i'd like to buy the world a coke...

… but for now I’ll settle for sharing dinner and a movie with some beautiful people.

Two weeks ago I headed down to Riverfront Park with some friends to catch a free showing of The Breakfast Club, the start of a summer "movies in the park" series. We arrived early to snag a good spot, and succeeded in securing an area center screen at the front of the grass (where no one could plant themselves in front of us). Surrounded by a diverse host of individuals, couples, families and dogs, we passed the time until the movie began by reading books, sky gazing and people watching.

There was an older white gentleman with a beard, baseball cap and tattered clothing wandering around offering wooden fans for sale to patrons of the hot, humid amphitheater. He would make a round of the park, gently extolling the virtues of his handiwork to those who would concern themselves enough to look and listen. Then he would take a break, sitting down on the ground beside a black female with a tight, slender face that stretched with each flash of her wide and joyful grin. The woman had the honor of sitting in a comfortable folding chair, which the gentleman had helped set up for her when they first arrived. I watched him make a few more rounds, during which he must have peddled at least one of his wares, because he promptly proceeded to the food vendors and purchased a foil wrapped hot dog. When he returned to his post near the woman and her pedestal, he was approached by another man to whom he offered some of the money he had received. That man also chose to enjoy a fresh, juicy hot dog, chased by a chain of cigarettes.

In the meantime, the bearded man had moved to sit on the low wall in front of our blanket and was talking to the couple on the blanket next to us. The couple’s tiny, yapping dog (a doglet, if you will) immediately spied the wooden fans in the man’s hand and began its futile attempts to vanquish his leash. Apparently oblivious to the doglet’s quest for acquisition, the man and the couple continued their conversation, with the fans waving about as the man’s hands orchestrally illustrated the essence of his stories. Straining against the tether, toward the traversing blades of pliable wood, the doglet’s conquest looming before his beady eyes, a startling intrusion caused the bounty to be lowered to the bearded man’s side, far beyond the grasp of the tiny creature’s jaws.

A freckled, red-haired creature, not much larger than the doglet itself, though towering higher on only two legs, offered wise instructions to the bearded man so many in the park had averted their gazes from: “Hey! Hey, he might eat those! Hey, be careful! Hey, some puppies have sharp teeth! He might have sharp teeth! Hey, he might try to eat those, be careful!”

The dog lay down in the grass, head on paws, staring up at the baseball cap of the man who held his treasure, utterly defeated.

“Thank you,” offered the bearded man, ending his conversation and returning to the side of the smiling woman. The boy returned to his family, the couple turned to consoling the disheartened puppy, sundown approached and soon the movie began.

I couldn’t help but think about the bearded gentleman and the bright-eyed noblewoman as the week progressed. Though I really had no desire to see Jaws, the opportunity of taking a meal to share with these individuals who had relished their foil-wrapped cuisine appealed to me. So, I extended the invitation to friends to join me, and was delighted (though not surprised) that they were more than willing to accompany me. We spent some time together grilling burgers and enjoying a family meal before heading out to the riverfront with snacks, friends and kiddos in tow.

We had barely tidied our picnic blankets before the bearded man approached with the highly acclaimed wooden fans. My friend Sam extended his hand, and the bearded man introduced himself as “Guy”. Sam offered Guy some food and, after clarifying if we intended to trade for a fan and being assured the snacks were being offered freely, he accepted a hamburger, chips and bottled water. Guy made introductions with everyone on our blankets and offered a kind thank you before pointing up the hill and excusing himself to join a laughing woman sitting grandly in a camping chair, chatting away to a young artist sitting on a blanket beside her.

Smitten by the woman’s animated charm, I was compelled to walk up and make an introduction. Guy had already sat down at her feet and was preparing to split his hamburger to share with this woman he so highly favored. Donna, whose smile grew to cheshire proportions as we shook hands, cheerfully accepted my offer to pick out some food of her own, responding that she “sure could use a little snack to bite on”. Following me down to the blankets where the roving picnic was stationed, Donna quickly began introducing herself to every man, woman and child.

“I’m Donna, Guy’s wife,” she said, her voice filled with admiration. Donna accepted our offer of a hamburger and water, but declined to take any pastries. “I can’t eat no sweets,” Donna snickered. Crouching eye-level with the children, she explained further, “You eat too many sweets, you end up like this”. Donna reached into her beaming smile and wiggled the dentures contained therein. “Don’t eat too many sweets, you’ll have to take your teeth out to brush ‘em.” We expressed again to Donna how please we were to meet both her and Guy, and I asked if they planned to attend next week. “Oh yeah,” Donna exclaimed. “He’s my hunk of chocolate,” she elaborated, apparently referring to next week’s feature showing of Shrek 2.

We did not see anyone else during the movie, though Candy got up and walked around the park some to see who she might find. At the end of the evening, Heather and I had packed up all of the supplies and were headed toward the car when a gentleman I passed by asked me if I happened to have any change. “I don’t,” I hesitated, “but I do have some hamburgers if you would like them.” The man looked a bit startled, but replied “Oh, yes, that’s what I am needing is to get something to eat.” I handed him the bag containing three or four hamburgers and offered that he was welcome to eat all of them or to share them if he wanted to.

Extending my hand to him, I introduced myself and asked his name. “Richard,” he offered nervously, followed with “I’m sorry.” This tickled me, as I have been accused of being brainwashed with the Southern need to apologize for everything, but I made sure to stifle any laugh that may cause Richard more discomfort. “It’s very nice to meet you Richard,” I replied instead, “would you like any chips or snack cakes?” “Oh no, thank you,” Richard answered, “I don’t have any teeth, I’m sorry.” I assured him, “No problem. Would you like some water? We have some bottled waters you are welcome to.” “Oh, yes. I am thirsty. Could you loan me some change? I’m sorry.” Richard’s eyes revealed his brokenness and his kindness simultaneously. Suddenly, I recalled that some change (about 62 cents) had fallen off one of the blankets when I picked it up from the grass. I reached in my pocket, pulled out the change while sharing with Richard the story of the blanket, and placed the change in his hand. “Would you like some bottled waters?” I asked again. “Yes, thank you. I am thirsty. I’m sorry.”

Richard was hesitant to follow me to the car for the waters, expressing concern about making me uncomfortable. I reassured him that he was not making me uncomfortable and reminded him that I had extended the invitation. We began walking to the nearby parking place, but I realized we were walking toward the fence rather than the gate. As I shifted our route toward the gate with an “oops,” Richard quickly responded with an “I’m sorry.”

Once at the car, I introduced Richard to Heather, who grabbed some bottled waters out of the package and presented them to him. He made one last request for change, and we shared our “goodbyes” and “pleased-to-meet-yous” before climbing in the car and heading for home. I liked Richard and his sorry self. I couldn’t help but feel a special kinship with him.

Was Richard’s life turned around that night? Probably not. Will Guy and Donna ever be the same after meeting us? Probably so. Did we change the world? Obviously not.

God doesn’t require great and marvelous things of us – that’s His territory. Sure he can do great and marvelous things through us, but he keeps our responsibilities pretty basic:

Then the King will say to those on his right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'” (Matthew 25:34-36).

Jesus tells us that what we do for the least of these, we do for Him. He also tells us to come to him as a little child. The night of the first movie, it was a carrot-top little boy who first fixed my attention on Guy and Donna. He approached the bearded man, who so many in park wanted to avoid, just as he would have approached any human he was concerned about and wanted to bestow his years of wisdom upon. One of the children with us that night went home and told her family that she “met a woman named Donna at the shark movie.” Children are so welcoming and unassuming. This is the way I want to approach “the least of these” that I encounter.

While I know a burger and a bottled water won’t cure all of the ills in this fallen world, I prefer that little glimpse of hope to the moments when I find myself paralyzed with the overwhelming realization of all of the hurt and loneliness and evil and confusion and greed and selfishness and brokenness that surround us.

As the great theologian Ben Folds recommends:

The world is full of ugly things that you can’t change. Pretend it’s not that way; it’s my idea of faith. You can blow it off and say there’s good in nearly everyone, just give them all a chance. Now let’s give them all a chance.

See you at the movies.

~ do this, don't do that ~

Attn: General Public

The following is NOT a speed limit sign:
It does not indicate that all traffic flow should slow to 40 mph.
(…even if it is month-end and there are several lining the highway)

This IS a speed limit sign:
It means you can travel up to 60 mph, even if you are passing lots of cars with the star on them.

While we’re on the subject,

This is a yield sign:
If this sign is pointed at me and not at you, that means you should GO. While I can appreciate the gesture of you stopping and waving me through (why are you in such a good mood so early in the morning, anyway?), your actions serve to create confusion and frustration in all of our fellow drivers.

(Conversely, if the sign is pointed at you and not at me, please understand that I plan to go and if you choose to do the same much screaming will ensue).

This concludes our lesson for today, kids.

feel free to read around this post...

How do I respond to the hurricane succinctly? I've been ranting for a week, and I'm yet to be spent. Without having been directly affected by Katrina, I can summarize my emotional state as exhausted, insecure and overwhelmed.

Exhausted. I am exhausted from getting up every morning to view more devastation, listening to talk radio to and from work, and then watching more news until I force myself asleep. I am exhausted from September 11, an ensuing war my President naively tried to convince me was a logical solution, a Tsunami in countries already devastated, hundreds of muslims trampled off a bridge to their deaths in a river that is part of our creation story, and millions of human mishaps in between. I am exhausted from working daily to help women rebuild their lives and families, and now seeing countless additional families devastated.

Insecure. There was actually a brief period of time during which I supported the war on Iraq (or at least, didn't oppose it). Gretchen can tell you, I was vehemently opposed to the idea. And then Colin Powell spoke, and I have a great deal of respect for Colin Powell. For a brief period, I thought maybe I was reacting too emotionally. Maybe I should trust our elected (though against my vote) decision makers. That angle didn't sit long with me, and I have questioned not only Bush's decision making and planning skills but also his character and ability to admit when he's wrong (especially when lives are held in the balance). When asked if would have been better able to respond to this crisis if we didn't have so much energy focused on Iraq, Bush replied that we have to fight the war against terror. Supposedly, our government had no warning that the events of 9/11 were going to take place. We responded to those attacks by waging war against Saddam Hussein - a smoke and mirrors attempt to ignore the real problem by creating a bigger one. We created a Department of Homeland Security and sent our National Guard to rebuild the country we destroyed. And then came a category five hurricane - a hurricane we knew about in enough time to issue a widespread evacuation warning. Our federal government claims that the war on terror is for the safety and protection of its citizens, yet it was unable to respond to a crisis that will have more far-reaching consequences on our nation than 9/11 could have ever had (and which they knew was coming). I feel completely insecure. Our troops are dying and we are no safer as a nation than we were before.

Overwhelmed. I am not sure our nation gets the impact of Katrina yet. Its not just about high gas prices or rebuilding a beloved city. Its not even about the thousands of dead yet to be uncovered or the blemish on the nation's security system. Families have been torn apart and worldviews have been obliterated. Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are among the poorest states in the nation. Those states closest, lending a helping hand, don't fare much better. I don't know a whole lot about Houston, but I spent a week there in high school volunteering at a homeless shelter, and I know that the social problems there are expansive. I can speak more directly on the situation here in Arkansas. About three months ago our state attempted to streamline child care vouchers to be handled through DCCECE rather than jointly through DCCECE & TEA (Arkansas TANF). There was a lot of confusion and no clear answers with this process, and some clients are still trying to sort out their services (and now have bills hanging over their heads). Just this week, all TEA services were moved out of DHS to the independently contracted PSI. Clients go through intake at DHS and are referred to PSI. Clients apply for child care through DCCECE, but TEA vouchers are then monitored by PSI. The day before the switchover, PSI Case Managers directed questions to TEA Case Workers and TEA Case Workers insisted that all questions should go to PSI Case Managers. And the process is actually more complicated than I'm making it sound. In the midst of this chaos comes Katrina, and at least 4,000 refugees that need to be processed into our public assistance programs. A DHS worker confided to me Friday that no one knows who is supposed to be handling what, and they are already overloaded as is. An employee at North Little Rock Housing Authority was exhausted Thursday afternoon, telling me they had been moving storm victims in that day to apartments that had just been vacated. I thought about the number of clients I have already on the waiting list for apartments there. We have been having discussions at our facility over how to effectively organize the use of our five vans to better serve clients and staff. The Governor called up state vehicles this week to help with relief efforts, and now we are down to two vans. I don't intend to sound like I don't support the relief effort - I wish we could do more. Yet the reality exists that this crisis could cripple an already dysfunctional system.

My response to the Tsunami was to post Habakkuk. I still feel that is the best I can muster. Yet I will trust. There is so much meaninglessness in the world, and I know I contribute to it. The best I can do in light of these tragedies is peel off layers of selfishness and materialism from my life and fight like hell not to latch back on to them when life gets comfortable. The best I can do is live my life for others, and trust God to sort it all out in the end.

~ risky journey ~

how does it feel
to be on your own
with no direction home
like a complete unknown
just like a rolling stone

This morning I finished reading Under the Overpass (I started reading the book Thursday evening, and was interrupted in between with work and dinner with friends... in other words, I couldn't put it down). Wow. I have done social outreach for over ten years now - I was not particulary amazed by the fact that these guys were willing to hang out with "the least of these". What grabbed me - what has been grabbing me a lot lately - is the embodiment of Christ these guys displayed: their willingness to truly die to self, and to allow Christ to shine through them into other lives; the ways that people's hearts were touched just by someone willing to spend time with them and treat them as the creation of God that they are; and the work of the Holy Spirit in spite of our best human efforts.

I think about friends of mine who are willing to embark on risky journies in their own lives: moving across country with no plan other than to build relationships and invest in the lives of others, spend time in a culture they are unfamiliar with in hopes of allowing the Spirit to work through their life, joining together in marriage and work to allow two independent lives to become one, staying put until God calls them elsewhere even if they truly want to run, stepping out in faith into a new career when there is comfort in the one they already have. I also think about my own career, and the fact that someone I don't even know commented on how much of a ministry I have where I am out. God swings doors wide open, and invites us to walk through and share our lives with those on the other side. I pray more and more that my desire in life would be less for personal comfort and more for investing in relationships... especially those that are akward and messy and take work (and those in which I am reminded of the beauty of ESL). The summary of the book presents the following questions:

What would I do during my day or in my life for God if I wasn't concerned with what I wear, what I eat, where I sleep, what I own, what people think of me, or what discomforts I face?

Those women who are in Bible Study with me (Lies Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free) will appreciate the weight of this question for me. There are many lies I have believed about what I deserve and what will make me happy. This question challenges them all. I promised Angelika and Meredith at dinner that I would let them borrow this book when I'm done, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to give it a second read-through. There's some stuff I need to hear again... there's lots of stuff I need to process. But I do promise to pass it on soon - to as many people as will read it.

Oh, and Ramon... both guys are living in Portland now and at least one is at Imago Dei (figures!).

OBB

A week or so ago I entered into one of the most laborious efforts in my clean-up process: sifting through the papers. I threw out a lot of magazine articles: recipes I never tried, exercises I never adopted, top-ten-ways-to-do-whatever-the-heck-I-thought-needed-to-be-done-at-the-time… I threw out English lit papers from high school, and drafts of theory papers from college (I kept the actual graded papers, in order to remind myself that I once knew which theorists belonged with which theory and how to convince my professors that I knew what the theorist was talking about). Theories crack me up anyway. I think philosophers and sociologists (and members of any other -ologys and -osophys) must be really fast writers. They somehow capture the randomness of those moments where suddenly your thoughts reach clarity, they get it down on paper and occasionally even add accompanying graphs, and they must be able to give themselves enough of a road map to return to that clarity from time-to-time. I have some of those moments of clarity, and a few of them have been captured in these papers I hoard. But for the most part, I don’t write fast enough. It’s like when you’re dreaming, and the dream is so real and you are actively involved in everything that’s going on, but the moment you wake up you can’t remember anything that was happening seconds before.

But, as usual, I digress from my point of writing. I ran across an article that was worn with age. It should have easily gone in the trash with multitudes of other “dream life” articles, but I just couldn’t bear to part with it. I’ve had the article since high school or early college (If I were at home, I would check, but why delay writing just to clarify minor details?). So the chick in this article lived off of $6,000 a year – and she had a cozy little apartment and funky clothes and a smile on her face and all that jazz. Apparently she exchanged rent for yard work to her landlord, ate free meals at the restaurant she worked for, didn’t have a car, etc. etc. I’m pretty sure she probably started out debt-free (big help), enjoyed the cheaper things in life (which I do, although I really like the pampering stuff too…), and surrounded herself with other poor people (which I have, though in my current state of employment, I fear I am a bad influence). I have held onto this article about a real bohemian, who enjoyed life to the fullest by living simple and stress free, because it is where I strive to be. Backwards, ain’t it? I spent lots of money on college (and continue to every month), so I could live in a manner that would have been easier to achieve had I never gone to college in the first place. But then again, the –ologys and –osophys I studied have produced the bohemian mind in me, if not the bohemian lifestyle. And I think I’m doing my best with what I’ve got. I moved back home to pay less rent. I live in a city where the not-having-a-car-thing is not really an option. And I am vowing to downsize my so-called career to a manageable pace.

I picked up the book Citizen Girl Sunday evening. Hi-lar-i-ous. Not so much because it is genuinely funny, but more so because it is genuinely my life. I’m not crazy ~ other people really do feel my pain. So I continue to reexamine my priorities, consider cutbacks (rentals vs. first releases, folgers vs. gingerbread lattes, launch.com vs. new CDs… ok, maybe scratch the last one?), and brace myself for the mighty wind that’s blowin’. I continue to organize my chaos (without and within), set my gaze on finishing that freakin’ Masters paper, and come up with ways to work out a budget without working myself to death. I’ll get by with a little help from my friends ~ my stress is really quite menial compared to many. For now, I’ll go refill on the free beverages supplied by company, with my choice of four different sweeteners. I’ll defiantly take a lunch break and go read a book. I’ll take a deep breath, and I’ll press on.

all our trials and all our failures...

I am in love with the name Aidan. If I had a son, that would have been his name. Now that Aidan is suddenly and mysteriously on the list of top names for boys (* not that I keep up with that kind of stuff *), I have unfortunately had to start considering other less common options. My interest is threefold: 1. Aidan is an Irish name, 2. Aidan Quinn is a hottie, and 3. Aidan is a character in a Rich Mullins Song.

Last night I gathered together with Angelika and Meredith for the emotional experience that is Extreme Home Makeover. The family this time consisted of deaf parents, a blind & autistic son, and a teenage son with no impairments and a huge heart. The autistic son made me think of a movie I saw recently with Aidan Quinn and Mary Louise Parker in which she is the mother of autistic twins. Thinking about that movie on the drive home, I of course started thinking about the tragedy of no longer being able to use the name Aidan. I thought through all of the reasons I loved the name Aidan. And then I couldn’t get that dang Rich Mullins song out of my head.

As often happens when I get a good song stuck in my brain, I dwell on it and all of its implications for my life. If only I could dwell so strongly on scripture. I thought about it all night, and I woke up with the song still rolling through my head. So now I’m trying to work it out in print, so that I can come back to the lesson without having to keep the song on repeat in my brain.

Let mercy lead, let love be the strength in your legs; and in every footprint that you leave there’ll be a drop of grace. If we can reach beyond the wisdom of this age, into the foolishness of God, that foolishness will save those who believe. Although their foolish hearts may break, they will find peace. And I’ll meet you in that place where mercy leads

One thing I have noticed about these lyrics is how Rich melded mercy and action. My spiritual gifts spectrum is far from the side of mercy – I lean toward service and hospitality, with sprinklings of administration, leadership, and teaching (depending on which survey I am participating in). I rarely score high in the more internal gifts of mercy, prayer, and the like. Typically, I am a “suck it up” type of person ~ life is hard and we all have to learn to deal with it. Perhaps this goes back to the selfishness I am learning to deal with. I have always been willing to help the poor and neglected, whether or not they played a role in getting themselves into their current situation. I am much less gracious with people I know well ~ especially Christians. I am a horrible listener ~ especially to people who whine about situations that they could have avoided, and that I myself make every effort to avoid. I know this about myself, and I hate this about myself.

The mercy Rich refers to, however, seems to have much less to do with feeling and much more to do with being. This is a constant theme that has been weaving through our current Bible study regarding faith. We can’t rely on our feelings to determine our faith. I think in much the same way, it is in living out mercy that mercy becomes a part of our life ~ just as living out our faith, even when we don’t feel it, keeps our faith active. Lauren Winner refers to this concept when talking about liturgy. She describes the repetitiveness and familiarity of practicing liturgy as a means to maintaining a prayerful life, even when our faith is exhausted and we don’t feel the power of prayer in our spirit.

There is another truth apparent in this song, and that is the truth of failure. When we are truly trying to live out a life that reflects Christ, we will appear foolish and we will get our hearts broken. I have come to believe that there is no way around this. We are human, and no matter what successes we are experiencing in the life of the Spirit, we will feel the sting of rejection and failure from the world’s perspective. As we put our hearts out there, and allow them to love and forgive and see past what the world wants us to appreciate, we also open our hearts up to scorn, misuse, and even rejection.

It all comes down to a decision: between demonstrating mercy and risking being taken advantage of; between investing our lives in someone else and appearing foolish for doing so; between loving with our hands and feet and eventually our hearts and risking heartbreak. We are not called to a spirit of fear ~ fear of regrets and fear of rejection ~ we are called to Love the Lord our God With All of Our Heart, Soul, Mind and Strength, and to Love our Neighbors as Ourselves.

good to the last drop

I have a confession to make to my coffee-loving friends out there, those of you who brew it and those of you who pursue it. I love a good, cheap cup of coffee. We have a worship gathering at our church tonight, and my main thought is “I wonder if we’ll go to IHOP afterward”. I am the type of girl who truly enjoys the feel of a thick ceramic coffee mug, just waiting to be refilled again and again with a lifeless brown substance (always enhanced by two creams & two sugars). Here at the office, we have never ending supplies of Folgers and Maxwell House at our disposal, along with any kind of sweetener a girl could ask for. Sure, I enjoy a well-brewed latte. I even look back fondly on the fabulous espresso I enjoyed in Antigua, Guatemala with a breakfast of eggs and black beans (I think they literally harvested the beans in their backyard). I like good coffee. But deep down, I am just a roadside truckstop, 85-cent, bottomless cup-o-joe kinda gal. (Add a jukebox and some hash browns scattered, smothered, and covered and I’ll even dance a little jig for ya!)

I’ve got $2 in the jukebox, and $5 in a bottle ~ 10 more just in case that don’t do the trick. I’ll be dead broke tomorrow morning, with heart-aches by the dozen, and a lady on my mind that’s driving me crazy.
~ Eddie Rabbitt (best truckstop jukebox song I could think of...)

Rhino is Fino

I met my dad and one of his friends downtown at Bosco's tonight for dinner. Since they were running late, I took a seat at the bar with a house brewed Scottish ale and the Astros/Cards overhead. I figured since all the boys seem to posting on Baseball these days, its only appropriate that I throw in my own 2 cents. I come from an Irish Catholic background on my father's side, with St Louis as the hub for our well-procreated family. Growing up, I was aware of two things regarding baseball (thanks to my dear aunts, who made sure that even as an Arkansan I was in the loop): 1. Mets are pondscum & 2. if you want to rebel, be a Cubs fan. Well, thanks to WGN and my distance from the mothership, I found it quite easy to be rebellious. In my junior high school softball playing days, I had imitation baseball cards with my picture on the front & stats on the back (the only thing our team was really good at was posing for these pics), and my favorite players listed as Ryan Sandberg and Mark Grace. With the risk of welcoming identity theft, I still to this day use jersey numbers for some of my pass codes. I once even owned a Mets cap (which I assume pondscum is worse than rebels), but that was mainly because I liked the colors. However, as I have matured, I have learned to settle into a stable appreciation for the proper team, the St Louis Cardinals. After sitting at the bar for 1/2 an hour, my dinner companions had arrived and I left the game tied at 4-4. I took my mind off of the game to enjoy pork chops with coffee bean bbq sauce and mashed sweet potatoes (G-Dawg ~ they weren't as good as Texas Rotissere's). On my way to the restroom later in the evening, I was informed by my bartender friend that St Louis had won. And all was right in the universe.

the devil's playground

They say debt is a bottomless pit where the devil likes to play.
I'd sell my soul to get out of this hole, but there'd be hell to pay.
~ Ken Spooner (God love Nashville songwriters…)

If any of you OBUers ever had Dr. Mills for a class, you know that he likes to talk about life as much as he likes to talk about sociology. Of course, I suppose life is the substance of sociology, though his advice was dished out more as fatherly wisdom than theoretical application. Having worked for the man for three years, I received much advice both in and out of classes. The best piece of advice I never followed from him was some that he gave all of his students in every class that he taught: take Personal Finance. Dr. Mills managed to fit that nugget of advice somewhere into every course he taught. I’ve been taught that if something is repeated in the Bible, it’s probably something that you’re supposed to pay attention to (and something that may take several repetitions to sink into our feeble brains). Dr. Mills’s advice was repeated to me over and over again: take Personal Finance. Of course, like any bullheaded child, I knew that I didn’t need to take Personal Finance. After all, I had taken both Macro- and Micro- Economics, and how many business classes can a Sociology/Philosophy major really stomach? And obviously I knew what I was doing. Sure, so I was paying for my books using a credit card. Sure, I was taking out student loans instead of working a part-time job. But I was getting a degree; I’d have that stuff paid off in no time. Of course, my first job didn’t pay so much, but I was doing what I loved. And, even though my employer was part of the UofA system and paying 80% of my tuition, I went ahead and took out some small loans for grad school to pad my income. No biggie – that M.A. will surely lead to a livable wage. So, six years out of college (has it really been that long? that’s scary!) I have managed to buy lots of stuff (only to end up selling it for pennies), run through several crappy cars, and get stuck in a job that sucks the lifeblood straight out of my veins. I am staring down my debt and finally winning. I am learning to live below my means. And I am taking a hard look at what it is I really want to be doing and I how I can get there. Heck, I may even get around to focusing my mind enough to finish that looming paper and officially earn my M.A. In the meantime, I wonder what would have happened had I just enrolled in Personal Finance?

phonies and frauds

We long for that which is real but we hedge the bet. None of us wants to be a phony, a fraud, or to live a lie, but we fear the experience of open and honest giving of ourselves through self-disclosure, involving risks so great that we will use any role, mask, or game to insure that the wall around us stays intact. Being willing to risk the giving of self in genuine dialogue may mean being willing to try to experience a new form of reality. Identification with the OTHER gives us insight into a new reality based on the unique experience of what becomes of two people who in some way become part of each other

~ from the textbook Is That You Out There?: Exploring Authentic Communication

For those of you who have followed the plight of my Master’s degree (or lack thereof…), it probably appears to be a much more of a jumbled mess from an external point of view than it actually is. Yes, it is true that I have made several attempts to re-start my project. Yes, it is true that every time I claim to start again something creeps in to foil my motivation (there has been a computer crash, an organizational change, a heavy workload and, more often than not, my personal flair for procrastination). What you may not realize is that my focus has managed to remain consistent.
From the beginning (circa Spring 2000), my intention has been to look at how we build community in the Church. As we are required to narrow our focus… and then narrow it again and again until we come up with something very concrete to design a training program around… I landed on what I considered to be a basic building block of relationship building: initiating and maintaining a conversation. This is much more than how do you introduce yourself to someone ~ I pray that we are all at a place in our lives socially where we can make a general introduction (peppered with a “how are you?” “I’m fine, how are you?”). What I am interested in is how we move past introductions to authentic interaction that allows us to develop deeper and connected relationships.
This post isn’t actually about my project, however, though it does provide me with some motivation to write about it somewhere. I was hoping to present this idea of “Genuine Dialogue” as a springboard for our discussion group. What better way to start a conversation than with the topic of conversation itself? What makes a conversation genuine? What does it mean to present our genuine self to someone? Is it possible to present a genuine self? Feel free to invoke the power of veto on the topic, and feel free to invite a friend to the discussion. I believe the plan is to dwell on the topic throughout the month, toss about ideas as we interact with each other on a normal basis, and then set a time/place to meet at the end of the month and share our conclusions. Let the games begin!

making myself into a story

my church has a bulletin feature titled "every mosaic has a story", which features a picture of a church member and a paragraph about who they are and what brought them to mosaic. inevitably, my time has come. so i set about to summarize my journey as briefly as possible (i'll let the editor do the rest of the cutting - one can only cut so much out of your own story before it starts to hurt), and the following is what i ended up with. i really get into reading autobiographies, so i'm thinking i may have to start making it a regular practice to add details to this story, and just see where it leads. hmm... i'm finally adding something new to my blog ~ watch out, who knows what kind of crazy thing i'll do next!

I am not what I ought to be; I am not what I wish to be; I am not what I hope to be; but, by the grace of God, I am not what I was. ~ John Newton

I am the byproduct of happenstance. My life has been equally more interesting and more mundane than I could possibly present it, but I am keenly aware that who I am is intrinsically tied to where I have been and what I have come through (we can grab a cup of coffee sometime if you would like to know more). My father in his more enlightened stage tells me I am the only one of 15 cousins not baptized into the Catholic Church because he wanted me to choose my own religion, and my mother still marvels at how I ended up the “white sheep” of the family. I have always been open-minded by nature, which in my younger days opened me up to many things that I could have been better off without. Fortunately, it also opened me up to Christianity, and when I was 15 I accepted Christ’s offer to take over control of my life (He ended up doing a much better job with it than I would have). I was the only person in my family who attended church, and the Lord placed some great spiritual mentors in my life. Unfortunately, the ease of my early relationship with Christ did not fully prepare me for going at it on my own. College presented me with new challenges to my faith, including a greater awareness of hypocrisy and a deepening sense that the values I was encountering in the Church were not what I personally valued. My junior year I received a summer scholarship to do independent research on Christian Economic & Community Development in Boston, MA. While there, I visited a multicultural church that had ties to the CCDA movement, and fell instantly in love. With my eyes open to this new possibility, I found it more and more difficult to participate in the pageantry of the Churches I was a part of. My senior year I avoided Church altogether, which provided time for soul-searching but also robbed me of the essential support I needed from a spiritual community. Returning to Little Rock after graduation, I attempted to get involved in the Church of my youth again. I attended when I felt like it, and even accepted some leadership roles, but it never felt like the place where I was supposed to be. I slowly began to withdraw from Church again. One day my roommate came home and told me about a multicultural church that was getting started. She said that she was going to go check it out for me (she didn’t think it was for her, but she had a feeling it was just what I was looking for). Needless to say, my roommate joined Mosaic, with myself following down the road after visiting for quite some time. I grabbed Mark about a week before Mosaic was officially birthed, and let him know “I’m in”. I am involved in MoKids, MoYAs and Acts 2. I also participated in a mission trip to Guatemala. I recently started serving on a custodial crew (which I highly recommend if you need a good excuse to get in some monthly deep thinking time as you mindlessly push a vacuum ~ it’s great!). It means so much to me to be involved in a Church which values diversity, and service, and honest relationships. Being a part of Mosaic has allowed me to be more honest with myself, more honest with God, and more honest with the people I am in community with. Of course, I now see more clearly that God has been in control of the situation that is my life all along. Psalm 139 reminds me daily of how well He knows me, and how He had plans for me from the very beginning.

But because God was so gracious, so very generous, here I am. And I'm not about to let his grace go to waste. ~ 1 Corinthians 15:10a (MSG)