quaker theology, contributing when the teacher asked me to.

This is a picture of another on-campus space for campus worship. You can see the simplicity of Quaker spaces--the pews are all hard and the walls are bare. I preached here on Sunday and attended a Taize service last night.
One of the things Mowgli loves best about this school is its outdoor space. I walked and talked with one of the students and this is where we went. It's a small lake a short walk away from campus (owned by the college) surrounded by woods. I don't know if you can tell, but parts of the lake are covered in ice. There are Canadian geese everywhere. Apparently they are nuisances but they're truly beautiful birds.
This morning, I slept til I woke up, worked for awhile, and will meet Mowgli in a few minutes to eat lunch, buy a few groceries (that's what moms do!) and head to the airport. It's been a good trip.

My most recent adventure

2011-01-23T20:51:00.008-06:00

I'm in Greensboro, NC where Mowgli goes to school, as the guest for the Religious Emphasis Week for his school. Mowgli picked me up at the airport and said he was ready to just hang out with me for the rest of the day. I, however, knew that the Guilford College Fighting Quakers were playing the number two team in the nation, the undefeated Virginia Wesleyan somethings so I suggested that we go to the game. Guilford won the game with pure grit and teamwork in the last 6 seconds . . . and I get to be the hero for making sure Mowgli got to go.

This morning, I preached at First Friends Meeting in Guilford, a historic, semi-programmed, "Christ-Centered, universalist" Quaker meeting here. The pastor told me, "People tell me we feel Methodist" and I think she's right . . . Methodist 40 years ago! The people were absolutely lovely and I had a wonderful experience. There is as much dissent and disagreement among Quakers as you find in any other denomination and I've been told that First Friends is in the center of the continuum between conservative ("practically snake-handling," I've been told) and liberal (humanist, even nontheist).

Tonight, we had a wonderful, organic homemade dinner at the home of Max and Jane. Max is the Campus Minister at Guilford (a Quaker school) and is an answer to our prayers. He is joyful, brilliant, funny, spiritual, and he follows Jesus. Jane is all those things too and meeting them both--and knowing what a blessing they've been in Mowgli's life--was a wonderful privilege. After dinner, Jane popped popcorn on the stove, the old fashioned way and set out tea and homemade brownies and oranges for about a dozen students who came to talk about vocation and calling and leadership as part of their Quakerism class. They asked me to tell my story, which I did as authentically as I could and I think it was a rich blessing for all of us.

More thoughts

2011-01-10T21:42:00.003-06:00

I'm reading a wonderful and disturbing book about the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer right now. I'm reading it slowly because it is suspenseful (even though we all know how it ends) and because it holds up a mirror for me to evaluate my own courage, my own commitments, my own culture. I'm only up to 1938 but the writing is already on the wall--German culture finally slid into insanity because Christians were unwilling and unable to play the prophetic role that their times demanded.

In that light, I refer you back to one of my favorite blogs because, as she often does, Peacebang says what I want to say better than I can say it. Please read it here--it's worth two minutes of your time. And even if you don't read it, just let your mind linger on the painting. I've never seen this one before and I find it absolutely heartbreaking.

Life is political

2011-01-10T08:36:00.003-06:00

Some people are reminding us that we don't yet know if the Arizona gunman's motives were political. We do know that he made political statements online and called his shooting an "assassination." At the same time, we know that his writings were incoherent and that he was mentally unstable.

That brings us to another way, however, that this whole thing is actually political: the way we care for the mentally ill. It's a complex problem that can't realistically be solved. At the same time, it could be so much better and the reason it isn't is completely political. We could have well-funded options for health-care for the mentally ill but we don't because funding for the weak and powerless is always the first to be cut--that's a political worldview that dominates in my state. I don't know who is more powerless than a person who is mentally ill unless maybe it's the loving family member of that person.

Some things just aren't okay

2011-01-09T21:05:00.003-06:00

In light of the weekend tragedy in Arizona, one of my favorite bloggers (a UU pastor in Massachusetts) wrote, "In a world where all of us are interconnected, there is no such thing as a lone gunman."

I know many people who are big fans of Sarah Palin who would never advocate real violence but who are completely unfazed by the war-related and gun-related rhetoric. I've never understood it and now I really don't. I'll just leave you with this quote:

“Sarah Palin has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district and when people do that, they’ve gotta realize there are consequences to that action.” - Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

A different view of Guatemala

2011-01-03T16:21:00.009-06:00

I knew when I decided to go to Guatemala that I would see poverty at a level I had never seen before in person. I didn't know how it would affect me and I was fairly anxious about it. It's not that I'm not keenly aware of the poverty in my own city or around the world but there is a kind of poverty that I knew I had never seen personally.

Before I try to tell you about some of that, I want to stress something: Guatemala is a beautiful country. Its natural beauty is breathtaking. The people are beautiful, too. This is the view from the roof of the home where we were staying--the long distance view of the city and the mountains beyond. The way the story was told to me, this neighborhood was designed to be a working-class neighborhood, mainly for refugees from the US-backed civil war that convulsed Guatemala for decades. Homeowners are really homesteaders--anyone could have the land if they would build a home there, just like in the American West. The homes they built were concrete, built around a courtyard, comfortable, middle-class.

Unfortunately, there were several unintended consequences of this. One, there was not adequate infrastructure or systemic stability to support this community. You've seen this photo before but I'm using it again here to illustrate this lack of systemic community support.

This school is in utter ruin--and hundreds of children from kindergarten through 8th grade attend school there every day. Thanks to the fundraising efforts of my friend JTH and his partnership with Pastor Jorge, the school now has electricity paid for through the school year. However, the school can only accomodate a fraction of the children who live in the neighborhood and private schools are prohibitively expensive (although ridiculously cheap by US standards.)

Another thing that happened was that while many of the homesteaders built comfortable homes, others were unable to maintain the homes they built and still others came as squatters. Rusty corrugated tin is everywhere--forming the roofs of many concrete buildings and then erected between buildings to house squatters and the desperately poor. Remember, although city utilities are available, the people in these photos have neither electricity nor running water. (A government water truck comes along once a week and fills the barrel outside each door, providing water for the family that lives there for one week.) This photo was taken from the roof of the home where I stayed:

Although the home I stayed in was a comfortable two-story duplex, the photo above and the one below were taken one morning from the roof. Above, you can see the makeshift tin shacks that abut the concrete buildings. Below, you can see an old woman looking through the trash on a small hillside next to the home where we stayed. (Our photographer Juli stood behind a post to take this photo, not wanting to disturb her or objectify her.) She found several salvageable items (I don't know what) and put them in her plastic bag.

This photo was taken in the parking lot of a strip center. The boy is shining the shoes of a police officer. I was told that there are thousands of homeless children on the streets of Guatemala City and that they often shine shoes to make enough money to eat.

This is Brian. Brian is 15 years old, very bright (he won second-place in a city-wide contest to sit on the Guatemalan supreme court for a day). He plays in the church's praise band and is on the church's dance team. He is shy but likes to speak English with visitors when encouraged. He is one of the brightest spots in this story because although he and his three siblings were abandoned by their parents, he was "adopted" by the grandmother in my last post and has stayed in school and involved with his surrogate family in the church. However, free public education ended for Brian in December when he finished 8th grade. JTH put his story on Facebook and in one hour, a generous American had committed to pay for Brian to attend high school for four years--to the tune of $500 per year. Thanks to this benefactor, Brian will finish high school and have a chance at a different life.

The contrast between the kind of poverty that we saw in the slums of Guatemala and the surrounding, growing middle class is stark (as it is in our own country.) After decades of civil war, Guatemala is now a place where capitalism is given free reign (some great stories there) and where many people have a real chance at a better quality of life. This photo was taken on the edge of the slum where a local business has put up nice condominiums for its middle class workers to live in. The tin shacks and the new construction are separated by a fence, not a wall, which is both sad and hopeful.

It remains to be seen whether the emerging middle class will live in fear of the poor and isolate themselves or whether it will reach back and bring the rest of the country along with it. I guess that remains to be seen here, too.

I want to write about the emotional impact of these images but I'm not sure that I can yet. Although my heart felt very tender and I often felt melancholy, I never cried, although what I saw deserved tears. More feelings than words, more questions than answers . . .

Meet Jorge and Annie

2010-12-31T11:52:00.008-06:00

In order to understand the work of Ciudad del Refugio and the reason for our trip to Guatemala City, you need to meet Pastors Jorge and Annie. You need to see them in tireless action: preaching, leading small groups, feeding hungry alcoholics, caring for their children and grandchildren, organizing an always expanding household, praying, and always, always smiling. Here is Jorge, talking with a group of men during one of the parenting classes I taught. And here is Annie, encouraging her group of young women and children during the same parenting class:

You also need to know about their lives before they moved to the slums and started this church. Jorge was pastor of a middle-class Baptist church that didn't want to hear his prophetic message about caring for the poor, so he left. He told us that the biggest problem in Guatemala is that the middle-class is so afraid of the poor people that surround them and they tend to consolidate their newfound power by building gated communities and clustering themselves in middle class enclaves.

Jorge is a wonderful communicator, whether he is preaching or encouraging or making announcements or counseling. He clearly cares deeply about the people in his congregation
as well as the other pastors he connects and mentors. He is extroverted but not overwhelming, energetic but not manic, intense but in an engaging way. Before he began this church, he served a church in this run-down neighborhood but they, too, saw church as a way to avoid the needs of the neighborhood, not to move toward them. He and Annie left there, too.

Annie is a true Proverbs 31 woman--not in the "Christian Martha Stewart" way that is often idealized in evangelical culture--but as a powerful force of feminine love. On the day that this picture was taken, Annie was managing a crisis: four young children had been abandoned by their mother who wanted the church to take care of them while she pursued her own life. Apparently, this had happened before and on this occasion, Annie went to court to ask a judge to give her guardianship over the children. This took several hours out of an already jam-packed day; I honestly don't know how she did it. The judge ruled ambivalently: the children would be returned to the mother but she would only be given one more chance to keep custody of them. Annie was discouraged and disappointed but trusting God.

To really understand this story, you need to know an earlier, mores surprising story. This one takes us to the jungle of El Salvador where Jorge and Annie met, when he was a teenaged guerilla leader and she was part of his security detail. They fell in love and escaped with only their lives after a price was placed on Jorge's head. They went first to Mexico and then to Guatemala with a young daughter and Annie's mother. Somewhere in the middle of those adventures, while they were separated from each other, each came to know Jesus in a personal, life-changing way. They went on to seminary together and continue to be deeply in love, caring for their own children and grandchildren as well as the children and young adults that God brings them.

Hospitality

2010-12-28T08:42:00.004-06:00

As I said before, the main reason I went to Guatemala was to continue my search for the answers to the questions "What is a missional community and how do you create one?" I had heard quite a bit about the work that Jorge and Annie were doing in Guatemala City and that it took place in the context of authentic missional community and I wanted to see it for myself.

So, what is a missional community? On the simplest level, we start with a group of people who are deeply committed to each other, to God, and to the world. Then we see that group of people learn to share life together (no lone ranger Christians, after all) and learn to reach purposefully into God's world to bring the light of God into dark places. All those biblical ideals like unity and sacrificial giving and unconditional love and so on are given a place to come to life.

It's easier to look at the world and say what missional community is not. It's harder to find places where it is actually lived out and describe what it is. That's what I wanted to do in Guatemala. I'll write more later this week about the story of Ciudad de Refugio and Jorge and Annie Cerritos.

On the most fundamental level, missional community--and in fact, satisfying life itself--seems to be about hospitality. I don't mean Southern Living, Martha Stewart hospitality, although there's nothing wrong with that if you can pull it off. I can't.

Hospitality is the act of welcoming, the lifestyle of creating space, the commitment to draw others in rather than shut them out. At it's core, missional living is no more complicated than this. Here are some stories of hospitality:

This is Won, aka Juan, who has come all the way from the Pacific Northwest to love Guatemalan children. He lives in the large house next to the Cerritos' home and cares for the children who live there and who pass through. While we were visiting, a mother abandoned her four children at the church. It was this young American man who stopped everything he was doing to care for those frightened children until things could be resolved.

This woman lives across from the church and is likely in her eighties. She took in four abandoned children and is raising them in the loving community of Ciudad del Refguio. She feeds and clothes them on her limited resources and loves them well. The children are bright and talented and go to school. More about them later. Without the love of this woman, though, they would live on the streets like so many children do.

Part of what hospitality means in the Cerritos household is the constant making of meals, cleaning up after meals, planning for meals, shopping for meals, and thankfully, eating meals! There are about 15 people who eat at the Cerritos table regularly (three meals a day, 7 days a week) as well as visitors like us and others who show up from time to time. As you can imagine, the work is constant and unromantic and hard. Abuelita (Grandmother) on the left and Sandra are making pupusas here on a griddle on a portable propane stove.

This is Norma, with one of the many children she loves and cares for on her shoulders. Norma is the oldest daughter of Jorge and Annie, educated in the United States and now sharing a room with Abuelita in her parents' home. She works all day in a children's home in another part of the city and then returns home to take her part in the ministry of Ciudad del Refugio.

While we were there, Norma ran a large VBS at the church, cared for the children who were always at the center of life at the Cerritos' home, translated for us, encouraged her parents and still went to work every day. One of our team told me about a conversation she had with Norma in which she asked Norma, "Don't you ever get tired of not having your own space? Don't you get tired of not having your own time, time for yourself?" Norma responded with genuine confusion: "Who owns time? Who owns space? I don't own time. I don't own space. Time and space belong to God." I don't believe that this conversation was just a breakdown in translation. I believe that Norma understands on a level I never will what it means to live a life of hospitality. Her relaxed openness to whatever life brings, her posture of welcoming and accepting is what hospitality is all about. I become more and more convinced that hospitality is what the gospel is all about.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T17:31:00.003-06:00

I used to be the "Christmas Queen" around here (ho, ho, ho and mistletoe and presents to pretty girls . . . ) but that seems to be a thing of the past. These days, "good enough" has to be good enough.

This year, the best part of the season has been having all of us together for the first time in six months. In one week, Mowgli came home from India/China and Boo got her official acceptance letter to UMHB. It was an exciting week!

I have to think that was a cherished part of Mary's first Christmas as well. There was no real reason for her to accompany Joseph to Bethlehem except that maybe she just wanted to be with him, to be together in whatever adventure God had planned for them.

Of course, it turned out to be so much bigger than just Mary and her beloved husband and their new baby. This poem has captured my attention this year and it illustrates all that Christmas represents for us on a larger scale, reminding us that Jesus did not just come into the world so that I and my family could go to heaven when we die but so that the world might be reconciled to God and to itself. This prayer/poem is my Christmas gift for you:

It is not true that creation and the human family are doomed to destruction and loss. This is true: For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

It is not true that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination, hunger and poverty, death and destruction. This is true: I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly.

It is not true that violence and hatred should have the last word. This is true: For unto us a Child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

It is not true that we are simply victims of the powers of evil who seek to rule the world. This is true: To me is given authority in heaven and on earth, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.

It is not true that we have to wait for those who are specially gifted, who are the prophets of the church, before we can be peacemakers. This is true: I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young shall see visions and your old shall dream dreams.

It is not true that our hopes for the liberation of humankind, of justice, of human dignity, of peace are not meant for this earth and for this history. This is true: The hour comes, and it is now, that true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

So let us move from Advent to Christmas with hope,
even hope against hope,
Let us see visions of love and peace and justice.
Let us affirm with humility, with faith, with courage:
Jesus Christ, the Life of the world.

~by poet, peacemaker and Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan, who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace prize many times.

Peace on earth and merry Christmas~

Questions

2010-12-01T23:02:00.007-06:00

The first thing people ask is, "So why did you go?" The truth is, I'm not sure exactly why I went to Guatemala. The simple answer is, "Because JTH asked me to." A little more complicated answer is, "I'd been thinking and praying for awhile about adventure and I thought maybe the invitation to go to Guatemala was related to that. A more profound and truthful answer is, "I went to Guatemala to learn."

The next thing people ask is, "What did you do there?" Well, I met some really amazing people, spent a lot of time waiting for the next thing, taught three parenting classes (sort of), spent some quality time with some other amazing people including my friend PB, washed quite a few dishes and experienced the wonderful hospitality of the Cerritos family and Ciudad de Refugio church. And yes, I learned. More about that later.

Eventually, people ask, "Have you posted any pictures online yet?" There are more on Facebook but here are a few:

This is the church--Ciudad de Refugio (City of Refuge). It meets in the garage of a family whose lives were transformed by the power of the gospel. The man with the microphone is Jorgito Cerritos, the son of the pastor and our host for four nights.

This is PB and Ryan and Juli, along with Abuelita (Grandmother) and Flori. Abuelita and Flori work nonstop to feed all the members of the household (upward of 10 and always changing). Here, Abuelita is making puposas for a special supper.

This is one shot of the view from our roof. The natural beauty of Guatemala is wonderful.

This is Annie and Jorge Cerritos who pastor Ciudad de Refugio. I'll tell their story later. This photo was taken at Pizza Hut.

Sustained but not sustainable

2010-11-08T22:16:00.004-06:00

I have a dear friend who lives a very rich and full life who, when asked how she is doing, will sometimes say, "Sustained." It's not an overly precious answer. It's an honest assessment of how she lives her life and how she feels at that moment.

If you asked me right now how I am doing, I would take a page from Shawn's book and say, "Sustained," with deep gratitude. I feel sustained by a Source beyond myself, a stream of living water, a waterfall of abundant life.

When I look at what's going on--a deep commitment to Boo and being her mom, four trips to Houston in three weeks, including 3 three-day retreats, a full counseling practice that doesn't go away just because I'm out of town, curriculum to write and notebooks to finish, billing that isn't going to do itself, a growing group of young adults to teach and love and lead in missional community, an upcoming trip to Guatemala--I can feel an immediate wash of exhaustion and a rising sense of panic. However, when I ask myself in any given moment, "How am I doing right now?" the answer has so far always been "I'm doing really well. I'm feeling fully alive and grateful and awake. I have everything I need . . . for right now."

I'm really happy that I've learned more over the last few years about how to live in the now. "Be here, be now" has been my mantra for awhile now and I'm learning to live into it and the peace it brings.

On the other hand, I also know . . . I am sustained but this is not sustainable. Pray for me as I figure that part out. Bill Hybels said, "I am doing the work of God in the world at a pace that is destroying the work of God in my life." That is a very real and present danger. At the same time, that's not my current reality. Pray for me as I figure out how to say yes to God and no to all the other good ideas. Pray for me as I learn to step courageously into this life without settling for well-meaning busyness.

Life is really good right now . . .

A perfect evening in London

2010-10-15T21:22:00.005-05:00

Everyone told us to see a show in London while we were there. As much as I would have loved to see Les Miserables on the London stage, we were doing the budget version of this trip and we do see shows as often as we can in Houston, so we decided to forego the "theatah." What we did do was to get fantastic seats at the Globe Theater for Henry IV on a beautiful Sunday evening, with clearing evening skies after a gray and rainy day. Here are some pics:

One of the best things was seeing original drawings and paintings of the Globe in the National Gallery and realizing how much the original integrity of the theater was preserved. I had never seen Shakespeare live before either and that was amazing.

Perfect Protest

2010-10-09T10:06:00.005-05:00

In her new book, Brene Brown writes, "Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield we carry around because we think it will protect us when, in fact, it's the thing preventing us from taking flight." Over on her blog, she is following up by spearheading a Perfect Protest and asking her readers who blog to take part. The motto: "Authentic is the new perfect." The method: Taking a picture of yourself with your own protest against perfectionism.

Here's mine:

Have you ever wondered about the title of this blog? I need to tell you a story.

A long time ago, when the kids were really little, I was completely overwhelmed by life. I wanted to do everything right--be the perfect mom, the perfect pastor's wife, the perfect therapist, the perfect friend and daughter and wife, and of course, the perfect Christian. Unfortunately, I felt like I wasn't coming anywhere close. (The sad thing is, when I look back, I think I was pretty amazing!)

Anyway, C came home one day and found me in full-blown meltdown mode. I recounted to him all the failures of the day which led to a litany of all the ways I was failing to measure up on pretty much every scale. He tried to talk some sense into me but I was determined to argue him out of his high opinion of me. Eventually I wailed, "I'm just so flawed!" Silently, deliberately, he walked over to me, looked deep into my eyes and said, "Yes. Wonderfully flawed."

That moment changed my life. It became the title of this blog and the north star of my life's navigation. And now it's my perfect protest. Because authenticity really is the new perfect.

Another favorite

2010-10-07T22:28:00.006-05:00

I also really enjoyed seeing Westminster Abbey. It feels a lot like a mausoleum and a crowded one at that, filled with carved stone memorials to every notable British person you've ever heard of and a lot you haven't. So, it had the weight of history but the hourly call to prayer reminded us that it is also a living parish church.

After we toured, we went back to the high altar to sit and contemplate what we had seen. While we were sitting there, we could watch a young artist painstakingly restore the thousand-year-old floor of the high altar and we could almost touch the place where every British monarch of the last 500 years has been crowned. Surrounded by all this monument to centuries of British dominance, the altarpiece reads, "The kingdoms of this world are become the Kingdom of our God."

A priest in long black cassock came over to greet us and welcome us and we took the opportunity to tell him that we were both clergy and to ask him what it is like to serve a church that is mostly visited by tourists. He was delighted to talk to us and sat down on the steps of the high altar as though he were sitting on a sidewalk curb and shared his conviction that his presence at the Abbey is "a witness" and how the hourly call to prayer and the sacred space speak to thousands of tourists every year.

On Sunday, we came back to the Abbey for evensong. To our surprise, we were seated in the choir along with a visiting choir from an English village church who seemed just as impressed by the Abbey as we were. The service was a little more contemporary than the one at St. Paul's and the organ and choir were beautiful.

Part of the evensong service every day is the singing or chanting of the Magnificat. Here we were, surrounded by the coronation site and place of burial of every British monarch and every prominent royal, admiral, general, scientist and author of the last 500 years, each memorialized with elaborate stone carvings and statues and listening to the words of the gospel reverberate: "He has scattered those who are proud in their thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty . . . " The contrast with the kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of our God was a startling reminder of the upside-down, subversive nature of the gospel. I wonder if anyone is listening?

Tower of London

2010-09-30T21:30:00.003-05:00

The flat we were borrowing (thanks, Shannon!) was just a few blocks from the Tower of London so we saw that first (and every day on our way to the Tube). You may or may not know that Boo is obsessed with all things Elizabethan right now and so we knew more about the Tower than we would have otherwise and we really enjoyed seeing it through her eyes and texting her photos. The British aren't as kitschy as we Americans are and thank goodness they haven't Disneyfied their historical sites, but they do make it fun, what with all the palace intrigue and the beheadings and the sex scandals and so on. I really wanted to see a castle on the trip and this was pretty close.

London . . . finally!

2010-09-26T21:51:00.002-05:00

I know, I know . . . I promised London photos and commentary weeks ago and haven't done anything about it. As always, I get paralyzed by the scope of things and end up doing nothing. So, it finally occurred to me: I could do a little bit every day! And it only took me two weeks to come up with that brilliant idea.

So. The first photo I'm posting is St. Paul's cathedral from my seat in a little cafe across the street. Why St. Paul's? Well, because everyone kept asking me, "What was your favorite part of the trip?" and I think I'd have to say that except for having 7 days with my sweetheart of 25 years, St. Paul's was my favorite.

I can't really put into words the soaring, sacred feeling it gave me. The sheer massiveness of it is breathtaking, of course, but that wasn't really it. I think that what I felt when I stood under the dome, under the canopy of mosaics and paintings, was exactly what Christopher Wren intended for me to feel. The scale of the cathedral is clearly meant to express the transcendence of God but the art is all about God's immanence.

First, we audio-toured the cathedral with all the tourists (I was really impressed at how well the audio described Christian theology for the unfamiliar visitor). Then we went back and sat under the dome and we were quiet. We walked up to the dome itself and then we went down into the crypt. At 5:00, we were there for Evensong which turned out to be a lovely but austere service because it was a bank holiday and the organist and choir were gone. Then, on our last day, we went back to the cathedral and paid the entrance fee again, just so I could see it and feel it one more time.

The latest on Mowgli

2010-09-07T15:33:00.002-05:00

So, as most of you know, Mowgli's passion for all things Tibetan has taken him to western China and India this summer and fall. He's now in McCloud-Ganj in India (yes, I'm having lots of fun with GoogleEarth) and will pretty much stay put until he comes home in December.

He spent ten weeks with a group from school in western China, hiking up to almost 19,000 feet, living for a week with remote mushroom farmers and traveling another week with mountain nomads. The best story we've heard so far involves Mowgli hiking in a very remote area and encountering a Tibetan holy man from a very remote village . . . who just happened to be carrying in his robes a business card of the only westerner he knew, who just happened to be Mowgli's professor.

Currently, he lives in a hotel in a room by himself with a bathroom (with a bucket shower) and a TV for $2.50/day. He says the food is wonderful and the scenery is gorgeous (valley in front, Himalayas behind) and the constant presence of other westerners as well as very friendly Tibetans and Indians has made him feel completely comfortable.

He had the opportunity to hear the Dalai Lama teach last week and will be sitting in on three days worth of his lectures this week. He also is studying at the archives, taking Chinese classes and volunteering with two NGOs, one working on issues related to peace and nonviolence and the other helping Tibetans in India learn English and western culture through social interaction with westerners. In interacting with the locals, he said that he apparently resembles a particular Bollywood actor and that has been interesting; also, those who don't speak English will come up to him and shake his hand, smiling, saying only, "Obama! Obama!"

We miss him, of course, but can hear in his voice that he is truly having the time of his life. He can call pretty regularly from a phone booth at an internet cafe where he also picks up email, so we feel much more connected (We had very little contact during the time he was in China). This photo is of him the day he left, carrying only a backpack and a camping pack--only one change of clothes and a jacket and rain pants. When we talked to him last night, he said he had only bought one set of traditional clothes and otherwise just has the limited amount of things he left with.

That's pretty much what we know about Mowgli. Next post will be an update on the rest of us, since I've been gone so long.

I'm back

2010-08-24T09:50:00.002-05:00

I've decided to come back to blogging . . . right after I get back from London! I'm sure I'll have pictures to post and stories to tell and I'm feeling like writing again. I might even make this a completely public blog--we'll see. Just wanted you to know what's coming . . . thanks for staying with me.

Today's bossy idea

2010-08-19T16:54:00.000-05:00

If you're not already reading www.thxthxthx.com, you should.

2010-06-10T11:33:00.002-05:00

Well, I think I'm done here.

I said all along that I would stop when it stopped being fun. I think we're there.

Check back in a couple of weeks. I'll make it official then. And if I do stop blogging here, I'm sure I will be blogging somewhere and I'll let you know where and share all the details.

If you've been reading this and I don't know you and you want me to keep in touch, just leave your email address in the comment section and I'll make sure you're in the loop.

Otherwise, let's take a two-week break (which is really a month-long break because it's been so long since I've posted anything) and see where we are.

Ciao~~

2010-05-23T15:45:00.001-05:00

I'm trying to learn to live differently--and Faithwalking has been a big part of that. The next retreat is coming up fast on June 4-6. If you'd like to go, check out www.missionhouston.org for all the information (or just let me know what questions you have.) Spiritual formation that results in missional living . . . that's what Faithwalking is about.