Bridges.

Communication, on the other hand, is painstakingly difficult and increasingly complex when so much of it happens in typed word and emoticons instead of voice inflection and body posture. Complex, but not impossible. After all, being face-to-face with someone and engaged in conversation does not necessarily mean there will be greater understanding or mutual respect or better chance of converting the 'other' to your own worldview.

STOP.

That is what we want, isn't it? If we're honest? We so passionately believe in our own worldview, our own interpretation of right/wrong that it must be our goal to communicate this truth adequately so the one in disagreement comes to this full knowledge as well. After all, love means telling the truth.

We are addicted to answers, to the idea that all views have opposition they must fight, addicted to labels. The yes/no, the right/wrong, the us/them, the black/white, anti-/pro- paradigm.

I don't buy it.

The real stuff of life happens in the tension, in the conversation, in the bridge-building between two opposing sides that both seek to convert the 'other'. I use the term 'tension' purposely. It is tense. It is uncomfortable. As the saying goes, when you're a bridge you get walked on from both sides. Truth.

Lately the gay marriage debate has taken the spotlight, and necessarily so in MN. I see my FB feed fill up with passionate conservative friends taking a stand for 'truth'. I see my equally passionate progressive and gay friends pushing back, standing for 'equality'. I have dear friends on both sides of the spectrum, and I've been known to offend both sides at times. I'm learning. Slowly. Too slowly.

If there's one thing I've continually felt God's pull toward in my life in the last couple years, it is that I am to be a bridge builder, in this conversation and others. Living in the tension. It's become my mantra of sorts. I'm not trying to sound cliche. Nor am I trying to side-step having to answer hard questions. I'm just learning to recognize that without building relationships and communicating by listening first, nothing will ever change.

So I choose to stand in solidarity with the Other. Because that is the example I see in Jesus. Feel free to disagree with me- plenty do. 'But Jesus said, Go and sin no more!' you say? Yes, he did. After he had taken the sinner's side, risking his own reputation and even his life. After he let her know that he did not condemn her. Then, and only then, had he earned the right to speak into her life.

Time to follow suit. Earning that right, earning trust in a relationship takes time. Serious time. And it involves much listening and not a lot of talking.

It's easy to dismiss someone out of ignorance or intolerance when you don't have to put real faces to the labels. It's not so easy to do once you've heard their story, listened to their heartache, felt their pain or confusion, called them Friend. Relationship is everything.

So much misunderstanding. So little listening and too few relationships being built between these two camps. It breaks my heart. I believe it breaks God's heart as well.

Can I be a bridge? It's certainly seen as risky business, often labelled as lukewarm, not holding to Scripture, divisive. I've been told it's not real reconciliation without repentance. I disagree. And we can disagree.

We can seek to elevate these conversations to a place that earns back the trust and respect where it was lost. We can see the beauty in diversity by creating space for these honest discussions. We can speak louder that the image of God exists in ALL people, gay and straight. We can ask honest questions to better understand instead of merely convert. We can decide that it isn't about agreeing on interpretations of Scripture or on a political hot-button issue. We can recognize that it's about how we love the one who disagrees with us. I haven't done a great job of this myself.

I'm saying it now, out loud, because I HAVE to.

***For the conservative person: How can you, or how can the church, better love the LGBT community? How can you better seek reconciliation with those who disagree with your interpretation of Scripture?

***For the progressive person: How can you seek reconciliation with those who view marriage in the traditional way? How can you love the LGBT community while respecting the conservative view and even inviting them along in that process of learning by listening?

Demanding conformity to beliefs is not helpful, nor is it the unconditional love that Jesus exemplified. Maybe our refusal to repent of our intolerance is precisely what we need to repent of. Maybe the first step looks like humility and more genuine questions than we think necessary. Maybe it looks less like choosing sides and more like bridge-building. Maybe saying 'congratulations' to a newly engaged same-sex couple doesn't have to mean you condone it. Maybe it's just an extension of some much-needed dignity. Maybe it's the first step toward a relationship- one that you can learn just as much from as them. It is possible to disagree in a variety of respectful and even hospitable ways.

‘Rather than being disappointed in less than complete agreement or understanding, I’ll be grateful for even small steps we can take together in challenging dangerous features of the status quo and opening up better possibilities for the future.’ – Brian  Mclaren

Small steps. What do you think?

Rock-sitting, veil-tearing, and learning to shut up.

“And then there is time in which to be, simply to be, that time in which God quietly tells us who we are and who he wants us to be.  It is then that God can take our emptiness and fill it up with what he wants, and drains away the business with which we inevitably get involved in the dailiness of human living.”  ~Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water

I know we are called to movement. To change. To growth. But sometimes I feel like that's not possible until I sit myself down and get comfortable in an uncomfortable sort of way. Comfortable like sitting on a rock is comfortable.

I mean, this learning to be business is harder than change. It takes patience. Letting go of control (it's an illusion anyway). It takes focus to be still and listen. And I'm not talking about being physically still, because that is way too easy for me these days.

No, I'm talking about stilling my heart.

Mind.

Spirit.

In a culture that idolizes the race toward success, this s-l-o-w-i-n-g  d-o-w-n makes us feel restless, even lazy. But that's hardly the case.

"Be still," God whispers.  "Know that I am God." 

Be still. Not static, but still. Lean in a bit closer. Now listen.

I'm not one to expect God's voice to be audible. I'm sure it happens. Not to me. 

I don't expect writing in the clouds. Not anymore. (yes, there's a story behind that)

I don't need a lightning bolt to tell me where to go next.

I need God.

That is all. It is enough. Just knowing, remembering, that I am God's. I belong. I exist because of Love. That makes me loved unconditionally. And not just this, as if it weren't enough, but I get to be with him! There's that word- with- it keeps popping up everywhere now that I'm looking for it. I get to be with God, in relationship with him, I get to bear the image of my Creator. I have complete access to something divine because 'the veil of the temple was torn in two'. Top to bottom. It was rendered useless, meaningless, nonexistent.

What does that mean for me, sitting on this rock, in this hard place, trying to just be?

I'm not entirely sure yet. I do know that back then there was a boundary, a barrier between the holy and the profane. The sacred and the mundane were separated.

But then something provocative happened. Jesus showed up. As a baby of an underprivileged and unwed (impure) family. His life becomes a story of reconciliation, one where all the rules are turned upside-down. A rescuer, he was, but not in the typical sense. God became flesh and came to dwell with us. With us.

Jesus essentially tore back the curtain that separated us, the creation, from being with our Maker.

So I get to sit here and take it in. I get to stop trying to do good things for God and just be with him instead.

Stunning.

* * * * * * * * * 

Be-ing is an odd thing. But it is what we were created to do. After all, when asked what God wanted to be called, what his name is, God answered "I AM". There it is again. God is. And that isn't just enough, it is everything.

So this place I'm in, this rock that I sit on, uncomfortable and quiet as it may be, is the very best place for me to lean in and hear my Maker whisper these truths back in the wind, in the rustling oak trees, in the bubbling stream...that I am loved just because he loves. Because all is sacred. Because of Jesus.

Because I AM, too.

One Week at a Time...

One week ago today I was here:

Majestic cliffs. Divine hot springs. Walking sticks and exploration. Wildlife and moss and mountain passes that make you hold your breath and the smell of sweet cedar in the air.

Oh, Missoula, I love you!

But then we packed our workhorse of a van full of sunburned but happy bodies and headed back to drop our good friend, Bailey off at her new home in Billings. The time was sweet. The goodbyes sweeter with a touch of bitter, and somehow we survived the trek across the North Dakota nothing and back to our little cottage in the pines. Home.

We desperately needed the get-away, we had been made painfully aware with Matt being treated for stomach ulcers just days before leaving. Stress will do that to a person. Cause you to stop everything and re-prioritize- reset your life. But this, also, is good and necessary.

I had planned on writing about the many blessings found on our adventure to the Big Sky. I had planned on sharing how miraculous it was to have just finished my herbal remedy for Lyme Disease and, for the first time in well over a year now, to have almost no pain. I could write an entire blog post on the rejoicing over this wondrous timing, considering I'm back on another medication/remedy now and the hurt is returning. Still, a glorious week. GLORIOUS.

I had planned on putting words to seeing our Creator in Creation. I did. I do.

But then things rarely go as planned.

I got a frantic phone call from my younger sister the day after we got home. She was pregnant with twins, one of which she had just found out had died. There was already much suffering, but this was a new desperation in her voice- she was only 25 weeks along and in hard and sudden labor. "Please just pray I don't lose this baby, too."

I cried. I stayed up all night by my phone, waiting for text messages from our other sister who was with her. Yes, she needed an emergency C-section.

I have the most precious new baby niece, at 1 lb. 11 oz. She is a miracle- a fighter. I know so many who have gone through these situations, but never in my family. We're new in the NICU. And I get to be there tomorrow to hold her tiny finger.

Somewhere in the middle of these huge life moments there are still dishes to wash and garden to plan and backpacks to fill and laundry piles. The piles. And my mind is somewhere else.

I'm not sure there is any other way today. This is Life. And only one week, at that. Somehow the lows make the highs that much more profoundly special, and rejuvenate the soul just enough.

God, be enough.

5-minute Friday :: Prayer

Prayer has always confused me.

When I was younger and passionate about living for God, spending time studying and praying with others, even being part of a very charismatic intercessory prayer group, I always wondered why it felt incomplete.

Since then I've stepped away from most of the circles where prayer is on the program, part of the routine, or a fill-in-the-blank.

Right?!

I can appreciate the well-intentioned and genuine believers who lead these times of prayer, making sure no one's request gets left out. But I have never understood why we feel the need to repeat, almost word-for-word, what was just said out loud, as if God wasn't really there to hear it the first time. Or do we repeat it for our own benefit?

Regardless, I find that prayer for me these days is severely lacking words. When I tell myself I'm going to pray, groans fill my heart and bubble up instead of a poetic masterpiece. I love language. But my language cannot begin to contain my pleas for God to be with me. Isn't it communion we desire instead of merely communication?

With.

I am reading the book 'With' by Skye Jethani with a group of friends. I am only half-way through, but am amazed at the profound but simple truths he draws to the surface. Today I read about how Jesus didn't die merely to inaugurate a mission or to give us a second chance at life. He did not just demonstrate principles of love for others to emulate or to appease divine wrath. "While each of these may be rooted in truth and affirmed by Scripture, it is only when we grasp God's unyielding desire to be with us that we begin to see the ultimate purpose of the cross."

What does prayer look like from the perspective of living with God?

Jethani tells the story of Mother Teresa being interviewed by Dan Rather in the 80s. He asked her, "When you pray, what do you say to God?"

"I don't say anything," she replied. "I listen."

"Okay," Rather said, taking another shot at it. "When God speaks to you, then, what does he say?"

"He doesn't say anything. He listens."

Rather didn't know how to continue. He was baffled.

"And if you don't understand that," Mother Teresa added, "I can't explain it to you."

* * * * * *

We are the Created

  How I treat a brother or sister from day to day, how I react to the sin-scarred wino on the street, how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike, how I deal with normal people in their normal confusion on a normal day may be a better indication of my reverence for life than the antiabortion sticker on the bumper of my car. ~Brennan Manning

We are messy creatures, we humans. 

We bear the image of our Creator. Complex. Marvelous. Emotion-filled. We are little creators ourselves, having been given the mandate and the innate passion to imagine and build, to sing and learn, to birth new life and tell our stories. We are the Created. And here we are creating, because it is what we were made to do.

And all of Creation is called Good.

Check out this photo montage called 'Created Equal'. Do it. Right now.


http://www.ufunk.net/photos/created-equal-les-contrastes-de-la-vie-magnifique-projet-photo-de-mark-laita/


Did you look through them all? Did you see their faces? The stories behind them? Did you recognize something in each of these people that is also written in the mirror?

We are messy but intriguing creatures. And we may be Good, but we do not always do good, spread the good, create goodness. Often we choose to not really see one another, to disengage. We pass people by in favor of maintaining our idea of today's success. We try not to look into the stranger's eyes because it's awkward. Or maybe because we don't want to feel the conviction of knowing we should say something or do something to help or just to know them. We are far from the reality of the many people we encounter every day, aren't we?

I'm missing out not knowing these folks, especially those different from myself. Missing the chance to listen to their story and learn from them.

But if I say I believe that all of us, ALL of us, however crazy or smelly or intimidating, bear the image of our Creator, then I have to force myself to step outside of my own self-protective bubble and look into the stranger's eyes, engage when it's uncomfortable. I am craving the connectedness- the community of Creation that I know it was purposed to experience together.


**************


It was a rough week. It really was. Like, want-to-hide-in-the-closet-and-cry sort of rough. I'm guessing you know the feeling. Few of us can evade the human experience. I was saddened and shocked at the lack of redemptive creativity in the people I expected it from, and equally surprised by stunning acts of redemptive creativity from those I hadn't. Wait- what?! I totally didn't expect her to speak that kind of truth into my life!

I'm finding that just when I think I have someone figured out, labelled and tucked in a box neatly on a shelf, I put expectations on our relationship- whether complete stranger, close friend, spouse, barista... but that is exactly when I am surprised by the people around me, surprised when I see the authenticity of Jesus in someone unexpected, or have the opportunity to show a person some needed dignity by looking them square in the eyes and greeting them with a smile.

Dignity changes things.

Listening opens up the doors for creative community with those we least expect.

These are good surprises.