Oh, the places I've been!

I love the way 2007 began for Bill and I: the pastor of the church we were attending at the time opened the building and made himself available to share communion with anyone who wanted to stop by on New Year's Eve. The place was lit by candlelight, and he had quiet worship music playing in the background. We stopped by there - the place was almost completely empty - just the pastor and one other person, but God was there, and it seemed just about the best way to end one year and begin a new one.

Though the church didn't work out for us (that pastor fled the empty building - and the folks who paid the mortgage on it - in the process, snagging a plum position at a Big Box church across town), I value what that evening meant as we staggered into 2007.

* * * * * * *

The wreckage of that "empty building" church launched Bill and I back on the road, looking for a new church. We'd only been there a few months, and slipped out the back door almost as quietly as we'd entered the fall before.

And we found ourselves on the road again. And we didn't want to be.

This year has been an illustration of a new "ah ha" in my life. It's occurred to me that people usually find themselves spiritually homeless for two reasons: they're pilgrims or they're refugees.

Pilgrims are on a quest for a new thing: they're responding to the call and conviction of God in their lives and they can't help but leave the familiar and journey into the unknown. They're on the quest of their lives, following Him.

Refugees*, on the other hand, are fleeing something terrible, running for their lives. They're not sure if there's safe haven "out there", but they know they'll perish if they stay where they are.

This year was more of a refugee experience for Bill and I than a pilgrimmage. Bill was more gracious than I about it, but I can tell you that as the year wore on, I felt like I was staggering from one church to the next, looking for safety and not really discovering it in the places I'd expected to find it.

I did find it in the prayers of my husband, the hymns of a hospice nurse, the words of Scripture, the phone calls and visits with friends, the deep connection with God I experience as I write, and in the ministry of the Holy Spirit. God Himself is a refuge, a present help in time of need.

Last week, I told someone that I simply want to feel safe at church. I understand now that those are the words of a refugee. Though God Himself is our refuge, His Bride has been charged with absorbing and mirroring His character. She should be safe, because God is safe. Bill and I are now attending an Anglican church. I cried through most of the service the first week we were there, I think because I smelled safety in the air there. I believe (and I think the Bible bears me out on this) that one of the roles of the church in our lives should be to shape us as pilgrims, pursuing God.

Which is ironic, since a pilgrim's life can be just as risky as that of a refugee.

(*Note to all refugees of civil wars and persecution out there: I don't mean to diminish your suffering by using it as a metaphor for a spiritual condition. You are my heroes, and my inspiration.)

It's beginning to look a lot like...

It is always surprises people when I tell them that when I was growing up, I didn't even know when Christmas was. I wasn't totally clueless - I knew it was a December holiday that generated a lot of cool Christmas cartoons (Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, and two local favorites, Suzy Snowflake and those three zany elves, Hardrock, Coco and Joe), but my Jewish parents emphasized that Christmas was their holiday. In my 99% Jewish neighborhood, electric menorahs, not plug-in electric Santas, lit the windows of the houses. We celebrated Chanukah - the translation in my head was "Jewish Christmas", meaning . I knew the story of Chanukah, but those 8 days of presents (and the 8 nights of candle-lighting that accompanied the loot) was the primary focus of my material girl heart.

After I came to faith in Christ, I couldn't wait to celebrate Christmas. I thought a proper Christmas celebration included church attendance, carols on the radio, a tree, snow, presents, parties, concerts and baking cookies. So much of what I thought Christmas was supposed to be had nothing to do with Christmas. I figured that out quickly, but have played along with some of it all these years because some of this stuff is pretty fun - it's our yearly attempt to chase the darkness out of these short days and celebrate the people in our lives with gifts, parties and decorating.

In true parable fashion, this thing we celebrate badly with plastic lawn ornament Santas, drunken office parties and overheated Visa cards - or celebrate well with visits to the nursing home, gifts to needy families and participation in church Christmas pageants - is nothing less than the near-invisible invasion of planet earth by a Baby born to an unwed teen mom in the ancient equivalent of a garage off the alley.

But maybe, celebration is an incomplete response to this invasion. Worship, after all, is how the original party guests responded:

"Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.' When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, 'Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about...(After visiting the manger) The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told." - Luke 2:13-15, 20

"After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him." - Matthew 2:1, 2

As we round the bend toward Christmas this year, it's something to ponder.

Thank you for praying!

Carlos will be receiving his green card within weeks!!!

Across the divide

This week, Scot McKnight's must-read Jesus Creed blog linked to an excellent Books & Culture article about the lifestage now being dubbed "Emerging Adulthood". This piece offers a more academic spin on what I'm observing in my own kids, in the lives of the emerging adults with whom I interact at work, in the words of blogs and books penned by this demographic, and as I watch and listen to what's going on in our broader culture. It's a somewhat lengthy piece, but well worth your time.

I am a tail-end Boomer, born in 1959. When I look at that year, I think sometimes it may as well be 1959 B.C. It looks like ancient history. 1959.

I have often found myself impatient with Boomer ethos, both in the culture and in the church. (And sadly, the latter often mirrors the former so perfectly that both of them blur together in a very icky way - but this post ain't about flogging that tired horse.) We Boomers, besides frequently possessing a stunning sense of our own Importance and a perverse desire to look Goldie Hawn-young, have allowed our generational identity to be forged as victims of the Generation Gap. "My elders don't understand me!" became both battle cry and justification for decades of some really bratty behavior by us Boomers.

And in a weirdly just turn of events, many of us Boomers (the parents of this wave of emerging adults) now stand on the other side of a new, uncharted Generation Gap. We have both contributed to and exacerbate the struggle our kids are now experiencing. These kids aren't whining that we don't understand them. They are trying to grow a life, while we are viewing their battle to figure out who they are through our own John Lennon-shaped lenses.

I have heard Malachi 4:5-6 ("See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.") quoted everywhere from homeschooling conventions to The Call. I occasionally see little glimmers of what fulfillment of this might look like in action - in mustard-seed sized packages. Boomers relinquishing the stage and the microphone. Emergening gens washing the feet of boomers.

But mostly, we don't. And we're losing too many of the emerging gen as a result. May God have mercy on us all. It is not in any of our hearts to live with our hearts turned to someone on the other side of a generational divide. (Or, for that matter, with our hearts turned to the person right next to us, on our side of the divide. Again, I digress...) This Malachi promise is a benchmark of revival; it is also a violent, paradigm shattering promise of His return. It is a picture of the kingdom.

I can offer no clever solution here. Only to know that if I pray "Lord, Your kingdom come...", I need to be ready, willing and able to repent.

And to listen to the voices on the other side of the divide. Something tells me that if I repent, their distant whispers will become shouts.

P.S. - I'm adding paragraph breaks - honestly! I can't figger out how to convince Blogger to do what I tell it to do.

Addendum to the post below

Blogger! Grrrr!

I can't quite figure out why the formatting of the post below is whack-a-doodle. So sorry!

A face to go with the news story

Here are the faces of some who have been directly and indirectly impacted by the challenges of navigating our country's immigration system. These faces are my family; people I cherish.

Next week, after a 4+ year wait, our son-in-law heads into Mexico to begin what is hopefully the final leg of his journey towards a visa and green card. There are no guarantees with this process, and the wait there may stretch on for months. They don't want to be separated, so our daughter and precious grandson are planning to stay there as long as it takes.

After the great losses of this year, this is another big challenge for me personally. The holidays are full of warm images of family gatherings. Though our reality is miles from Norman Rockwell, those images stand in contrast to where we Van Loons/Valenzuelas will be this Christmas and they bring a particular heavy sorrow to these days leading into the holiday.

Psalm 39:12-13 is a cry for help from a road-weary David. This imprecation comes at the end of a song crafted out of David's experience of chastisement. The pilgrim words cry out for God to hear and to act, and for Him to remove the sorrow and bring wholeness and restoration in this life: "Hear my prayer, O LORD, listen to my cry for help; be not deaf to my weeping. For I dwell with you as an alien, a stranger, as all my fathers were. Look away from me, that I may rejoice again before I depart and am no more."

These words are the cry of my aching heart right now.

I'd value your prayers for wholeness and restoration in our family. Of particular urgency in the next couple of weeks are our son-in-law's hearings in Juarez. We are asking God for a miracle - a visa and green card on the spot. It can happen. God can move a mountain of paperwork in an instant.

Give it away, give it away now

I've been working with home schooled writing students for well over a decade, first in the venue of support/enrichment groups, then in classes held in my living room, and finally via e-mail tutorials. One of my favorite assignments is an essay based on the question: "How would you give away a million dollars?" I have a couple of rules: students can't give this money to a family member - or their own local church; they need to choose at least 3 different destinations for their financial gift (this gets me a structured, classic five-paragraph essay to evaluate); they need to be specific. I tell them, "Don't just tell me you want to help people in Africa - tell me which country in Africa, tell me which organization located there and what kind of work they do, tell me why you choose this particular organization, and tell me how you expect this organization to use your donation."

This assignment is based on an editorial I'd read in World magazine in 1999, penned by Marvin Olasky. In it, he details how he'd give away a billion dollars. A billion is a ridiculously unimaginable number, so I scaled back the figure to a nice, manageable million.

I've had kids doing this assignment for the last 7 or 8 years - and I've read dozens and dozens of these essays during that time. Students have donated their imaginary money to numerous missions agencies, cancer research, homeless shelters, and animal rescue organizations, along with the occasional homeschool basketball team. I've had a great time reading these essays, and pushing the kids to dream about giving to others.

So maybe, as we enter this Advent/Christmas season (which tends to be all about getting and buying, as well as eating and eating some more) here's a daydreaming assignment for YOU:

HOW WOULD YOU GIVE AWAY A MILLION DOLLARS?

I'd love to see your list. Even better, you don't have to write an essay! Just a list. :)

I'll post mine to get you started:

- Supporting missionary friends of ours who work with immigrant Muslims and Hindus here in Chicago, as well as overseas.

- Emmaus Ministries - I did a profile of this amazing outreach to male prostitutes for Charisma magazine a couple of years ago.

- A hospice organization like Vitas, the people who served my mom so well.

- Revive Israel - a ministry based in Israel focused on evangelism, prayer and worship.

- A scholarship for a few needy students attending the ministry school at the International House of Prayer.

Today is a good day for Thanksgiving

I've been battling some pretty big depression for the last few weeks. I could give you quite a list of contributing factors (feel free to e-mail me at mishvl@yahoo.com if you're curious or given to prayer; I'm more than happy to talk about it) - but that is not the point of this post.

Sometimes, crawling through a spiritual and emotional time where it feels like the air is black tar is what it means to live the parable life. It is the practice of gratitude, even when the usual emotions which accompany it are a gazillion miles away. To the right is my icon of gratitude for today: a glamour shot of my husband's recent close encounter with a deer.

Back in the `70's, we sang a happy-clappy version of Habbakuk 3:17-19 that sounded weirdly like the song "The Farmer In The Dell". We'd sing Habbakuk's list of coming death and famine - God's judgement - as if it were a list of pesky little annoyances, along with the upbeat chorus that promised it would all be OK. Though many of us sang that song out of great pain, there was always something about that perky tune that made it sound like we were praising God for helping us with really grim stuff like not being able to find a good parking place at the mall. But I digress...

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

he enables me to go on the heights.

Read the entirety of Habbakuk 3. It really is not the kind of thing to which you'd want to clap along. Habbukuk has been given a message of the kind of wholesale judgement that was going to mean great physical suffering. He intercedes even as he prophesies by asking God, "In wrath remember mercy" (vs. 2). What Habbakuk hears in his soul from God, combined with what sees as he observes the decaying world around him, would be enough to make most of us want to jump off a cliff.

And perhaps Habbakuk did feel like that: "I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us" (vs. 16). That 'day of calamity' was going to come on this invading nation AFTER God allowed them to first decimate Habbakuk's friends, family - and nation. I think Habakkuk was prophesying the kind of stuff that would be very costly not just to "someone else" later, but to himself, in his lifetime.

Rejoicing in the Lord in Habbakuk's context does not mean clapping along to The Farmer In The Dell-style melody. It meant committing to hold on to a deeper reality - the goodness and certain salvation of God. It meant gratitude, even as despair threatens to suck every bit of a whispered thank You down its insatiable black hole.

If you're having a rough time of it this holiday season, let me know at the e-mail address above. It would be an honor to pray for you.

All In A Friday

It was something to see 400+ local church leaders, staffers and assorted other gapers (like me) gathered today at the annual Catalyst Forum. The keynote dude, one Bishop Kevin Ulmer, preached some of the wallpaper off of the walls at the Trinity International University chapel.

What he had to say was familiar (go and make disciples, not programs or members) but he said it creatively and in order to motivate. It is always interesting watching people come out from their various church encampments and mingle/schmooze and even truly fellowship.

The highlight moment for me was in the breakout session on prayer. As the workshop leader, Debbie Stackhouse, shared about what a church that's centered on prayer - a house of prayer! - might look like, a man on staff at one of the Big Box mega churches in the area got visibly emotional. "We're the exact opposite of this model," he said. "We run programs and ask God to bless them. And it's wrong." I was watching him throughout the session. He was fighting back tears almost the entire hour.

He is in a dangerous place, this guy. It would be a lot easier for him to run his program. But something tells me that God is moving deeply in his life and he won't be satisfied with anything less than Him. May God give him the strength to stay in this place of brokenness, no matter what.

* * * * * * *

We lived in WI for 9 years, where Thanksgiving week is better known as Gun Deer Season. The entire state comes to a screeching halt so people can head to the woods in shocking orange outfits. The boy deer are in heat, as crazed as frat boys on spring break. The people (mostly guys) dressed in horrible garish clothes shoot at the frantic deer. Sometimes they kill the deer. Mostly they drink, eat beef jerky and tell each other stories.

Gun Deer Season flushes Girl and Boy Bambis out of the woods and sends them running helter-skelter through the state. As in EVERYWHERE. As in over the river and through the woods, right into Grandmother's Pontiac. I suspect that cars kill as many deer as guns do, only the drivers of the cars aren't usually wearing orange and aren't intentionally hunting.

We never bagged a deer with our car in WI, though we had a few close calls. But this morning, just as the sun was thinking about coming over the horizon, Bill my husband got a 4 point buck with his Corolla. Sadly, he was thinking about heading to work, not Car Deer Hunting. He's fine, by the grace of God. I'm beginning to wonder if I need to put our auto insurance agent's number in our phone on auto dial.

This is the car we bought about a year and a half ago to replace to Corolla totalled with our boys driving it. This is the car that was in a 4800 dollar accident 6 months ago. (Today's deer damage is far, far worse.) In between these accidents, my car blew a head gasket. 1200+ bucks for that. A gigantic bubble in the tire of my mom's car that I drove back from FL. I drove it all the way back with that horrible shimmy going on, thinking the car just needed an alignment. The next week, our son Jake got a flat and needed tires on his car.

May I just say that a friend noted that not a hair on our heads has been harmed during any of this drama. We've walked away from each of these disasters. Thank you, Jesus.

But we are really in a weird car zone. Spiritual attack? Test? Curse?

MMM...doughnuts

My recent motto: It is possible to do something humiliating EVERY SINGLE DAY

So far today, I've managed to keep the red blush from crawling up my neck. It's only 3:17 p.m. The day is young.

Yesterday, it only took me an hour to experience the day's humiliation. The first human being I spoke to was the tinny voice coming out of the Dunkin' Donuts speaker, asking to take my order.

"A medium coffee, two sugars, and a chocolate covered bagel," I replied.

"A chocolate covered bagel?" Tinny Voice asked.

"Yes. Chocolate covered bagel."

"Did you say chocolate covered BAGEL?" she queried again.

That was it. She couldn't hear me. I looked toward the pick-up window and nodded slightly, to show her I understood, then yelled, "BAGEL!"

She tried again. "Bagel?"

There was a long pause. Obviously, we weren't communicating very well at all. She was staring at me, trying to turn on the darkened lightbulb over my head with her eyes.

At last...ignition: "Oh," I said sheepishly. "I meant doughnut."


* * * * * * * *


I heard Steve Carrell walked off The Office set in support of the striking writers. Give yourself a gift today. Take 3 minutes and re-watch Dwight Schrute giving his Dunder-Mifflin Paper Salesman Of The Year speech, Mussolini-style:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqDkV4fd8Nw

Then, go order yourself a nice chocolate covered bagel. Loudly.

The blessing of a messed-up life

I've known a few people who have enjoyed relatively problem-free lives. By "few" I mean I can count these people on one-and-a-half hands. Max. One woman I used to know who proudly and regularly proclaimed she lived by God's principles (exegeted by Dr. Dobson in the childrearing department, Elizabeth Elliott in the wifely submission department, Larry Burkett for finances, Emilie Barnes for teacups and doilies) had a life that seemed to bear witness to the discipline of living within the boundaries of that counsel. It all worked for her.

There was a lot of "if only" in her response to people who had messier lives: "If only this person had followed godly principles, __________ would never have happened to them." She also had a toxic propensity for labeling sick people as spiritual failures. ("If only they'd dealt with the sin in their lives - or prayed more effectively - they'd enjoy the blessings of good health and a long life!")

Let it be noted here that this woman with the perfect life was one of the least-compassionate people I've ever known. But you probably already figured that one out! Her handful of companions in the blessed life department are all nice enough people, but they were people who spoke the language of compassion haltingly, with a strong pity accent.

When hard stuff happens in my life , I find myself wistfully longing for someone else's life. The life I covet is actually a life like this handful of blessed people enjoys. I want the good gifts I see in their lives: orderly families, HGTV homes, cozy church experiences, glowing good health.

Again and again I discover in the midst of my pain that the Giver of those good gifts is there in the midst of the chaos and pain, wanting me. Giving me Himself. Yesterday my family's too-dramatic life took yet another hard turn: more loss, more upheaval. It feels anything but a blessing today.

But I am learning to do the counter-intuitive thing - turn into the pain instead of running, cursing or cowering - or worse, demanding that God give me the blessed life I am convinced I so richly deserve. As I do, I again discover my Father there.

Hymn break

Man of Sorrows! what a name

For the Son of God, who came

Ruined sinners to reclaim:

Hallelujah! what a Saviour!

Bearing shame and scoffing rude,

In my place condemned he stood,

Sealed my pardon with his blood:

Hallelujah! what a Saviour!

Guilty, vile, and helpless, we;

Spotless Lamb of God was he;

Full atonement! can it be?

Hallelujah! what a Saviour!

Lifted up was he to die,

"It is finished!" was his cry:

Now in heav'n exalted high:

Hallelujah! what a Saviour!

When he comes, our glorious King,

All his ransomed home to bring,

Then anew this song we'll sing:

Hallelujah! what a Saviour!

He is our only hope.

Do I read what I write?

Apparently not.

Yesterday I wrote in this blog about the parking lot known as Chicago's Edens Expressway. Tonight I cheerfully got on the Edens. Sat there, parked, buring three buck-a-gallon gas.

I need to pay more attention to what I write.

My kind of town

I'm watching the local news, and they're showing a shot of the Edens Expressway. It is a solid line of cars, because they're doing some kind of roadwork (6:15 a.m. is the PERFECT time of day to jackhammer some concrete). These shots of cars burning three buck-a-gallon gas while idling on the parking lots known as roads in Chicago are a daily fixture of life here in the Chicago area. The underbuilt roads are one of the worst parts of life here - too many cars all vying for asphalt time.

So if the roads are one of the worst parts of Chicago life, what are some of the pleasures of living here? I'm not shilling for the department of tourism. I'm writing as someone living in the metropolitan area, just like 10 million-ish others do. So...in no particular order...

(1) The skyline. Stunning. It never fails to take my breath away. I've lived here most of my life and I never get tired of seeing it.

(2) Hot dogs. Italian beef. Deep dish pizza.

(3) Unusually terrible sports teams most of the time. Think fo the Michael Jordan-era Bulls, the 1985 Bears and the 2005 White Sox as abberations. After all, if I, a casual sports fan at best, can quote you names and years of winning teams, it's because those come few and far between here. There's a weird psychology of suffering at work if you're a Chicago sports fan.

(4) Ethnic diversity. I live in a suburb, which typically conjures images of Caucasian people driving SUVs. But this is not necessarily true in the `burbs. Most of the time when I took my grandson to the park across the street from my house this summer, I was almost always the only English As A First Language speaker there. I heard lots of Russian, various Indian dialects, Spanish and occasional Chinese. (To contrast, when we lived in WI, I often felt like the most exotic ethnic person in the room.)

(5) The cultural scene here. Living in a place where there's so much arts stuff happening makes conversation more interesting and people more literate.

(6) Fascinating recent spiritual history. During the last hundred-ish years or so, the Chicago metropolitan area has been the home all sorts of evangelicalism's expressions, for example. Think DL Moody, Wheaton College (as well as several other committed to the cause of Christ institutions of higher learning), the city of Zion, lots of Christian publishers and Willow Creek Community Church. There is a calling/ministry of communication in the spiritual DNA of this region.

(7) The people: Big city sophisticated and Midwestern friendly, with a long heritage of patronage and networking. The single sentence that best sums up Chicago ways is the one that begins, "I got a guy..." As in, "I got a guy who can get you that car part for a third the cost", "I got a guy who can get your kid a summer job at the park district", "I got a guy who can rout out your clogged drain line". Or take care of your parking ticket.

What do you like or dislike about the place where you live?

Rebel aria

So I wrote The Church For Skeptics: A Conversation For Thinking People. (The book is somewhere in the publishing pipeline/birth canal right now.) Thanks to my part-time job at the bookstore, I get to powerskim the new books coming on on the topic of church. There is a growing choir of writers singing a variation of the "`taint how she's supposed to be aria:

I tried church. I tried really, really hard.

But the boredom, shallowness, politics and self-absorbtion of institutional Christianity nearly killed me.

I like Jesus.

So I followed Him right out of the institution. I'm free. Oooo....yeah, girl.

(OK, maybe not that last part. That was just me improvising.)

What's amazing is that though the lyrics aren't particularly catchy, there are a lot of people singing them. Loudly. And on key. These aren't people looking for an excuse to diss the church. They're mostly people who love the church deeply - present or former insiders who can not keep doing religion any more.

Book titles like these have various additional stanzas to the song, but the chorus is the same:

Dear Church: Letter From A Disillusioned Generation

They Like Jesus But Not The Church: Insights From Emerging Generations

Life After Church: God's Call To Disillusioned Christians

There are many more - spiritual memoirs and leadership books that focus on doing church differently (or not doing it at all). And even purveyors of big, spiffy, programmy church life are having the kind of self-examination that goes with a necessary mid-life crisis.

Many of us have sung a variation of the `tain't how it should be aria and have been branded the problem. (Ask a cow how she likes being imprinted with a red-hot piece of metal.) I've sung it off-key, and sometimes a bit too loud. This song has proved to be very costly in my life - and in the life of my family. So this choir of voices all singing the same song has been music to my ears. I'm not alone! And it breaks my heart. I'm not alone!

So, church...where do we go from here? I want to sing a new song. I think a lot of us aria singers do. If you were writing the lyrics, how would they go?

To live is Christ...

Some people from my past have appeared in digital form in my present. Whether its a post on a blog or an unexpected e-mail, it's been very cool to hear from them.

One of those people has been my friend Judie. We began swapping e-mails this summer after a pause of several years. We'd been through some intense family and church stuff together, and though our lives had diverted, she always had a special place in my heart. Her blunt honesty, roll-with-the-punches humor and 111% committment to her big, one-of-a-kind family were a tutorial in The Real Deal Christian Life 101 for me.

Judie is one busy lady, and so when her e-mails stopped just as suddenly as they'd began, I didn't really think much of it. I was consumed with caring for my terminally-ill mom.

So imagine my surprise when I got an unexpected e-mail from another long-ago friend, telling me that Judie had leukemia and was in the hospital receiving chemo (and all the accompanying "proceedures" - proceedure being another word for "science experiment"). Coming off the heels of my still-fresh experience with my mom, the news staggered me backwards. Literally. I walked around with a lump in my throat and a very heavy heart for days.

One of the best things that has happened to me in the last few weeks came first in the form of yet another e-mail - this one from Judie - asking me again to call her. (She'd sent one a few days earlier with the same request in it, but I figured she was just being polite. I didn't want to bother her, so I didn't call.) But after the second e-mail, I picked up the phone and called her immediately.

It was one of the highlights of my month. It was a great conversation with one another and with God, but I think what made it amazing was that she went out of her way to welcome me into her life at a time when it might be easier to close the circle so she can focus on fighting her battle with this stupid disease. She blessed me - and reminded me again what it really means to LIVE a parable life - an improbable life that tells God's story.

If you're reading this, take a moment or five and pray for Judie and her fam.

Landlocked surfing

After two months of internet semi-fasting in South Florida, I'm enjoying some Internet Water Ski time (hard to surf here in the midwest) as I get back into the swing of my writing life. Here's a few links I've visited this week that'll give you a few minutes of thought-provoking and/or hilarious reading:

Brent Hansen's Letters From Kamp Krusty is quickly becoming one of my "must reads". The guy is funny. And anyone who'd pose for a picture holding an acordion can't be all bad.

Christianity Today's Out Of Ur has a fascinating post about Willow Creek's recent congregational spiritual life wake-up call. A few of the comments on the post are worth the price of admission.

Naked Pastor (a great, provocative name, eh?) continues to challenge and question the way we do church - and lets his questions push him into beautiful honesty that incarnates Jesus in the way he and his fam live and minister.

Love the ongoing dialogue about the writing life at The Master's Artist.

Want to get a taste of what its like to participate in ordered, fixed-hour prayer, a.k.a. the daily office? Check out Northumbria Community's website. You can click on the link, and go right to a morning, mid-day, evening or compline worship for the specific day.

What are some of your favorite blogs or websites? Where do you like to go when you have a few minutes of internet water ski time?

Upgrade me

Oh so much has been written about the consumerist nature of western Christians. But as I was reading Tim Keel's excellent book Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor and Chaos (Baker 2007), I had a wee ah-ha moment. Keel mentions that us sheep aren't the only ones wandering from pasture to pasture, church to church.

He pointed out that many of our leaders engage in the same hunger-driven behavior. Looking to upgrade their resume, buff their experience, and be where "it" is happening, there are some church leaders who move on in order to move up. Like in college football, the evangelical world doesn't have an official ranking system. "Moving up" is more a state of mind or bragging rights than actual measurable distance"up". Though the evangelical world doesn't have sportswriters spinning out weekly rankings ("Saddleback has slipped to number six this week due to quarterback Rick Warren's pulled hammie"), there is this funny pecking order that exists in the minds of an awful lot of these leaders. This order is based on things like a church's size, positive secular media attention, cutting edge-ness... It is invariably signposts of human success/power that shapes these rankings.

I've heard enough present- and future-pastor conversations both at the seminary where I sometimes work and among church leaders I've known to know that Keel's words about some spiritual leaders' ambitions are true. (Not all, for sure - but a fair-sized some.) So at least in some cases, the motivations of leaders and of congregants each in search of some kind of church "upgrade" aren't so different from one another.

What drives people forward to greener pastures, a different church, a better "ministry job" (as if there was such a thing as a ministry job)? No matter who the person is, there's hunger driving them on and out (and, in some cases, up). I have a friend who lost about 40 pounds a few years ago by learning to eat only when she was truly hungry. She learned that most of her feelings of hunger were actually feelings of other kinds (boredom, anger, anxiety, unthinking responses to food commercials on TV).

How do we learn to listen to the hunger so we can learn what real hunger feels like? How do we learn to understand that what we call moving on, moving up, moving out is what we often call "hunger for God" but might not be hunger at all?

Stuff I saw on my road trip

There's nothing like a road trip, is there? Last week, I drove from west of Ft. Lauderdale back home to Round Lake. I did the drive in two days - 11 hours the first day, 15 the second. This is not recommended unless you have a titanium behind. Which, apparently, I do.

Here are some (wildly) random observations about this trip:

(1) OTR truckers - how do they do it?

(2) The last palm tree I saw as I headed north from Ft. Lauderdale was near Jacksonville, FL. I watched for it. It was my way of saying goodbye to FL.

(3) Interstate 75 in Georgia is lined with fascinating reading material. I have never seen so many colorful semi-professional billboards in my entire life. Discount Bibles, pecan rolls (three for a buck!), carpet, attractions! Wow!

(4) There are radio stations that play all Gospel Quartet music, all the time. Hmmm.

(5) Tennesee took my breath away. (And it wasn't just because there were fewer billboards!) I want to go back. I want to go back and get off the interstate and hike through those gorgeous mountains. If you've ever been there and have some recommendations as to where to stay and places to go there, let me hear from y'all.

(6) My friend Jeanna lent me her Garmin GPS system for the trip. The Garmin's disembodied woman's voice took on a personality of her own as I drove.

"Veer left in 300 yards," she'd say coolly.

"But I need to use the bathroom," I'd reply as I veered right onto an exit ramp. "Recalculating....recalculating...recalculating!"she'd say, sounding angrier and angrier with my disobedience to her commands.

"You're not the boss of me," I'd say. But I wasn't so sure this was true.

What made the experience even sweeter was catching an episode of The Office in the hotel after the first day of driving that featured Michael driving his LeBaron into water while using one of these GPS systems. I could see how this could happen. Rogue technology.

(7) I stopped outside of Nashville for some Chik-Fil-A (When In Rome...). I looked around the crowded restaurant, and had the feeling if I yelled, "Everyone who is a Christian here, raise their hand", that 90% of the people in the restaurant would, in fact, raise their hands.

(8) Northern Indiana is flat. This is not a complaint.

The truth sets us free - really

One of the great, sad tragedies of my mom's life was the story of how her adoption was hidden from her until weeks before her wedding. Her mother had died shortly after giving birth to my mom, and my mom's distraught dad couldn't figure out how he could work and care for a newborn as well as his other child, a 9 y/o son. A distant cousin, unable to bear children of her own, stepped forward, offering to adopt the baby with the proviso that no one tell the little girl until she was 16.

My mom's birth family pined for her, kept tabs on her, and waited. 16 came and went, and my mom's adoptive parents chose to keep the secret going. When her birth dad found out my mom was about to be married at age 19, he called weeks before the wedding and asked if he could simply come as a guest to the big event. He'd waited for years in vain, as my mom's adoptive parents conveniently chose to keep living the lie. The day that her dad called, my mom found out at that moment that her entire childhood (which hadn't been very great to begin with - another story entirely) was built on lies and deceit.

I understand that back in those days (the 1930's-1950's), the sorts of choices all the parties made were not unusual. But they were wrong nonetheless. And the effects of the deceit and the pain of finding out the truth have shaped my own life and parenting in ways I can't fully comprehend. When Bill and I were foster parenting and considering adoption to grow our own family, I began to realize as I waded through some of the literature about the emotional and spiritual nature of adoption that I myself carried the effects of my mom's covered-up adoption. Most notably, I see it in some of the fear/anger/abandonment stuff I've experienced that seems to resonate directly from the confusion and emotional breakdown my mom experienced when she found out the truth just as she was going through her own major life transition - marriage. I was born less than 2 years later this, and her coping mechanisms were then, and through the rest of my childhood...shall we say, not particularly healthy.

Scripture talks about generational sin, curses and blessings. (E-mail me at mishvl@yahoo.com if you'd like a quick list of some of the verses that discuss this.) Though I believe that Jesus forgives us and frees us from our sin, there are effects and patterns of brokenness that get passed down from one generation to another almost as clearly as hair color and freckles.

What's amazing and sad is that the choice someone made in 1938 (which, I might add, didn't happen in a vacuum - but grew out of the choices, curses and blessings of earlier generations) still echoes today. In some new ways, because after the last few weeks I see the potency of these seventy-year old choices still resonating in our lives, I am asking for healing and release for myself, my husband, my kids and my grandson. Jesus promises to set the captives free.

Click your heels together

If only it were this easy.

I won't be able to click my heels together, Dorothy-style, and go home. Instead, I'll be driving a 99 Toyota Corolla from Ft. Lauderdale to Chicago...

...soon.

Home.

The end and the beginning

My sister Jodi returned here to south Florida on Saturday, September 22. She was going to stay with my mom, and I was planning to return home for a bit before coming back here to take another turn hanging out with my mom. Within a short time after Jodi came into the house, my mom lapsed into a final coma, and died at 2:10 p.m. (Here's the link to her obit.)

Those last hours were remarkable. After the reality of what was happening to my mom set in with my sister and I, I began reading Scripture aloud: Psalm 23, 27, 103, 139, John 3:1-18, Luke 15. I prayed for her, and sang to her. Jodi and I told my mom (again and again) we loved her, and we watched together as she took her last breath. The presence of God was very strong – I never would have imagined it could have been like this for my mom.

But it was. I believe this is because she experienced reconciliation with God in Christ. Though she was too gripped with pain to speak about it, it felt very clear to me that something radical had changed in her soul.

A month ago, when I got the initial phone call from my mom to tell me that “it might be cancer”, I never would have imagined it would have ended this way, this quickly. For most of my life, I never could have dreamed that my mom would find her peace in Jesus. But she did - I watched in awe as the Holy Spirit drew her through the patient, insistent witness of her hospice nurses and through some conversations and prayer times with me.

Throughout our lives, my sister and I experienced a kind of walled-off distance from our mom. We grew used to it. The last month really changed all of that for me. Participating in her death was actually a gift of healing in my life. And the thought that she is finally free and whole and enjoying the kind of life forever NOW that I can scarcely comprehend has taken the sting out of her intense, difficult death.

Thank you for your prayers...

Phone call from death, line 1

I’ve had a front-row seat over the last three and a half weeks as I’ve watched my mom decline toward her death. Though she was very intentional about not seeking treatment for her cancer, now that she’s facing death, she dances toward the grave and then, in a panic, tries to pull back from its gravity. Between some God-appointed, Spirit-anointed hospice nurses and myself, I am more confident now than I was 3-1/2 weeks ago that my mom is hearing the essence of the gospel, and that God is working in her even as she spends almost all of her time non-communicative, eyes closed and hunched over. Every labored breath is a gift from God to her, giving her time to reconcile with Him before she meets Him face-to-face. I am not interested in falsely prolonging her life – only making sure she is comfortable as she goes through the end of it.

Which is what makes yesterday’s dark lunchtime phone call from one of her neighbors all the more outrageous. The last time I met this woman in person was 10 years ago, at my dad’s funeral, and that I have only spoken to her a couple of times on the phone in the last 3 weeks. When this woman called yesterday to find out how my mom was doing and I gave her a general report of my mom’s physical decline, she proceeded to tell me that when her physician husband was dying of cancer and it was getting near the end, she took the advice of another physician friend who told her to (a) turn off her husband’s oxygen and (b) give him super-size doses of morphine She encouraged my sister and I to do the same for my mom. That an almost-near stranger would feel the liberty to suggest this to me has to be a whole new category of chutzpah. Or worse.

Jesus’ resurrection has shattered curse of death, decay and evil.

“Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
"Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world." - John 11:25-27

He is the only hope in death.

And in this life.

The view from So FL

First, the update: My mom continues to fade – she’s now asking for pain and anxiety meds round the clock – a big change from a week ago. She has only short periods of relative alertness, and her waking/sleeping are nearly indistinguishable to the naked eye. She’s eaten or drunk very little the last few days, and her breathing is painful to hear and watch. She sleeps in fits and starts, mostly in an upright position, and needs someone with her round-the-clock. Hospice has pulled their continuous care, and we’ve hired a live-in-health aide named Judie to help. My sister heads back to Washington, DC tomorrow. It’ll be me and Judie, the aide, to care for my mom over the next leg of her journey.

Like others who are caring for a dying person, I have been amazed at the people I’ve met along the way: hospice nurses and social workers, Starbucks employees, strangers and most especially, my mom’s case manager, a Christian who has shared the essence of the gospel with my mom in a way that I could not, opening the way for…?

The familiar words of Psalm 23 are 3-D for me in these days, not only because of what it is to be intimately involved with walking a parent through the end of her life, but because of the turmoil in my daughter, son-in-law and grandson’s lives. It is a story for another time, but suffice it to say that what has occurred with them this week is another potential loss in the life of my family that perhaps is even more devastating.

Please pray, as the Lord leads you.

* * * * * * *

And a few random observations:

- I have never eaten so much deli in my life – ever. Corned beef, stuffed cabbage, matzo ball soup, rugelach, and more corned beef.
- Elderly New Yorkers living here in South Florida have a fashion sense like no other. I have seen some of the scariest outfits this side of Halloween whenever I’ve ventured out.

- The weathermen/women never, ever report the humidity numbers here like they do in Chicago. That’s because this state is a swamp, and the humidity number, as measured by my hair, has got to be at least 95% every day. Ugh.

- I've been watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeapordy, and am doing crossword puzzles. I do not like this. Not one bit.

A note from the cancer rollercoaster

Writing from a Starbucks in Tamarac, FL:

We learned last week that my mom knew she had breast cancer for at least 2 years, and hid it from everyone in her life: she continued to work at a doctor's office and volunteer at the hospital, and never sought treatment for herself, even as she watched it grow and spread.

It has metasisized into her bones and lungs. She's on oxygen, and signed herself up for hospice care 4 days ago. She's deteriorated every day, and is bed-bound and unable to communicate much. Today she actually ate something (she hadn't eaten or done much else but sip a few drops of water this week), but she is dying. We are doing very intense care for her, along with the hospice nurses.

There is much I could say about her choices, her anger and fear, and the wild emotions that have poured into my heart about this all. There will be time for those words later.

For today, while I have a brief respite here at St. Arbucks, I simply ask for your continued prayers. She actually allowed me to read Ps. 23 to her yesterday, and pray over her, but is keeping God and everyone else at bay in many other areas. She needs Jesus. My sister needs Him.

And I need Him, too.

Strapped onto the cancer rollercoaster

I got a phone call 11 years ago to tell me that my dad had just been diagnosed with leukemia. I remember thinking that I'd just been put onto a roller coaster I didn't actually want to ride.

And I couldn't get off. Not until after the funeral.

I just learned that my mom has cancer. She's been "ignoring" the symptoms, until they got so severe yesterday that she wound up in the ER. She's on oxygen, and they're doing tests today to figure out how far its progressed. They know that it's breast...lungs...

My sister and I are boarding planes tomorrow AM to be with her, and to hear what the doctors say. She needs healing, but even more than that, she needs to know her Healer and Savior.

We've been dragged onto the roller coaster again, and it's plummeting....

Please pray.

Growing pains - part 3

"Leaving a church because you're not 'being fed' is a sign of spiritual immaturity."

This might be true. Or false.

I once had a conversation with a person who headed both children's and women's ministry in her mid-sized church. Sunday mornings, she circled through the church like an electron in an atomic accelerator, overseeing children's programming. The rest of the week, she divided her time equally between organizing curriculum, recruiting volunteers, planning women's events, arranging mentoring relationships, and constantly communicating with her sub-leaders about plans and vision. "When is the last time you sat through a church service here?" I asked.

"Oh, I'm a self-feeder," she laughed. "I haven't attended an entire church service here in years!" Of course, she could listen to the pastor's message on CD later if she so chose. (But that isn't really the point, and neither is her motivation in being so darn indespendible.)

Her comment stuck with me, because church - the image most of us conjure when we first hear the word, anyway - is that thing we do on Sunday morning. When we say "I'm not getting fed at my church", we're usually saying "The sermons are missing the mark for me". Or we might be saying "The music to which I'm supposed to be worshipping stinks." Some of us might even be saying, "The other stuff we do in a church service has become rote and meaningless for me."

Even though I found the actions of this woman's/children's pastor extremely troubling, I found a bit of spiritual truth in her words. Spiritual maturity means that we learn to become self-feeders. Or, to put it another way, we learn to feed deeply on God, rather than being fed by others. As we do, we form a different kind of relationship with a Sunday morning church service - particularly those of us who attend churches where the sermon, rather than communion, is the centerpiece of the Sunday morning worship service.

So if we become "self-feeders", then those other things about a congregation (the stuff that happens the other 167 hours of the week) change priority, don't they?

Is it possible to outgrow a congregation if you're a self-feeder?

Down the rabbit hole and into a writer's life

I wasn't paying attention to some big things God was doing in my life 30 years ago, but I had an opportunity to do a little bit of time travel yesterday. Birthday boy Bill and I went to see "Love's Labour's Lost" in Bloomington at the Illinois Shakespere Festival. (2-1/2 hours from Chicago, this is far more than Shakespere in a corn field. Great, professional performances across the board in a beautiful setting.) I'd had an opportunity this past winter to return to Bloomington-Normal for the first time in many years. But dang if it wasn't too cold in February to get out of the car and walk around. While I was there, I remembered the Shakespere festival went on every summer, and mentally bookmarked it as something to check out this summer.

Yesterday, we walked around Normal a little bit and then strolled ISU's beautiful quad. This quad looks like what a college should look like: a castle, majestic old buildings and classy new ones, added over time like a collection, all surrounding majestic old trees and manicured paths in the middle of the campus. We walked over to Fell Hall and stood in the shade of a giant oak talking for a while. I told Bill I wanted to sit on the steps in the hot summer sun and pray.

I didn't realize it at the time, but sitting on those steps as a college student 30 years ago introduced me to my imagination. Fell Hall, known back then as International House, was a dorm full of foreign students, art and theater majors, along with a handful of eccentric others like me. It was the only dorm that sat directly on the quad, and those front steps made a perfect spot to play what became my favorite college game: Guess The Major. One friend in particular, a special education major, would sit with me as we watched the passers-by, and not only try to guess people's majors, but describe their lives, history, and future.

It was a sometimes judgemental, snarky little pasttime. (I'm sorry for that part, Lord.) But it taught me the pleasure of really watching people, to observe, to listen to snatches of conversation, to reach into the ether to capture something beyond what I could see and try to translate it into description. It taught me to sketch a story quickly, with broad brush strokes and neon-colored spray paint, a verbal graffiti artist.

Yesterday, when I went to sit on those steps to pray, I was caught off-guard by the emotion that swept over me. The present-day Michelle got a split-second glimpse of 18 year-old Michelle: it was as if we became one for just a nanosecond. I was that overall-clad little girl who thought she was going to teach deaf kids, and I was a 48 year-old grandmother who has written 3 books.

Have you ever experienced something like this? When you realize that something seemingly small and insignificant has actually launched something very big in your life? I thought at the time that the big thing was to get a teaching degree. I didn't realize that the joy I had in writing papers, in helping to edit the work of others, the love of art and theater, the non-stop journaling, and Guess The Major were the real direction in my life.

My own kids are in the age range I was then; I work at a college part-time. I want to be able to help them all pay attention to the other things going on in their lives beyond the classroom and job choices. Those other things may actually be the bigger story.

Growing pains - part 2

One reason the question of whether it is possible to "outgrow" a church keeps coming back to me is because of the process described in Ian Michael Cron's semi-novel Chasing Francis. The book is an interesting hybrid of history lesson, travelogue, church diagnostic, and love story. It tells the story of an evangelical megachurch pastor named Chase Falcon who has a spiritual and emotional implosion one day while midstream through a Sunday morning sermon. Pastor Falcon happens to have a beloved uncle who is a well-connected priest living in Rome who just so happens to be a scholar and student of the life of Francis of Assisi. The uncle directs Chase on his unexpected pilgrimmage walking in the footsteps of this 800-year old true, faithful Christian.

What is most striking about the book (besides the fact that I wished I had a cool uncle like this) is that Pastor Falcon didn't lose his faith, though for a while, he thought he had. He kept walking through that desert with Francis, and discovered his faith was there, but he'd outgrown the practices and spirituality of his mega church life. The book ends with Chase in his living room with a group of friends, plotting what it would be like to have the kind of church that echoed the ministry of St. Francis.

This was quite inspiring, but this cozy living room scene was immediately preceded by weeks of high-level church political subterfuge that took place while the pastor was away, followed by a fireworks-filled congregational meeting at the megachurch that ended with the pastor's ouster.

And this is how growing pains seem to work - too often. For every lovely parting of the ways when someone outgrows a congregation, there are many more flame-filled bridge-burnings. Curses are invoked, salvation is unnecessarily questioned by those left behind, and relationships are damaged. John 17 remains an unanswered prayer...

Some don't believe you should ever leave a church - that it's disloyal and consumerist. Stick with it, and grow there. Bloom where you're planted. Even if the soil is dust-bowl dry. God will bless your loyalty.

If you're one of those faithful "bloomers", I'd love to hear from you. What made you decide to stay in your church? What has the result been? What would you do differently? Recommend to others to help sustain them when the church no longer provides sustenance or fellowship?

Growing pains - part 1

Yesterday at Scot McKnight's popular Jesus Creed blog, he started a discussion about finding/losing faith. (Click here to read his post and the lively discussion that followed.)

It reminded me of something I read as I was up to my frontal lobe in research for The Church For Skeptics: A Conversation For Thinking People. It was a discussion about the stages of mature faith development in a person's life, and if I'm remembering correctly, the work in question (a book, I think) discussed the crisis that must precede a mature, deepening spiritual life. Of course, I hunted through my bookmarks, and couldn't find hide nor hair of the book's title anywhere, though I seem to remember the essence of the author's scholarly contention was that some of us simply outgrow the churches and practices that sustained us as young-in-the-faith Christians.

Read this the wrong way, and it sounds like I'm espousing a "gotta do what's right for me" program of spiritual growth that will endorse unbiblical practice or celebrate spiritual smogasbord-ism in the name of capturing a renewed sense of spiritual momentum. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong.

But is it possible to outgrow a church?

Two brief examples in support of this possibility:

(1) When I was in high school, my parents didn't allow me to attend church, but they did let me go to Young Life club meetings. These meetings were designed for "seekers", and consisted of games, skits, songs (Pass It On, anyone?) and a short bible lesson. Meanwhile, I was sitting in my room at home, reading my bible, listening to Bible teachers on WMBI, and devouring spiritual life books as fast as I could sneak them into the house. A couple of years into my life as a Christ-follower, I began to get frustrated with the surface-y lessons at Young Life. I complained to a leader, and he looked me straight in the eye and said, "I think you've outgrown us." He wasn't saying it like I was an arrogant annoyance (though perhaps I was). He was simply stating that I'd gone farther than their particular vehicle could carry me. Though Young Life wasn't a church per se, it certainly functioned as one for many of the kids there (including me) to some degree.

(2) Also yesterday, I spoke with an old friend I first met years ago at a Vineyard congregation. She now attends a liturgical congregation. She said, "I got tired of the pastor wringing his hands about what to preach about next. Everything was a sermon series, and we weren't getting the simplicity of the Word of God." The church she now attends uses the lectionary, and the service is shaped by liturgy, rather than weekly invention. She is still a third-wave Charismatic, but worships in a formal setting, and uses her spiritual gifts in other settings (prayer and healing ministries with which she's involved.)

Do you think its possible to outgrow a church? Is this a Biblical idea - or just an accomodation to our church hopping culture?

And what does the Lord require of you?

I had lunch on Friday with my friend Pam. We've been friends since 8th grade, and together came to faith in Christ just as the Jesus Movement wave crested and began to recede. Our oldest children were born just a week apart. Our now-antique cats, Mike and Phyllis, came from a couple of litters of kittens born at Pam's house.

Pam has been an educator for all of her adult life, and I've always admired the sandpaper way she would put her hands on her hips and ask her administrators why they were doing what they were doing, and then come up with an innovative, red-tape free way to actually help her kids. She has always been the voice for her students, though her forthright manner hasn't always endeared her to the powers-that-be. She's remained remarkably unmotivated by a need for approval by those in authority over her, and at one point, even volunteered to take a pay cut in order to keep an educational program in place for another year because she knew it had life-changing potential for her students.

So you know what happened next, don't you? After many years teaaching at this school, the program was cut. And so was Pam.

"Justice" is a word swirling (at last) through the evangelical community in recent years. When Pam and I first began following Jesus, the word was either shaded with informational images of God sitting behind a judge's bench, declaring us "not guilty" due to the finished work of Christ, weighing deeds - or of those from more liberal, social action churches participating in C.R.O.P. walks or joining the Peace Corps. Now we evangelical/charismatic members of the Body of Christ are starting to realize that justice isn't just a descriptor of a theological truth or the domain of them thar lib'rals, but our birthright as members of the kingdom-revolution.

A few years ago, I read (somewhere, can't remember where) that the anger in us is wired to the beautiful and just character of God. When we encounter unrighteousness, something rises up in us that says, "NO!" That "NO!" is there to direct us toward God in order to cry out for justice, and to drive us to live the Micah mandate: "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" (6:8). Anger can scorch everything it touches - or it can fuel a life that loves justice, mercy and humility.

A life like Pam's.

Eatin' good in the neighborhood

I just returned from the Wednesday afternoon farmer's market with:

• Dead ripe tomatoes (my addiction)
• Bi-color sweet corn
• Imperfectly shaped green peppers
• Peaches so ripe they exploded out of their skin when I bit into one
• Homemade pasta
• Asiago breadsticks
• Mixed olives in anise olive oil
• Locally bottled white Sangria
• Garlic-dill jack cheese made by a small WI dairy

I am very aware that this is what blessing tastes like. And I'm grateful...

* * * * * * *

Thought-provoking post of the day: Shawn Blanc's Fight Spot post about leadership. He writes about an essential component for healthy leadership - and it's not what you'd expect. But he's dead on.

* * * * * * *

Here's a website that'll probably crack you up - or at least, give you a grin, just due to its complete absurdity. These are people who have way too much time on their hands.

Ch-ch-changes

Make it stop.

When stuff in our lives goes through a radical rearrangement - meaning, we're forced into some sort of change - more than anything, we want the discombobulation to stop. We want the old normal. Or the new normal. Anything but this horrible confusion that leaves us feeling like we're bobbing around in the middle of a stormy ocean wearing only a Looney Toons inflatable swim ring.

Make it stop.

One of the most helpful books I ever read on the subject of transition was placed in my hands shortly after I'd resigned from my staff position at the church and just before we decided to move back to Chicago. It was, of all things, a business book called Managing Transitions: Making The Most Of Change by William Bridges. Though the book is written to coach businesses through organizational change, it is actually one of thsoe books that seems to apply to just about everyone.

That book put language on a couple of things for me. First, that once an organization enters into its institutional phase, it will calcify or die. There is no way out of this death phase even though the institution may seem on the surface to be very successful and productive. Change and rebirth must happen, even though they run absurdly counter to the force of gravity and the establishment of "success" that catches hold when an organization becomes established.

The second thing that this book helped me to understand is that grief is a core part of transition. Mourning the passing of the old regime means wandering through the various expressions of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) on the way to the new.

My old cry used to be "make it stop". This "make it stop" half-prayer was comprised of: Man, I want the comfort of the way things used to be, even if they sucked that way. I'm angry and sacred that those days are gone. If only I could try harder somehow, things would go back to "normal". I'm so bummed that things feel so messed up.

In other words, "make it stop" seemed to have all the elements of grief except for acceptance.

So I am discovering that I'm in the market for a new kind of prayer as I navigate transition. Anyone have any good ideas?

July 19

Harry Jerome Marks

July 19, 1933-July 19, 1997

Ten years ago today, my father died on his 64th birthday, losing his 17-month battle with leukemia. There were so many events I would have love to have shared with him, so many funny stories he would have loved to have shared, and moments from my kids' lives he would have relished. He was a pretty simple guy - he loved a good steak, Johnny Carson, fixing stuff and telling stories. And humor. He was one funny guy, though those who lived in the same house with him knew all of his punchlines.

So, for my dad, who taught me comic timing and the ability to tell a story, here's my favorite Harry story:

I wanted to learn to drive so much I could taste antifreeze, so as soon as I got my learner's permit, I bugged him to take me out driving. He took me to an empty parking lot and then around a few neighborhoods the first time out. I didn't kill anyone, so he must have decided that I was ready for prime time.

Literally.

After dinner one night later that week, he drove us over to another parking lot, this one near the intersection of Lake and the Edens expressway. "Switch places," he told me. "You're driving on the expressway." It was the tail end of a Chicago rush hour. He settled into the passenger seat, lit another cigarette, and directed me toward the entrance ramp of the Edens.

"Get on," he said. I had no idea how to merge, or what to do about not running headfirst into those huge trucks. I was screaming that I couldn't do it and that I would get us both killed. "No you won't," he said. "Sink or swim."

We didn't die, though I saw him lighting one cigarette off of an already-lit one, something I rarely saw him do. He had nerves of nicotine.

When I was teaching my three kids to drive by gripping the passenger door in a death grip and gasping like a beached alewife (or screaming at them in sheer terror), I thought of my dad. Just about every time we got behind the wheel.

And I wished I could tell him so. I miss him more now than I did when he first died.

Happy birthday, dad.

M.I.A.

Where are they?

Where are the 18-30 year olds?

We know they're not attending standard-issue church. And they're mostly not attending the alternative churches developed to "reach" them. This issue has been analyzed and analyzed some more, by people way smarter than I. That's not the purpose of this post.

The Good Shepherd leaves the 99 (who are sitting in pews, slick auditoriums, and rented elementary school gyms) to find the 1. He doesn't chase down that renegade sheep in order to tell him that resistance is futile. The passage in Scripture simply tells us that the Shepherd hunts down the sheep and rejoices when he is united with it.

Perhaps because I have 3 young adult children - or because my little day job is at a place full of young adults - or because I read young adults' blogs, listen to the music they create, and observe and learn from the way they dress and interact with the older world - - -

- - - I admire them. I admire their passion, their willingness to ask questions, their creativity and facility with technology, their honesty, and their desire for risk and authenticity. I know that a few are starting churches and home fellowships. I know there are others who've cast their lot with other alternative types of faith communities (urban monasteries, discipleship schools, service organizations) because they want to DO something, rather than be passive spectators. Most of them are not interested in our slogans, org charts and pre-chewed cud.

There is a generation of sheep wandering. When I pray for them, I hear a soft bleating in my ears.

This morning, Bill and I were chatting with a nice man our age who asked, "If Paul and Peter came back and visited our churches, what would they think? Once they got past the technology, would they be happy with what we're doing? Singing? Proclaiming? Would they even recognize the message? Why?"

With all my heart, I believe that many of the 18-30 year-old wandering sheep may have wandered because they're looking for the Shepherd. They're not finding him where we've been telling them we've been keeping him.

Agree? Disagree?

Simply: a prayer

Turn your eyes upon Jesus

Look full in His wonderful face

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim

in the light of His glory and grace

This is my prayer for my children, my son-in-law and grandson...and for my husband and myself. What else is there to ask for?

List du jour

A near-perfect grandma day: Sitting in those butt-numbing chairs in an 76 db McDonald's Playland, watching your almost four-year-old grandson run and laugh, then going to the grocery store and letting said grandson sit in the front of one of those mutant shopping carts that looks like a fire engine while you shop, then watching some hideous cartoons on TV (when did newer cartoons become so visually ugly? And why?), then going to church with grandpa where the child hated the loud worship music but loved the bright kids' area, then hanging out together blowing bubbles at dusk before I tucked him into bed with a story and a prayer.

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Best post I've read in a long time: This Cerulean Sanctum entry, discussing the constant complaining about one another in the body of Christ going on in the blogosphere, over radio airwaves, in print and most especially, in person. I was simultaneously convicted by this entry (God knows I do more than my share of carping) and cheered (Dan Edelen's intelligent analysis is almost always fiber-rich food for thought).
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Dumb idea: Going to Taste of Chicago on a 97 degree day while on a new heavy-duty diuretic.


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Most under-used resource in my life: extended time with God. I discovered again in Kansas City how powerful it is to simply sit all day with an open Bible, a journal, and a desperate and impoverished soul. I read through Leviticus - an unusual choice, to say the least, but I felt strongly that this is where God wanted me during my time there.

Author Chris Tiegreen writes about Leviticus in his book Creative Prayer: "Sometime during a reread of that strange legal document, I began to smell the smell of sacrifice. The vision of a constant stream of blood flowing from that altar began to impact me. The aroma of incense, the sound of bleating, and the hazy air rising from burning flesh filled my disturbed heart. The busy rituals of preparation seemed to say to me over and over again that there was once a vast, tragic rift between me and my God, and there are two things I can never, ever take casually: my sin and his holiness."

In a place like the International House of Prayer, where there is so much worship going on, maybe Leviticus is exactly where I needed to be, for exactly the reasons Tiegreen describes.

Just my size

When I was about to turn six, I really wanted a Barbie house for my birthday.

When I sixteen going on seventeen, I remember crushing on a pair of Frye boots, and insisting that they would be the birthday gift of my dreams.

When I was twenty-nine (for the first time, as I often joke about being 29 again every year), I am pretty sure my birthday list included major appliances.

Sitting on the bubble of turning 48, all I could imagine wanting this year was a trip to Kansas City to touch base with some friends and spend time at the International House of Prayer. My husband Bill loves this place even more than I do, and we've always, always visited here together. But the last time we were able to do that was two years ago. Moving, book writing, job changes, stuff with our kids and life all managed to wallpaper our schedule with committments requiring us to be present in Chicago.

When Bill asked me a few weeks ago what I wanted for my birthday, I said, "Really, all I want is to go to KC." Through a crazy chain of last minute events, Bill said, "Go. Happy Birthday."

When I write that, it looks like I nagged like an acid-filled dripping faucet, but I didn't. I just said it. And Bill gave me the gift that cost him more than the price of the rental car to get me here. He's a man that could use a vacation, and craves long chunks of time with the Lord. And this the gift he gave to me.

It would be perfect if he was here to share it. (Next time!)