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?