When life became a team sport

The past few weeks have been particularly challenging. I found out two weeks before graduation that my thesis (2 of 7 credits for my degree) was rejected. After months of working on this project alone my advisor thought it wasn't good enough. This has been traumatic for me. Thankfully, I was working with a spiritual director who is AMAZING and I have been able to process quite a bit over the past few weeks. 

I took a week to sit in the disappointment, anger, and sadness. I did nothing, I couldn't do anything. I didn't know how to do anything. I found out quickly that my general coping mechanisms would not work. I couldn't bury myself in work, I was cemented to my couch and couldn't face the failure. I couldn't ignore it and swallow the pain, I had to confront it. I couldn't talk about it too much, it just resulted in my sobbing. I had to sit and be, I had to go through my mess. A lot of other things surfaced and I spent a week trying to feel life as it happened. Which sounds ridiculous, but it's amazing how many walls I have created to prevent feeling. It was miserable, and I cried, a lot. 

I feel like I'm through the worst of it, there are still residual effects. I still feel vulnerable and hurt, but its manageable. I am trying to be more present in my own body, feeling things as they come and trying not to control my feelings. 

I've learned a lot about myself and this could go on forever about what I can take away from this experience. Today, I will focus on relying on others. I cannot go it alone. There are people around me who love me and can support me. I am trying to get my life in order and look for jobs and I am overwhelmed by the whole process. I am reaching out to others for help and I will ask for help. Life is a team sport and we cannot live on our own. 

The Foolishness of Israel

Many of you may know that I have recently returned from a trip to Israel and Palestine. Initially I was going to blog along the way of my journey, but shoddy internet prevented that dream from ever becoming a reality. I still may blog about it as I digest what I saw and how it has impacted me. 

For right now, I am left clueless on how to answer people when they ask me, "How was your trip?" It was life changing, it was insightful, it was horrible, eye-opening, disheartening... the list could go on and on and will most definitely contradict itself. I'm glad I went, but I'm also not happy that I went, because I cannot unsee what I've seen. My perspective has changed, on a lot of things. 

The biggest change has been my perspective on religious people. I can say, without a doubt, the universal truth is that religious people are the worst in the world. Whether they are claiming land given to them by God 2000 years ago, or fighting over who has Jesus' real tomb, they're all the same, terrible. I have never been so upset in my life about how the message of God, particularly that of Jesus Christ, has been distorted and used for one's own benefit more than in the 'Holy Land.' While the scenery was beautiful and I certainly had my God moments while I was there, this was one of the most unholy places I have ever been. 

The simple fact that the 3 Abrahamic religions cannot live in peace is a disgrace to God. Let alone the infighting among Christians that literally trample all over Jesus' tomb. It is all contrary to the God I know. God does not love one people over another and no people are holier than another. We are ALL made in the image of God, and to treat anyone as less than holy, is treating God as such. 

I am angry at how God is represented by the people of all faiths in Israel. Not everyone in Israel has it wrong, there are certainly people there spreading the message of love and justice to those who need to hear it. However, these people are a minority and are climbing Mt. Everest trying to rid Israel of it's ridiculousness. 

I am not alone in my animosity towards the religious who get God wrong. This week in the lectionary, we hear from Paul, who was also upset about similar issues, and in that I find great comfort. 1 Corinthians 1:18-31:

"For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block for Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. 

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, but many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast n the Lord."" 

What's Next?

This week I attended the Next Church conference in Charlotte, NC. We drove down Sunday (for 12 hours) and then began our journey last night, stopped off at my brothers house and continued this morning. Despite the crazy traveling and my now very overtired state, the past two days were exactly what I needed.

As I look to my future, after graduation I want to know what's next. What am I supposed to be doing? Where am I supposed to be doing it? There are a million questions that I have about what's next. What I realized, is that I already know what's next. I know what God is calling me to do. I know where God is leading me and I have finally found a way to make it happen. 

I stumbled upon this future plan last week. I was asked to meet with a few professors to discuss the ThM program at McCormick. It's a program designed for graduates to develop a thesis and gain another Masters degree in Theology. I thought I was going for a free lunch and to talk with some of my favorite profs, but of course, theres no such thing as a free lunch. I have a passion for academia, despite how much I complain about it. I don't feel like I'm done learning yet and I don't think I'm ready to leave my academic studies. However, this revelation is in direct contrast to my call to plant a church. 

At Next Church I met with many others who are looking outside the box for their ministry, rethinking church and community. It is there that I realized that I have to do things my own way. I will do both. I can write a these and plant a church. I will do both at the same time.

Is this a crazy idea? Undoubtably it may not be the most rational choice, but it is clearly the right one. Next inspired me to try, to release my fears and go out on a limb. God's call for me is not something that I can sit on, it is TOO important to wait for permission to move forward with. I am going to push people, upset them, back them into a corner until they can't tell me no. God's work is risky, challenging, and yes, there is a possibility to fail. After Next, I am not afraid to fail in ministry, I'm afraid of failing to live out God's call for my life. 

Don't Speak

So today I preached a sermon entitled "Don't Speak." This sermon was focus on the passage in 1 Corinthians 14:34-5 where it says that women shouldn't speak and to do so is shameful. This passage was something that I had to confront for myself, to figure out how this fits in my Sacred Scripture. I used it in the context of domestic violence and how women are silenced in churches by our inaction on their behalf. 

I woke up at 9 and I was sooo ready to go, but service didn't start til noon.  I wasn't really nervous about the sermon, I had come to peace with it. I woke up ready to preach, there was an urgency. I had this word, and I just needed to let it out. I was excited, but calm. I was impatient. I had a dream that when I got up to do the opening I just started my sermon, that's how ready I was. 

I felt a sense of calm that I have never experienced before. I was excited, my foot was twitching, but my hands were stead, my stomach wasn't doing summersaults. I got up there and while I was doing it I felt good. There were places where I was worried, the sermon was tough and the audience looked a little shell shocked. I couldn't read them and I thought I was yelling at them, and that's why they weren't emoting much. When I finished and walked away and I was in a weird space. Still, there were no nerves. I was calm.

However, after service the reception I received was different. There is a usual "You did well" (which I still don't know how to react to). But today, the congratulations were more sincere, the hugs were much tighter. Today was different and I cannot explain it. My facebook blew up with compliments. Things were moving today and I don't really know how to deal with them, but today was definitely different. 

Guiller

Tomorrow is Haiti Sunday at church and I have been asked to talk about my experience in Haiti. I have had one of the craziest weeks. I am the Teaching Assistant for an intensive Hebrew class, in addition to taking a class for 3.5 hours 3 days a week. Half of this week I have been at school for 13 hours. I am exhausted and I haven't even really had time to think about Haiti, which is probably for the best. So here are bits and pieces of my story with Guiller.  

On our third day in Haiti we went to deliver our donations to other orphanages in Port au Prince. We left in the truck with bags of flip-flops, new clothes, underwear, and some rice and beans. We also brought some snacks with us. We had dinner tolls, peanut butter and Tampico, a kind of fruit juice. At the second orphanage we visited that day we gathered outside on benches with the kids. I was sitting with Guiller, he was probably 6 or 7, he didn’t say much, but had a bright and beautiful smile. As we passed out peanut butter on dinner rolls and the Tampico the kids faces lit up. Some just dug right in, others, like Guiller slowly ate the peanut butter from the roll, putting his finger in it, then licking it off, until most of the peanut butter was gone. Then he ate the roll. I watched a little girl, who was probably two chug her Tampico in a few gulps. It was probably a 12oz bottle or so, and this young girl drank it all at once. 

As they ate their peanut butter rolls something very profound hit me. We were sharing the body of Christ with these young children. We had our own Communion feast. The bread was covered in peanut butter and the juice came in a bottle, but we were sharing the Lord’s Supper. 

Language barriers kept us from having conversations with these kids, but our actions spoke more words than could ever say. We were there, all 22 of us left our families and friends for a week to share Christ with kids in Haiti and in that moment, outside on benches we were. These kids were hungry and we gave them food. They needed new clothes and we clothed them. We were doing what Christ has called us to do.

There are many things that are distinctively different between the two groups gathered on those benches. Our connection to these kids was something much more powerful than a love of soccer or music. In their eyes I saw God, I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit with us. I saw the connection that brings us all together. Every child we saw was beautifully and wonderfully made by God. Outside, on those benches we shared a Sacred meal between God’s children. We shared the love of Christ with these children without saying much, but simply by being there.

Processing through Pictures

Last night something incredible happened. On the flight home from Haiti, one of the other 'adults' took everyone's camera and downloaded all of our pictures. I got 1661 to mark my trip! There is such a wonderful mix of pictures that it is truly incredible. I spent probably a good hour staring at the pictures from the trip, and all I could think of was the wonderful stories that are being told through these pictures. Thus, I feel like a good way to share and process this crazy experience that I had would be through pictures. I hope to continue to process while I look through these pictures. While I am tempted to give you all a day by day play by play, I think it is best to share with you the stories that are on my heart and what I need to say. 

I will start with the first child at New Life that blew me away. Her name is Milaua. I don't know much about her story, but I am guessing she's about 7 years old. Our first night, we went over to meet some of the kids. I had taken a shower, because we had been painting all day and I had gotten pretty sweaty. After my shower I went to see the kids and Milaua came right up to me. She grabbed my hand, drug me over a piece in the blacktop, and told me to sit down, which I did. She had a cute hair tie in her hair, which I said that I liked. She proceeded to stand above me, and do my hair. I had two hair ties on my wrist, and she added her own cute bow to put my wet hair in 3 pony tails. I wish I had taken a picture of my ridiculous hair. There was a piece of hair in the front that didn't make it into one of my 3 ponytails and she braided it. 

This was my first interaction with kids from the orphanage. There was very little talking, most of the kids spoke Creole and learn French in school but their English can be hit or miss. I just sat there and let her make of fool out of me, and it was the best 5 minutes I had all day. 

How was Haiti?

This past week I ventured to Haiti with 18 college students and 3 other adults for 5 days. We worked with New Life Children's Home in Port au Prince. Our mission for the week was to paint the guest house where missionaries and groups of travelers stay on the property with the orphanage as they trave throughout Haiti on different projects.  New Life has over 100 children that they care fore, ranging from around a year old and up. There are also 20 kids there who have special needs. To see more about the orphanage and what they do there you can go to http://www.newlife4kids.org/.

Upon my return people have been asking me "How was Haiti?". I have no idea how to respond to that question. The experience was incredible and I had a great deal of fun. However, I also got my heart broken on a daily basis and I saw things I never want to see again. I saw young kids with bloated bellies from malnutrition, kids who haven't eaten all day, I saw kids who were nine years old that were the size of my 5 year old nephew.  I saw rubble from the earthquake nearly 3 years ago clutter the streets. I saw tent cities that were assembled as temporary housing that have turned into permanent residences. 

Overall, I feel bipolar. I saw God in the faces of so many people there. I experienced God in ways that I don't think I could have here in the US. However, I was also angry with God, how can God allow these children to suffer like this? How can God's children live in such deplorable conditions? I know that this trip has opened my eyes and given me a fire in my belly to do something, but what? How could I possibly help these kids. I cannot take them home with me, I cannot financially support them and I cannot work to stabilize their government. I feel pretty helpless. Here I am sitting in my comfy warm apartment with central air and my computer typing away. There are so many things that I learned from this experience that I cannot possibly begin to tell you all of them now. My hope is that as the weeks go by I will have a clearer understanding of how God will use this experience.